In the Parlour of the Dying
Recently, I was
sidetracked with a free ambulance ride. St Paul’s
in Vancouver
took receipt of my body and after I borrowed their bucket and toilet for
blood-filled evacuations, my stretcher was shipped by elevator to the 10th
floor for an operation. The only thing I recall about that was a doctor
awakening me to tell me to open my mouth wider… so he could insert his
instrument down through my esophagus.
The next place I awoke was
on the fifth floor in the parlour of the dying. There I was visited by
specialists and teams of students all agog.
I spent three days in this ‘holding cell’ listening to the long-winded
death throes of a man in particular who pretended to be so disoriented that he
thought it was fine to holler all night and attract attention to himself while
keeping the rest of us awake. Healing requires rest. Maybe somebody should have
mentioned that to all those nurses endlessly fussing around him, and the doctors
and students rambling through.
One fellow was shipped
elsewhere and replaced by another curmudgeon who couldn’t stop pressing his
nurse call button to everyone’s chagrin.
The third man needed ‘help’ with his gown, “down there” by his crotch
every time the prettiest nurse showed. Being the father of a hospital board
member may have indeed helped his member chances.
So there lay the four of
us. Waiting for Godot I guess. I was strung up with two IV units, one in each
arm and plastered tape over my hands to hold the needles in. Try going to the
bathroom with that configuration. I got tangled in wires every time. My only
visitor turned out to be my schizophrenic boyfriend who dutifully brought me
some clean clothes and a book to read. I met a few doctors who were working on
their impersonation of Goebbel’s bedside manner. Apart from that a volunteer
brought me Ladies Home Journals and National Geographics to thumb through.
After blood transfusions
and a infusion of white blood cells I survived and returned home.
My General Practitioner,
who’s usually out of the loop about my health anyway, did manage to comment
after seeing the hospital file, “You would have died if you didn’t get to the
hospital when you did.”
Interestingly, at least to
me, I had earlier that week received a visitation from my father’s father, long
gone now but whose last breaths I witnessed. I was there in his modest room
again, there in New Brunswick,
listening to his slow rattling. He
seemed so present in this visitation. This grim reminder of my own mortality.
Within the week there I was in the parlour of the dying.
The most disappointing
discovery in that room of imminent death was the behavior of my neighboring
bedridden fellows. They were worse than brat-like: ignoble, frightened,
faithless and hopelessly inconsiderate. So much for whatever theology they
misspent their lives on. Boy Scouts are better prepared to light a match. All
these guys could manage was to darken my day and keep me awake at night.
If, as Hindus believe, we
become in our next life that thing we think about last in this life, I shudder
to imagine what they are crawling about like now.
I followed up all this
attention from specialists with a visit to my general practitioner. He seemed
alarmed and I couldn’t help sense that he didn’t feel adequate to the task of
being my caregiver. Then it dawned on me he never really was; more of a
pharmaceutical delivery agent operating revolving doors. This suspicion was
pretty much borne out when I called for a quick telephone consult (thirty
seconds please?) to sort out a question re my prescriptions. After I called
over a week pleading with his secretary/traffic manager to get him on the line,
he won out by not returning my call, forcing me to visit so he could hear that
precious chah-ching.
I’m going to include him
in my Last Will once I’ve googled what is an appropriate gift for a pig in a
sty.
* * *
VANCOUVERISMS
Some American outfits (Conde
Nast mag etc) recently selected and congratulated Vancouver
for being North America’s most ‘liveable’
city. Most resistant. Most
this-and-that. And now a buzz word Vancouverism is making the rounds of urban
plights everywhere.
Allow me to introduce my
own Vancouverisms – O.K? Ready?
THE ROADWAYS
Drivers throughout this
beautiful gem of a city choose to gun their way through, clipping at
pedestrians (offering involuntary pedicures), running red lights even in Go
Slower districts like the downtown eastside; honking horns and flipping birds
indulging their rage at every opportunity.
Very disappointingly the
vast majority of these drivers are oriental Asians (according to my daily head
count). If they’re importing the driving habits of Hong
Kong or whichever other ditzed out, mean-spirited war zone, maybe
they should take a refresher course in where they’ve landed. Traditional Canadians
are polite, sometimes even meek and obsequious but overall just harmless and
civil. Stop targeting us. Should we examine the ethnic stats of whoever is
generating this new wave of hit and runs? Might that examination be telling?
It’s always gratifying for me to see the speedsters held up at the next light while I stroll past them
from that corner where they almost clipped me.
This Vancouverism will
find its genesis in the wild-eyed and underplanned promoting of
‘multiculturalism' – opening of the Pacific Gate and all being “good for the
economy.”
THE BUS DRIVERS
Witnessed!: Four runners in
a downpour charging to a bus stop out in Port
Coquitlam on a highway. They were easily seen by the
driver well in advance of the stop. They arrived on time to slap the back of
that bus to alert the driver. The driver ignored them and pulled away, leaving
them to get soaked for a half an hour on that unprotected stretch of highway. I
phoned to register my complaint and heard a recording advising me to write a
letter. I did and heard nothing back – not even an offer to reimburse my bus
fare. Go Translink Go! (Keep going and going and going, then disappear with your heartless Translink cops.)
Other patrons at bus stops
being driven right by. Bus was not loaded. Lots of room. Patrons got bus-splashed.
Drivers threatening broke
welfare recipient trying to get to his hospital: “I’ve got your picture on
record now!”
Barrelling through red
lights (witnessed on many occasions).
THE POLICE
Too often police can be
witnessed bullying the mentally ill or addicted on Hastings Street. Sneering.
The police are charged
with our protection and the enforcement of the law. They have chosen not to
enforce the law when it comes to drug dealing one block away from their
headquarters in Vancouver.
They blame that (from what I can surmise) on the system which permits these poison
peddlers to get back on the street the next day, including the illegal
immigrants. Their job of enforcement does not entitle them to make these kinds
of decisions that find them turning a blind eye to the crack trade downtown.
Let the system work itself out – but they have an enforcement job to do.
Citizens want their sidewalks back – not to be obstructed and bullied by
cretins barking “Rock, powder, down.”
By cutting off the dope
solicitors, they will have made a significant negative impact on the gang leaders who control
the traffic of these unearthly drugs. How would the cop feel if it was his 14
year old daughter who was becoming the crackhead?
Witnessed!: Driver standing
next to his parked vehicle waiting on driver of other vehicle to swap insurance
papers re teensie wrinkle-fender while parking. No visible damage whatsoever.
When the two female cops show up in a screeching blaze (thanks to some rat),
they breathalyzed the standing-by ex-driver, impounded his vehicle (which he
relied on for his work) and handed him a “regulatory prohibition” (new vague
law) preventing him from driving for three months and ultimately costing him
his job and $7,000. Next time the gals are not getting enough of each other, maybe
they can pick on some real criminals – like the gang members selling all that
crack a block away. No amount of their cackling can hide their ineptitude (they screwed up the ticket twice) and
poor attitude. 20 years ago, a male cop would have said, “Go home, fella. Leave
the car here. Sleep it off.”
As to all the accusations
of police brutality, I have personally witnessed none of this aberrant
behavior but given these overkill attitudes expressed when dealing with
extremely minor cases, and their collective sheepishness to take on the gangs,
I suppose it wouldn’t take much of a stretch to suggest that they have some
unresolved issues to work out, and sometimes under the cover of darkness in
alleyways.
Check out their new choice
of car design. And the design they’re fazing out. Looks like Darth Vader rolls victorious over Bambi.
This new design should accompany their new
recruitment ad for which I happily submit the following text: Bullies Wanted. Wear a dark uniform with an
array of weaponry. Be licensed to kill. Leering and gum-chewing allowed on
duty. Camaraderie over drunken pool games in public bars encouraged. No high
school diploma necessary.
Depicted above: Darth Vader aka ThugMobile
For possible daily quenching of bloodthirtsiness,
apply today. Get to put siren on hood! (No graduates from Sensitivity Training
Programs Need Apply.)
Below: Bambi
THE VANCOUVER
STOCK EXCHANGE
(Closed due to corruption.
Need anyone say more? Well, O.K. go ahead and ask the pump-and-dumpers; and maybe check in with Nelson Skalbania, Murray Pezim and cronies.)
PRACTICES OF NEW CANADIANS
The port trucker strike
had an interesting genesis. The New Canadians (this time mostly East Indians)
undercut the traditional drivers so seriously that these drivers just quit in
disgust. These New Canadians went on strike to force new wages – those same
wages to which they undercut themselves, in order to shaft the traditional drivers.
To our shame, they won some points after capitulation by the feds.
CONDO KINGS AND THE HOMELESS: Other New Canadians who bought their citizenships
through the now defunct federal program of selling Canadian citizenship to the
rich for an amount which of course was “good for the economy.” Well the
birdies have come home to roost, except not to live in all these Condo
investments. These architecturally sterile shrines remain empty shells not generating one iota of
social activity: grocery shopping, community centre memberships, coffee shop chatterbugging etc in the respective neighborhoods while
these glassy monoliths loom over the blankets of the homeless sleeping on heat
grates below.
Job placement activity is
alive and well for Filipinos. Just ask the young Canadians who have left
resumes at fast food restaurants lately. Coming to a Mac near you: MacFlips. Now MacDonalds restaurants and Yes, even, Yegads! that bastion of Canadiana - Tim Horton's - are being investigated nation-wide for possibly abusing the foreign worker program. Wave a flag for Filipinos forever becoming New Canadians.
So a pile of bureaucrats
(including Vancouverites) huddled together for a year, spent 1.2 million
dollars to try to figure out how to resolve the homeless problem. By gawd! Eureka! They found the
answer. Provide the homeless a home. Gosh, jolly! Money well spent.
Before I upchuck I thought
I’d lighten this load with a song:
SIDEWALKING
Carts of empty cans pushed
along
By wrinkled faces and
broken hands
In this place of opportunity
For people of distant
lands.
Bicyclists and
roller-skaters blow past
Men in walkers blaming
life for their latest infirmities,
Scooters, hooters and
tooters race by the last,
Of old wrinkled ladies of
the little hobbled knees.
Long-leashed poodles whose
masters declare
Clear the road! Clear the
road!
Don’t for one second you
dare, you dare
To think for you I care,
care , care.
Not for one second do I
care, do I care,
More for you than my
poodle dear, my poodle dear.
Lessons in sidewalking
No charges, no charge
To avoid skateboarders
from behind looming large,
And everyone else
freewheeling to the max,
Forcing the elderly to be
watching their backs, watching their backs.
Knots of students studying
English,
Hog the whole walk, the
whole walk,
While they incessantly
smoke and talk, talk, talk,
In Mandarin, Korean,
Cantonese and Peckanese,
Talk, talk, talk, blocking
the walk, and wheeze wheeze wheeze.
Lessons in sidewalking
No charges, no charge
To avoid skateboarders
from behind looming large,
And everyone else
freewheeling to the max,
For lessons in
sidewalking, make tracks, make tracks.
Feel better? Good. Because
now we have to back to shoveling. One must shovel first before one can plant
the seed.
Underlying attitudes in Vancouver expose broken
moral compasses. To wit: plush neighborhoods organizing petitions to keep
half-way houses out of their area. Ye gods! Our property values will plummet!
(Not.)
The stuff of Stanley Cup Rioters still brewing in Surrey and Burnaby. When they get
really bored, they come downtown for a round of gaybashing.
Vancouver City is the landlord of many bug-infested, unhealthy
living environments. Where are the provincial health inspectors? Try visiting
the foot long rats after 2 a.m. any time. The bedbugs and cockroaches are
generously non-classist. They’ll infest the west side as soon as the east side.
No petitions will help. The new development plans for the downtown eastside
refer to providing much more ‘social housing’ – which has nothing to do with
what a welfare recipient can afford. And
the slum landlords raise their rents as soon as the welfare pittance is raised.
These are the same landlords who cash an addict's cheque (who doesn’t live
there) and takes 35 – 40% of that cheques for the ‘service.’
For a stroll through the
most pathetically unhappy Chinatown in North America,
find Pender Street.
Service with a scowl now paying out negative dividends. Chinatown Business associations are appearing at City Hall, spare-changing.
Waiters and waitresses
complain often about poor tipping in Vancouver.
What about the waitress (Witnessed!) at the Gastown pub who twice tried to
shortchange me in two servings (after catching sight of my minor roll of 50’s). The manager took her side. Both times. Or the waitress who got me barred for complaining within
her earshot about how seriously bad her service was. The manager took her side
and barred me for years – waiting for an apology from me. They’re still
waiting. It’s that pool-playing bar in the Denman Hotel. I only tip when the
service merits a tip.
Our two centrally located
hospitals are overcrowded and one, St Paul's, is made of old red brick; the kind
of brick structure that Big Q’s would just luv to rock and roll. In any morally wounded environment, social
panic is always just under the surface of anxiety and fear. When there was a
clean water warning instructing the Vancouver
populace to boil its drinking water, west enders (for example) almost trampled
each other in-store as they stampeded for kegs of water on sale. All those
nicely dressed, creased and sophisticated west enders showing their true colours. I wonder
how the petition signers of the west side managed their behavior? Can't wait to play shutterbug during the Big Q.
Millions and millions were
spent in the land of the homeless on studying the impact of making our beer, wine and
spirits more accessible. After years of navel-gazing and head-crunching they
approved a new strategy. Resulting in the opening of two new outlets in all of Vancouver.
But throughout all this turmoil, one thing remained steadfast and true – the
paychecks made out to all those bureaucrats who are likely of the same
cloth as the ones connected to the federal government who are charged with
dispensing funds to natives and veterans and whose bureaucratic bill in doing
so usually tops the amount intended for the original dispersal
So, to top off my little hit list of Vancouverisms, suffice to say that while we all take credit for being
members of a pretty city, we each of us must carry that truthiness card in our
wallets, you know the one that reads:
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. That's one for your prayer beads.
Resolutions to be posted soon.
