But it's true. This is the earliest I've ever seen Sarah up and alive. Oh, sure, she's gotten up this early several times in her life, but as with me it's an autopilot thing. And yet, there she is, munching her way through Honey Nut Cheerios. About six bowls of them. If there are five top reasons why we've come to this country, they are: my job, Honey Nut Cheerios (for Sarah), Rainbow Sherbet (for Sarah), Hershey's Hugs (for Sarah), and Hunts Snack Packs (for Sarah). I busy myself with the television. It's utterly shit. OK, I know I'm watching breakfast TV, which is hardly the best selection of programmes, but the channels in this cable package look awful. American TV is (marginally) better than this. British TV is certainly better than this. Amusing highlights, well actually the only highlight, come when Bob The Builder shows up, dubbed with American voices. Other than that, it`s turgid morning news and shopping channels, plus half a dozen French-language shows and an utterly gripping experience which I can only describe as Medical Equipment Readout TV. I don`t know for sure what it is. It`s on channel 117 and it appears to be some kind of graph. It`s running in real time. What is it? What? WHAT? I must know!
"Oooo, it's Copious Twines," announces Sarah, nebbishing at the breakfast table with the laptop, as Messenger informs her of the presence of our Posse online. Fantastic!
I should explain for anyone not "in the know". A few years ago, I was sitting in the pub in Littlehampton, surrounded by various acquaintances from Littlehampton Musical Comedy Society, and everyone except me was texting. "How rude", etc. I had no-one to send a text to, and in any case I had no idea how to use my mobile phone, which I owned only because Sarah had insisted upon its potential utility. "Imagine if you had to call me in an emergency," she had doubtless said at some point before we bought them. "How useful it would be!" "That's what payphones are for," I probably retorted, generally atheistic about mobile phones as I was. But we ended up with them, and while Sarah had been through a couple in her time, I was still using this Vodaphone, god knows what make, probably a Vodaphone 1 or something equally unmodern. Anyway, I sat there grumpily in the midst of this texting frenzy, and after a few moments Sarah noticed I was unhappy. "What is it?" she asked, whereupon I announced, "I want to send texts! I want people to know my phone number! I want to get texts! I WANT A POSSE!" Several of our singing friends immediately took pity on me and said they would be my posse, and that's how it all started.
Since that time the Posse has become the official fundamental particle of partying, with the inevitable litter of catchphrases, shared jokes, and so forth. Naturally, being singers, it didn't take long before the Posse became The Incredible Posse Singers, and numerous concerts ensued, both paid and unpaid. The Posse was heartbroken when we announced our departure, and we spent a long time in the run-up to our departure trying to persuade them all, especially Copious Twines, that we really would stay in touch, that we really didn't hate them, and that the Posse was not dead.
So when Alexis shows up on Messenger at what to her is four in the afternoon, we're very pleased. Somehow the fact that Windows Messenger works across time zones is surprising to me. (It's surprising enough when Windows software works on one computer, let alone two at once.) Alexis, soon to be joined by Jacqui, can't believe it. Even better is when we plug in the webcam and wave hello. Alexis has a new laptop, which we helped her to choose, and this has a webcam built into the top of the screen. Soon we're all madly waving at one another, giving the Twines a webcam tour of the apartment, and showing them the mountains in the distance. It's great. Here: Captain Jaypeg presents the snapshot version of the tour:
A little later, and we're having our first stroll around town. We have a few objectives to accomplish before I start work on Monday. Only a few, as we do want to enjoy ourselves, but just as today and tomorrow will be the only weekdays I'm free for meandering with Sarah, so are they the only weekdays when I'm available to sign things with her. So our first stop is the Human Resources Centre of Canada, where, frankly, it's a sin. Or rather - damn, I'm funny - it's a SIN... a Social Insurance Number. Thatsa some joke eh boss? In England we'd call it a National Insurance number. Applying for this takes about twenty minutes, hardly a killer chore, and already we feel more official and welcome.
The next stop is a bank account. This is where gears start to grind, and there'll be more on this subject in the entry for Friday. For now: Sarah had researched the matter of banks and concluded that our best option was Citizens Bank of Canada, thanks to its ethical policy and general acts-like-a-building-society-used-to-act approach to business. (For anyone coming in late to England's soon-to-be-dead system of building societies: these date back several hundred years to when groups of workers formed mutual societies to support one another's house purchases. Soon they expanded to become mortgage lenders, but as mutual societies, if you had money invested with them, either in a mortage or through a savings account, then you were considered a member and were entitled to vote. More importantly, without a stock market listing and investors to pay off with dividends every year, building societies could operate with a lower profit margin. In the 1980s a trickle and then a torrent of societies decided to demutualise, and bribed their members to vote for this by offering them a cash reward for their 'share'. Worse, a whole slew of investors opened short-term accounts so they could skew the voting and pick up quick cash rewards. The result: most building societies became banks, with shareholders. Wonderful. Because that's ever been any long-term use to a business. So if you ever wonder why your mortgage keeps costing more and your provider's quality service keeps dropping, that would be because you were a bit greedy a few years back. Thanks, gits.)
... er, where was I? Citizens Bank. Unfortunately the clue to the downfall of our plan was in the name, and this bank only accepts citizens (or permanent residents) to its clientele. I guess that's fair enough, but it left us with a bit of a lack of bank. The nearest alternative (yes, we are that shallow and poorly-researched when our first choice is unavailable) was HSBC, which we selected on the basis that we've heard of it - HSBC took over Midland Bank some years ago. Of course this means not that HSBC is now Midland, but that Midland doesn't exist anymore, but miraculously, people (apparently including me) still associate the two, and so a few minutes later we were in the HSBC branch asking to open a new account. We were told this would take an hour and there wasn't enough time left that afternoon, so could we return tomorrow? Little did we know that an hour, apparently a generous estimate, would prove to be just about right, but of this we shall speak further in tomorrow's entry...
While passing through a mall we picked up our travelcards (public transport is another topic for the future) and as we traversed town we raided a couple of interesting-looking shops. First there was Sophia's Books, which is a multilingual bookshop which caters for the student intellectual - every twentysomething should have read some of this stuff. Then Sarah spotted Long & McQuade, a music store which was disposing of some music at 80% off. We came out with a very light load - only one book, in fact. This is because Sarah has grudgingly admitted that we may not have enough room for a keyboard in our apartment, so buying new music is a bit fruitless. That isn't stopping her from looking sombre about it, mind you.
We also saw this enthusiastic shop window display:
Finally, Sarah demands that we go to the library. Now this wasn't really much of an armtwist for me. Vancouver Library is a spectacular eight-story affair in the style of the Colosseum:
Sarah has wanted to join it ever since finding out that (a) they have a music reference library with keyboards for your personal use, and (b) you can take 50 items out at once. In Littlehampton she had the unnerving tendency to regard any books extracted from their innocent shelves as hers forevermore, renewing them month after month in the hope that some kind of squatters' rights would kick in. It turns out that for the first few months, you can only have ten items out at once... no doubt Sarah will be counting the days. It wasn't any trouble signing up for the cards, though, and we took out a couple of books as a statement of intent. My never-before-heard-of James Blish book, which I spotted when we were here in September, turned out to be middlingly interesting, but Sarah is very happy with the crime fiction section, and I expect the scifi shelves will shut me up for a while. Libraries are always much nicer than bookshops because they tend not to be overloaded with sharecroppers, which are even more subject to Sturgeon's Law than most aspects of scifi.
Back to the apartment, and we do a bit of shopping. On Wednesday night we had taken the easy option and snacked... but today we spot that there's a bloody great deli on the corner of the block in the other direction. Entering it, we discover that as well as being a well-stocked deli, it's got an entire two-storey supermarket stapled onto the back of it. It's a little expensive for the basics, but our theory is they'll be cheaper in basic supermarkets. And it's 'steps' away, as they say here. It also sells the happiest lychees you'll ever see.
The day ends with food - always the best way. This time we hold out till about 11pm and then conk out. Jet lag, we'll conquer you yet.
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