December 22

On this day I bought a bottle of tequila, and drank two shots, each chased with a beer, while I cooked supper. The tequila isn't the strongest available, but it tastes good.

There are bells in this neighborhood. Crude and not in any particular key, and they chime at odd times several times a day. They chime, or bang, in two tones. There will be two or three at the higher pitch about a second apart, followed by as much as sixty at a lower pitch at twice the frequency, and end with two or three at the higher pitch again. I thought they were church bells, but they don't make any sense in that regard. Maybe it's just some guy who likes to bang on a couple of wheel rims. In addition there is the occasional shotgun blast. You can count on one at 5:45 AM, and another at six. Public alarm clocks, maybe. I'll ask Rosie.

Christmas is coming. Here, while there is all the US consumer motivational hype, there is a deeper and stronger sentiment as well. The pageant that I watched in the Plaza downtown included, besides depictions of the Virgin and Joseph, shepherds, angels of the Lord, and magi, scenes from Hell. Now that is playing loose and free with the Gospels, as I remember them, but it is also indicative that the Nativity is taken seriously and has a deeper meaning than found in, say, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Victoria's streets are crowded with cars all the time. All the streets in the center of town are narrow and one-way, and a constant stream of traffic crawls through them. The town is as dominated by cars as is Boulder, Colorado. I'm cautious on my bike, but there are a lot of bikes in the traffic. If we are treated the way that drivers treat each other, they more courteous than those in Halifax.