More outsider observations in Kelowna

Some more ponderances from my time here in Kelowna:

• When you hang up towels here, the towels actually get dry before the next morning comes, rather than staying damp all week until you put them in a machine!
  
• Further on that note, while the temperature got up to  36 degrees last weekend, I find I’ve not been waking up in a puddle of sweat as can happen in Richmond. Humidity is an odd beast.
  
  
  

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  The Summerhill Winery’s bizarre concrete pyramid is, well, rather unique. (See photos.) (Also, my first wine tasting!)
  

• Kelowna has more golf courses per capita than any other city in North America. Makes our show, Golf: The Musical, rather fitting.
  
• A silly but awesome store: Milkcrate, a combination vinyl records / pie shop.
   
• It is disconcerting, trying to, erm, use the facilities, when there is a cat on the counter, leaning its face within two inches of your own, staring right into your eyes.
• Pretty much every event (such as the Canada Day fireworks) is made better by having an excited five year old boy behind you. ” WOWWW!” “YIPPEEEEE!!!” “COOL!”
• While bikes are not a threatened species here, and there are even bike lanes, the city is built for cars and trucks. The bike lane between my billeters and our rehearsal hall passes by two ICBC buildings and a couple of offices for driving instructors. I’ve felt a whiff of an air of defensiveness among bikers, as though they need to justify their existence. As I biked home from the Canada Day festivities, a cheery female biker in front of me, upon noticing my presence on the road, shouted out “BEST WAY TO GET AROUND!”. Yes, it is. But there was just something about the way she said it. (She later, while biking past a woman opening the door to her car, smacked said woman on the butt and kept on riding. I don’t know if they knew each other or not.)

  

• Across from our rehearsal hall is a store named ‘Knifewear’. I’m imagining pants made of quick-edged blades and it just seems like a bad idea.
• Where I’m staying, I share the house with four cats and a VERY eager dog (as well as a family). This means that, even when I’m ostensibly ‘home alone’, there is usually somethingstaring at me. I mean, I’m an actor, but having this constant an audience is still somewhat disconcerting.
• This is the first time I’ve ever lived with dogs or cats (as my observations make pretty clear). And I’m finding that they remind me of those Skinnerian conditioning models. Take the action of stepping near the dog, and it will, every time, give you affection and attention. With cats, however, the reward mechanism of a muzzle snuggle is chaotic, seemingly random, which can make the reward itself feel more potent. So, different strategies.
• Also, scratching cat skulls is weird.
• Before I arrived here, a friend of mine described Kelowna as ‘a small town trying too hard to be a big city.’ Just feels like a well-stocked, lived-in city to me. Admittedly, it does have a slower pace than an urban megatropolis (though quicker than, say, the Fernwood area in Victoria). And I mean, literally, a slower pace. The speed at which people walk. Which makes sense, given the population size. (See: Radiolab’s amazing piece on the pace of cities: http://www.radiolab.org/2010/oct/08/).

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Andrew Wade

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• Observations in Kelowna (adewade.wordpress.com)
• The Road To Kelowna (or, Merritt Musings) (adewade.wordpress.com)