Last night I took the dog to Peaks Island for a nighttime walk. The ferry was cold and I didn’t wear quite enough layers – perfect for the walk, but the wind coming across Casco Bay, combined with the perky pace of the Machigonne II car ferry, meant I was chilled to the bone when I got back to the mainland. I put the dog in the back of the car – after a three hour walk he curled up and immediately fell asleep – and I popped into a bar for a quick whisky to warm up. The woman next to me struck up a conversation when her husband excused himself to use the loo. She was from northern Vermont, she and her husband owned a craft brewery, and they had engineered a few days holiday in Portland around a “business tour” of a couple of breweries in town.
Valuation
I used to work for a bank called ATB Financial, which was really just a “doing business as” name for something called the Alberta Treasury Branches. I have some of my fondest memories of my life from ATB, and met some of the best people on earth, period, during my time in Alberta. ATB is essentially a regional bank (although please don’t tell the Canadian federal regulators it’s a bank) owned by the Province of Alberta, making it unique in North America as a full-service banking institution owned by the people of a state or province (there is a Bank of North Dakota which is state-owned, but doesn’t offer a full slate of banking services and doesn’t have an open-ended mandate). I loved my time at ATB but a friend of mine reminded me tonight that I really loved the concept of ATB – the bank itself is, alas, just another human institution.
Checked out
I went to my local library in Scarborough last week, which was probably the first time I’d been in a local library since I was in college. I needed some books for the flights back and forth to Seattle for the weekend, knowing that I’d be at risk of getting delayed somewhere, so I borrowed my dad’s library card and browsed for a bit.
inbound delays
Secret signs and knowing looks These sunny days will cook the books Happy to take the misery This mortal life can bring to me Don't like the look of this town What goes up must come down Character is lost and found On unfamiliar playing ground - from Public Image Limited, "Seattle"
I’m in Seattle, finishing up a weekend with my son. It was a different kind of weekend – for a number of reasons, I felt able to breathe a lot easier with my son this time around. I didn’t feel quite so much in the bubble with him – that word again – as much as I just felt like I was living in my own, somewhat chaotic world.
Drive
Look at that, my friend’s wife (who is also my friend) said from the driver’s seat.
I looked around and didn’t see anything in the grey-blue light of dusk.
It’s light, she said. It’s 5:30 in the evening and there’s light.