Everyone Needs Plans

Totem Poles Revisited

So the rains came and so did the Ks. We've just spent a busy 8 days swanning around Vancouver entertaining our most recent visitors. Mam and Dad, T, L and A arrived late on the Saturday night, slightly the worse for wear having experienced delayed flights, 10 hours in a very enclosed space with aggressive fellow passengers, a touch of air rage and some misplaced baggage. Nothing that a dose of Timbits, hot coffee and straight to bed didnt sort out. Poor A got the inflatable mattress with a mind of its own - self deflating at odd hours during the night.

Grouse Mountain studying bears

All in all they were pretty fortunate with the weather, escaping with only a couple of drenchings and 5 dry days of no, or very little, rain. Vancouver and the Northwest is currently at the mercy of "The Pineapple Express" - a bout of record breaking wet weather and high winds accompanied by unusually high temperatures for this time of year - hence the tentative pineapple reference. (This inclement weather front originates somewhere off Hawaii apparently so that's really where the pineapple reference comes from.) So they might just have escaped in time. Fair play to M for putting up with the lot of us and holding down her job at the same time - unlike me who cheekily took the whole week off.

Chainsaw Fanboy on Grouse Mountain

At the very least we made sure our visitors all ate well, with visits to some of our favourite eateries - The Sandbar, Capers, Cupcakes, Water Street Cafe, Gotham Steakhouse, Granville Island Market, That Sticky Bun Place in Whistler, Las Margaritas, a very raucous Hapa Izakaya, Fat Burger and the ever dependable White Spot. All Vancouver institutions in our minds and in our mouths, and all of which will be sorely missed when we move on.

Las Margaritas at Las Margheritas - before the ructions

Unfortunately we never made it out dancing, partially because of the jet lag of our guests but mostly because we wouldn't have a notion where to take such experienced dancing queens. Also because Celebrities has been independently confirmed as "Yes definitely a gay club" despite recommendations from my work mates. Me thinks they were pulling my plumb. We did get out for pints in the Irish Heather however it was a Monday night and the place was pretty dead. Is it only in empty pubs that you can smell the toilet from the other side of the room?

Grouse Mountain

The girls were on a mission to shop til they dropped. They finally met their match in Metrotown. Shopping from 10am to 6pm non stop and there was still a whole floor left unexplored when they left, exhausted and semi bankrupt.

Mam at the opening of the inaugural restaurant of her soup franchise

During these extended shoppping trips the lads managed to do the 10km walk of the seawall in the rain and take in a Canucks game - our first NHL Hockey game and first visit to BC Place. The interminably foolhardy Canucks ended up losing to the Nashville Predators 3-2 after coming from behind to level the game. Markus Naslund the Canuck's captain led the charge with some ridiculously good passes and general skating-from-the-front skippership.....how little do I know about Ice Hockey? Quite a little apparently. And the Canucks new superstar goalie was simultaneously entertaining and talented in a Fabien Barthez kind of way. Interesting cultural experience though even if the game as a spectacle was repeatedly ruined by the 20 minute breaks between periods and the sneaking in of ads between plays. The crowd seemed more preoccupied with attracting the attention of the roving cameramen to perform their party piece on the newly installed MASSIVE big screen which hung over the ice.

Mini pumpkin heads - compliments of L and A

Oh - did I mention it was Halloween night and most of the crowd came dressed up? There was some very innovative costumes, a young kid dressed as Napolean Dynamite (who promptly did that dance when he realised he was on screen) got my vote and raised a huge cheer mid-play from the crowd aswell. It was funny to see a couple of sets of people "dressed up" as rednecks and having to do a double take to realise it was only a costume. Such is the dyed in the wool, beer and beard Canadianness of your average Canucks fan. The girls went on a scary ghost trolley tour of some of Vancouver's more far flung ghoulish locations. I'm not sure they were expecting to end up in a dark graveyard somewhere in Chilliwack when they paid their money but such is the ever resourceful and unpredictable nature of Tourism in Vancouver. They decided to get dressed up for the event aswell with some interesting results....

*singing in unison* It's fun to stay at M and S's

We tried to instigate a brisk early morning regime of a pre breakfast walk in the park to counteract the savage amounts of food we put away eating out every night, but a mixture of the weather and milk mocha weakness passing Blenz on Denman soon conspired to thwart our healthy ambitions. Although we did make it a couple of mornings, an invigorating way to start the day - and ended up going for a lovely chaotic stroll/cycle biathalon-relay along the seawall via Beaver Lake on Sunday before descending on White Spot for a turkey dinner.

L finally got to see a bear

We sent them off home on Sunday afternoon in the torrential rain with some Capers sandwiches to counteract the crap airline food. They also kindly agreed to courier home our orange suitcases packed with our extensive collection of valuables and vegetarian cook books - stuff which we're very attached to but not so attached that we'd need to drag them behind us around South America. An act of kindness for which we are truly grateful. So hopefully they enjoyed the holiday as much as we enjoyed having them. It was great to see them all in such good form and we both really appreciate the effort and expense ....expended. It's great to break up our time away with visitors and see friendly faces from home and to show them the place that's been our home for the past year. Especially seeing as we won't be "home" home for Christmas. Although it was tough hearing all about how the boys are getting on aswell. It would have been great to have also had all the Clarkes over to see the sights and sample the culinary delights oif Vancouver but you can't have it all your own way I suppose.

My Irish Molly

Hopefully R is enjoying his Spiderman gifts and E is getting a chance to play with his own toys now that R is distracted! Thank you all for your very kind parting birthday gifts aswell. I purchased a darlin' raincoat with the proceeds, ceremoniously donating my smelly old Columbia jacket to Dennis the Indian/Chinese local hobo - even he almost turned his snot up at it such was the lived-in hum off of it. I had a bizarre dream about homeless people that night so obviously I still have a very strong psychic connection with it, wearing it constantly as I did for all of 10 years. There was a lovely Irish colleen working in the place I bought my new jacket on West 4th and she gave me a very healthy 20% "Irish discount" aswell. Hope she still has a job.

Dad at Ron Wood's Exhibition

On a more humdrum note, work is incrdeibly crap at the moment. Everything seems to be breaking - the guy with most of the experience fixing things is currently in Mexico, chemically intoxicated and not answering his phone. There's been a couple of fairly high profile and public fuck ups on my part and at this stage all of which I would love to say have been positive and life affirming learning experiences. However I could take or leave the poxy job and the three legged step brother of a system which has been bestowed to my care were it not for that pay cheque shaped carrot.

Autumn on Oak Street

But the show is still on the road and we're half way through the week and hopefully things can only get better. I've made the decision never ever to carry a pager again and never ever to work in the online gaming industry. It pays well but also turns you grey. And your clients are some of the thickest greediest specimens to walk the earth. There's buckets of money to be made but you'll need to leave your morals, your life and your aftershave at the door. Don't forget your stretchy pants though. And body guards with cowboy boots. So we've decided to go for a double whammy on November 15th and both submit our resignation letters to our hopefully unsuspecting bosses. The feeling of imminent liberation is tantalising - especially when we have a 6 month holiday/adventure/team building exercise to look forward to. Tee Hee Hee is all we have to say. Both of us are buzzed beyond tablets. We shall keep y'all updated anon.

Fall on the Sea Wall