Slamming a revolving door. Sneezing with your eyes open. Travelling backwards or forwards through time. Tickling yourself. Counting by single integers to infinity. Frankensteining: brining the dead back to life. Licking your elbow. Teaching a dog to speak English. Teaching a cat anything. Uncracking an egg. Calculating all the digits of pi. Discovering a prime number greater than 2. Making Gloria happy.
The common element in that brief list is, of course, impossibility. All those things, at least in our current state of evolution and/or human psychology, are impossible. I know, I know, many of you will want to quibble about the how smart your cat is and how much he/she/it has learned. The more you argue, the more you prove the point.
Now some of those things are simple mathematical tricks. We all know pi is an infinitely repeating number and 2 is the only even prime. And while we may be able to tickle ourselves pink, we can't physically tickle ourselves.
But can anybody seriously argue that soundproof windows — themselves an impossibility — and air conditioning are going to make Ms. Dommer happy?
For those many of you suffering Compromised Short-Term Memory Retention Syndrome, let me refresh, to the extent possible, your memory and apologize for not having addressed this grave matter last week but, what the heck, it was a long weekend and I believed it was more in keeping with the spirit of things to make a feeble attempt to entertain the many visitors milling about town.
Ms. Dommer has a condo at Marketplace, a family, a home in Vancouver, a distaste for excessive icing on cakes, a serious dislike of live music and a belief the RMOW — and possibly the world, but I'm speculating here — owe her peace and quiet on her terms. She is unhappy the RMOW had the temerity to build WOP north in what used to be her peaceful, treed backyard, the forest formerly known as Lot 1/9. She is unhappy the playground was built next to it. And more to the point, she isn't particularly pleased they aren't quiet as a library. Well, not Whistler's library, which now operates under a No-Rules policy but, you know, libraries of olden days when tight-bunned librarians would shush people so often they permanently pursed their thin, disapproving lips.
Apparently the performances by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the drunken, operatic encores performed by hooligans at the playground were the straws that finally stirred the camel's drink... or something like that. Ms. Dommer has listed her condo for sale and is considering trying to organize other property owners in the area to take group action against the RMOW. The response thus far has apparently been not unlike my own on those rare instances when someone wearing a tin foil hat approaches me on the street asking whether I've seen the people from Mars wandering around lost.
In the meantime, taking the bull by the ring through its nose, Ms. Dommer has requested compensation for herself. She closed her request by writing, "Make me happy."
I can't imagine compensation is going to do the trick. Ditto soundproof windows and air conditioning. Frankly, I don't believe rolling the clock back to 1999 would either and I don't think any of us want to go through Y2K again just to see if it would.
I actually have a great deal of empathy for Ms. Dommer. No, really. Oh, not about the "noise" from the concerts. I don't understand how anyone can complain about free live music except music haters, a categorization I use broadly to include people who only like a thin spectrum of all the music out there. Having said that, I will admit to hating ABBA and not infrequently finding myself wandering around some store that shows questionable enough taste to play Dancing Queen with a pained expression on my face and a voice sing-songing loudly, "Nyah, nyah, nyah..." over and over again until I'm pretty certain the song has ended, lest I wind up with a three-day earworm of that vile tune ping-ponging around my otherwise mostly empty head.
But, Gloria, I feel your pain. I too wish someone would have rolled up the gangplank after I put ashore at the Whistler of Old. I hate it when things change... except for new things I discover I like after I've hated them. Personally — and don't take this personally — I hate the fact Marketplace was ever built, although I do frequent a number of shops there and use the professional services of several of its, uh, professionals. I fondly remember practicing fly casting in an open field where the Library now stands and having some even older timers fondly remembering playing softball there when it was the primary school playground. Becky Thatcher and I used to hunt toads where Town Plaza is now and I'll always curse its name for ruining the ol' Thatcher homestead.
And just don't get me started on the travesty of developing Blackcomb mountain.
Since it's apparent you're not going to get any satisfaction from our hard-hearted Mayor Nancy, whose response to your plea was a somewhat more polite variation on the "Suck it up, buttercup" theme, I'm here to offer what meaningless help I can. For starters, I don't know who you listed your condo with but I'm pretty sure I can find a few realtor friends who will reduce their commission just for you and turn a blind eye if you prefer to not inform potential buyers about the latent defect your condo suffers — excessive noise.
Having owned a condo on the Blackcomb benchlands and having several friends who own there in other developments, I'd be happy to steer you in the direction of a number of very quiet condos. Of course, you'll be a little further away from what the fun-seekers consider Whistler's main attractions but we both know what poor, misguided fools they are. While this may not seem like much help, let me just say two words: Le Chamois. Some mistakes are far, far worse than free concerts and loud drunks.
And finally, perhaps you'd like to take advantage of my broad travels as a ski writer/bum. I know a nice little resort — I think you may have expressed interest in finding another resort to invest in — where I'm pretty sure you'd be happy as a pig in... as a clam. The weather is wonderful there in summer and there's hardly ever anything noisy going on there. It's scenic as all get out and although it's a bit further drive, the roads are way better than the Sea to Sky highway and considerably less of a speed trap.
It's called Sun Peaks. And it's really quiet... especially since the owner was appointed to the Senate.
Your peace of mind is all the thanks I need.
