I haven’t been posting on Ephemeral Pleasures lately because the household of ephemeral pleasure has been preoccupied with buying a car, and then a large portion of the budget for ephemeral pleasures has been temporarily diverted to the costs associated with buying and operating a car.  Fortunately, I had cleverly invested in a lot of theatre tickets beforehand, so there are still events to look forward to without second-guessing the expense, including the rest of the Citadel season.   And I still have a small backlog of entertainment and adventures to report on, which I will get on with soon.

It’s been a long time since I’d owned a car.  When I moved to Edmonton, people in my previous hometown as well as here said “well, you can’t live in Edmonton without a car…” and that sounded like a challenge, so I said “Just watch me.”  I’ve lived a mostly-comfortable life in Edmonton for almost five years without a car, thanks to Edmonton Bike Commuters, Edmonton Public Transit, Yellow Cab, Budget Rent-a-Car Southside, and my friends who have given me many rides.    I even played a season of hockey, after finding a teammate who was willing to pick me up and take me home.

But having a car is like … You know the video game Civilization, where the grid map is concealed in shadows until you explore each tile?  And then it opens up, so that you have the feeling that the geography was always there, just never seen, and it changes your whole perspective?  It’s like that.  My mental map of Edmonton is opening up more and more from my initial tiles of Whyte Avenue and Downtown.   All kinds of explorations suddenly become feasible, or at least feasible in the right weather.  I’m even starting to get to know other parts of Central Alberta – I’ve explored Fort Saskatchewan and Vegreville and some of the villages on Highway 14, and I can see lots more nearby places on the map that I’m looking forward to checking out.

That is, after it stops snowing.