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Bear with me: August 2010 trip to Duncan and Youbou

I finally got to heading over to the island again for the weekend of August 14-15th (I actually came back on the 16th) and as it happened it was during the annual heatwave, with record-setting high temperatures being set all over the province.

The ferry trip over was mostly pleasant, especially when the father of the family sitting behind me told his young daughter to stop kicking the back of my seat. Thanks, dad! A trip to the sundeck was marred by the presence of (permitted) smokers and a stiff breeze that nearly sent my cap off into the strait. I would have arrived on the island traumatized if that had happened. I really like my green cap.

After meeting mom and the dog, we headed first to Youbou, as it had been several years since I’d seen my sister Carole and her husband Gary. They had new digs on Lake Cowichan and this was my first chance to check them out.

Their house is…big. It has about 20 bathrooms, 15 bedrooms and a kitchen the size of my entire suite. I may be exaggerating a little. But only a little! It took me awhile to figure out where the music was coming from before I realized they had an integrated sound system that piped music into the house, onto the deck and even down to the dock.

We spent a good while sitting in the (relative) cool of the shade on the deck provided by a large umbrella. By this time of the afternoon temperatures were peaking at around 33ºC. We listened to talked o’ the lake, including one centering around a bear that had been seen for a period of several weeks trundling through the properties on this side of the lake. After calling conservation officers about it, the homeowners were informed that two bears had been shot. Poor things. That’ll teach them to wander through no-bears land! Carole pointed to the area just below the deck where the bear had been observed walking westward. A bylaw prevents property owners from landscaping or interfering with the natural growth along the shoreline, so to the bear, it probably just looked like his usual route to wherever it is that bears go.

We next moved down to the dock, which also had a large umbrella. There was a decent breeze coming off the lake and occasionally it would gust very suddenly. Several hats were nearly lost. I had made sure mine was affixed to the top of my head as securely as possible. I don’t swim well, so jumping in the lake after it would probably not have gone well. We then returned inside where preparations were made for a de-luxe dinner of steak, prawns, potatoes, cauliflower and halibut. Mmm. Post-dinner found Gary and me watching a National Geographic program which featured, among other animals, bears, much like the ones that had been shot here. Carole and mom headed outside to check the gardens. Carole pulled a few weeds and threw them down toward the shore. As she did this, the bush the weeds fell on moved. Gary looked to me as she began yelling. “Did she say ‘bear’?” he asked. More yelling followed. My mom was racing up the side of the house and around to the front, to a door that Gary had locked earlier. Much pounding on the door ensued. When all were safely inside, we stepped out onto the deck to see a black bear meandering along the exact same path as the others that had supposedly been shot. “A flesh wound, perhaps,” I suggested. I only managed one somewhat obscured photo but here is a cropped close-up where you can clearly see a bear-like shape in amongst the bushes. You can see the full-size image in the gallery.

After the bear excitement we headed back to Duncan to enjoy the sweltering heat of a mobile home that did not have its air conditioning turned on.

The next day was highlighted by a trip to Barry and Brenda’s for dinner (fresh salmon, potatoes and corn, mmm). The only notable wild presence there were a few persistent bees and one deer that walked up through the vacant lot between their house and the next. Apparently all it took to keep them from coming in and devouring all of their backyard gardens was the construction of a $4,000 fence. Easy!

After dinner I asked for some paper and a pen to record a few thoughts, as I was without my usual notebook. Naturally, this resulted in an inquiry as to what I was writing. I jotted down some details about a rather pampered young man who had been helping Barry with the drywalling. At the age of 18 he still did not know how to tie shoe laces — because he always wore shoes with Velcro. This is more proof of how technology is making us dumber and how Douglas Adams’ future vision of a world run by hairdressers is getting closer to reality. Hairdressers with Velcro shoes.

The other thing I wrote down was something I had quickly dubbed ‘Duncan Interruptus’ though to be fair I don’t think it’s a phenomenon exclusive to Duncan but more just small towns in general. It goes like this: In Vancouver, when there is a conversation taking place, things proceed about how you’d expect. Someone says something, then someone else comments. The conversation continues on like this, back and forth. In Duncan, however, Person A will start talking then Person B will interrupt with a question, comment or some tangential story or even something that has nothing to do with the current topic of conversation. Person C will then do the same to Person B. From this point forward, any of the three might start talking over the others and subjects are quickly abandoned in favor of another or another still. I have lost count of how many unfinished stories I have heard in Duncan. I have to interrupt to find out how they turn out. It’s a little irritating at times but mostly just odd. I haven’t really figured out why it happens.

For the ferry ride back, I took my cap off when I went up to the sundeck, but the smell of smoke kept me from staying long once again. I think smokers should have to climb into a little dinghy being pulled behind the ship, but that’s just me. I remember ferries were for a time exclusively no-smoking. I wonder why they decided to let them open them back up to smoking and at the same time restrict the activity to one pathetically small section of the outside deck (it has lines to mark exactly where smoking is A-OK).

Overall, the trip was rather pleasant, if a mite on the warm side. You can see a gallery of my mediocre photos here.

“Chemist needed”

There was a video store about six blocks away from here in the mini-mall at Kingsway and Fraser. It closed a few months ago. Aw. But then it re-opened as a triple-X adult video store. Ew. But the thing that got me curious was this sign I saw in its window as I walked by today:

First, it’s interesting that they put the word ‘legal’ in there, like it’s an attempt to ward off the police investigating. “It’s all on the up and up, officer!” Second, I would assume an adult video store would have a variety of creams, lotions and oils to provide interesting sensations to its customers while they engage in the pursuit of carnal knowledge, so why would they need someone to come onboard to apparently craft entirely new ones? Cutting out the middle man? Reducing costs? Being able to brand it with their own unique identity? (“Tony’s Titillating Talcum!”) It is nice that you can call Tony ANY TIME, though. Maybe he’ll hire some enterprising chemistry student from UBC. Hopefully they won’t blow up the mini-mall.

Our education system demonstrated in Price Smart Foods

Ahead of me in the “dammit, I’m having an actual cashier serve me instead of using one of those robot self-serve thingers” line at Price Smart Foods the other day was a guy who looked to be in his mid to late 30s. He was not in what one would call prime physical shape so it was perhaps no surprise that he was buying a package of cigarettes (“Du Maurier KING size!” he admonished the cashier who could not seem to find this particular brand and size). Another cashier came along and was able to find the cancer-causing source of addictive pleasure he sought. His total rang up to $19.39. “Just like when World War II ended!” he chortled.

Yes, just like it if you were writing an alternate history version of Earth, maybe, Mr. “Du Maurier KING size”! At least he knew the year had something to do with World War II, so there is that.

In other random news, it was reported that Vancouver received less than 1mm of rain in July. It normally gets around 40mm. It’s been a little dry.

Vancouver Pride Parade 2010

Colorful!

Today I ventured downtown to watch the annual Vancouver Pride Parade, arriving on Robson Street about an hour before the noon-time start. The sky was overcast but there was no threat of rain. A sizable crowd was already gathered in the 1200 block where I chose to watch from. It would be standing room only, something my feet would hate me for three hours later.

Let me start by saying the energy and enthusiasm in both the parade participants and the crowd is great. The parade going on for two hours is less great. The weirdly large gaps between floats in the last half hour that feels like an attempt to pad things out is less great still. Being wedged in like the proverbial sardine with barely a micron to move to your left or right is what one might call not great at all. Still, I was there to have fun and take pictures.

My camera battery died partway through. I was tempted to pack it in at that point but I felt I’d be cheating someone by cutting out early. Mr. and Mrs. Pride, maybe. Plus I wanted to see the VGVA float. As it turns out, it showed up at 2:04 p.m., one of the last entries in the parade, and long after the camera had gone kaput. The boys had fun with their balls all the same.

I must say, though, there’s nothing quite like seeing an old guy get handed a fistful of Trojan condoms and wonder what to do with them. He ended up giving them to an appreciative and virile young guy standing next to me.

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Fireworks redux

My camera is a trusty little Canon point and shoot digital and it takes fine photos for a goof like me who doesn’t pretend to know anything about photography besides “don’t put your thumb in front of the lens” but it’s rather mediocre in low light situations, leading to very noisy images. At night it’s good at capturing the dark and not much else. This preamble is to explain why I didn’t take pictures of the actual fireworks the two nights I went. However, Nic’s camera could beat up my camera and he did take some nice photos, which you can see on his Flickr page. Links below. Click on any image to go the individual galleries.

Spain fireworks display

Mexico fireworks display

Random little things that bug me

I like to think I am a pretty mellow guy and the feedback from others seems to support this. For example, I can’t recall the last time someone asked me to stop yelling.

But like anyone, there are random little things that bug me. Not in a frothing angry hate-the-world sort of way, just in that “oh yeah, this kind of bugs me” sort of way. Here’s an incomplete list:

  • the sidewalk drifter: this is someone who walks slowly in front of you on the sidewalk. As soon as you decide to pass by, the person will drift in the direction you are attempting to pass on. If you move left, they drift left. If you move right, they drift right. They also always walk straight down the middle of the sidewalk so as to maximize the space they occupy. I have seen several drifters whose actions lead me to believe they are calculated and therefore, evil.
  • people who think they are clever by referring to Canada as Canuckistan.
  • The Pet Shop Boys video for “Go West”. The song, originally performed by the Village People, is a blatant gay anthem. The video tries to repurpose it as an east vs. west thing (Russia vs. the U.S.) in order to make it suitable for mass consumption. It’s intellectually dishonest, especially considering Neil Tennant had officially come out around the same time.
  • the flaps on cargo shorts. They always curl up. I actually iron mine after washing them to keep them flat and I don’t iron anything.
  • full page ads on the front page of a newspaper. You typically only see this on the free dailies like 24 Hours or Metro but still, it’s as good as them admitting that the news therein is secondary to anything else, which doesn’t make a newspaper seem all that valuable a resource.
  • ATV strollers, especially on buses. There has been a trend in recent years toward strollers becoming the baby-toting equivalent of an SUV, with huge knobby tires and reinforced seats seemingly more suited to some 4×4 driving in the mountains than taking little Billy downtown to playschool. I have watched several people struggle to simply get these monstrosities onto a bus.
  • running a pedestrian-controlled red light. Hey jerk, the light is red because a person is crossing the intersection. Running the light to save you precious seconds on your oh-so-important tasks is not really a fair exchange for seriously injuring or killing someone.
  • employees who smoke at the entrance to the store they work in. Why do managers let them do this? Do they think walking through a cloud of smoke is the best way to welcome someone into their shop? Also, people who don’t butt out their cigarettes and instead just leave them burning on the sidewalk. Lazy would-be cancer victims!

And many, many more. Again, these are little things. I don’t gnash my teeth and write angry letters to editors over them, I just note them here because I like lists.

My grocery list

In case I ever become a famous author, here is my grocery list from today for someone to put in hardcover to see if it really would sell. It also highlights how unexciting my diet is and why I managed to lose 40 pounds.

  • fat-free cottage cheese
  • 3 hothouse tomatoes
  • 1 head of green leaf lettuce
  • Grape Nuts cereal (a friend refers to it as ‘dirt and sawdust’)
  • Tomato and balsamic rice crackers (this is my ‘fun’ food)
  • Vitasoy unsweetened soy milk (for the dirt and sawdust above)
  • 1 can 6-bean mix
  • 2 tomato & basil boneless & skinless chicken breasts (I usually make my own marinade but got lazy today)
  • 1 dozen large white eggs

I should note this is not an all-inclusive list since I walk to the store and have so far been unsuccessful in growing additional arms for carrying extra bags, but it’s a good overview of some of the staples I regularly pick up.

I am probably one of three people in North America to eat breakfast cereal with no processed sugar in it (zero in both the cereal and milk). I cheat a little by sprinkling a dozen fresh blueberries on top, though. Yum.

There are times when I use dried beans and others when I go for the can. The only thing I don’t like about dried beans is the long prep time (an hour or so), especially when it’s already quite warm inside. If I can (ho ho) I try to buy beans that are low sodium. Most stores offer this now.

The cottage cheese is my usual go-to snack for later in the evening. The veggies are for my turkey sandwiches, which are quite yummy, if I do say so. Eggs are for breakfast, obviously.

What’s missing from this list vs. one I would have made slightly more than two years ago: any processed food, sugary drinks and/or cookies.

I kind of miss the cookies.

Fireworks, Part 2: Spain vs. Mexico

Wednesday night I returned downtown to watch the fireworks put on by the team from Mexico. Unlike Saturday, we arrived after it was already dark and observed from a higher vantage point above Sunset Beach. Crowds that had been pegged at 300,000 for Saturday were notably smaller but still big for the crowdaphobic.

The Mexican display started in fine fashion but then went into a long interlude with minimal fireworks that were keyed very specifically to the music. Someone to the right of us had a radio broadcasting the music and it was very evident the designers of the show had chosen to have large sections of the display timed to the music they had selected. While a neat effect, it meant the display — especially to those without access to the music — was a bit limp compared to Spain’s balls-out approach. Overall I have to give the nod to Spain’s more crowd-pleasing display. The approach Mexico took would work better for a fireworks show that wasn’t situated in the middle of a large bay.

Remarkably I was able to catch a bus mere moments after arriving at the bus stop post-fireworks and was home a full half hour earlier than on Saturday. Although crowded, the ride was uneventful. If I just got lucky this year with transit, it’s the kind of luck I like.

Plaid shorts: I don’t get it

What’s the deal with plaid shorts? At some point in the recent past they were declared ‘it’. When I went to The Bay to look for a plain pair of shorts I felt like I had entered Plaid World. There were racks upon racks of plaid shorts in every possible color and configuration, a veritable sea of plaid to drown in. Oh sure, I found a few token pairs of non-plaid shorts for people who just have to be different and buck the current trend being dictated to us by…uh…whoever is responsible for starting the whole thing. I’d love to have a specific name so I could write a letter. I’d never send the letter but it would feel good writing it.

The non-plaid pairs of shorts came only in two sizes: giant and elephantine, because apparently the average male now has a waist similar to a water buffalo and those who eat reasonably and exercise and thus have a regular-sized waist are a minority that will take what they can get and like it, dammit. I left the store sans shorts (except for the ones I was wearing when I came in. I am not an indecent man, after all).

On a similar note, can someone please declare 3D in movies ‘not it’. This has to be the most unwelcome trend in theaters since they started showing commercials. It’s such a crass move to squeeze even more money from the shrinking theater-going audience. I think I preferred the rumble seats some theaters had when they played Earthquake back in 1974.

Fireworks (the kind in the sky)

Last night I went to the Celebration of Light fireworks at English Bay, the second of four evenings of fireworks this summer. Nic, who conveniently lives only a few blocks away, suggested we head out early. I, not living conveniently a few blocks away, caught the #22 and came downtown, noting the conspicuous steady stream of people heading beachward. As I stood at the intersection of Davie and Thurlow a couple of young guys approached me. One of them asked if I knew where they could get beer. I advised them that there was a cold beer and wine store just a block or so down the street. The guys nodded and thanked me, walking away. The one guy then came back and asked, “What about bud?” I decided not to play cute by acting as if he was looking for someone named Bud and simply shrugged, saying “Around”, which is fairly accurate as far as that thing goes.

Shortly after 7 we headed down to set up near the Inukshuk, which, like all other public art/statuary in the area, had been surrounded by temporary fencing. There was also a row of nearby port-a-potties and what seemed to be a miniature strip mall hastily assembled along the walk on English Bay beach, selling ice cream and glow-in-the-dark lightsabers, among other things. Initially we sat on some of the rocks just off the path, watching the outgoing tide lap up just out of reach but after experiencing profound numb butt I suggested we move slightly back and sit on the edge of the pavement. Much better.

This was the view looking straight ahead from our position, where False Creek meets English Bay. Everything from dinghies to cabin cruisers were bobbing in the choppy water. A few people were even seen briefly swimming, which isn’t the first thing I’d do when surrounded by a million boats.

(click to enlarge)

We witnessed at least three groups of people getting picked up by small boats. The people in the shot below were actually sitting and standing near us for a good while, their conversation bearing witness that the price for a beautiful body is made up for in the brain department. I am of the belief that the guys are genetically designed to always have their underwear sticking out. They simply can’t help themselves.

Speaking of young men with their underwear sticking out, another group had planted itself on the rocks ahead of us. As the day turned to dusk, a couple of police officers came along behind us and asked one of the young men to step forward. As we watched the rock-top interrogation, a small plastic pouch was removed from the p0cket of the young man and he was escorted away for his own private fireworks show. I shall call him Bud.

Looking to our right you can see the rather sizable crowd gathered two hours in advance on English Bay Beach.

Everyone was remarkably well-behaved. A guy sitting in front of us and whose cigarette smoke consistently blew directly into my face left after a few minutes when it became apparent that his friends were not prepared to sit on rocks. A girl to my left watched the fireworks and kept muttering a simple, quiet “Wow” throughout. At one point she expanded on this to her friends: “I really love fireworks.” It was cute — really! The crowd was there to kick back and enjoy the show.

And it was a good show. The Spanish entrant chose to use iconic (and bombastic) classical music — Ride of the Valkyries and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (better known as the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey) but their pyrotechnics were up to the task of matching the grandeur of the music. Last year I saw China’s show and it fizzled out to a limp finale. Maybe rockets don’t fly as high when they’re lined with lead. Spain, however, delivered a rousing series of overlapping explosions that let you know this was the big finish. Most people went home satisfied, I suspect.

Getting out of downtown was surprisingly painless. I walked with the orderly masses down to Burrard and Pender and only waited a few minutes for a #19 to show up. I was home within the hour. Kudos to transit (who imagined such a thing being said by me?) for keeping on top of the giant crowds for these events.