Dream Journal #2: My black Shelby

I dreamt about my black Cocker Spaniel, Shelby, last night. She passed away a year and a half ago, on our wedding anniversary actually. To clarify, I specify by saying my 'black' Spaniel because we have a new Cocker Spaniel now, with the same name (by quite an interesting coincidence; a long story for a future post) and she is buff in colour.

And I say ‘my’ Shelby simply because I got her before Shauna and I were married. Shelby immediately accepted Shauna as a new member of her pack, and she transitioned to become ‘our’ dog very quickly after the wedding.

It was one of those ‘feel good’ dreams; the best kind. I awoke with a smile on my face. It was one of those dreams that I fought with my memory banks to actually remember this one. Human RAM memory is ruthless in the way that it erases most traces of dreams in the time it takes to get from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning. I don’t normally keep a dream journal, but I knew this one was a keeper.

In my dream I was with a group of people on the shore of some unidentified body of water. It seemed like we were all setting up for a picnic. Someone asked me where Shelby was and I replied with something like, “She couldn’t make it today.”

Then someone else asked, “Isn’t that her on the shore across the lake?”

I looked in that direction and sure enough, there was a small black canine shape running along the beach. I was elated! I hurried along this side of what seemed like a U-shaped shoreline until I reached a low-height gate. I unlatched and opened it, and Shelby leapt into my arms!

As I looked at myself in the mirror this morning I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face. And why should I, really? Upon recollection of the whole dream I was actually close to tears (happy ones, of course). I knelt down and gave our new Shelby a hearty rub behind the ears until she chortled with contentment. She really is a love bug, that one.

I know many people don't accept that dogs might have souls. I believe they do.

While I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a 'Dog Whisperer', I’ve felt bonds to dogs for as long as I can remember. And as far as I’m concerned, although my black Shelby is no longer living, her spirit definitely is, and a thought or memory of her always makes me smile.

Blackberry season

It’s blackberry season!

I finally made time to go to my secret blackberry patch last evening. I’ve been wanting to go since we got back from our St. John’s vacation 2 weeks ago. I thought perhaps I’d missed the peak of the season this year, especially since the high temperature records were broken at the end of July.

I missed the season entirely last year so it’s been 2 years since I last scratched my arms to bits picking blackberries.

This year is a bumper crop so far. I picked several pounds of berries with the intention of making blackberry ice cream tonight. Now there’s a treat! I like being able to make something that can’t be store-bought. That’s pretty rare these days.

As George Costanza would say,"We're livin' large, Jerry, we're livin' large!"

Bike path

Riding home from work this afternoon I came across this new symbol on the asphalt bike way just this side of Boundary Road.

Is “Cirque du Soleil” in town? It appears that only people that can walk from the seat to the handlebars while balancing on a bicycle with no pedals or chain are permitted to use this lane.

If that's the case, this path will be more under-used than the HOV lanes in rush hour. ;-)

Canada Line

I had an opportunity to ride the new Canada Line on Cambie today. Afterwards, I was coming up the stairs from the train to catch the bus at King Ed and 33^rd. I looked up from the stairs and read a sign that simply said “Way Out”. It struck me as some sort of flash card from Sesame Street. Hmmm. Better not confuse that with “Far out”.

What ever happened to “Exit”? If Vancouver is hosting the world in under six months for the Olympics shouldn’t we be using universal signage? Is someone with marginal English going to know what “Way Out” means? I know it’s pretty obvious if you’re climbing the stairs after getting off the train, but I really think “Way Out” is a bit casual. It just seems odd.

I would have photographed the sign itself to add another source of media to this post, but then I recalled all the hullabaloo I’ve heard recently about the Transit Authority asking riders to report anyone they see photographing transit infrastructure. Security, security, security doncha know.

Don’t get me started.

Stormy summer weather

Talk about perfect vacation timing! A week and a half ago we were in St. John’s enjoying higher than seasonal temperatures, and this weekend the Maritimes, and of course including St. John’s, is bracing for land fall of the tail end of Hurricane Bill, the first hurricane of the 2009 season. Winds speeds on land are expected to reach 120 km/h and waves could be as tall as 8 meters. Yikes! The worst storm surges are likely to occur Monday on the Avalon peninsula, which is exactly where we spent our holiday.

And Southern Ontario hasn’t got it any better. A tornado ripped through some communities near Toronto last night.

It’s really been the summer of wild weather when you remember that Vancouver had that record heat for a few days in July, and a Winnipeg-style lightning storm a month or so ago.

Being a photography enthusiast, I’m still miffed that I missed out capturing on (digital) film that fantastic sunset just before the lightning storm.

We had gone to see an afternoon movie (“Moon”, it’s great, go see it!) and as we were going down the stairs in Tinseltown I could see that the concrete driving aisles in the parkade were wet. No big whoop, I thought. We didn't bring umbrellas but we’re only driving from the underground parkade straight home to our garage. We’re not going to get wet, which we didn’t.

But.













I missed probably the best photographic opportunity since the snow accumulations of last winter (I took the two photos above at Spanish Banks last summer when smoke from Northern California forest fires drifted into the Vancouver area). The atmosphere just seemed to glow. I imagined this must be what it would be like to travel on the surface of Mars. I could have parked anywhere along Main or Quebec Streets to take photos, but, logically, when one goes to a movie, there’s really not that much point in bringing a still camera. Although if it had been winter and I had been wearing a jacket, I probably would have had the camera stashed in my pocket. Just in case.

Often times you get the best shots in situations where you least expect them, which is exactly what happened on the evening of the spectacular orange, other-worldly sunset that preceded the prairie-style lightning storm.

To end on a positive note, I did get home in plenty of time to grab a lawn chair and sit under the protection of our partially covered deck to watch the phenomenal lightning dance in the Western sky for an hour or so.

I love living here.

Ferryland. Day Two.

This is another except from our recent August trip to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Before we embarked on this trip Shauna put in a request for information to the Newfoundland Tourist Bureau regarding places to go and people to see. I reviewed the Visitors’ Guide on the plane, but after awhile all the names and places kind of gelled together and it became hard to focus on specifics. We had a basic framework of what we wanted to see, but we were adamant that we wanted to remain flexible, because sometimes the places you least expect to visit leave you with the most vivid memories of a vacation.

At breakfast on Day Two, Kimberly, our host at Balmoral B&B, suggested we visit Ferryland, which was located about an hour an a half’s drive South of St. John’s. At that point I didn’t even know if the place was Ferryland or Fairyland. Should we be expecting Leprechauns? There are Irish roots aplenty in NL, after all. The Irish Loop signs alongside the roads of the Avalon Peninsula attest to that.

We drove off not really knowing what to expect. I pulled into the Tourist Centre in Ferryland to look around as a group led by a tour guide was just leaving the lobby. We quickly paid our admission fees and joined them.

As it turns out the Avalon Colony that settled here dates back to the mid-1600’s. The current archeological dig that is on-going here started about 20 years ago because people kept finding bits and pieces of pottery and assorted artefacts. There have already been about one million artefacts uncovered with no end in sight. We saw stone foundations for houses, stone-lined drainage systems, the original cobblestone main street, the central well and the blacksmith foundry. Items as diverse as iron nails, gold rings and a chunk of a head stone have been unearthed.

There was also a woman dressed in period costume giving a demonstration in a reconstructed 1600’s kitchen of what daily routine domestic life would have been like. It could have been Mary Walsh herself. I recorded a 3 minute video on my digital camera just so I could recall later some of the colourful Newfoundland expressions.

I will dutifully note here that up to this point in the day I had still not seen a Leprechaun.

The second half of our adventurous excursion happened almost by as much chance as the first. Probably more so, actually. I had overheard someone mention “lighthouse” in a conversation in the Visitors’ Centre earlier in the day and I retuned there after the archeological tour (and the obligatory trip through the gift shop) to ask if there indeed was a lighthouse close by.

A short drive down a one lane gravel road farther along the peninsula got us to a small parking lot overlooking a bay swarming with sea birds. “Authorized vehicles only beyond this point.” Armed with both film and digital cameras we set out on foot, not exactly sure what we would find.

Remember that scene from the Wizard of Oz where the troup is skipping along the Yellow Brick Road and all of a sudden around the bend appears a castle? I hope I have my fantasy movies correct because that’s how I remember that scene. Regardless of correct filmography that’s the image I had in my head as we emerged from the small scrub pine trees to discover a well maintained light house, complete with a bright red tower.

We had passed a sign located not far from where we had parked the truck that said “Lighthouse Picnics” with an arrow pointing down the trail through the trees. It hadn’t really registered at the time.

We walked up to the lighthouse to see a couple of couples sitting on plaid blankets; one couple was eating food from a wicker basket while the other had a little flag pounded into the ground in front of them beside the blanket. My first guess was that the pattern on the flag, since I wasn’t familiar with it, was the coat of arms from the province the people were from.

As it turns out picnics are available for purchase from the lighthouse. Full lunch meals can be ordered, as well as afternoon snacks. Shauna fell in love with this idea immediately and we placed our order for freshly baked sliced bread (baked on the premises! It smelled like my Grandmas’s kitchen from when I was a kid), pads of real butter, thick slices of white cheddar cheese, cake for dessert, and coffee with fresh cream. You choose a blanket, pick your ocean view near the lighthouse, plant your flag, and someone delivers your food right to the blanket. Now how many times have you ever done that?

To top it off we saw a couple of whales swim by off the coast, easily identified by the plumes of water sent skyward by their blow holes.

It was a very satisfying day overall. Little did we know it wasn’t over yet. As we approached our truck at the parking area I could see a small group of people gathered by the top of the cliff edge pointing towards the bay. Sure enough, more whales. Very likely the same ones we’d seen on the other side of the point while we ate. I got photos this time, although in order to really see anything in the water I had to enlarge the pictures in Photoshop when I got home to Vancouver.

Again, no Leprechauns.

I'se the b'y that builds the boat...Day Three

I’se the b'y that builds the boat

An’ I’se the b'y that sails her

I’se the b'y that catches the fish

An' takes ‘em home to Liza.

I didn’t get the first few words of this folk song at the beginning but as it turns out, a couple of other words could be substituted for “b'y”. “Guy” or “boy” would suffice to give sense to it.

Once you know that it’s hard to think there was ever a time you didn’t understand this fisherman’s song.

This is one of the folk songs that Loyola O’Brien, our boat tour guide, sang to all aboard yesterday as we embarked on a whale/Puffin sighting excursion from Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. At certain times of the year this tour would include icebergs too, but alas, not in August.

Bird Island (as it's known) actually reminded me a bit of Vancouver in terms of far too many birds competing to live on the same small piece of real estate. Apparently postal code envy exists in birdland, too. Who knew?

Loyala explained that there were even a handful of birds nesting on that cliff side that were direct descendants of the Dodo, but I couldn’t locate where he had pointed. I don’t remember the name either, but trust me, he did say it!

Newfoundland Adventure. Signal Hill. Day One.

Our first summer trip in 3 years is finally upon us. Newfoundland was our choice of Maritime destinations. Over the last few years we’ve traveled many places in BC and the Pacific Northwest (including a drive to San Francisco). We’ve been to the interior of BC, Vancouver Island, the Prairies as far as Winnipeg, and Toronto, with a side trip to Manhatten in the Big Apple.

Being the dedicated dyed-in-the-wool Canadians that we are, we opted to continue our exploration of our home and native land this summer. We’re big fans of Newfoundland comedy (22 Minutes, Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, the Rick Mercer Report, etc.) and we’ve always heard glowing accounts of Newfoundlanders hospitality, so it seemed like a no-brainer that that’s where we’d go.

And of course, a seat sale on Air Canada didn’t hurt either for that last little tug in the direction of The Rock.

We flew out of Vancouver at 8 a.m. and it was sunset by the time we were airborne on the 3rd and final leg of our journey. The moon out the starboard window made for an interesting collage with the wing tip and the soft glow of the night sky. Two minutes after this photo was taken we were in a cloud bank that extended into St. John’s.
















Balmoral B&B is a rather stately-looking structure with a nice view from our 3rd floor suite of the inner harbour. We can look straight out into the Atlantic. This experience makes for a full circle from a hiking trip we took with friends some years ago to the NW tip of Vancouver Island to a place called Cape Scott where we drove to the end of a logging road, hiked in about 45 minutes and camped on the open beach with nothing but water between us and Japan.


OK, well technically Hawaii was in the middle there somewhere, but when you consider the vastness of the Pacific Ocean compared to the insignificantly small amount of land area that makes up Hawaii…well, I calls’ em as I sees’ em.

The B&B photo shows our rental SUV in front of the building. That SUV was supposed to be an economy car, by the way. I guess there is a silver lining to getting in to your destination at 10:15 p.m. tired and weary from a 9-1/2 hour journey. The clerk at the rental car agency told us all the economy cars were already gone; all that was left was a brand-new Ford Escape. And I mean brand new; there are only four thousand and something clicks on the odometer. A colleague at work has one and I have still to hear a discouraging word about it, so I’ve been wanting to test drive one for a while now.

Attempting to thwart the onset of jet lag we decided to stick close to St. John’s on our first full day. At the complementary continental breakfast this morning our host, Kimberly, told us about how easy it was to get to Cabot Tower on the hill overlooking the entrance to the inner harbor. There are lots of trails and stairs for exploring this National Historic Site but you can drive right to the top.
















There is also a mile post with distances listed to various worldwide destinations. It’s a stark comparison to think that this 500 year old European (non-Viking) settlement can now inform visitors as to the direction and distance to so many points within our new global community.





















It’s really quite humbling to consider how far humankind has come in 500 years. I look out into the Atlantic from the safety and security of modern Signal Hill and wonder what type of explorer it must have taken to accept the challenges of sailing West without even a generally accepted agreement that the world wasn’t flat! Now I can get from the West to East coast of such a huge land mass as Canada in about nine hours, give or take a flight connection or two.

Despite a few aches and pains from sitting too long during transit, and a bit of jet lag weariness, this trip has begun well. I’m glad we came.

Indian Arm

Shauna’s parents were in town recently from Winnipeg and they treated us to a boat cruise up Indian Arm. None of us had been to that region before, mainly because most of Indian Arm is only accessible by boat.

I guess if you had a 4x4 or a dirt bike you could get to some of the residences via forestry roads, but for most people with their city cars it’s marine access only.


I spent most of the trip on the deck taking photos. After a while
I began to think I was being anti-social but my family knows I’m a bit of a photography nut.






This is a BC Hydro sub-station on the East shore that dates back to 1903. It used to be powered by water that was piped down the slope from Buntzen Lake. I had no idea it was even there.

Heat update

Everyone was all hopped up about how hot it was on Wednesday.

Well...guess what?

It got even hotter on Thursday; 34.4 degrees Celcius registered at the airport in Richmond, which oddly enough is the official reading for Vancouver.

I mentioned how much cooler it was in our basement in my last post. I took the thermometer from the deck and put it downstairs for a while. It read 25 C. Under normal conditions that's pretty warm, but when the deck is 37 and main floor of the house is 33, 25 seems very cool indeed.