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I’ve just crawled out of a baaath and Michael is handing me a Canuck hemp beer. Palatable. Comes in a nice can and its organic.
Michael and Jake have reappeared from the sports bar where they enjoyed defibrillation by the Tennessee Titans vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. Whatever. I walked my legs off, joyously soaking up the city until I could barely stand. I think my legs have atrophied in the tin chick. Jake ran in circles around us as if on pogo sticks, leaping over fences and popping up from behind lightposts. Michael seems no worse for wear than when we started. Although he has, in fact ,worn the heels half off his boots pounding pavement from San Francisco to Milwaukee, he doesn’t seem to notice.
His footwear is as compulsive as mine, thank god.
FYI, he run in tennies. And the last few runs have been downright satisfying.
Vancouver reminds me of…. lets just say it’s the most ethnically diverse city I’ve ever seen. Probably the only city in the Western Hemisphere where there’s a Christmas tree in every fourth window. Not in October of course. And, as Michael has noted, it looks very Asian. The way it rises in glassy waves of architecture along the river, fringed with boats – houseboats and sailboats and curvy waterfront walkways. Could be somewhere along the Yellow River, I imagine.
I think it makes Michael very self-conscious walking with Jake and I in cities. So far we have been busted for walking like cats, crossing in front of him and tripping over each other as we ogle the streetscape, mouths agape. (We both need to work on chewing with our mouths closed as well.) We walk against traffic, going on the left side to a stream of “sorry, sorry” by oncoming urbanites. It doesn’t help that I have a poor sense of direction and a tendency to walk against the lights. Even Jake feels its, “unethical.” I’ve taken to walking behind Michael to maintain my bearings. Nevertheless I frequently bump straight into him because he is always stopping short to take pictures.
“What’s so very fascinating about that, Mike?” Jake asks as we lurch along like animals escaped from the Peaceable Kingdom.
We strolled Davies Street to Granville Public Market. A heated discussion about what to eat resolved itself as each chose dinner independently. Mike had Greek; Me, Thai; Jake, fish and chips. We reunited for fudge. Then we took the aquabus, an adorable little riverboat, to Yaletown (think the Embarcadero, San Francisco), to Hornby and finally washed up at The Sands at 8:30. I think the boys could have drifted for hours. But I hear there’s an Irish band downstairs. I’ll go with gravity.
The band, “Boolya Roolya,” turned out to be a ton of fun. The lead fellow was a cool Irish crooner with an acoustic guitar and a Celtic drum, accompanied by a rotund, blind fiddler. She was a classic older Irish gal named Mary, just happened to be wearing sunglasses and a kilt. Prior to the show, as Mike and Jake watched the football game, they admired how he brought her beer and cut her steak and gravy-fries. She sat quietly onstage between sets, nursing a dark pint. When he introduced himself and paid his respects, she flashed Michael a big grin with teeth askew. The band relished taking requests of any kind. We stayed till midnight then tucked in with hopes of biking the waterfront in the morning.
We ate a big breakfast at the Red Parasol Café instead. It was raining. Easier to say goodbye to a place in the rain. After extracting three bikes from the chick’s dark interior and hitching them on back once more, we we’re rolling.
Michael and Jake have reappeared from the sports bar where they enjoyed defibrillation by the Tennessee Titans vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. Whatever. I walked my legs off, joyously soaking up the city until I could barely stand. I think my legs have atrophied in the tin chick. Jake ran in circles around us as if on pogo sticks, leaping over fences and popping up from behind lightposts. Michael seems no worse for wear than when we started. Although he has, in fact ,worn the heels half off his boots pounding pavement from San Francisco to Milwaukee, he doesn’t seem to notice.
His footwear is as compulsive as mine, thank god.
FYI, he run in tennies. And the last few runs have been downright satisfying.
Vancouver reminds me of…. lets just say it’s the most ethnically diverse city I’ve ever seen. Probably the only city in the Western Hemisphere where there’s a Christmas tree in every fourth window. Not in October of course. And, as Michael has noted, it looks very Asian. The way it rises in glassy waves of architecture along the river, fringed with boats – houseboats and sailboats and curvy waterfront walkways. Could be somewhere along the Yellow River, I imagine.
I think it makes Michael very self-conscious walking with Jake and I in cities. So far we have been busted for walking like cats, crossing in front of him and tripping over each other as we ogle the streetscape, mouths agape. (We both need to work on chewing with our mouths closed as well.) We walk against traffic, going on the left side to a stream of “sorry, sorry” by oncoming urbanites. It doesn’t help that I have a poor sense of direction and a tendency to walk against the lights. Even Jake feels its, “unethical.” I’ve taken to walking behind Michael to maintain my bearings. Nevertheless I frequently bump straight into him because he is always stopping short to take pictures.
“What’s so very fascinating about that, Mike?” Jake asks as we lurch along like animals escaped from the Peaceable Kingdom.
We strolled Davies Street to Granville Public Market. A heated discussion about what to eat resolved itself as each chose dinner independently. Mike had Greek; Me, Thai; Jake, fish and chips. We reunited for fudge. Then we took the aquabus, an adorable little riverboat, to Yaletown (think the Embarcadero, San Francisco), to Hornby and finally washed up at The Sands at 8:30. I think the boys could have drifted for hours. But I hear there’s an Irish band downstairs. I’ll go with gravity.
The band, “Boolya Roolya,” turned out to be a ton of fun. The lead fellow was a cool Irish crooner with an acoustic guitar and a Celtic drum, accompanied by a rotund, blind fiddler. She was a classic older Irish gal named Mary, just happened to be wearing sunglasses and a kilt. Prior to the show, as Mike and Jake watched the football game, they admired how he brought her beer and cut her steak and gravy-fries. She sat quietly onstage between sets, nursing a dark pint. When he introduced himself and paid his respects, she flashed Michael a big grin with teeth askew. The band relished taking requests of any kind. We stayed till midnight then tucked in with hopes of biking the waterfront in the morning.
We ate a big breakfast at the Red Parasol Café instead. It was raining. Easier to say goodbye to a place in the rain. After extracting three bikes from the chick’s dark interior and hitching them on back once more, we we’re rolling.
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