Gulch

Night Crossings

It's a little before five pm and I'm sitting in the upper deck of an Air France 747 soon bound for Paris.  Part of my mind is thinking about the Trans Atlantic flight that lies ahead of me but mainly I'm wondering what type of people my row-mates are, and if the fact they are both wearing shorts and tank-tops for a night flight between Toronto and Paris in early May, makes them very Canadian or just crazy. 

The man is large and has a tattoo of some sort of motorcycle or perhaps snowmobile logo on his upper arm.  The woman is blonde and tan and a bit fidgety.  Before they have even sat down, though, they seemed to have charmed all of the more reserved French people sitting across the aisle.  Everyone likes it when a guest is enthusiastic about visiting their homes, and their enthusiasm is strong enough to be contagious in a way that the CDC might issue an alert if they monitored such things.

Before our flight even takes off, I learn that they had won a free trip to a warm beach resort in the South of France from a radio station.  I relaxed a bit when I heard that, happy to hear the people that I would be sharing so small a space for the next six hours were optimistic rather than insane (which hasn't always been the case with people I've sat next to on long flights).

"This plane is really nice," the man states after a flight attendant serves everyone their own small bottles of wine.  "We should only fly wherever Air France goes."

I nod my head in agreement.  I have never ridden in the upper deck of a 747 before, as lowest price mostly dictates how I travel and the upper floor is usually business or premium class.  However, thanks to some tips buried in the forums at FlyerTalk and a little luck, I was directed up a flight of stairs as I got on board.  The upper cabin is surprisingly small and spacious and feels like how I imagine air travel to be rather than how it usually is: comfortable, relaxed, and modern rather than cramped and hassled.  Because of the curve of the cabin walls there is even an extra eight inches of space between my window seat and the window that has been fitted with an extra shelf. 

Our row is three back from the cockpit door and being that far forward makes the flight especially quiet.  The huge power and thrust of the engines clearly comes from behind us and it reminds me of the large car ferries I regularly rode on when I lived on an island, a fast ship sailing through the sky.  On a map, I imagine, the night ahead of us is a slow moving black glacier that slowly sweeps across the globe.  We will cross from one side of night somewhere over eastern Canada and arrive on the far shore of day near Paris. The night ahead of us is not so much a matter of time but a matter of distance, something to be crossed.  

The flight between Toronto and Paris takes about six hours and it crosses the night in much the same way it crosses the ocean: too quickly for the body but not fast enough for mind.  Or maybe that's backwards.  At any rate, one minute you're having dinner as the sun sets outside, eying the in-flight movie and being slightly amazed that Air France shows nudity, and the next moment your being served breakfast while the sun rises and you're pretty sure - but not positive - that the same movie is still playing.  Your mind feels like a two wheel drive car churning through mud, for all of the work and energy involved, there should be more forward motion.  The farther my body travels in the plane, the farther it feels like my mind falls behind.

"I can't wait to land and smoke," says the women sitting next to me as the sky outside lightens and night falls further and further behind us. She starts to fidget with the seat back tray.

"Oh, but there is no smoking in Charles du Gaul," says a french lady sitting across the aisle. "You must go outside."

"There's no smoking sections at all?" the woman asks, her voice taking on the troubled note of someone who just had their credit card denied while paying for dinner at a fancy restaurant.

"No, none," the French lady replies with a sympathetic smile.

"Oh, I hope we land soon."

And, for the first flight in a long time, I hope we don't.  Instead, as I sit back in my chair and watch the clouds go by, I realize that I'm happy in just the most basic act of travel: that of going forward.  Of course, I just hope my mind catches up. 

Montana Quarters

The Cowboy leaned over and thumped an empty shot glass down on the wooden surface of our table.   "What's Patrón?" he asked.

"Tequila", my brother answered.

"It's shit," said the Cowboy.

He, as young cowboys at bars in Montana often do, was wearing a wide brimmed black cowboy hat and a western-styled collared shirt. He was clean shaven, chiseled jawed, and very drunk.

Earlier in the evening, the country western band in the front of the bar had dedicated a song to one of his friends on the occasion of her 21st birthday.  The friend in question had a very squeaky voice and, to the amusement of the whole bar, was very excited to have reached the legal drinking age.

"This next song is for Jessica who is turning 21 tonight," the band said, unenthusiastically.

"Squeak! Oh. My. SQUEEAKING. God. SQUEEEEAK!" said Jessica with the loud sort of zest for life that only comes with finishing your 15th drink of the hour. I couldn't tell if it was unfortunate or a relief for the Cowboy when Jessica squeakily demanded a dance from another guy at the Cowboy's table.

The Cowboy thumped another shot glass filled with a murky liquid on our table. "Here, drink this," the cowboy said to our table, which consisted of me, Jen, my brother, and his girlfriend.

Our table was silent. I made eye contact with my brother across the table.  He shrugged. His girlfriend giggled. No one made a move for the shot glass.

"Ah, come on. I ain't drugged it," said the Cowboy. He paused, and then looked at us suspiciously. "You guy's ain't from Nebraska, are you?" 

Our table was silent.

"Okay, here's what we are going to do," the Cowboy said, holding up a coin. "We are going to play quarters.  Whoever bounces it in gets to say who has to drink the shot."

He then flipped the quarter so that it bounced off our table and then hit the side of the shot glass.

"Quarters?" I thought to myself, frantically wishing I had attended the sort of parties in college that would have allowed me to develop the proper social skills for such a situation or, at the very least, helped me develop better hand eye coordination.

The Cowboy picked up the quarter and handed it to me. I bounced the quarter off the table and it spun sideways and landed on the floor, which was glistening with a wet layer of melted snow and mud that had been tracked in from the parking lot.

The Cowboy narrowed his eyes and slowly reached down and picked up the coin. He wiped it on his jeans and handed it to Jen.  I could tell there was no way she was going to drink a mystery liquid, given to her by a stranger, containing a quarter that had recently been on the floor. She bounced it off the table, it clinked the glass way below the rim, and landed back on the table.

I let out a breath of relief. I wasn't sure if she'd pick the cowboy or me to drink if she had landed it in the shot glass. The Cowboy handed the quarter to my brother. Clunk, clink,  miss.

The quarter was passed to my brother's girlfriend. Clunk, miss.

The cowboy handed the quarter back to me.  This time I managed not to hit the floor.

Jen picked the quarter up from where it had landed on her lap. "You know," she said to the Cowboy, "There's no way in hell anyone here's going to drink that shot."

The Cowboy looking puzzled, glanced at me.  I avoided eye contact by staring at the shot glass. Jen tossed the quarter and it hit the table and fell to the side of the shot glass. She picked up the quarter and handed it to my brother.

Clunk, thunk, the quarter was back on the floor.  The Cowboy reached down, picked up the coin, and handed it to my brother's girlfriend

"SQUEEAK! Squeeak!," said Jessica from the nearby table and the Cowboy looked over.

My brother's girlfriend, sensing an opening, lashed out lightening fast and dunked the quarter into the shot glass. It floated lazily to the bottom of the 3 ounces of murky liquid, leaving what I thought looked like a greasy trail behind it.

The Cowboy's head snapped back around.

Everyone at our table, as well an older couple sitting at the table next to us, cheered. The Cowboy peered at the quarter resting on the bottom of the shot glass.  "Huh," he said. "There's no way."

He peered at us and then turned towards the older couple he apparently thought were neutral observes sitting next to us.

"Did she really get it in?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," said the man.

"It was amazing," said the woman.

"You have to drink it," said my brother's girlfriend.

The Cowboy looked at the older couple, who just happened to be my parents. They nodded and shrugged as if to say, "Sorry those are the rules."

The cowboy picked up the shot and in one smooth motion downed the alcohol.  He sucked on the quarter for a moment, puffed out his cheeks and spat it out.  The now shiny coin sailed across the table in a perfect arc and landed down the front of Jen's dress.

Jen's face went red and she dug a hand down into the front of her dress.

"Wait," the Cowboy said, "Did I just get that down your …"

Jen's pulled her fist out of her shirt and chucked the quarter at the Cowboy. My parents and everyone at our table broke out laughing.  The Cowboy looked at us and then chuckled hesitantly, seeming somewhat unsure if we were laughing at him or Jen.

"Squeak," said Jessica. The Cowboy nodded at us and turned away.

A couple minutes later, the Cowboy turned around and thumped a glass of something that looked tropical and fruity on our table.  He held up a quarter.

"Okay," he said. "Here's what we are going to do…" he trailed off. He peered at our table, looking at each person.

"Ah screw it," he said as he took his drink back and turned around.

Downward Drifters

Some quick videos I recently took at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. The music is from the theme to the movie 2046 by Shigeru Umebayashi.

Geographic Goodbyes

How do you say goodbye to an island? A week ago, I ended the four year relationship I had with Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria. Saying goodbye to my human friends followed a seemingly scripted custom: the awkward hug, the “see you soon” or “keep in touch." But for an island? I don’t think there is a tradition. I guess you can feel the embrace of a familiar beach or experience the "see you soon" of a favorite vista but, to me, these things are incomplete.

Like most human relationships, ending a long term affair with a large landmass is never easy. Sure, there will be the occasional weekend visit, where you end up looking at each other over a cup of coffee and thinking about how good the times where when you were still together. The island's wind might tussle your hair and maybe you'll let the waves flirt with your feet, but it just won't be the same.  You'll just be a guest, another tourist, someone who won't be around long enough to become really intimate with its coastlines and forests or streams and mountains. And when you see the locals, you'll think about how that used to be you and how the island used to be yours.

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Update: We posted a some pictures of our final summer on Vancouver Island (and a few other places) here.

The Secret Life of Seagulls

It was around 4:45 in the morning when the screaming started.  The sound dragged my mind into the waking world and, for just a second, I wondered if something horrible had happened.  I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and peered toward the ceiling. A feeble gray light seeped in through the skylights and the shrieking continued. It sounded like there were hundreds of them up there and they were yelling at each other as loud as they could.

"Freaking seagulls," I muttered to myself. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep.  

The next morning, I sleepily poured myself a cup of coffee and opened the shade of the little side window of our apartment.  The building next to ours is shorter and that window is about level with their roof.  Outside, the sky was dark with clouds and it was raining softly. A sullen gray and white bird stared back at me.  Her eyes were red rimmed and her feathers were messy and sticking up all over the place.  She looked like hell.

"Rough night, Eloise?" I asked as I sipped my coffee.  She glared back with a look that was exhausted, protective, and angry.  It was a complicated and complex glare that only a brand new mom could have pulled off.  Under Eloise's wing, a spotted brown and black ball of fluff tried to push itself further under and into her body and out of the cold of the morning.  I assumed that the ball of fluff's two siblings were under there as well.  I wondered where Eloise's mate Winston was.  Off getting food, I imagined.

When Jen and I first moved into a building in Chinatown in downtown Victoria, we expected the neighborhood to have some interesting residents.  We didn't expect, however, that our most numerous and nosiest neighbors would be able to fly.  It never occurred to us that we would be constantly startled when one of our two pound flying neighbors would decide that a skylight is a good place to make an emergency landing and hit it with enough force to shake the ceiling.  We never could have imagined that we'd watch our neighbors make their home cozy, give birth, raise their young, and then leave, and that we'd feel a little loneliness when they were gone. We definitely never believed that we would be spending part of our day staring out a window watching a couple of birds.  Birds that we named.

Almost every city and town that I've every lived in has had gulls flying around in the background.  In Victoria, and indeed in most of the West Coast, the seagulls are Glaucous-winged Gulls (Larus glaucescens), and despite being so common that they are almost invisible, they can be fascinating creatures.  Their name means pale-winged and, as adults, they have a large white head, neck, and body, with a gray back.  Their wings are gray and have pale white-tips. They are about two feet long and adults weigh a bit over two pounds. In short, they look like the type of seagull you have seen all your life.

Glaucous-winged Gulls live close to saltwater and they are so common because they aren't food snobs.  They are opportunistic eaters who are happy to dine most anywhere.  When the tide is low, we've seen them eat crabs, fish, sea-urchins, jelly-fish and even star fish.  Inland, we've seen them go for French fries, worms, thrown-away fast food wrappers, centipedes, Starbuck frappacinos, and pretty much anything remotely edible left in fine trash cans through-out the greater downtown area.

Throughout the winter, our apartment is pretty quiet. The seagulls don't really hang about in the rainy season. However, as we get closer to summer, the seagull party starts. For urban breeding grounds, gulls particularly like flat roofs much like the one on our apartment building.

Glaucous-winged Gulls are social birds and they nest in colonies. Adult seagulls often return to the same colony year after year often with the same mate from the previous years.  We like to believe that Winston and Eloise found love at first sight.

When a Glaucous-winged Gull couple find a good spot to settle down, they get territorial and protective of their breeding grounds.  They - well, like most of the people downtown it's mostly the males - will squabble, fight and shriek at any other gull they think might be disrespecting them.  In our neighborhood, the gulls seem to prefer to get their aggression out every morning between 3 and 5 a.m.  

The females will build a nest mound out of dried plants and feathers and, after a romantic early spring, she'll lay two or three speckled eggs.  For almost the next month, she'll sit on the eggs and keep them warm.  To be perfectly honest, since it's hard to tell the difference between Eloise and Winston, they might trade off. He seems like an involved parent. At any rate, after about 26 days, small brown balls of fluff with black polka dots will emerge from the eggs.  

These cute little balls of fluff like to wobble around and, well, look all cute.  However, their main activity is to cry pathetically for food. You would never imagine a little brown ball of fluff could ever destroy a person's sanity.  And, yet, our research shows that if you surround an apartment with them and have them do their high-pitched little squeaks of hunger all hours of the day, without even the common decency to take a weekend off, a person will be stretched to the breaking point.

I think the crying even gets to their parents. I haven't seen many non-domestic animals that I can actually describe as looking tired, but Eloise and Winston not only look tired, they often look frazzled.  During this time period, one of the gulls will stay with the chicks, sitting on them to keep them warm, and the other will go get food.

Each adult gull has a yellow bill with a red subterminal spot. This is a red spot near the end of their bill that when chicks peck, the parents are stimulated to regurgitate food.  When you don't have hands or shopping bags, it's the best way to carry food to your young.  If your parents didn't regurgitate raw jellyfish to feed you, well, then, they obviously didn't love you enough.

For the next month and a half, the adult gulls watch the chicks, provide them warmth and safety, and regurgitate food just like every good parent should.  The chicks stay inside the little territory that their parents have marked out.  Otherwise, their nearby gull neighbors will be very angry and killing wandering chicks isn't uncommon.  

It takes about four years for a Glaucous-winged Gull to reach full adulthood.  Between the cute ball of fluff stage and the dignified white and gray dressed adults are the teen years.  Teens are easy to spot as they have dark bills, mottled gray feathers, and act all awkward and surly. Chicks are first capable of flight around 35-54 day.  They slowly get bigger, changing from little balls of fluff to little fluffy birds.  Their wing nubbins will grow and they'll walk around flapping them.  

And then one day they'll be gone.  And so will their parents.

For the first time in months, you'll have relative quiet. Winter comes and you forget about all about birds. You'll enjoy getting full nights of sleep in a warm and cozy bed.  However, one early spring morning, you'll be woken up in the wee hours by horrible shrieking.  And, if you're me, for a brief second you'll be terrified that perhaps the world is ending and then a slow smile will cross your face as you wonder if Winston and Eloise have returned.

The next morning; though, will be filled with curses. So will the next one. And the morning after that.