It's a New Year in Canada

As soon as I arrived in Canada Paul & Lydia, who I last saw at the community reunion, took me to a unique Canadian cultural institution. It struck me how much more normal it was there for anyone to walk into a liquor store, as oppose to the States where it's usually only poorer rungs of society who buy their liquor there.

New Years was fairly quiet, getting to see Autumn and Dylan and their kids, enjoying each other's company and playing games. When it got dark around 4 (on the shortest day of the year), I realized how much I'd grown used to living at the same latitude as San Diego- and how much I missed that. We engaged in the four primary Canadian pasttimes: watching hockey, beer, talking about peace, and bashing America. In the second hour we went out to see one of the places I lived once- I hadn't realized how close it was to Paul & Lydia- and the place where I first learned how to swim. It's a small campground right next to the lake near Abbotsford. The house where the community all lived is still there as well.

After the trip we went out to see bald eagles, finding about 15 of them in the short drive. It was my first time seeing them close-up in the wild, or being able to observe their feet.

And a first time to see the remains of salmon as well- I'd always thought they died much further upstream. But there are evidently many remains in the streams close to Abbotsford, all displaying supersenescence, that aging process which is the destiny of all salmon where their heads become covered with fungus, they can't osmoregulate any longer, the thyroid and pituitary fail, the immune system degenerates, and they generally feel rather beat up by life.