National Anthem, Belated

Oh Canada! My home and dah dah dah... I don't know the rest of the lyrics, I'd have to google and I'm way too lazy for that kind of effort. I live here, so that's good enough.

Vancouver likes to celebrate Canada Day with multiple fireworks shows, which reminds me of my hometown's (except 3 days later) Independence Day celebration. On the morning of Canada Day, I was reading the newspaper aloud in the car, citing interesting facts about Canada and its history like it is not as old as the U.S. and that the Queen (Elizabeth II) is the head of state. There was even a quiz to determine one' level of knowledge about Canada as compared to one's knowledge about the U.S. Guess which country we knew more about? Go on, guess. So yeah. I mostly mocked the driver for not knowing insignificant factoids about prominent Americans in history such as Norman Rockwell and Harriet Beecher Stowe. When that got boring, I started reciting absurd questions out of the copy of Zobmondo we keep in the car. My favorite question from the drive was probably either:
1 - Would you rather sweat green liquid or fart blue smoke? or
2 - Would you rather pee out of your nose or poop out of your ear?

Ponder that while you enjoy a few fireworks and leave me a comment with your answers! I'm still having a debate about #2.

Singular


A Big 'Un


Flying the flag at City Hall

Request

Before going on a walk a few weekends ago, I asked a friend what I should shoot. So, here is the biggest tree I could find among the many many trees around the lagoon.

One Tree

Still unpacking and organizing. Wheeeee!

Get with the Times, Man; An Exercise in Venting

Canadian banks are stuck in like 1987. In the unfortunate event that I have to interact with a bank employee, I inevitably walk out of one of my bank's branches thinking, "Seriously, could they just GET WITH THE TIMES ALREADY?"

But I'll get back to that bit. Why do I always get the pre-school dropout kid that has to ask his neighbor at the teller counter everything? Like how to stamp checks? WITH A DATE STAMP. Or how many copies to make of a check before cashing it? ONE. How about if he can just make a quick correction on a money order when he obviously and blatantly wrote the wrong amount on the order? NO YOU CANNOT. Or, by far my favorite, could she just please sign something for him while she's in the middle of dealing with someone? It will only just take a second.

OH NO IT WON'T.

So aside from the absolute idiot behind the counter that I so adore talking with, I have discovered that the rest of the world's banking systems, or at least the ones I know pretty well (American, Austrian, English....) are FAR superior to Canada's. Yay rest of the world! But here in Canada.....

It is not easily possible to wire money to a bank account, even a Canadian one, from the same bank as the transfer originates, even to the same branch...It takes a Bible's worth of paperwork and approximately about a week or more but they can't be more specific because the carrier pigeon might drop some pennies out of the money bag. JUST GIVE ME THE CASH I'LL HAND IT TO THE GUY MYSELF.

It is not easily possible to cash a check. I always get asked when I would like the funds available. Hm, how about now? NO, YOU MUST WAIT for 5 days. WELL THEN DON'T ASK ME.

It is not easy to change my address on my own account. I have to sign like 40 documents and then also, tell the smart teller that he misspelled something on the 40 pages, and the number for the post code was wrong and I can't sign this. And he goes, BUT YOU CAN. He will change it in the computer LATER.

HA HA HA NO.

It is unbelievable that when the account was opened many pieces of important information were not included in the initial paperwork. So changing my address requires me to cough up about 60 pieces of information that I really think they ALREADY HAVE.

Also? Why does my bank ignore like half of the downtown core of Vancouver? NOT ONE branch near where I now live. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

And what the hell is with all the PAPER. We have COMPUTERS now. STOP FILING, COPYING AND PRINTING EVERYTHING. You're KILLING TREES.

And give me back the money order you fucked up. I'll shred that AT HOME MISTER.

I always leave the bank like zees

:|

And sometimes, not even that happy. But my hair, it does stand up perfectly straight on top of my head. Swears.

My Bank Look

AAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD I'm done. Thanks for obliging the hissy fit.

Last pair

This makes me want to go skiing this weekend...

Pause!

Tell me if you can see the skull on the tree!

Tree topper

Remembering the old days, in the cold

Old Man Winter - When will you go away?

Peeking Out
When I was younger, about ten years ago when I was about 10 (work with me here, I'm in denial about my age today), I used to think I was really good at every sport I tried. This isn't necessarily the truth, but faith that what your parents tell you is true can be very convincing. I still contend that my mother making one off hand comment about blue mascara is the ONLY reason I put that crap on my lashes.

Nonetheless, when I was 9 I tried out for and made the travelling soccer team. The season was longer than the local league's season, and we got to go to several exotic places like Sebastopol, Fresno,and Rohnert Park. Yes, I know. WOW, right? Plus, we wore special uniforms and we got to play teams from towns in which we did not live. It was remarkably more fun than I'm making it sound.

Between seasons, however, I was exceedingly bored. So my mother took me to an ice skating rink and dropped me off at the front door. The first couple times she did that, I sat on the curb in front of the entrance and picked at my shoelaces until she came back to get me a few hours later. But one day, it was raining, I had no umbrella, and I'm too precious to get rained on. So, I sat inside on the bench and stared out the window until some scarily thin girl tapped me on the shoulder, scaring me half to death. She told me that if I was going to come inside the building, I either had to skate or fake like I wasn't loitering by going into the rink to watch the skaters. I ended up skating for several years, and taking a lot of lessons. I never got good enough to do more than a single (yes, a full 360) and I dislike spins immensely. Who needs to get all dizzy and fall all over themselves with BLADES attached to their feet? NOT ME, that's who!

It was only recently that I discovered Canadians are awesome. I wish I'd had one of these that first time I hit the ice. I doubt it would have kept me skating, but it would have looked awesome.

Young Lady and Her Walker

Cold, cold, cold snow

I am officially done looking for a new apartment to move into at the end of this month. I have a lease to sign already for one of the places I've already seen. And I'm oh so glad I don't have a fear of heights, as the place is on a very high floor. The skies have turned grey and dreary lately - perfect for spring cleaning! Please enjoy another installment of me attempting to embrace my least favorite season...

Twinkling

Heavy Eaves

Embracing Old Man Winter

In an effort to not be so hot and bothered (HA! FUNNY PUN!) about the long, cold winter, I ventured to the top of a local mountain here to take in the sights and enjoy the entertainment value of all the locals enjoying the snow sports. And the following weekend, I went up to Whistler for a little skiing adventure. Its like I'm trying too hard to embrace the passing season, and sharing it with you just two photos at a time. This is part 1 of about 30. Or really maybe more like 4. Somewhere between 4 and 30.

Faintly Mooned

Tracking Wildlife

Oh Winter, you slay me

I loathe the winter in the Vancouver BC. It is rain and dark skies or snow (Hello? We're at sea level; enough with the damn snow! Go snow on the pretty, pretty mountains.) and of course more dark skies. Occasionally, and by that I mean once a month or so, there may be a day where the dark, gloomy skies part long enough for the sun to actually hit the frosted and frigid ground for an hour or so. At those times, I'm usually wrapped up in 16 layers of blankets and take too long trying to get out from under them to grab my camera and go enjoy the illusion of warmth. Hey, just because the sun is out doesn't mean it warms up above about 3! The irony of the weatherman on the news consistently getting the forecast wrong here is not at all lost on me. But then, I live with an Englishman and I'm ever so slowly attuning myself to sarcasm and irony and the difference thereof.

Supposedly the English Isles enjoy a spot of sunshine, similar to that of the city in which I live. I find it increasingly amusing that the native British Columbians seem to handle the drab rainy weather a fair bit better than the British expats. The city of Vancouver (previously a rainforest) is at the same latitude, or very nearly the same, as Vienna, where I previously lived and enjoyed all 4 of the seasons. Four seasons?! What a novel idea to me when I first arrived there several years ago. Being from sunny and warm (and even hot sometimes) California, I imagined no place on earth had more than one and a half seasons - summer and sort of not summer, but still warm.

Little did I know when I moved to Vancouver that I had no hope of surviving the winter season with any hint of aplomb and or sanity. The drear and the drab and the grey, it slays me. I long for the sunshine and temperatures above freezing. It makes the trees green and the flowers bloom lots, and it also requires one to spend far less money on rain or winter coats. (COAT?! There's no real need for one of those in California.) However, I can totally get into the idea of scarves. Because they rock.

Since the day I moved out of my mom's house, my living spaces have always included plants and greenery. I had a record amount of plants while I was at college - and yes, I had a name for every single one of them. So what if they were all named Fred! I've only let two plants die, and to be fair, I actually was only responsible for one of them. Trust me when I tell you that if you let a friend plant-sit while you go to another country on vacation for a couple weeks that you'd better have said your goodbyes to the plants before you take your leave, just in case you come back to brittle and brown leaves.

Imagine my displeasure then, when I combined my having plants with living in Vancouver, the non-sunniest place on earth, and the state of all of my houseplants declining noticeably without the sunlight over the past few months. I am in a right state. First I have to suffer through the dark days in this city and now? Now look at what I have to face everyday!



I'm bringing them all back to life. Slowly. But they are indeed coming back.

Death by Cuteness

I'm clearing out archives. Can you tell?

Otter, Cute

More written word coming soon.

Mediocrity

Snacking
Snoozing

Seaworld-ly

If it weren't for that decaying fishy smell near all the fresh fish counters at the markets, I'd stand around looking at the poor freezing fishes for hours.

Stacks

Ice Stacks

Day Tripper

From the old photos folder, here's a few I took while we had a friend visiting and went over to the North Shore on the SeaBus. I have a fascination with the SeaBus, so I like to find any excuse to go to the North Shore on the SeaBus.

Parallel

Wake

Skylight

AtAt at Work

Submerged

I feel a little bit like this guy lately - sink or swim!



He's a caiman. And very sweet looking - behind big glass walls.

Under the Sea!

I'm trying to distract myself with the pretty pictures from the aquarium. So help me out, which one of these do you like better?

Spike

Against the Glass

Aquatic Life, again

A couple weekends ago, I made it to the Vancouver Aquarium for the first time after living here for over a year. I know! It only took a year! SO impressive!

I was enchanted by the sea otters. The adorableness with which they swim around and snack on pieces of fish is unmatched by any other living being (in that aquarium) and after a couple weeks, I have nearly stopped reciting "I WANT ONE!" Nearly, but not quite. I never knew that they can break ginormous hunks of ice into edible little pieces and who knew they like frozen water for snacks? And, also? Toys! Those little guys are so smart!

There was one Beluga Whale that made bubble rings to play with, which I consider to also be nearly unbearably cute. He was very good at smashing a bubble ring with his tail, as well. Oh and later? I found out that he's good at splashing everyone standing above the pool! One a rainy day! I'm so sad I wasn't there with all the rest of the wet people. So sad!

Jelly-bean


Crush


Slippery little Fins

Weekend Recap

I'm a big visitors fan. Especially the kind that make you coffee in the morning...

Bah dah bum.

Name the movie that quote comes from and you win a cookie! (Or a slice of banana bread - the kind with bourbon. Ooooh yum!)

Walkies

So we've taken a lot of walks around Vancouver, wandered through a bit of Stanley Park and some parts of Second Beach, dawdled about in the shops on Granville Island, and ventured across to North Vancouver, all the while taking pictures of random things around the city. I have discovered that flip flops are not exactly good walking shoes, but hey, they are easy. I forgot about how much I liked cooking and baking so the nightly dinners and the random loaves of banana bread have been a nice reminder that good food need not be gotten at restaurants.

Its been a great weekend! And it definitely helped that I got out of work very early on Friday and today was Labor Day - the day on which I did no laboring!

After the Show

Last Wednesday was the third night of the Vancouver Celebration of Lights which was China's submission to the competition. Sadly, I was pretty late getting home and I only caught a few minutes of the show from the north side of downtown, which is to say I was nowhere near the actual fireworks. So I took a few shots through some buildings and they're up on flickr. On the walk home, I used some railings and pillars in the place of actually carrying a tripod because, well, I'm lazy and I didn't think about taking the tripod when I was running out the door 5 minutes before the show started. I think they turned out alright...

East

West

I'm very stable, I assure you. However, this post will cast some doubts.

Every vacation should start with a frenzy. Frenzy of the realization that the packing should have already started and then a frenzy of the realization that the washer and dryer need to be used in order to get any clothes in the suitcase. Once the first few hours of crazy have worn off, I like to get into what I call "organization" but what some of you may call "Kirsten's very severe case of OCD" or quite possibly "her way or the highway, bucko". This whole process involves the mental checklist, which in reality is started before the purchase of the ticket has been completed. But that is neither here nor there. So. We have the washer going and the dryer going, we have the checklist being recited silently with the internal monologue voice and then we have the organization. The folding of the clothes into piles. The piles are stacked on the bed and the stack generally is color coordinated. Now, there are some things that don't stack well. Socks and unmentionables all stack horribly so they go into a mound of fabric. Which is perfectly fine and doesn't make my eye twitch at all. Ever. Also, I must point out that it is difficult to color coordinate a mound of fabric, although the lack of color coordination for this mound of fabric does make my eye twitch and I may start stuttering or fidgeting.

As the hours tick by, the sense of urgency exponentially increases. I become an absolute joy. I answer no questions, I run around like a chicken with my head cut off, I ask incomplete questions and remark on things with incomplete sentences. I am in no way distracted from my task of LEAVING THIS PLACE. That checklist is poking me in the back of the eye to make sure I don't forget ANYTHING. Because there are places in the world that I go to regularly that OBVIOUSLY do NOT sell anything I could possibly forget - like toothpaste or deodorant or perfume (WHO doesn't want to buy new perfume while on vacation, especially one that involves a trip through duty free in the airport? WHO!?).

So all this "normalcy" carries on for at least 12 hours prior to the excursion to the airport - the excursion for which I am never on time. Ever. I try. I really do. I try to make it on time and allow for the whole recommended time of arrival prior to an international or domestic flight, whichever is applicable. I can see why someone might need two full hours to get from the front of the international terminal to the gate, but I fail to acknowledge that I would need the time. So the airport is still more of me being pleasant. However, I do watch my P's and Q's and finish sentences. All of the airport employees are Sir'd or Ma'am'd - especially those security folk - and I take as little time as possible to get through the metal detector in case someone behind me might be just as late or later than me for their flight. All in all, I end up sitting at the gate for at least 20 minutes before they start boarding and then I have to sit down and ... NOT DO ANYTHING, which of course I can't handle because OH MY GOD my eye is still twitching about the mound of multicolored fabric on my bed that I crammed into my suitcase like AN HOUR AGO, OKAY!? And then, they start the boarding and I wait until everyone, or damn near, is already on the plane and then I walk through the gate all calmed and relaxed and NOT STRESSED OUT (with a cup of coffee from a nearby Starbuck's).

This. This is the way to start a trip.

Beginning Flight Sequence
Taken on May 22, 2007, 1:05pm
Freehand, 1/2000s, f/4.00, 70mm, ISO 100

Look! Over there!

I'm trying very hard not to notice that Monday is coming up pretty quick. And then I'll actually have to talk to people everyday. Yay. So I'm distracting myself with sorting and organizing and cleaning since it seems to be reverting to winter outside. At one time there was sunshine and pretty weather here. Proof:

Tri-Colored
Taken on May 15, 2007,3:22pm
Freehand, 1/200s, f/8.00, 104mm, ISO 100

Leftovers

Two shots left in the upload directory. And I took them so long ago that I don't even remember why I wanted to post them. Take that!

Not a Bird Feeder
Taken on April 16, 2007, 6:35pm
Freehand, 1/640s, f/5.60, 250mm, ISO 800

Bird!
Taken on April 16, 2007, 6:35pm
Freehand, 1/4000s, f/5.60, 300mm, ISO 800

I was using the rented lens.