Monday, June 22, 2009
Highlights of the week (or so)
Ok, I don't have much time to write at the moment, nor do I expect to soon, but cool things have happened so here's the speedy rundown:
- incredible phosphorescence + easily startled fish in Sechelt Inlet made for green shooting stars in the water at night... amazing!
- hooray for mom's prolific cherry tree, strawberry forest, raspberry canes, and artichoke plants!
- Inland Lake near Powell River: soon to be inundated with frogs? When we paddled around, the lake was teeming with enormous tadpoles.
- Kinball looks like a fun and wacky sport
- By tomorrow morning, I will have spent 7 mornings in a row on boats of various descriptions...
- if a Hawaiian outrigger canoe approaches you head on, it means war.. backwards means it comes in peace
- incredible phosphorescence + easily startled fish in Sechelt Inlet made for green shooting stars in the water at night... amazing!
- hooray for mom's prolific cherry tree, strawberry forest, raspberry canes, and artichoke plants!
- Inland Lake near Powell River: soon to be inundated with frogs? When we paddled around, the lake was teeming with enormous tadpoles.
- Kinball looks like a fun and wacky sport
- By tomorrow morning, I will have spent 7 mornings in a row on boats of various descriptions...
- if a Hawaiian outrigger canoe approaches you head on, it means war.. backwards means it comes in peace
Monday, June 08, 2009
superduperday
Well, I already knew this, but today certainly reaffirmed that life, summer, friends... everything, really (except car alarms) is/are amazingly terrific. What happened today? Well, it started with the Superhero Congregation on the Grouse Grind. That deserves its own paragraph.
It all started on my hike with Vince (that was exactly one full moon ago). Well no, actually, it started with Brenda and I (and Pippa!) biking the blossoms dressed as superheroes. And really, it started before that when I first acquired my snazzy yellow cape. But anyhow. Let's start with the hike one moon ago. As we were driving back from the hike, I got to thinking about capes. It happens. And I got to thinking that I have now biked in a cape, and kayaked in one, but I had never hiked in one (oh my, I just realized I have never rollerbladed in one either! next cape adventure!! anyhow..). Though I had hiked a couple of times wearing birthday hats, and that was always fun. So this, I decided, had to be remedied. So I mentioned to Vince that I wanted to hike in a cape. And his brilliant idea was to hike somewhere really popular, like the Grouse Grind. Not only that, but to bring spare capes for other hikers - strangers - to wear too! Wow, awesome! I decided then and there that a grand Superhero Congregation on the Grouse Grind was to be had this summer. So I started to get things organized and sent out some invitations, and lo and behold, Vince came up with more brilliant ideas! He found that BC Children's Hospital happened to be holding a "Be A Superhero" campaign exactly one week after my tentative congregation date and suggested I shift the event one week ahead to coincide so that we could combine our silly festivities with supporting a good cause. Could it get any better? Well yes, in fact it could, because Vince also managed to convince Grouse Mountain to give us some free passes down the mountain on the Skyride just because we were doing such a super event. So my hopes were high long before the congregation began. I was a little concerned that only a handful of people would show up. I was quite concerned that the 30+ capes I had prepared would be way too many and I wasn't sure what I would do with them all (though kite-making did come to mind). Happily, well except for the kite-making part, I did not need to be concerned. The hike was a tremendous - a SUPER - success! Fifteen of us caped crusaders showed up for the hike, and we quickly accumulated a mass of superheroes from the moment we stepped out of the car and all the way up the mountain. Between the 15 of us, we managed to put together a pretty decent donation to the Children's Hospital which Vince and I intend to present in costume later this week. Next time I might actually talk with the charity organization ahead of time to see about acquiring tax receipts or something of the sort ahead of time so that I could actually collect cash donations from strangers - instead we stuck with handing out slips of paper with the website for donations printed on them and will hope for the best. Some sort of banner to unfurl at the top of the slope describing what we're up to might also have been a good idea. But certainly the word was spread and the Children's Hospital received some support and we created many happy superheroes and had a lot of fun doing it. Super duper! Thanks to all of the superheroes and especially to Vince for his super ideas!
Now that was great, but as you may have intuited from the first paragraph, there were more super goings-on in my day than just that. A mini-picnic in the backyard with Phil was sunny and nice, but then I wasn't entirely sure what to do. I thought about painting, but didn't feel incredibly inspired. Then I thought about going to the beach and rather liked that idea. Then I thought to go by rollerblades along the seawall and suddenly it sounded terrific. So I loaded up my watercolour crayons and paper and my travel hoop, strapped on my blades, and I was off. It was a sunny, slightly breezy, perfect afternoon to be down by the water. I happily painted while watching my bbqing brazilian neighbours do capoeira. Pulled out the hoop for a few spins as the sun began to set. As I rollerbladed home along the water, I happened to see a sailboat out on the water with a For Sale sign on it. Knowing that Phil has his eye out for a boat, I tried to see a phone number, but couldn't in the dusky light. There was, however, another boat between me and the one with the sign, and that one had a man on it, scrubbing its deck. So I called out to the man to ask if he could see a phone number on the other boat's sign, but he couldn't either. Yet he was incredibly nice and volunteered to row over to it later to take a look and to call me with whatever he found out. Which he did - I just got the call - turns out the boat is more expensive than what it appears to be worth and so this probably won't go any further. But it was a nice that the random gentleman went out of his way to investigate it for me.
The last really good thing that happened today was that I did manage to see the full moon rise, despite the fact that Michael, Justin, Steve, and my plans to go on a full moon hike tonight were scrapped. I was looking out for the moon as I rollerbladed home, but it was still too early. And then I thought I'd watch it from the backyard, but there are a fair number of tallish trees around and it would have to be a fair distance from the horizon for me to see it from there. So I pondered the idea of going elsewhere since it was such a beautiful evening, but wondered if it was already up but just covered by clouds - it was hard to say how thick the cloud cover was in the evening sky. A quick search online showed me that moonrise was anticipated at 10:38pm, about 15 minutes later - that did it, I hopped on my bike and quickly pedalled over to the big climbing tree on Cambie, climbed up to a nice spot in the branches with a view over Vancouver, and scoured the horizon. A few minutes later, a full red moon began to rise out of what looked like a low layer of cloud off to the southwest. I watched from my perch in branches as it grew and grew to a perfect round red disc in the sky. And I watched a little longer and noticed that the top of the disc was disappearing as the moon was slowly swallowed up again - actually it looked more like a goblet being drained as it was consumed by darkness from the top. When it had fully disappeared again, I climbed down and biked for home (I did in fact see it re-emerge a somewhat orangey-er red striped by thin bands of cloud when I was partway home).
And now it is about time for me to join Spatz in slumbering... though hopefully my dreams won't lead to quite as much muscle twitching as his seem to be.
kat
THE GROUSE GRIND SUPERHERO CONGREGATION
It all started on my hike with Vince (that was exactly one full moon ago). Well no, actually, it started with Brenda and I (and Pippa!) biking the blossoms dressed as superheroes. And really, it started before that when I first acquired my snazzy yellow cape. But anyhow. Let's start with the hike one moon ago. As we were driving back from the hike, I got to thinking about capes. It happens. And I got to thinking that I have now biked in a cape, and kayaked in one, but I had never hiked in one (oh my, I just realized I have never rollerbladed in one either! next cape adventure!! anyhow..). Though I had hiked a couple of times wearing birthday hats, and that was always fun. So this, I decided, had to be remedied. So I mentioned to Vince that I wanted to hike in a cape. And his brilliant idea was to hike somewhere really popular, like the Grouse Grind. Not only that, but to bring spare capes for other hikers - strangers - to wear too! Wow, awesome! I decided then and there that a grand Superhero Congregation on the Grouse Grind was to be had this summer. So I started to get things organized and sent out some invitations, and lo and behold, Vince came up with more brilliant ideas! He found that BC Children's Hospital happened to be holding a "Be A Superhero" campaign exactly one week after my tentative congregation date and suggested I shift the event one week ahead to coincide so that we could combine our silly festivities with supporting a good cause. Could it get any better? Well yes, in fact it could, because Vince also managed to convince Grouse Mountain to give us some free passes down the mountain on the Skyride just because we were doing such a super event. So my hopes were high long before the congregation began. I was a little concerned that only a handful of people would show up. I was quite concerned that the 30+ capes I had prepared would be way too many and I wasn't sure what I would do with them all (though kite-making did come to mind). Happily, well except for the kite-making part, I did not need to be concerned. The hike was a tremendous - a SUPER - success! Fifteen of us caped crusaders showed up for the hike, and we quickly accumulated a mass of superheroes from the moment we stepped out of the car and all the way up the mountain. Between the 15 of us, we managed to put together a pretty decent donation to the Children's Hospital which Vince and I intend to present in costume later this week. Next time I might actually talk with the charity organization ahead of time to see about acquiring tax receipts or something of the sort ahead of time so that I could actually collect cash donations from strangers - instead we stuck with handing out slips of paper with the website for donations printed on them and will hope for the best. Some sort of banner to unfurl at the top of the slope describing what we're up to might also have been a good idea. But certainly the word was spread and the Children's Hospital received some support and we created many happy superheroes and had a lot of fun doing it. Super duper! Thanks to all of the superheroes and especially to Vince for his super ideas!
Now that was great, but as you may have intuited from the first paragraph, there were more super goings-on in my day than just that. A mini-picnic in the backyard with Phil was sunny and nice, but then I wasn't entirely sure what to do. I thought about painting, but didn't feel incredibly inspired. Then I thought about going to the beach and rather liked that idea. Then I thought to go by rollerblades along the seawall and suddenly it sounded terrific. So I loaded up my watercolour crayons and paper and my travel hoop, strapped on my blades, and I was off. It was a sunny, slightly breezy, perfect afternoon to be down by the water. I happily painted while watching my bbqing brazilian neighbours do capoeira. Pulled out the hoop for a few spins as the sun began to set. As I rollerbladed home along the water, I happened to see a sailboat out on the water with a For Sale sign on it. Knowing that Phil has his eye out for a boat, I tried to see a phone number, but couldn't in the dusky light. There was, however, another boat between me and the one with the sign, and that one had a man on it, scrubbing its deck. So I called out to the man to ask if he could see a phone number on the other boat's sign, but he couldn't either. Yet he was incredibly nice and volunteered to row over to it later to take a look and to call me with whatever he found out. Which he did - I just got the call - turns out the boat is more expensive than what it appears to be worth and so this probably won't go any further. But it was a nice that the random gentleman went out of his way to investigate it for me.
The last really good thing that happened today was that I did manage to see the full moon rise, despite the fact that Michael, Justin, Steve, and my plans to go on a full moon hike tonight were scrapped. I was looking out for the moon as I rollerbladed home, but it was still too early. And then I thought I'd watch it from the backyard, but there are a fair number of tallish trees around and it would have to be a fair distance from the horizon for me to see it from there. So I pondered the idea of going elsewhere since it was such a beautiful evening, but wondered if it was already up but just covered by clouds - it was hard to say how thick the cloud cover was in the evening sky. A quick search online showed me that moonrise was anticipated at 10:38pm, about 15 minutes later - that did it, I hopped on my bike and quickly pedalled over to the big climbing tree on Cambie, climbed up to a nice spot in the branches with a view over Vancouver, and scoured the horizon. A few minutes later, a full red moon began to rise out of what looked like a low layer of cloud off to the southwest. I watched from my perch in branches as it grew and grew to a perfect round red disc in the sky. And I watched a little longer and noticed that the top of the disc was disappearing as the moon was slowly swallowed up again - actually it looked more like a goblet being drained as it was consumed by darkness from the top. When it had fully disappeared again, I climbed down and biked for home (I did in fact see it re-emerge a somewhat orangey-er red striped by thin bands of cloud when I was partway home).
And now it is about time for me to join Spatz in slumbering... though hopefully my dreams won't lead to quite as much muscle twitching as his seem to be.
kat
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