Lei

Summer Evenings

It has been sometime now since the day that my brother left me on the garage floor trapped under the garage door. This must be his way of getting back at me for all the times I beat him out in music, school or anything else when we were young. My hair has grown long and grey draped down across my face onto the ground outside. With every new gust of wind, I can feel the fall season approaching. As I lay there, each word from my mouth is just a thought or an idea in the shrinking world inside my head. Each word grows faint and remains unheard.

The jazz fest was in town this summer and I happened to get a chance to see one of the bands. I forgot the name of the band so my apologies for the lack of credit to them. This is one of my friends friends favourite band. The style sure was different and I couldnt' quite get into it but the others seemed to like it.

Then there was the lantern festival. My friend whom I refer to as Cakemaker, and I returned to this years lantern festival in deer lake park. Hundreds of homemade lanterns are made and a small parade is formed as everyone walks around the lake shining their lights in the night. Last year was my first time seeing this event and this year my friend wanted to take part in it somehow. So what did we do? We scraped together whatever we could think of at the dollar store and came up with this.

Initially I thought that it was a good idea until we lit it up and realized the metal wire cage inside combined with the face made this look like a halloween lantern. Oh well. There's always next year.

Aside from our semi-blunderous attempt, this years displays was bigger with the addition of a large square tent in the middle of a field. On the grass was a whole bunch of paper bag lanterns laid around the square white tent forming a star when viewed from high above. In between each arm of the star was a circle.

For five dollars, you can go inside and project your human shape on the wall for everyone to see.

At the symphony of fire, China put on a very artist and almost olympic level performance. Their fireworks was choreographed quite closely to the music that they chose. However, the music they did choose was filled with a very sinister and dark theme. For example, in one segment after numerous explosions had left smoke everywhere, there was a pause in the music. All that you could see a single row of flames/sparklers burning brightly along the surface of the water. Orange and yellow flames reflecting in the clouds of smoke as the crowd watched in near silence. And during this pause I noticed the cries and screams of people behind me on the beach which made it feel like I was standing in front of a city burning in the night on the horizon. This went on for some seconds before the barrage of fireworks and music continued on.

I am guessing that this is why they lost to Canada which was not timed as well I thought. Below is one of the less dark and sinister choreographed displays of china's fireworks.

Progress with the rahabillitation of my left knee was coming along but still a huge pain in the butt. I had become quite frustrated and went back to my familiy doctor who initially said that it was fine and had sent me home without a second thought. This time he referred me to a knee specialist who thinks that I may have torn something inside. As a result, I am now on a waiting list for an MRI appointment at St. Pauls hospital. Any hopes of hitting the slopes again this coming season is slowly disappearing as I anticipate that there will be some sort of arthroscopic surgery involved plus the recover time never mind the estimated three months just to get the MRI scan done. One first choice was to get on the MRI waiting list at Surrey Memorial except that their list is 6 months long.

While perusing through a local newspaper at a coffee shop the other day, I found an ad for a private clinic which had immediate availability of an MRI knee scanner. I just had to cough up about five hundred dollars. Priviledges of the more fortunate people in our 2 tiered medical system.

Despite this obstacle and the over abundance of work all summer, I managed to finally get out onto the beach during the final month of august for a bit of beach volleyball. I didn't want to miss it completely and am barely getting a bit of its exposure. On one particular day, I met another player who had been sidelined with a knee injury from an indoor league game. He showed me his scar from the surgery and explained what he had gone through.

I took the other friday off and went to Kitsilano beach with a friend who was in between jobs at the time. On the way there I stopped at the 'Taco Shack' on Cornwall avenue and just as I approached the front, local hockey hero Trevor Linden came out. I didn't stop him for an autograph or bother him with mindless chit chat filled with applause. I just stuck my foot out and watched him fall on the sidewalk smearing his freshly made chicken burrito all over his clean shirt and the pavement beneath him. Okay that didn't happen but I did let him by. Inside I sat down with my freshly made chicken burrito and the daily newspaper. On the front page was Trevor Linden with headlines that read something to the effect of 'Linden back for one more year'. It had his stats and I found out he is just one year older than me yet he will probably retire after this year. Let this be a good final year.

I went to the famed Mortons steak house this summer with my sister. At the same time I got to meet her running club. A nice bunch of people including a couple of Magee highschool alumni and some small business owners.

Mortons is supposed to be a very expensive and very good steakhouse. Unfortunately, the only thing that came true was the expensive part despite the 'summer' special. The majority of us didn't like our steaks. I've had better at the Keg and Gothams for far less although I suggest you try Gothams during the january dineout vancouver event.