''It Is What It Is''

The terrace of the café La Corona today.

''Don't Change a Thing!''

Paris:– Thursday, 2. September 2004:– Is anybody supposed to take this weather seriously? Today wasn't quite as clear and sunny as forecast, but it was warm and tonight's TV–weather news Joe says there will be more. It even rained for a bit tonight, rattling on dry leaves.

The partly cloudy morning and afternoon that we had today, is supposed to repeat tomorrow – either after more hectic weather goes east, or before new hectic weather comes from the west, or both. We are in the middle. Let's say it might be mostly sunny, with a high temperature of 28 degrees.

This is higher than normal 'for the time of year.' To drive home the point the same temperature highs are forecast for Saturday and Sunday. Also for both days, lots of sun should be straight up above and not over some far off horizon.

Near the end of the TV-weather news I held my breath, expecting the Joe to step out into the wild blue yonder with a prediction for Monday. But no. His time was up and he called out the saint's name for tomorrow before being yanked off camera.

This morning's Le Parisien says we should be ready to be 'bronzed' next Monday. This will be too late for all people who were doing it under cloudy skies in August.

There must be readers and members who will prefer not to read a club report about a meeting with no members of any sort at it so I will start this off not with the usual paragraph about how I ride the Métro as usual to the club, but get right to the point and say there were no members at today's club meeting.

With about 400 words saved right here, and the only person present being the club's secretary, this is as good a place as any to introduce Vancouver, British Columbia, as the 'City of the Week.'

This city name has been mentioned before in club reports. The city with the same name in Washington State did become 'City of the Week' at a club meeting not so long ago, and Port Moody to the east of Vancouver, might have too.

Vancouver is famous for being the place that Port Moody was supposed to be. It was the destination of the first trans–continental railway, handily located at a deep–water inlet with access to the Pacific ocean.

But folks in Port Moody, were, I guess, mostly railroad types and no match whatsoever for the real estate hustlers that already infested Gastown – as Vancouver was then known. They invited the railroad's surveyors and engineers to a Gastown saloon and after 72 hours of hospitality, the railroad got pushed another 20 miles west. Port Moody never recovered.

In my time in Vancouver it was still infested with real estate hustlers. They owned the city hall and the parks board, but let taxpayer types run the school system – which they did, pretty well.

Vancouver used to be famous for woodworking and rain, fishing and rain, and mining and rain. By the time I came along the fishing and mining had been banned, and the woodworking was being expropriated, but it was still raining a lot.

About the time I left, native Indians decided they wanted Vancouver back. The original real estate hustlers had paid for it with three gallons of fake whisky and 17 Hudson's Bay blankets. I haven't heard how this turned out, but I'm pretty sure it's still raining.

This is much more than is usually devoted to a 'City of the Week.' You shouldn't think Vancouver is worth more than any of the others. It has just hit a lucky week with nobody to oppose it. I thought of asking Patrick, the 'Waiter of the Week,' to propose his 'City of the Week' but he is a Parisian, and more partisan than me.

Club statistics show that the last meeting with no members was the one held on 24. April 2003, which was a Thursday. That was quite a year for no member meetings – the other no member meeting was on 3. April of the same month.

When today's meeting started the 'grande salle' was empty except for a group of four French people sitting one table away from the club's area in the 'no smoking' section. The noise of my pen scratching on the paper of the club's booklets drove them away. Then it got lonely. Willy the Bird did not appear.

At about 16:00 Patrick came over and looked at the empty tables and then looked worried. "C'est la rentrée," he said. I wondered how many members would be busy taking their kids back to school today. The radio news this morning said about 12 million kids were supposed to go and hardly any schools were on strike.