My First AF Birthday

Although today was my birthday, I decided that I wouldn’t take the day off, and we’d celebrate over the weekend. So, after breakfast with Pam (and a very cute card and her own Happy Birthday wishes), I headed into work, equipped as usual. By this I mean, pre-iPhone nerd attire: On the left side of my waist, my Treo smart phone in its beat-up holster. On my right, my iPod in its carrying case, white earphones draped over my shoulder. Both are attached to my belt, and like some gunslinger in the old West, I’m flanked by metal over each hip. Indeed, if I did have have an iPhone, I would have had only one device attached, but I’ll leave that for a future posting.

After I got to work, the little alarms on my Treo started.

I’ll back up. I’m on Facebook. It’s hard to find many people who aren’t these days, as even the most die-hard technophobes seem to have fun on the service. For a somewhat extroverted geek like yours truly, it’s a blast. There’s an option on Facebook to have the site send your cell phone a text message when someone sends you a message or ‘writes on your wall’, a free text field on your own profile page of Facebook. Usually I get 1 or 2 messages a week, or perhaps a few more. Never enough to become a nuisance, so I’ve kept this notification setting on.

I had a busy day, with a few meetings and deadlines to work toward. Nevertheless, all day, every half hour or so, my Treo would vibrate (I set it on vibrate when at work so as not to interrupt meetings). About 30 friends sent me birthday greetings of some sort via Facebook. While I’m not a Facebook junky as some people have admitted that they are (and I rarely check it at work), but even I had to admit that this was a bit unusual.

You might think that I would have been peeved by the steady stream of notifications from my hip, but I wasn’t. We all know that there are times that others think of us. Most of the time we don’t really know for sure. Our ears burn or some friend exclaims ‘I was just thinking of you’, when you call them. But today, I knew that quite a few friends thought of me, perhaps for just a few minutes or so, and wished me a Happy Birthday. Some of them were back in Boston, some were in Japan or San Francisco, and some were here in Vancouver. I have to say that it was really kind of fun getting so many little shout-outs.

So today I experienced my first ‘After Facebook’(AF) Birthday, and it was kind of fun. And to all of those friends who sent me a message today, thanks. I’m thinking of all of you, too.

The PNE and Labour Day Weekend

Last weekend, we paid another visit to the PNE, which is the ‘State Fair’ that is held yearly at the fairgrounds at the corner of East Hastings and Boundary Road. It was our third time, so we knew mostly what we wanted to see and do. The new addition of the Peking Acrobats were a great new attraction; you can’t but be impressed by some of their feats of strength and balance, like the woman who did a perfect handstand on top of 7 chairs stacked on top of each other, with the bottom chair perched on 4 Coke bottles. This year we arrived just as a calf had been born, and got to see the mother cow licking the newborn. We didn’t stay long enough to see it take its first steps, but I’m told they always do within an hour or two. I always like taking pictures of the animals, even if the most exotic thing you typically see is a Llama or Alpaca (and you can spy those along many roads in BC). We did see a Sow nursing a litter of piglets, but fortunately none of them squealed. That needle-sharp piercing cry is my first memory, from the West Virginia State Fair when I was perhaps 3 or 4 year’s old, and it has remained a sound that bothers me to this day. We also saw the impressive Sand Sculpture contest and the Card Stacking champion, and even a ‘Human Fountain’ powered by a bicycle pedal pump.

It was nice to have an extra weekend day, which is how this particular holiday often works out to be. On Saturday, Pam and I took a trip down to Crescent Beach in Surrey, and then the town of White Rock, and had a look at this charming and colourful seaside village. If this is where people are buying up real estate like mad for retirement, I can see the attraction. We had a tasty lunch (steamed mussels and salad for me, a Salmon burger and salad for Pam) and walked up and down the boardwalk, taking in the sun and sea. We went out to the pier and back, and generally just hung around people and place-watching. Pam posed for a photo by the ‘White Rock’ (a Glacial deposit) that is now painted white (but is is very big, to be sure). It was nice not to be on a schedule for a change.

Later, we drove to Point Roberts, which we had also heard of but not seen until now. I have to say that it was a little depressing. Maybe even a little creepy. Point Roberts, for those who are not familiar, is a strange result of the Tsawwassen peninsula of British Columbia extending south, beyond the 49th parallel, creating a small, isolated piece of the USA that you can only reach from Canada. According to the Britishcolumbia.com Website:

Point Roberts is located on the extreme southern tip of the peninsula that defines Boundary Bay’s western shoreline. Visitors must cross the Canada-US border on Point Roberts Road in Tsawwassen to enter or leave the tiny enclave. Except for a steep hill south of Maple Beach, exploring Point Roberts makes for a mostly level, 2-hour tour by bike. The roads blend into one another in a simple rectangular grid and are easy to follow. Whatcom County, Washington, of which Point Roberts is a part, maintains Lighthouse Park, a delightful and often overlooked park at the extreme southwestern point of the mainland. From this windswept point, cyclists are rewarded with some of the best views on the entire Fraser Estuary: Haro Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca as well as the Strait of Georgia open up on three sides.

I don’t know about delightful and overlooked, but we did venture into Lighthouse Park, and found it pretty grim and desolate, with tumbledown wood buildings from the 1970s and a truly awful public toilet. There were a few people there, but it was a big contrast compared with the sunny, populated world of White Rock. The views (a least to the south) were nice, although it had begun to get a bit overcast by the time we got there.


Sunday and today have been far less adventurous. We relaxed and did some errands yesterday, before I made a Risotto with our beloved local Chanterelles, which are at their peak, as well as some amazing Japanese mushrooms from Granville Island including a big (expensive), aromatic Matsutake mushroom, which is like a truffle in its complexity and rarity. Also made a Pumpkin cake, which we brought to Matt and Oana’s ‘movie night’ , where we had some of Matt’s excellent fish chowder and saw Stalag 17, an old Billy Wilder WWII classic that actually came out after the war was over in 1953.

Easter Weekend

Since Pam had Friday off (which makes it Good indeed, in my book, at least), we took a little trip some 25 blocks or so south of us to the VanDusen Botanical Garden, where we met up with Bob, whose comments can be found on this blog, and his postings on Moving to Vancouver. It was a beautiful day, and warm enough to take our jackets off while we all snapped pictures of the surprisingly peaceful refuge in the midst of the city (or at least, one of it’s closer residential areas). By the time we had walked through most of it, I was starving, so we had a big lunch at the Memphis Grill (Pulled-Pork sandwiches, cole slaw, beans and beer - Mmm, Tasty!)
The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We went to one of MJ Ankenman’s Open Houses (a very sophisticated condo that had a nice view, and an even better location: near Smithe and Thurlow, 13th floor). Pam did some shopping and we both did some other errands. As the weekend progressed, the weather got darker, wetter and colder, but those few hours spent in the sunshine on Friday made all of the difference.
In the meantime, we were cheered that the Canucks clinched their division by beating the San Jose Sharks, so they’ll be in the playoffs. Is it possible to imagine a Stanley Cup in this city again? And not a replica either, which their web site shows you how to make…

Welcome to April!

I had my first moment of ‘Oh, right, it’s that day again’ this morning when I followed Tod Maffin’s link to CBC’s new Radio 4.

In the spirit of the day, I want to come clean with something from my past. With all of the hoopla about the Chocolate Jesus Exhibit being cancelled, my parents reminded me of the fact that at my Bar Mitzvah, we did indeed have a (*gasp*) Chopped Liver Butterfly. While this was not a bust of Moses, I believe that’s because the only artist who did that only worked in Halvah. *rim-shot*

Honestly, my Catholic friends, wouldn’t using chocolate wafers for Communion be a lot better than those wafers? Never mind the problem of finding a wine to go with it (I’ve seen some books claim that there is, in fact, no wine that will go with chocolate).

If there are those who are offended by my even mentioning this subject, may I have a little latitude, given the date?

Groundhog Day in Canada

I have to hand it to Tom Allen, the Classical DJ of the CBC’s morning show ‘Music and Company’ (who I’ve praised in past postings): he opened his show this morning with the legendary “I got You, Babe” by Sonny and Cher because that’s how Bill Murray’s character wakes up each morning in the movie Groundhog Day (which I’ve also mentioned in these pages). That photo is actually a frame from the movie, one of the many times Phil Connors is awoken with that duo from the 60s.

What I did not know is that in Canada, they not only have a different groundhog than Punxsatawney Phil, but they actually have 2 of them here, named Wiarton Willie (in Wiarton, Ontario), and Shubenacadie Sam (near Halifax, Nova Scotia). Unlike, Phil, Wiarton Willie is an albino and is a handsome shade of white, which makes him look a little like a little polar bear. Sam is the more typical brown groundhog.

The prediction by all three groundhogs in North America is for an early spring. None of them saw their shadow, which means, according to the Scottish couplet:

If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.

So Candlemas Day, (which is technically a date relative to Christmas but since the date for Christmas is now fixed to December 25, it is now also fixed at February 2) was cloudy where these groundhogs were, so there’ll only be one winter this year.

Frankly, given that groundhogs never had to reckon with Global Warming or any of the changes that this is bringing, if they had predicted a long winter, I doubt if I would have believed them. However, the unanimous verdict by all 3 of a short winter this year is interesting; I’m making a note of it, and if next year and the year after they continue to all predict a short winter, then maybe there’s something to this Annual Rodent Meteorological Forecasting Ritual.

Update: Thanks to Miss604 (who also associates the day not only with the aforementioned animal but also with that Sonny and Cher song) I learned that there are more than just the two groundhogs I mentioned. There’s a whole list of them throughout North America (most of them in the US). From CityNews:

Nova Scotia: Shubenacadie Sam
Brandon, Manitoba: Brandon Bob
Alberta: Balzac Billy
Kleinburg, Ont.: Gary the Groundhog
Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Bill
Marion, Ohio: Buckeye Chuck
St. Louis: Chester
Dunkirk, New York: Dunkirk Dave
West Virigina: French Creek Freddy
Georgia: General Beauregard Lee
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin: Jimmy the Groundhog
Long Island, N.Y.: Malverne Mel
Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Octarara Orphie
Vermont: Peewee, the Woodchuck
Hollis, New Hampshire: Pennichuck Chuck
North Carolina: Sir Walter Wally
Staten Island, N.Y.: Staten Island Chuck
Unadilla, Nebraska: Unadilla Bill

Groundhogs of North America, hope your special day went well. Now you can go back to sleep.