St. Paul's Hospital Lighting

Just back from a lovely early evening celebration on Burrard Street. Here's a video of the hospital lighting that took place on Friday evening just before 7. Photos as well!

Shore Bird Invasion!

Has anyone been down to Kits Beach over the last couple of days? There's an abundance of shore birds hanging right near the stairway down to the water. And thousands, I might add! Here's a few photos taken this morning (in the rain), of the lovely Goldeneyes and Surf Scoters (looking like a distant relative of the puffin, with their unique large orange and yellow beaks)!

Shooting in our Hood

4th and Trafalgar, site of Quattro's on 4th, is a bit too close for comfort for a shooting. Strangely enough, Ad was sound asleep on Saturday night when it all happened. As I'd been away down in Orange County, I knew about it first via internet (was just poking around the Vancouver Sun website to see if our strike had ended by some chance). The restaurant is undergoing renovation this week and I suppose in a stroke of excellent timing, this gives their staff some needed recovery time.

Two people dead in THIS area? Scary times.

Lost in Space

Haven't written much here lately. Why, you may ask? I too have entered the vortex that is Facebook last month, and since then, have been writing friends, lost contacts, potential clients, you name it, over at that end of the e-way. This Facebook is certainly growing by leaps and bounds, and the Vancouver network is already up to over 386,000 members as I write this.

Pretty basic, the younger you are, the more online friends you'll probably have. A high percentage of my online buds are under 35. The over-40 crowd is seemingly either busy with family/career, or just not hooked up as of yet. It's quite the time-filler, heading over in the morning and seeing what everyone's up to in their own way (video, Wall, photo albums, status). I'd heard rumours that the company was facing being shut down due to an ownership issue of the actual product, but that was already a few weeks past.

As for Vancouver news, well, the BIG STRIKE of 07 is still glaring us right in the face. Garbage keeps piling up in the alleyways, the gorgeous outdoor pool here in Kits sits closed and filled with seagulls (such a shame on a day like today, with a mild breeze and temperatures around 25C). The library book that I'd reserved is in eternal transit hell, as the strike started one day prior to the book being ready at Kits Library. Wondering if I'll see that book at all this season! More importantly, when will the madness end??!?

Greetings from a sunny Kitsilano balcony,

Ariane C

Here's the Scoop

Now it's finally been revealed to me what is coming to the former Book Warehouse location on West 4th: a Reitman's clothing store, opening end of August. The news came to me via one of the workers inside busy tearing down what was left of Scoop, open just long enough to irritate, in between the Book's closing and this new retail wonder in our hood.

a weekend of garage sales

We finally took the chance and had our yard sale over the long Canada Day weekend. Weather this year has been too iffy and we'd already had to cancel the sale once last month. Funny to have a woman arrive at 10 am, wanting to make a 3 dollar purchase and offering to pay with a 100 dollar bill! What are people thinking? It's hard enough for a restaurant or shop to cough out change at the start of a day, let alone someone selling off bits and pieces of their closet with coins in their pockets as change! Anyway, it went off without a hitch and by 2, we were ready to donate the rest to our favourite local charity shop in town.

Even more fun was had the following day (Monday) when our neighbours at the end of the street had their sale. The same characters came through and lo and behold, that same lady trying to pay for purchases with that same 100 dollar bill! We have a café right on the corner; I can't imagine how hard it would have been for this lady to have gotten change ahead of time?

Has anyone else tried their hand at getting Chris Cornell tickets via the Molson Golden cell phone blitz? My phone's been ringing daily with the chance to arrive early at a (daily changing) Granville Street bar, in order to get the CHANCE to win a pair! I'm thinking it's a thinly-veiled attempt for the Molson folks to get the kids out the door to drink, in hopes of a win. These tickets can not be purchased. The text message system is the only way to get to the particular bar and claim your chance of winning. I'm wondering how badly I wanna see this guy!

Happy belated Canada Day to my Northern friends and readers : )

Spot the Prawn

Only three more weeks to get your hands on these lovely, locally (Sechelt, Sunshine Coast) caught spot prawns. Find the boat on the dock, just opposite Go Fish; they're still coming in every afternoon until end of June, at which time they'll have the frozen version for sale.

What's the Scoop?

Just wondering if anyone else living close to the West 4th corridor has any idea as to what's on the horizon for the former Book Warehouse space, now being occupied by Scoop. The shop had had signs up from the start, promising to be around for three weeks. Well folks, it's been well over that time and we're jonesing for a nice new shop to open its doors! What will it be? Another doggie deli? A nail salon? Great eatery? Yoga shop? How about an indy video rental shop, a la Videomatica? Always a curiousity of mine, trying to figure out the next new neighbour on the block.

I'd recently visited the Book Warehouse's new space on West Broadway, now occupying less than half of their old shop space, and they too were given no indication from the landlord as to what was coming there. Hopefully it won't prove to be an ongoing shlock shop kind of rent-a-space thing. This is prime real estate for the Kits 4th Ave. scene; should be something worthy!!

Speaking of worthy, not to wear my fellow Canucks fans down, but those Ducks really did perform this playoff series, and won a very well-deserved Cup last night! It was truly Teemu time - he's the oldest player in this past final series. Congrats to Scott Niedermayer who won the Conn Smythe MVP Award, and now may California wake up and smell the marvelous world of hockey. Finally.

Spot On

Hope all local Vancouverites have the chance to check out this weekend's Spot Prawn Festival! If you think the lineup at GoFish is bad on weekends, today was just insane! Here, a link to festival info.

Photos: the two little dark pinkish spots to the right of that chef's thumbnail are the trademark 'spots' of the Spot Prawn (click on photo to enlarge for detail).

Chefs, from L-R: John Bishop of Bishop's on 4th, Vikram Vij of Vij's on Granville, and Robert Clark of C.

O.W.L. Visit and Centennial Beachlife

This weekend is the Annual Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (OWL)'s Open House. For one weekend, the public gets an up-close view of the many raptors, owls, eagles, hawks and vultures taken in from the wild, sheltered and brought back to life. The owls looked quite disturbed in their daytime sleep, having humans gawking at them all day. Apparently at night, similar species come to visit their own and even breed in the area! It was quite amazing to get so close to a Red-winged Hawk and Bald Eagle. The Snowy Owls were beautiful as well as the long-eared and short-eared Owls. There was also a fundraiser Garage Sale and Kiwanis on hand to cook up some BBQ lunch in a trailer on the grounds.

The weather was so gorgeous, we continued with our day to a nearby nursery, selling plants for one month only at wholesale. We picked up a couple of plants and headed South to Tsawwassen, making a lunch stop and enjoying our first Timmy's iced cappucino of the season. We then headed over to Centennial Beach, at the end of Boundary Bay Regional Park. Lots of shell life and beautiful driftwood hugging the bay, with views out to all surrounding mountain ranges, and just over the landscape to the right, the USA.

Tasty Tomato

I've been enjoying Kitsilano Typepad's newest and grooviest restaurant opening alerts for some time now. They may or may not have yet seen the newest great add to come to our 'hood, Tomato Fresh Food Café, opening this summer, taking over Mark's Fiasco on Bayswater near Broadway!

Can't wait for THIS wonderful place to make its presence known in Kits.

Stroller Jogging

Kitspace is back from a restful visit to the Pacific Rim of the world…

Now it's been a while since I've been at the beach during midday, but today my eyes greeted me with quite the sight: about 15 women with strollers jogging along Kits Seawall near the pool! All at once they came jogging on by in a large group, all in sunglasses and workout gear. Go moms! Something for CZarina perhaps?

Worth the Plug

A great little piece of theatre is out at the moment, Hippies and Bolsheviks. The play takes place in 60's Kitsilano, with West 4th being the focal point of the hood. I didn't know until seeing the play that the street was infamously referred to as Rainbow Road back in the day. The play is on for a few weeks, first on Granville Island at Performance Works, then moving East to Burnaby's Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. The play starts off post-Led Zeppelin show in a hippy Kits apartment, and it takes off from there!

As hockey season starts to head into its last few weeks, we're all busy wondering if the Canucks will continue to hold onto a high enough spot on the totem pole to (continue to) make it into playoffs! Bertuzzi traded to the Red Wings? Smyth now moved East to the Islanders??!! Watching an Oilers game won't be the same again methinks…

Ariane C

Passengers

As I cycled early this morning along Spanish Banks, I came upon the crashed airplane movie set that I'd only heard about in recent days. The crew were actually busy dismantling it, and as I had a camera with me, I took the opportunity to get up close and personal with a plane crash.

What's being filmed? An upcoming drama called "Passengers" starring Anne Hathaway of "The Devil Wears Prada", and "Princess Diaries", amongst others. She's also starting to film Get Smart and will star as Agent 99!

So here, my faraway readers (at least those residing outside Vancouver) are a few snaps of the scene. It'll be interesting to see them shoot the film's upcoming train crash scenes (rumoured to start filming soon in one of the North Van CN yards). According to a production staff woman I spoke with there, filming at CN railyards is a logistical nightmare.

Amazingly enough, the rain still hasn't arrived. It's made for an early start out today and at 3 in the afternoon, it's already starting to feel like closer to dinner time. Tonight's the big (Anaheim) Ducks vs. (Vancouver) Canucks game. Can't wait.

Ah, Back in the Sea

With mild temperatures and dry weather (for now), I headed to Granville Island this morning to get back into the Telkwa Sport model kayak I so much missed these past couple of months. Many cormorants back from their migration and an eagle hovering above me made the couple of hours all the more enjoyable. As heavy rain is on forecast for tomorrow, I'm thinking of heading indoors to the Outdoor Adventure Show at BC Place.

What's so nice about this city is that one moment you can be out on the bike headed to a paddle, the next moment on a bus headed downtown. I'll never tire of all the things going on here in any one particular day! After The Police spent a week up in North Van rehearsing for the recent Grammy Awards Show in LA, they've now decided to tour after all these decades! The tour is set to start in Vancouver, end of May. TIckets are already on sale 'by bid' and Ticketmaster officially opens to the public tomorrow morning. I'm thinking the show will sell out within an hour and they'll end up adding a date. A visit to Ticketmaster's website confirms what I thought I might find: ticket prices anywhere from 60 upwards to over 250 bucks CDN. Craig's is already starting to pop up with adverts - people selling tickets for 350 a piece! When I think of a one year kayaking pass costing that much, it's hard to consider going to the show. There was as great article about the group in last week's Georgia Straight if anyone caught it : )

Happy weekending, and Happy Chinese New Year - Gung Hei Fat Choy! That would be this Sunday…

Ariane C.

Rained Out

With the rainy weather we've had lately, we didn't expect to be RAINED out up at Cypress Mountain last Sunday! Heading out in the early hours, we headed up that road again in anticipation of new SNOW. We kept climbing but the tree line remained green the entire way up. This didn't look like our last trip up! Once we made that turn into the cross country parking area, we realized that the rain was well, staying RAIN. And really coming down! Many devotees of the sport were unpacking their gear out of their cars and heading up to the ticket office despite this nasty weather.

We decided to head over to the downhill skiing area just slightly further up the road, but alas, the situation was carbon copy of ours. Many skiiers and boarders were also packing out of their cars, though we HAD seen several cars heading back down while we were headed up. We'd hoped to ski on Valentine's Day, a nice quiet weekday but the rain is due to stay in the area through the coming week. Anytime the temperatures are about 5 and higher and there's rain down HERE, it's a good bet then that the snow won't be coming down in the local mountains either. We'd forgotten just how cold it had been last month, in order to produce all that snow! (Yes, Easterners, we're complaining of the -8 at night cold, which doesn't do justice to the word, I know).

Now that I've gotten into a running groove 3x a week, wouldn't you know it, my left heel has acted up again after so many years sitting dormant in its safe (heel spur) state. I went to the podiatrist this week and was prescribed anti-inflammatory meds and a 'take it easy' warning - I did head out today for a fast walk just to keep the rhythm up, but my left foot is not happy.

And to top it off, I received a friendly letter in the mail today from my physiotherapy office, talking about getting back in shape by running; their injury topic of the month? Plantar fasciitis! How ironic is that!

Am headed out tonight to witness a performance of Audio Cubes over at Video In. Looks unique, this interactive set up of modular plastic cubes being set to music.

Just heard on the 6 o'clock evening news: Vancouver ranks last in cities in America AND Canada as far as police response time. Lucky us eh! Not enough police officers is the reason being given. Average wait time = 34 minutes. Pizza can be delivered faster.

just a lovely week

Busy as I was this week with various theatre volunteering, comped shows and comings and goings, I managed to enjoy the sunshine that seems to prevail to this very moment, in our fair city. The Bald Eagle seems to enjoy sitting atop the large totem pole by the Maritime Museum lately. I've caught a glimpse of him twice during my recent runs along the Seawall. It's quite the BC picture, viewing a tall hand-carved landmark totem pole with the eagle on top. Perhaps a nest is not too far off in the future for this lovely winged creature. Several friends in the area have noticed the nest close to the Coast Guard Station is back this year.

Bio Boxes at Video In seems to be a raging hit right now as part of PuSh Fest. The entire run of show is sold out. I am hoping for a few 'box' performances tomorrow afternoon, if there's a cancellation anywhere in there. I also got into a matinee of Up Island at the Stanley, a humourous look at Van Island small town life. Finally got myself in there after all these months of living in Vancouver!

As part of Dine Out Vancouver, Ad and I hit a few restaurants lately for their tasting menus, priced at 25 and 35 dollars, depending on what the restaurant wants to hit you with on your bill. Trafalgar's Bistro was lovely, our fish superb, but for 14 dollars a glass of wine, I've finally hit the shock and awe stage of wine by the glass prices here in Canada. This, for a half glass of Burrowing Owl Pinot Noir. Now, I haven't hit BC Liquor lately to check on the bottle price, but as tasty as it was, surely 14 bucks is something out of this world to pay.

Other than that, more theatre on the menu this weekend, as Aalst is on tonight at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Let's hope for a gorgeous continuation of this weather. Although most will be indoors on Sunday for the Super Bowl, we'll be testing our endurance on the (somewhat flat) cross-country slopes of Cypress. I was in Sigge's today for a short while to look at gear. I overheard a woman trying on ski boots talking about being torn apart by the agonizing "shall I paddle" or "shall I ski" today question. Oh if only to enjoy life in this manner of style! But alas, yours truly is busy working on several projects' fruition at the moment, and if a few of those materialize, it should make for a busy but productive move into Spring.

Theatre's Been Great This Week!

To add to the ATSA Art Attack Kill Your SUV post and photos, I must say that I was really blown away by yesterday's matinee performance of Skydive! An amazing performance with two men suspended by a pole/harness combination that kept them in the air for the duration of the performance. Amazing to discover that one of the actors is wheel-chair bound as well. His apparatus took a bit more research, but this performance, along with a brilliant storyline, is quite worth heading out to Yaletown's Roundhouse Community Centre for! Also wonderful was the Famous Puppet Death Scenes at VECC. Well done, Old Trout Puppet Workshop!

Next up, volunteering this coming Tuesday for the Canuck Children's Hospice (that will include watching the Canucks battle it out against the Columbus Blue Jackets), and Thursday working at Video In for the PuSh Festival's performance of Bio Boxes. Friday night taking in a show of the Belgian theatre group Victoria performing Aalst. And then on Sunday, Ad and I will take to the slopes of Cypress again for cross country skiing, part two.

Signing off,
Ariane C

ps - that new shop Sand, at Cornwall and Yew is a well-thought out shop, but bring a heavily-loaded wallet with (they sell Gsus clothes too)!

Kill Your SUV

or better yet…burn it!

This past Friday, I volunteered at PuSH Festival for ATSA, a Montreal-based environmental group who'd exploded an SUV about five years ago in order to make the environmental statement du jour: SUV's guzzle too much gas, ruin the environment, are unsafe to drive, and the war in Iraq helps keep the oil machine well-tuned.

I had the chance to meet the husband and wife team of artists, Pierre Allard and Annie Roy, while they were busy installing the Vancouver Art Gallery piece in time for the evening's Fuse festivities.

1/5 Pavement, 1/3 Sleater-Kinney

What a wonderful performance by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks last night at Richards on Richards. In tow was the phenomenal ex-drummer of Sleater-Kinney, Janet Weiss. Looking pretty much the same since we saw Sleater-Kinney last at Amsterdam's Paradiso (the smaller and more intimate of the two halls, Kleine Zaal). The band performed a handful of new tunes, as they're busy in the studio cooking something up that should be released soon, according to the woman at the counter selling their four CD's.

Can't wait to see the upcoming Sebadoh performance there on March 3rd, featuring the original Barlow-Loewenstein-Gaffney lineup. I'm imagining it will be even more packed in Richards than last night's show. Many faithful fans up front just soaking it in!

On another note, I'll be attending a rather interesting piece of theatre next Saturday night, called Famous Puppet Death Scenes, at the Van East Cultch Centre. Am also partaking as a volunteer in Attack #15, which will feature a blown-up sports utility vehicle. The Montreal-based L'Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable's way of heightening public awareness of these gas-guzzling, power-hungry vehicles, in their words. Check out Push Festival for all theatre performances. I'm equally looking forward to the Belgian produced "Aalst" and the Vancouver premiere of "Skydive", coming up later in the month…

The slush fest is thankfully over, as Vancouver is back to 'just our normal rainy weather'. Yesterday while walking on West 4th close to the Naam I literally saw the following: a man wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, shorts, light vest and leather sandals with NO socks. This in snow/sleet freezing cold weather! Polar bear dressed as a human perhaps? What gives??! I'm in a winter coat with hat and gloves here, while this man can tolerate 0 C damp snow!