How hot is it?

After experiencing a rare electrical storm last Saturday - something that only happens every 5 years or so - yesterday we had the hottest day ever on record for Vancouver: 36 degrees Celsius or so. It's noon and 29 degrees Celsius right now, which feels like 35 degrees Celsius with the humidity, and it will get hotter this afternoon. The average for this time of year is 23 degrees Celsius, and we consider that a nice hot summer day.

I'm melting.

Vancouver is now populated by zombies. Forget the flesh-eating, slow-moving un-dead, we now have the cold-drink-guzzling, slowest-moving-ever, sleep-deprived, not-enough-energy-to-argue humans.

I want to shave my head.

Hair in Vancouver is limp and drenched with sweat. The bags under everyone's eyes, the sweat under their armpits, and the cold drink sweating in their hands is the defining mark of a Vancouver resident today.

BRB, I need to get some water.

It was 40 degrees Celsius on our balcony yesterday afternoon, it's enclosed, but we had the windows wide open. If there had been any air movement, it would have moved through, but there wasn't, so it didn't. The basil may have given up. The dill, coriander, and chervil have gone to seed. The mint may actually be dead! All of these plants are Mediterranean, but they can't take this heat either.

Maybe a cold shower would help.

Ever want to climb into your freezer? Ice packs are great, but they warm up too. Instead of an electrical heating blanket, does anyone make an ice blanket?

I like my winters rainy enough to make me miss the summer, and my summers hot enough that I miss the winter. Achieved. Check. Done. Move on. Get along little doggie. Mush. Off we go. Vamoose. (why does my spellchecker know how to spell vamoose?) Bring on the rain!

What job can you do that makes many people happy quickly?

A bright and sunny outlooks needs... bright sun. To get bright sun indoors you need clean windows. My favourite humans in the world right now are the window cleaners cleaning the windows on my apartment building.

After 3 bloody long years of construction on the outside of this building, the construction workers are gone and we finally have window cleaners! It wasn't worth the effort to attempt to clean the windows when the construction workers were still making a mess of the place, so it's been 3 years since we've had clean windows. 

We now have a team of 3 window cleaners armed with soap, brushes, and - luckily - picks to scrape off the nasty construction glops on all the windows going down the side of the building. I've had to close the windows, which is tough when we're having a heat wave (over 30 degrees with the humidity! I thought we left Toronto!) but I have no problems with doing this for the amount of time it takes to clean the windows.

So if you are thinking about finding a job that will make others happy, window cleaning is a good one!

Who won the fireworks competition?

Each year there is a fireworks competition in Vancouver. The fireworks are set off from a barge in the water of English Bay, and depending on where barge is anchored, we can see between 1/3 to 1/2 of the fireworks from our balcony.

They set off the fireworks at 10 pm on a Wednesday / Saturday /Wednesday / Saturday schedule, and we are on the first Saturday show today. 

Tonight we had a group from South Africa doing the performance. We also had a special guest star appearance from Mother Nature. A rare electrical storm started up about an hour before the start time for the fireworks, it has mostly settled down now, but it was spectacular. The fireworks show did go on as well, but you have to wonder who won tonight, South Africa, or Mother Nature.

On South Africa's side, their performance was timed to music (which we listened to on a radio station), and it was quite colourful. They did use the sky quite well, and had many low-to-the-water fireworks, which we can't see, but they are apparently a large part of the competition scoring. The music selection was sappy, but it often is in these shows.

On Mother Nature's side, no special timing to music... but the show did use the theme song from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies... and she did do a damn good impression of a pirate taking over the show. Much of the lightening filled the entire sky with light - and that's the entire sky, much more than the fireworks ever covered. The spiky slivers of lightening didn't come too often, but they stole the show every time. The colours in the sky during the show were all done by the fireworks, but for an hour before the show started the storm made the sky an amazing blue transitioning to purple, pink, orange, and yellow. (See the photo I've attached to this post.)

On top of the visual competition, anyone down on the beach must have gotten drenched watching the fireworks. We typically have loads of traffic going by our apartment building after a fireworks show, there's not that much tonight.

The fireworks are nice, but I have to say, I think Mother Nature did a much better job with her electrical storm tonight.

Does mint ever die?

Last year I chronicled the battle between bachelor buttons and mint in a plant pot out on my balcony. I didn't think any of the seeds would produce plants, but I had an early showing from the bachelor buttons, and a final winning blow from the mint. 

Battle Plant went to the mint.

And I've still got the mint. Lots of it. I've cut it all down and covered the roots with more soil twice now. And it always grows back. The problem is, it's not very tasty mint. I don't want to eat it anymore.

There are some very tasty mint varieties, spearmint is highly recommended, peppermint is ok, but there are many other options. I'm not sure which one I've got - I lost the package the seeds came in - but it's not one of the tasty ones.

So now what do I do? I don't have problems tossing dead plants out - they are by definition degradable into soil, and they are dead, so they should be sent on their way to degrade. But this plant won't die! If I toss it, will there be a wild strain of mint taking over an old landfill site in the future? Will I be creating a monster?

Stanley Park is host to many groups that volunteer time to remove invasive plants from the park that are killing the trees. English Ivy is not native to the park, but it is everywhere, and it will choke the trees if left to grow. I'm not sure where the Ivy originally came from, but it's now a menace.

Will my mint be a menace for a future park? How do I kill a plant that won't die without using toxic chemicals? I'm currently not watering it, hoping it will wither and die, but will it come back as a monster if I toss it when it has withered away?

Life, don't talk to me about life.

Why is my font all different sizes?

This is a test of: What on earth is blogger doing to my font?

Why is it so many different sizes and fonts? Why did Georgia just pop up?

Didn't I set this up at the beginning for the whole site?

My apologies to anyone who finds this as annoying as I do.

Would you like a pack of cards?

While sitting in a coffee shop recently I witnessed 2 very different groups of people.

One group was a couple. She had a little lap top open and was busy doing something with it. He had a cell phone or blackberry, and was busy texting on it. They both looked like they were in their 30s. They were at the same table but, other than a quick "thank you" for getting the coffee, they weren't talking.

The other group had 3 people in it, a couple of men and one woman. They were playing cards. Yes, cards, the pieces of paper with numbers and either hearts, diamonds, clubs or spades on them. How old-fashioned! And they were all likely in their 20s - not old codgers! They were having a great time talking and laughing with each other.

One group busy communicating with people they weren't physically with, the other communicating with people they were right next to. One group with no apparent emotional excitement, the other having a great time.

We could go into a whole discussion about technology making the world a cold, impersonal place... or... would you like a pack of cards?

Did anyone test the wheelchair access?

I have the feeling that in many instances, the answer to this question will be "NO".

We had guests last week, so we took them to various tourist spots in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. We took my loaner wheelchair with us so I could participate. 

That sign, that sign with the wheelchair on it, that promising sign is NOT a guarantee that someone in a wheelchair will be able to go into an area and be able to do activities in it - and then get back out of it.

Washrooms typically have a handicap stall - it's the one with the big door and grab bars on the walls. That doesn't mean you can make it INTO the stall if you are in a wheelchair. Notably, the Vancouver Aquarium has obstacle courses of waste baskets set up in their washrooms so anyone in a wheelchair will be fighting to get into a handicap stall. And good luck if there is anyone else in the washroom lined up waiting for a stall. Thankfully, I can still walk short distances, so after that I left my wheelchair outside washrooms with someone watching it whenever I used the washroom.

Handicapped access to Butchart Gardens in Victoria means that most of their garden areas have access without stairs. This does NOT mean that someone in a manual wheelchair can access the gardens. The gardens are sunken into an old limestone quarry. This means a LOT of down, followed by a LOT of getting back up. Unless you are an athlete, you cannot push yourself up or control your descent down in this garden. Unless you have a motorized wheelchair, you must have athletically built help. I saw many straining people pushing at wheelchairs, and I challenged my husband a couple of times when I strayed into a garden area that promised wheelchair access. My advice, if you don't have a motorized wheelchair and a full charge on the battery, don't go to Butchart Gardens. The handicapped access promise just means no stairs, not accessibility.

So I'm really wondering if architects and designers even consider getting into a wheelchair to test their designs for accessibility. Did anyone ever test the building codes around wheelchair access? Do washroom cleaning people ever see what happens to people in wheelchairs if they put trash bins everywhere in the washrooms?

This need for a wheelchair is an eye opening experience for me. I think all public building designers should get into a wheelchair and experience the world from down here. 

Yep, I can see how some wheelchair-bound people can be really angry individuals... breath, relax, boy I can't wait for my yoga classes to start up again.

Do you really want to be at the reception on time?

Recently, while having a lovely afternoon taking photos in VanDusen Botanical Gardens, we were witness to quite the wedding picture story.

The first thing we saw near the garden entrance were a couple of women in the same solid purple dresses, and then another purple dress and then finally, the white dress. Ahh, a wedding. The women in the purple dresses looked red and splotchy, the colour did nothing for any of them - but of course the bride's maid dresses are supposed to guarantee that the bride is the most beautiful woman in the wedding party, so that wasn't unexpected. After them a woman in a very nice dress in a different and lovely shade of purple - the mother of the bride - joined in the quest for the perfect photo site. Yes, there were men being dragged along side each of these women, being very attentive and looking like they'd love a stiff drink. The photographer was leading everyone into the garden.

My husband and I were in the garden for about 4 hours in total, and I saw various combinations of the wedding party people wandering around various parts of the garden quite frequently.  

About an hour into it there was an unshod woman in a purple dress limping along well behind the group, carrying her shoes and complaining to her male companion about how far she had to walk. (Wearing new shoes for hours on end is not a good idea - she should have broken them in before the wedding. Sorry, I may be an older and wiser woman now, but even when I was getting married 18 years ago, I still broke in my new shoes before the wedding, as I did when I was a bride's maid too. Some women never learn, some of us do.)

About an hour after that, the full blown "We're supposed to be at the reception in 15 minutes you know" complaint from another unshod woman to another man who was trying to be attentive while carrying a small wiggling child. It looks like the bride and groom had given them the slip, they looked lost.

About half an hour later I saw the bride and groom and one bridesmaid dutifully following the photographer. The party was obviously dwindling.

Another half hour later, the bride and groom and photographer were heading to the exit alone.

We can only assume the whole wedding party made it out of the garden. 

So did the woman complaining about being late for the reception miss the point? She's in the wedding party, the reception probably won't start without them... or if it does, wouldn't that be better anyway? The end of the evening when everyone has had way too much alcohol is typically the fun part, so why not start it off early? Have the guests happy before the food and the speeches, it will get things going to a happy place early! And maybe the grumpy wedding party will have a chance to relax because they're too tired to complain!

Nope, you guessed it, I'm not a romantic at heart.

Is that a bridge troll?

Bridge trolls: Mythical creatures that live under bridges and eat those who attempt to cross their bridge.

Great Blue Heron: Large bird that hunts fish and bugs at the water's edge using a patient waiting, then quick snapping at opportune moments method.

So why is this heron being a bridge troll?

We were recently at VanDusen Botanical Gardens taking photographs on a bright sunny summer day. When we got to this little bridge that crosses a pond we found a large group of people sitting or standing on the end of the bridge. It took a minute, but then we saw the Great Blue Heron that was standing in the middle of the bridge. None of the humans wanted to disturb the bird, so they were not crossing the bridge. More humans were standing on the other side of the bridge, they did not want to disturb the bird either.

Cameras were clicking and "wow" was being uttered. The bird occasionally snapped a dragon fly out of the air. This went on for a good 15 minutes. Most of the humans got bored and wandered away from the bridge, not crossing it. 

So this heron was in control of the situation, he was being the bridge troll, not letting anyone cross the bridge.

It's amazing how wild animals can figure out humans and be in control of a situation like this. The heron was not timid. He was confident he had the situation under control and did quite a bit of stretching and scratching while standing on the bridge.

Real animals must have been the spark for the old bridge troll stories, but I wonder if they were all birds.

(Click on the image to see a bigger image.)