July 21, 2023, Richmond, BC- Madame Pinky was livid. She and her two assistants had finished work in her salon, and were about to pull out of the dirt parking lot, behind the shop. Who should arrive and go in to the hostel next door, to inquire about a room and a parking space for an SUV, than yours truly. The desk clerk at the hostel said that her friend’s car was in the space reserved for me, and that in a minute or so, she would vacate. That was not good enough for Madame Pinky, who proceeded to excoriate the three of us, in both Mandarin and English. I was, in her view, just “another bossy white guy”, even though I had said next to nothing. The two young ladies were “stupid toadies”. Even the old gentleman who needed to move his car, before I could move mine, and so on, was ” a worthless old snake”. Such was the farce that played out, briefly, until the old man had his nephew move his car, I moved mine, a young hot shot investment banker moved his car from an adjacent lot (and had to get us all to move aside, because “Status, man!” and then, only then, did Madame Pinky still red-faced and fuming, pull her car out of the lot. It was a lot more peaceful, in Panda Pods Hostel, after all that.

My drive from Salem, OR proceeded quite peacefully, through Portland, Washington State, and across the border. Traffic was like frozen molasses, from south of Tacoma to north of Everett. I did not stop in any of those places-except to get lunch, at Berryfields, in downtown Centralia. THAT was a stop that made sense. If in the Centralia/Chehalis area of west central Washington, you can’t go wrong at Berryfields. When I return to the U.S., on Tuesday, three days will allow me to stop more readily, along the way in Washington and Oregon, before the performance of the year-V, in “The Wizard of Oz”, on Friday.

For now, though, my focus is on getting to Vancouver Island and visiting a long-time, online friend, a visit that was supposed to happen eleven years ago, then two years later-and will finally transpire this weekend. That is the joyful, sometimes bittersweet, factor of having many friends, far afield. Each of us, in the end, does what we can-and…. choices, choices.

My choice, now, having supped on prawns from Malaysian Delights, in the heart of mostly East Asian Richmond, is to log off, brush my teeth and put down the shade at the foot of my pod bunk.

Good night, Madame Pinky, wherever you are-and thank you, Tony Bennett, for all those years of singing to our hearts.