I know this is getting comical, but I just don’t have the time to post the Roughrider poetry contest winner tonight. With a little luck, an easterly crosswind and a downhill lie, I’ll get it posted tomorrow night.
In the meantime, I need to tell you about my trip to Paris today. Like most people, I went to Paris for hardware. In particular, I went to the Canadian Tire in Paris…
What’s that?
Oh. No, not that Paris. Paris, Ontario. It’s really quite close by. You can also travel to Scotland and Dublin by car from here. It’s quite confusing.
Anyway, I brought my camera because Paris is actually quite charming, and I suspect quite photogenic; this gave me the perfect excuse to wander around and practise my newfound photography skillz while in the big city. On my trip there, I passed the following sign, which sign I have had to drive by every day for the last two weeks. Since my camera was in the car and on the seat next to me, I couldn’t resist clicking off a shot or two:
Now you would think that, being in the real estate business, a person might have occasion to come across the word “development” from time to time, and that – even if only by osmosis – a person might end up knowing how to spell it. At the very least, you would think that once you pounded in the stakes and nailed this puppy up, you might stand back, scratch your head a little and say, “Damn, something don’t seem right. Somebody get me a dictionary.” It’s kind of like being a baker and telling people you make “braid” for a living.
I am my father’s son. Like him, this butchering of the language grates on me and I can barely keep myself from crashing through the underbrush with a bucket of paint to start blotting out extraneous letters.
Maybe the Century 21 people are too busy being concerned about what the hell they’re going to call their company in 92 years when suddenly they (by virtue of their company’s name) are no longer the futuristic, robot-owning flying car pilots of the real-estate world and have become instead essentially Model-T enthusiasts with astonishingly ugly gold jackets. Deal with that developement!
I also note that Cambridge, Stratford, London (hmm, sensing a theme here), Delhi (whoops), and Oakland are all near by as well. Plus there’s the whole question of Wayne Gretzky who hails from thereabouts — maybe it’s something in the water?
It does look a lot more interesting than, say, Los Angeles concrete. And I’d rather live in some place that bills itself through their good nature than the megalopali of California, un-named herbivorous intruders and all.
You know, Century 21 is now the contemporary; they ceased being the future a few years ago, and soon will be the past. I suspect either a Futurama-style makeover (Century 31! Deal with that, millenium!) or a return to spinning wheels and buggies to cash in on the burgeoning nostalgia market (the regular march of 1980 being THIRTY YEARS AGO is starting to wear on my psyche).
There was a time one could have driven to the Hardware Store in Lynden ( on the way by ) unless you are a 403 person. But alas, it is now gone as has the farrier, the barber ,yadda yadda yadda. There is however a Co-Op just over the tracks on the left on the Lynden Rd. In case….