One Less Church

Yesterday morning I woke up and took Louise out for her morning stretch. Like always, we headed half a block to the north to the church grounds. They have maintained a wonderful garden area that the entire community has used and appreciated. It's a volunteer effort that has continued despite the church being sold to urban developers.

The developer felt the need to fence off the property however - when I had Louise out for a stretch after dinner we had no access to the garden area. Now, as far as I can tell, the developer is nowhere near ready to begin tearing down the church - they are still trying to get city approval to put up their monstrous 22 storey rental tower in it's place, and well, that isn't going smoothly. Oh sure, our mayor is behind it, but the community sure isn't.

Anyway, none of this really concerns Louise too much, other than the fact that she can no longer sniff some of the areas she was used to trading pee-mails. I've put up a picture of the church in part as a reminder to me when it's gone, but I'm sure you can recognize the area in many of the earlier posts on this blog.

Now the fact of the matter is that I can't really talk about the old church more than I have. Quite simply, I don't have many Louise photos that relate. But what I do have are a lot of stroller-adventure photos. So we are going to go with that because well, this could be a long post (I have that many photos).

I guess it was a couple weeks ago now, but we decided to take Louise with us on a trip across town to do some shopping. It was going to be a bit of an adventure because it was the first time that Louise would be on the new Canada Line extension of the Skytrain. It's pretty snazzy compared to the older lines, with wider trains and new stations that still smell of freshly poured concrete.

We did have one encounter with Skytrain Security, but only because the security guard had questions for us about pugs - he was researching which breed of dog he wanted to get and they were high on his list. He was quite taken with Louise but was surprised when I explained that yes, pugs do shed. More than a little.

A lot of the shopping we were to do that day involved grocery stores, so that meant I had to hang out in front of the store with Louise. I think this goes a long way to explain why I have so many photos from that day. We were just hanging out, letting people say hi to Louise, and taking pictures.

It didn't matter though, she enjoyed the outing and was great the whole time. I think Louise just appreciates doing new things and breaking the routine every now and then. Who can blame her?

As I finish this post off, Louise is returning to another lamb bone - we had a roasted lamb dinner tonight and well, Louise is just doing her part to help out with the bones. It's kind of funny to watch the cats as they stare at Louise with awe. They know it smells good and can tell by Louise's enthusiasm that it sure must taste good, but whenever they get to sniff at a bone Louise has left unattended they just can't figure out how it is that she can actually chew through it. I know I run the risk of anthropomorphizing them a bit, but I can almost feel the jealousy from them over this one dog ability. As for Louise, well when she's chewing a bone, the only time she pays attention to a cat is if it gets too close.

Vancouver Pride Parade 2010

As usual, the Vancouver Pride Parade kicks off the beginning of August and we were there, although for some reason we struggled a bit to get up and get out of the house. But we made it and as usual it's one of the best parties this town throws.

Louise's favorite part of any of these outings has to be the carnival food and she was lucky enough to taste some. While Holly and I had to basically view each of the food vendors to make up our minds on what to eat, Louise was pretty much in favour of anything, so long as she could share.

In fact, she was getting so rambunctious in her stroller that at one point she shook it hard enough to spill some ginger beer we got (from the kiosk representing the Reef, a great little Caribbean themed restaurant in town). Normally I wouldn't care, but I had absent mindedly placed my camera in the top of the stroller next to the drinks. Oops. I wiped it off quickly but as the soda dried it got sticky and I've been noticing it has been making the lens grind and pop as it zooms in and out. I'm hoping a gentle cleaning later will sort things out - I really like my camera and it's already been through a lot with me, including my wipeout in 2009.

Nonetheless, all three of us had a great time. We even ran into Randy, a friend from work who was volunteering for the Vancouver Friends for Life charity. From their website:

The Vancouver Friends For Life Society serves as a catalyst to enhance the wellness of individuals living with a life threatening illness by providing complementary and alternative health and support services.

If you feel so inclined, I urge you to consider donating to these people. By the way, Randy isn't in this last picture, this is one of the parade performers who happened to also be visiting the Friends for Life booth at the same time.

Eventually we had to go home and somehow we miscalculated. We were faced with either walking all the way around the parade route or cutting across the street mid-parade. With all the people watching the show, this was not an easy task. Eventually we found a section where people were using super soakers to spray the parade float performers as they went by - at least there were fewer people sitting in that section, so we squeezed through and eventually made it - Holly had to stop a couple times for people to take pictures of Louise, but we were all pretty happy to make it across. After that much fun and excitement, Louise needed a nap.

Just another Thursday night

One of the local radio stations felt the need to quote Maxim magazine on one of their 'top ten' lists - this one was a list of ways you can tell that you are looking at a.. well I won't repeat the name here, but suffice it to say, that's only because Louise is too classy to stoop to their level. Long story short, people with dog strollers made the list.

There, I got it out of my system without swearing or calling them names. I know the list is supposedly for entertainment purposes and all, but it really got under my skin for a while. Anyway, since then we have been using the stroller quite a bit, and my wife has been wearing her new label with pride. Once again I find myself learning lessons from her in how to deal with crap that comes our way.

Moving on to more pleasant things, I took the photo of Louise in front of the bike just this evening. I've seen this bike around town a bit and like it a lot. Louise was gracious enough to give me a cool 'forward looking' pose even though she was actually quite tired and wasn't into walking much this evening. This is how I'm transitioning out of the negativity I started this post with and into things that are more positive. Work with me here, okay?

The last two shots were taken while we waited for our drink order to be prepared. We had stopped at Chicco cafe again because their drinks are just that tasty. The last one is extra clear because I was playing around with some of the features on my trusty digicam, this time with the timer delay. It's amazing what a difference it makes when you aren't holding the camera (and it's not being wiggled and shaken by you). Even though Louise was feeling kind of tired tonight, after a little rest at Chicco she was able to continue home with the usual pep in her step.

Crusin' into the office

As Louise and I headed into work today she was especially attentive - or so I thought. About half way to the Skytrain she started to place one paw on the rim of the stroller, as if she was driving one-handed.

As it turns out, she was starting to smell the delicious aromas from the local White Spot burger joint, as can be seen in the second photo. Louise is not a subtle gal, so she made it quite plain what she was so interested in.

You might also notice that she isn't wearing a collar in these two shots. That's because I forgot to bring it today, so we have had to be extra careful on our leash-free walks. Luckily Louise was in the right frame of mind for this kind of activity and we had no problems with her staying on-task. Well, except for one street corner where she really wanted to go say hi to her favorite restaurant even though I already had a lunch prepared for me today. After a few minutes of negotiating we agreed that we could walk down that block but only on the other side of the street to avoid the temptation of trying to sneak in.

This last picture is a leftover from spring. Somehow it landed on my camera's internal memory and I only just pulled it off today.

Summer randomness

Well the dog days of summer have finally arrived. Our routine has modified slightly, so that now we take Louise out for her walks in the morning and evening to avoid the heat of the day. I think she understands too, as she has not really shown a lot of interest in going outside when she knows it's warmer than she would like.

Even if that means we leave without her.

That's how we know she's serious. It's either that, or she really is getting older and slower and well, we like to pretend that little Wheezie will be with us forever, so that's enough on that topic. In the first picture, Louise posed in front of these blue flowers. My camera doesn't really do the flowers justice, as the colour really was a lot stronger than what you see here - and that's after I tried to increase the saturation in iphoto. Of course, Louise didn't care since the shot was really about her anyway.

The second one came a few days later. We have been walking along the seawall a fair bit lately, in part because it will close soon, to be rebuilt. As we were walking along it yesterday I was noticing the smell of creosote soaked lumber, mixed with the not-quite-as-salty-as-ocean water smell of False Creek and hoped that they somehow preserve some of that. Still, it's nice to see the city be proactive about some of the maintenance and I look forward to seeing the finished product.

The final shot is of Louise doing a little rock climbing, which is to say the rock was little. Still, she mastered the summit on her own. Personally, I like the look on her face as she figures out where to step next.

Canada Day Celebrations

Yesterday was Canada Day and while the weather wasn't great, it was good enough to participate in some of the activities going on around town. One of the things we did was to pick up some lamb for the barbecue. This of course involved getting a couple steak cuts as well as a couple soup bones.

We all know who was going to get the bones in this arrangement.

Note Sophie in the first photo, looking on from a safe distance. The cats are always intrigued when Louise chews on a bone - in part because it usually smells good but also in part out of amazement. You see, they get to investigate the bones when Louise is out walking and they haven't figured out how to chew something so hard.

This doesn't register with Louise though, and if she ever catches the cats near one of her bones, she charges over to protect her stuff. Even if the cat was merely trying to head to the patio. Louise spares no caution with her stuff.

Of course later in the evening we had fireworks to attend to. We went downtown to where the Olympic Cauldron is because Holly read that it was going to be re-lit for the Canada Day celebrations. It was so nice to be able to get right up next to it without any stupid fences. It also turned out to be a pretty good location to view the fireworks. What surprised me was that an entire street was blocked off to make room for street vendors. This really added to the party atmosphere as people were able to get carnival food and the like. While we just ate prior to leaving, I have to admit that it all smelled good and we were tempted.

As usual when we plan to enter a large crowd we took the stroller. It helps define Louise's personal space since most people would be looking up and not down. She enjoyed the stroller ride and especially all the attention from various pug lovers. She isn't one to mind the noise of the fireworks so long as she can be entertained. Just sitting around gets a little boring for her, so it's a good thing that Canadian fireworks don't tend to be a long drawn out affair.

Anyway, thanks Vancouver for re-lighting the cauldron, even just for the holiday. It was a nice touch.

Coal Harbour in the morning

Yesterday was a pretty nice day so after Holly made a tasty breakfast of english muffins, eggs and fruit, it had warmed up enough for a dog walk. We decided to take Louise down to Coal Harbour. Our first stop was at Waves Coffee, where we used a 2 for 1 coupon to get some morning drinks. After that, Louise and I hung out on the patio while Holly stepped into a drugstore for a moment.

Waves offers free wifi service for it's patrons. However, they have figured out a way to prevent the signal from escaping outdoors, so that meant I wasn't able to use it while we waited. This was probably for the best, as after only a couple minutes of trying to make it work I had to put away my ipod. Louise was growing tired of sitting on my lap (especially after discovering that I only had coffee and nothing to eat) so she wanted down to explore a bit.

Holly returned shortly and we continued on to the harbour. We weren't expecting to see a 'boat show' so we figured we would check it out. Unfortunately it was only a couple sales people there to answer questions about the models they had for sale. They were nice enough to look after Louise while we stepped aboard a nice 31 foot model though and it had more comforts and room than it appeared on the outside.

I left with a brochure and lots of dreams about boats I can't yet afford but it was fun just the same. Oh and we also saw another heron while we were there. Louise wasn't interested though so we continued on to Bark and Fitz, the bet supply store nearby. Louise had some water and we got some treats for her, which she had some of on the way home. Holly had fun feeding her pieces of the peanut butter and banana flavoured biscuit as we made our way back home.

The whole plan was to take Louise out and bring her back tired so she would sleep, giving us a chance to go out shopping. We knew we had succeeded when we got home and Louise showed no interest in leaving the house again. When we got back, she was still sleeping hard unlike the days when we find her waiting for us at the door. Overall, it was perfect because Louise slept through the hottest part of the day and we got to do some errands.

Back from a Cat-Free Vacation

We spent last week visiting family on the east coast. While we almost brought Louise with us, we ultimately decided against it. There was no way we were going to consent to having her in the cargo hold, especially during the summer months.

That was okay though because she stayed at the Rex Dog Hotel again and they have a new feature for the dog owners: nightly updates to flickr so we can check on our pooch while we are away. (This feature is subject to the whims of the local internet providers. The Maritime provinces - especially the rural parts where we were going - weren't stellar in the state of connectivity to be offered.) Anyway, the staff at Rex always treat Louise very well - she is always happy to arrive which helps to put us at ease before starting our trips.

Of course, now that we are back home, it meant that there was a lot of laundry to do since there were cats sleeping on the bed, a week's worth of dirty clothes to clean and one smelly dog who required a bath. The thing about baths is that it always takes a while for the dog to dry off well enough to be allowed on a clean bed. The thing about laundry is that it always takes a while for the blankets to dry well enough to be used again. So here we are, blogging for Wheezie while we wait for her to dry off a bit more and for the blankets to be ready so we can finally drag our weary bones off to bed.

Oh, and I have peppered this post with links to various pictures of Louise that were posted by Rex. Feel free to click on 'em to see what she has been up to last week.