Mostly Main

I came across these wild flowers adjacent to the new bicycle/pedestrian
path close to "Beaucoup Bakery" on Friday.

These "happy" flowers were plastered onto construction site hoarding on Main
Street. They don't do justice to the real thing, although it is a cheery depiction.

The flowers this Spring have been phenomenal.

A new mural on the "Nasty" Market on Main Street.

Tannah surprised us by drinking from a bowl on Main
Street. She's funny that way; most of the time she won't
drink from a strange bowl. I'm guessing she was the
first dog of the day to drink from this one.

This is still kind of a depressing photo for me. It's "Bean Around the World"
at Main at 20th, which of course was demolished last August. 

This is the "Bean" site as of yesterday.

I wonder if the 42 Boutiques Residences will be served by a reincarnation
of the "Bean"? Even so, a new one could never completely recapture
the essence of the old structure. It was a former bank with lots of brick
and hardwood.

And lastly, this final photo ties in with a dream I had recently where a family was viewing what seemed like acres of new cars trying to choose a new one. As the observer in this scenario I couldn't really detect much, if any, difference between the vehicles. And that is indeed odd since I've always been blessed with the completely useless ability to discern minute differences in cars that differentiate one from another. In other words, I'm a car nut.

But in this dream the family did indeed make a selection and a service person drove their newly chosen vehicle from somewhere in the massive lot to where the sales person and the family were patiently waiting. Again, I as the viewer could not see any differences in the acres of vehicles that were presented before me. But obviously they could as they'd made their choice. All I saw was an infinite amount of white SUVs devoid of any identification.

The final step in the process turned out to be the sales rep presenting a cabinet with multiple compartments to the family. The cabinet contained car manufacturer emblems: Ford, Honda, VW, etc. In the end vanity ruled the day and the family chose BMW emblems. Gluing the emblems into the centres of the four wheels proved to be the shining moment of recognition to the casual observer that the SUV in question was indeed a BMW! If Ford emblems had been chosen, the car would have been a Ford.

So, longwindedly as usual, what I'm getting at is that some manufacturer's model lines are so close in appearance the only way to tell them apart is by checking the wheel centre caps, as was so effectively illustrated on Saturday morning as we exited a breakfast restaurant in Burnaby. Two Hyundai Tuscons and a Subaru Crosstrek looked like triplets.

Crossing Etiquette

We bought tickets quite some time ago to attend a concert this summer in Seattle. It's kind of a big deal since we live in Vancouver, BC. I think this'll only be the second out-of-town concert we've attended, with the first being Dave Matthews about 10 years ago at the Gorge (awesome show, BTW!).

Perhaps the trip's been in the back of mind a bit too much since we've had to put in a fair amount of effort to book a hotel room below a somewhat less than stratospheric price level during the peak summer travel season. The stress may have prompted me to dream the other night about our potential border crossing experience. It began not with any sort of greeting, or even "Where are you headed?" or "Where do you live?" None of that. No sooner had my car stopped and I turned my head to address the border officer he blurted out, "So...what do you think of our president?"

Obviously I was completely taken aback. But at the same time my mind was weighing the options of thinking before I responded against letting too much time elapse before I said anything at all. There are pitfalls to both approaches. Do I tell him what I really think and, if he's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican he might easily refuse us access to the USA? Or do I try to placate him with what I think he wants to hear, which is a risk as well because I'd be lying to a border guard. I wouldn't want to test that theory as it might be linked to a substantially worse fate that a U-turn back to Canada (i.e., arrest).

In the end I did the next best thing...I woke up! Some help that was.