Down 'n' Dirty Dawg

**See the new weekly poll, to the right ... very Vancouver-centric this week (apologies to out-of-town visitors!), with more global questions to come!

More bee-yoo-tiful Fall weather! This morning Freddie and I ventured down to Creekside Park — the creek in question being False Creek.

The park, though private property, welcomes passersby and their dogs — thank you, Harbour Cove residents!

Even though our weather lately has been quite dry, the park was wet and muddy. Another dog person told me they run their sprinklers every day, regardless of rain (what's up with that, Harbour Cove?). Freddie didn't mind.

In fact, this tail position is his equivalent of this:  :-D

Creekside Park overlooks this scene. Back in late summer, shortly after Paul and I started looking at condos on the east side (where we originally intended to settle), I came down here with Freddie and experienced a mild punch-in-the-gut realization that I would no longer have easy access to all this. The crucial part of "all this" for me is not exactly in this photo, or not entirely. It's Burrard Inlet, just over there to the left ... and, beyond that, the Strait of Georgia ... and then, the Pacific Ocean. The closer I am to the ocean, the better I feel. Somehow it's related to my preference for aisle seats in movie theatres ... and if anyone cares to analyze that further, fill yer boots! I'll just say I'm feeling very fortunate to be moving closer to the Big Pond, not further away.

Shadow art ...

Scaffold art ...

I may once have tried this little diner on Pine. I think it maybe wasn't very good. But for $2.99 I might have tried again — if they hadn't been closed.

And if Freddie hadn't been such a downward dog!

Street sign art ...

Seems like The Georgia Straight, given their hippy history and whatnot, should have their offices in our new neighbourhood — 4th and Vine, say. But nope. For some years now, they've been just down the road, at Broadway and Pine, across from Future Shop and Starbucks and Pier 1 Imports.

Some kind of art, but I've no idea what this item is.

These last shots are a bit of a cheat (ie. they're from yesterday afternoon). Freddie and I went to the library to pick up a DVD I had on hold: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. The movie is based on Laurence Sterne's (supposedly unfilmable) 18th century "postmodern" novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (as the Stephen Fry character in the movie says, "The novel was postmodern long before there was any Modernism to be post about"). It got pretty crummy reviews — the movie, not the book — but if you've read the novel — or even 2/3 of the novel (er, ahem, could my ENGL 357 prof possibly be reading this?) — it's a lot of fun.

Freddie's first trainer, Shari, regularly takes dogs to an elementary school for a program called "Reading With Doodles." Freddie went once, and apparently the sight of so many kids in one room triggered in him the same kind of response that a deep, stinky mud puddle still does. In other words, his career as a classroom assistant was short-lived. There were some kids in the library yesterday afternoon, however — just off to the left, lining up to sign out their books. I consider this progress!