How awesome in every way is this image of Stephen Hawking freefloating on the vomit comet?
Hawking turned 65 in January, and he is looking grand in this photo. I can well imagine him taking his planned spaceflight in 2009.
Next time I'm feeling hard-done-by, overworked and car sick, I will imagine SH saying, "I've got the disabled AND the oldster bus passes, and two books coming out this year, and I'm changing the face of human knowledge, and I'm STILL rocking the vomit comet. So suck it up!"
Paging Doctor Heimlich
I listen to the news every day, usually a quite few times as it's repeated on the radio, and I think it's making me a bit mental. It's always about the most horrible things imaginable. It's good to informed, but hearing five times a day about someone getting sexually assaulted in a park makes you paranoid and depressed.
So, I'm on a good-news diet for a while. And here's the kind of story that I'm rocking.
A kid in Cape Breton, who used the Heimlich manoeuvre to dislodge a candy from his friend's windpipe, got a call from the inventor of the Heimlich manoeuvre after school.
"He's in Vancouver and some of his friends actually told him about me in the paper," the 11-year-old told CBC News Thursday. "He says he is going to give me the yearly lifesavers award. I was amazed."
Tristan first learned the Heimlich manoeuvre from his grandmother, but had more formal training in February during a babysitting course offered through his school.
Yay Dr. Heimlich! Yay hero kids! Yay babysitting courses!
On the home front
I'm back and I am the most lame jetlagged person in the world. We spent last weekend with day and night reversed, like some kind of rockstars (that stay home and watch TV, perhaps Brian Wilson-esque).
Thanks to everyone showing interest in the garden makeover, but nothing garden-y has happened yet. All they do is ask us to take days off, show up four or five hours late, and then film us doing embarrassing things like 'blogging' (this involves air-typing) and cuddling on the couch talking about whether we would use chemical slug repellent.
Me: "So all this filming is OK, but when are you doing the garden?"
Them: "Ha ha ha! Yeah, I know what you mean!"
Me: "Seriously though: WHEN."
Them: "Uh, we'll call you."
These Hollywood types, eh!
Click the picture of our celebrity gardener Matt James to see a funny little page where you can download his photo and put it up in your locker or whatever.
[I realise that in this post I am referring to myself in the plural, maybe because it's Ali's house too so when it comes to the garden we are the unimind. Augh!]
How dare you change stuff over there!
I have been surfing around looking for the latest and greatest bars and
restaurants in Vancouver (pretending that I am not just dying to go to
my old favourites again) and I am SHOCKED, nay APPALLED, to hear of some
old workhorses that have closed. 'Characters' in Gastown now a
gastropub? (Do we even have the word gastropub in Van?) KITS PUB
CLOSED?!?!?
I'm sure this all happened like three years ago but hey, I'm still in
the first stages of grief (denial). Not that I ever went to these
places, but it's the principal of the thing.
They're coming to [Canada]
I'm coming home for a wee visit on Thursday, for a week.
If you attended last year, you'll know the greatness of the hopefully-bi-annual Flo's-in-town meet-n-greet all-day patio booze up.
This season's most loosely-organised must-attend outing will be held at The Sandbar in Granville Island.
Join me on the patio any time from noon till late. It will be like a camp out. I'll be the one grilling on the hibachi (joke: no outside purchased food or drink is likely to be allowed. This ain't Kits pool).
Sorry if the bar at that place still gets full of batchelor/ettes looking to get it on with other sales-target achievers. But I like that patio! Anyway come down. And bring your lovely partner/friend/babies.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
The Sandbar patio, Granville Island
Starting around noon. Bring a sweater cause you know you're going to end up staying all kinds of late and you don't want to get chilly!
This is only for people that know me and not for my many blog fans, hahahaha.
I'll be in town all weekend so please email me if you would like to meet up some other time.
Friendly otters are my buddies from Van
I didn't realize that the Otters holding hands are the wee guys from the Vancouver Aquarium. Link to CBC News story.
It's not the first time [YouTube star otter] Nyack has been featured on TV. She was one of the few sea otters to survive getting coated with oil during the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska back in 1989.
She was cleaned up and flown to Vancouver, where she has thrived ever since.
No wonder I felt an instant affinity to them -- when I went to the Aquarium as a kid I used to stick my hand through a little hole in the glass and they would come over and give it a nudge.
Rowing with snorkles
You may not normally be into watching rowing, but seeing eight people row a sinking boat, at top speed, for 20 minutes is pretty cool.
This was the AK (my club) men's team last weekend at the big Head of the River Race. Better luck to Oxford and Cambridge this Saturday.
Come on down to the club if you are free, I'll be pulling pints at the club bar from 3:30.
The Changed Man
A nice one in today's Writer's Almanac email.
I love this daily email, which contains a poem and short bios of writers who were born that day, crafted in a way to subtly encourage you to write and admonish you for your lame excuses for not writing. For example:
Francine Prose said, "For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on the bus."
"The Changed Man" by Robert Phillips
If you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti
in the shower every morning, you'd know
how much you have changed my life.
If you were to see me stride across the park,
waving to strangers, then you would know
I am a changed man—like Scrooge
awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-
light, angel-happy, laughing the father
of a long line of bright laughs—
"It is still not too late to change my life!"
It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.
Because of you I no longer hate my body.
Because of you I buy new clothes.
Because of you I'm a warrior of joy.
Because of you and me. Drop by
this Saturday morning and discover me
fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated
as a born-again gardener.
Drop by on Sunday—I'll Turtlewax
your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I'll greet
enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors
with a papal largesse. It's all because
of you. Because of you and me,
I've become one changed man.
