Cops, Critics, Cancer ... Close Encounters at the Kits Dog Beach

This morning Freddie and I had our first encounter with the City's Animal Control forces. I'd been hearing about these draconian dog cops ever since Freddie came into our lives ... commiserating with disgruntled dog people over the fact that summertime rules banish dogs from "their" beach between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., collaborating on wet winter mornings to set our pooches free on the empty human beach, prohibitions be damned. But today was my first face-to-face meeting with an Animal Law enforcement officer.

And ...?

She was peachy. Granted, Freddie and I weren't doing anything wrong. It was 9:50, and we were leaving the dog beach; Freddie was wearing an up-to-date licence tag (the main thing she was checking); I had a leash in my hand and poop bags in my pocket. Phew! Who knows what would have transpired if I'd been violating any of the rules (I suspect my wallet might have been lightened in the process), but, in any event, this particular Animal Cop seemed to be a dog lover. She greeted Freddie cheerfully and let him rub his sandy, seaweedy flanks against her legs. She told him he was a good boy, then she wrote down his name and licence number and wished us a good day.

May all our encounters with the Law be thus!

Green Canopy 1

Green Canopy 2

Back Lane Mural

Our second dog-beach meeting was with The Georgia Straight's longtime theatre critic Colin Thomas, who, on the surface anyway, is an über-nice guy. Years ago, I used to cross paths with him at aerobics classes, and over the past few months I've been seeing him regularly down at the beach, along with his devoted sidekick, Enzo.

We usually say hi and have a brief chat about dogs or the weather, but this morning I finally decided to let on that I know he's the Colin Thomas and to convey my appreciation for all his entertaining and insightful theatre reviews over the years. He thanked me heartily. We chatted about the Vancouver theatre scene for a little while, then he mentioned having seen the Dog Cops earlier and expressed sympathy for their thankless work of dealing with people who, for the most part, don't want to see them.

I'm glad I remembered to thank "our" cop!

Zulu Records

Kitchen Corner

Coach Dad

Now, yes, our third encounter involves cancer — specifically, the trials of a Dogfriend from our old neighbourhood who's been living through a C-word horrorshow for the past couple of years — but, when Freddie and I spotted him and his frisky little Staffie terrier climbing the grassy hill at the end of Arbutus, it was clear his health is on an upswing. His hair was thick and wavy, his face vibrant, his legs strong. He confirmed that his latest prognosis is excellent. Phew!

(Freddie managed to stroll past this tied-up pup this afternoon with no kerfuffle at all!)

I was happy to have run into our old Dogfriend — for the predictable reasons, but also because, not five minutes after wishing him a good day, I saw a young boy (9? 10?) getting out of a car with his parents, and it was depressingly obvious from his appearance and the things his parents were saying to him that this kid was going through chemo.

So not fair. To say the least.

Whoever the kid is, I hope he, too, will come through with an excellent prognosis and return to the beach in full force to practice basketball and pull-ups and fly kites with his folks and his friends.

Speaking of Parental People, Freddie took his grandfolks to a new (to us) dog park on Mother's Day — Everett Crowley Park in the Champlain Heights area. (Actually they took us; neither Freddie nor I did a scrap of driving!)

Here's Freddie watching as Mom takes avant-garde 3-second videos with her iPad ...

I'm bummed that this huge, off-leash park isn't a bit closer for us to get to. It's meadowy and deciduous, offering a nice contrast to Pacific Spirit.

Oh, well ... this is hardly a dog deprived of recreational opportunities!

Stay tuned for our next post, in which Freddie will travel to school in his bicycle RV and help teach an English class on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time!

Thanks for stopping by!

WWF's First Product Review: Tutti Gourmet!

OK, I'm straying a bit from Walking With Freddie's usual fare in this post ... but what the hell. It's my party, and I'll write about food products if I want to. :)

So, without further ado ...

a product review!

As a follow-up to my first mention of yummy Bana Krisps*, the friendly folks at Tutti Gourmet in Hudson, Quebec sent some samples of their gluten-free biscotti for my consideration. Disclosure: these friendly folks — Cara and Michael, whom I don't know personally — did send me free food, but they are neither paying me for this endorsement nor threatening to abduct my dog if I don't say nice things!

Now, I'm a fan of biscotti with my morning coffee, but, for a Type 1 diabetic who tries to keep carbs to a minimum and who no longer eats wheat products, the standard baton-sized, gluten- and sugar-laden biscottus (that's the singular of biscotti, right?**) that cafés store in big glass canisters just doesn't work so well. Yeah, I know I could deal with the size issue easily enough, but there's still the ingredient problem.

I've tried various rice flour baked goods in recent years, and the adjective that comes most readily to mind for such products is mealy (which of course makes me think of mealy bugs ... eww).

Enter Tutti Gourmet's two-bite biscotti. There is rice flour, yes. But it's tastily tempered by organic coconut flour, arrowroot powder, and tapioca ... not to mention the other groovy ingredients in the four varieties: almond, pistachio/cranberry & anise, orange & chocolate (my fave), and chocolate & almond. The carb count is about 7g per biscuit — about half a unit of insulin's worth, in my case, and definitely "shot-worthy" on those mornings when I'm hankering for a little something yummy to dunk in my coffee.

Which reminds me ... biscotti are designed to be dunked, and Tutti Gourmet's product holds up exceptionally well in a hot beverage. No disappointing disintegration or sludge at the bottom of the cup.

Gratuitous photo of Leah, Kali, and flowers at the dog beach!

Oh, they're also free of other common allergens out there — the biscotti, that is. And Leah. I won't speak for the hypo-allergenic qualities of Kali or the flowers. :)


In the interest of giving the most impartial review possible, I offered my Tutti Gourmet biscotti to Paul and various non-diabetic, gluten-tolerant friends. Given a choice between high-quality wheat flour biscotti and Tutti Gourmet's products, I sensed most of them would probably opt for the traditional recipe. However, all agreed that Tutti Gourmet biscotti are really tasty and way better than other gluten-free products. Paul says, "These are by far the best gluten-free baked goods I've tried" (and he has tried quite a few!).

Freddie says, "They don't smell as good as day-old tripe, but for human food they're not bad!" (The bag he's sniffing above is empty, by the way. No biscotti left inside, just crumbs ... hint, hint.)

Blood sugar-wise, Bana Krisps are still the better snack choice for me — impressively short ingredient list, wheat-free, low-carb, über-tasty — but woman cannot live by Bana Krisp alone. Especially if — like right now — her blood sugar is trending low. Bring on the Tutti Gourmet biscotti!

Here's a nice young Italian-Canadian man going out for coffee and biscotti with his nonna.

Buon appetito!

Next post, we're back to walking with Freddie!

* Since I mentioned (in my previous post) being impressed by the error-free French on the Bana Krisp packaging, I'll just add here that I was a teeny bit bummed to find a noun/modifier agreement error on the biscotti ("votre boissons préférée"). Zut alors! But I've seen much worse.

** Hmm ... according the Wikipedia entry on biscotti, the singular is biscotto ... but it comes from the medieval Latin biscoctus, meaning "twice-cooked/baked." So my guess wasn't completely absurd!

The Elephant in the Garden and Other Curiosities

Freddie and I have had some excellent walks recently — a combination of summery weather, summery spirits/activities all around, and some big improvements in Freddie's adolescent reactivity. He's not perfect, but maybe the two year mark will prove to be the turning point it's rumoured to be!

Here are some sights from walks over the past couple of days ... including the elephant(s) of the post title!

This reminds me of Provence.

The blank wall also gives me the urge to paint! Keep scrolling for some far more impressive graffiti than I could ever manage ...

Freddie has been big into digging lately. He buries his ball then shovels it out. It's great exercise ... worth the 20-minute hosing down that's needed to get the sand out!

(Freddie might not shed fur, but our home often feels more like a beach cabin than a condo.)

Stick with the sandbox, Freddie.

This is Lucy. She's ready to make her move.

A few seconds after I took this shot, Freddie and Lucy were wrestling, and the ball had disappeared.

I hope some big, powerful pooch with a good nose has managed to unearth it.

Phone Call

Panthers Softball

Another Smartphone shot. In the aftermath of my own phone acquisition, I've done a pretty good job of not wasting time on the thing. It hasn't been much of an effort; I tend to forget that I have it. Home internet use, however, is another story ... 

Ironically — perhaps predictably — this blog, which started out, in part, as something to replace time-wasting on the internet, has started to generate its own time-sucking mechanisms, in the form of "para-blogging" (i.e. publicizing posts all over Google + and FB, networking, etc.). 

I've made some great connections this way — Tony in Oregon, Heather in Wisconsin, Torill in Norway ... dog people, diabetic people, groovy people all over the world — but I fear I'm losing sight of the original purpose of Walking With Freddie (something quick-ish and Freddie-ish that I could do online and share with a small, interested audience), not to mention spending too much time clacking away on my laptop. 

Now, building up an audience that goes beyond my immediate circles does appeal to me. The desire to share written stuff with other people, with strangers even, is one of the reasons I keep throwing little fiction puppies into the lair of the crazy, dying book-publishing beast, and it's the main reason I've been sucked into the virtual vortex of the blogosphere (yeah, this sentence is a metaphorical disaster zone ;-)). But whether my blog posts get read by two hundred people or twenty people — or by Paul and Leah and my parents — shouldn't really matter. It doesn't matter. Having one friend is a million times better than having none. 

The pool has been filled!

So! With much gratitude to WWF readers everywhere, I'm going to cut back substantially on my publicity & networking efforts.

There are walks and runs and swims to go on, live conversations and games of fetch to be had, herb gardens to be tended ... and, yeah, essays to be marked.

Not without fortification, of course.

Sticky Wicket?

OK! Let's admire some beach graffiti!

Freddie was a very good boy on this low-tide beach walk, all the way from Kits Pool to Hastings Mill at the north end of Alma Street. No hyper reactions to people or dogs. Each time we encountered someone, he stopped and waited for me to let him know if it was OK to say hi. And his greetings were all polite. Just one bit of naughtiness — snitching Ollie's ball and playing keep-away in the tide pools. Oh, Freddie.

I don't know who paints this stuff on the bulwarks of Nofo's swanky waterfront properties, but it's pretty groovy. 

So is the natural handiwork ...

But now, what are we to make of this?

"What elephant?" says Freddie.

Thanks for stopping by! Freddie and I hope you'll leave comments and come back and all that jazz ... but if you, too, are cutting back on cyber-time, we'll of course understand.

Play bows to all ...

Let the 3-month marathon begin!

After a marathon play session down at the dog beach with cousin Dusty and some other friends, Freddie and I watched the front runners in the Vancouver Marathon as they flew through Kits Point. Although my own fitness pursuits have hardly ever been competitive, or even goal-oriented, I still get a charge out of watching elite athletes do their eyes-on-the-prize thing ...

I think this guy was in 3rd place at this point. Couldn't get my camera out in time to capture #1 and #2!

 These folks were next.

Legs!

I'm pretty sure this was the lead woman.

Don't blink!

And the marathon of my post title? That would be the summer teaching semester, which begins tomorrow! The term is 13 weeks long — two marathon miles for every week of class. But I refuse to count them down, or to be so focused on the August finish line that I fail to appreciate the scenery, the feel of the ground under my feet, even the rain and puddles and potholes ... at least until Week 11, anyway. That's my goal.

City by the Sea

Filigree

Recall at Low Tide

Slopes

The Waterfall Building, W. 2nd Avenue

Spot the tongue!

This shot is dedicated to my nephew-in-law, Mike, who is off to Red Deer, Alberta this week to begin his career as a city planner — one of the grooviest and most important jobs around, I think.

Mike likes bikes. For this and other reasons, he's going to be a stellar planner!

 Arbutus Sidewalk

Lilacs, Take 2

Quilchena Dog Park ... but where are the dogs?

Finally ... friends!

The Word on the Street ...

And on that note ... Freddie, Paul, and I shall make our way to the starting line. See you at the first water station ... and have a gunk-free week, everyone!

Summer Term 2013