Canada Day Long Weekend 2013

So this past weekend marked the 146th birthday of our great nation. We celebrated Canada Day on July 1st. Usually this holiday is pretty low key in our house-we tend to just do some hiking and BBQing and that's about it. It ended up busier than I had originally anticipated. 

Sunday evening, my pal Jenn and I went to see Shayne Koyczan at the Vogue. As I mentioned before, I won tickets from the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. I have to tell you, this was an amazing experience. Jenn and I arrived early to pick up the tickets at the box office and then we lined up. While we were standing in line, this woman came up to us and asked if we'd be willing to do an on camera interview of our thoughts about Shane Koyczan. They were filming with plans to put the interviews together as a video at some point. We thought it would be fun and since we both adore him, we said we were in. It was pretty funny and I can't wait to see what they do with the footage. Funny that I seem to be doing alot of TV lately.

Eventually, we were let into the theatre. The seating was rush seating and since were at the front of the line, we easily got seats in row two, up front and center. Shane ended up performing for THREE HOURS. He is not only a gifted poet, but also incredibly funny. I laughed so much my face hurt. His band was incredible and I was so happy there were so many strings-cello, base, guitar and violin, along with keyboard, trombone and trumpet. The beauty of combining spoken word with music is that the music beautifully underscores the words and adds another layer to the emotion that is being expressed. It's an experience like no other.

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival has never had spoken word poetry as part of their line up. It's really cool that they decided to take a chance to include it.  Seeing Shane Koyczan, whom I consider to be one of Canada's national treasures was the perfect way to celebrate the Canada Day long weekend.

 

   

While Jenn and I were having dinner before the show, I got a message from the good people at False Creek Ferries. (The company that runs the ferry service we often ride from Science World to Granville  Island. It's one of our favourite things to do.) Awhile back they invited Rick Mercer to join them on Canada Day for their traditional ferry ballet. (Think Musical Ride, only on water, using ferries instead of horses.) I told them half jokingly that if Rick Mercer didn't want to do it, I did. Well, Rick Mercer never got back to them, so they very sweetly extended the invitation for me to join them. Of course I said yes! 

I got home pretty late from the Vogue-1am and didn't get to sleep till 2am, but still managed to get up for 5am so I could get downtown in time. The morning was so beautiful. This photo is the reflection of Science World in False Creek. The water was like glass. It was so peaceful.

I waited at the dock at Olympic Village and at about 7:30am, a fleet of 6 ferries came to get me. Nothing like a fleet of boats turning up to make a girl feel special! I hopped aboard and we were off. The manager of the company (in the left hand photo) was calling the manoeuvres via radio.

  

The ferries did figure eights, various lines and circle sequences in several locations along False Creek. People were watching from shore or out on their boats, clapping, waving flags and shouting "Happy Canada Day!"

We made our way up to Granville Island over the course of about an hour and a half. There was a cooling breeze and I was shooting photos, laughing and waving to people the whole time. Rick Mercer has no idea how much fun he missed!!

 

When we arrived at Granville Island, Jenn was waiting there for me! We hung out till I caught the ferry back to Olympic Village. A HUGE thank you to False Creek Ferries for making my Canada Day so special. You guys are THE BEST!! 

This week is going to be quiet, which is a good thing-the past 2 months have been an absolute whirlwind!

What's Going On

Hello again! Well, the *secret project* has been completed. I know a number of you are dying to know what I've been up to but I can only tell you this: I spent 5 days shooting for a TV show. Everything else is hush-hush for obvious reasons, but I'll let you know it's going to air, when the time comes.

Glad to be home now, as I am in the middle of having treatment again and it's pretty miserable. I've been in bed the last few days just trying to get through it. On a positive note, I mentioned last post that I won tickets to see Shane Koyczan (whom I adore!) at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival so I'm looking forward to that on Sunday. I'll go even if I have to drag myself there. I'm not missing that for anything.

I'm finally getting an MRI on my wrist fracture today. It's been 3 1/2 months since I broke it. I am still wearing the splint to protect it. It's not healing. I have no idea when I'll get to see the surgeon though. Good thing I'm not in any pain!
{cue dripping sarcasm}

I got an email this week that I won a two hour scooter rental for two from the good folks at Cycle BC, so a friend and I are going to embrace our inner scooter girls and have an adventure when I am feeling a bit better. I've always wanted to own a scooter so this will be a good chance to see if I actually like riding one. For years, I've had visions of driving an orange scooter (the colour of orange crush!) with a side car for Indy. (Because as you know, dog is my copilot!) I could totally see him wearing doggles. And yes, some of my ideas are a little "out there" but who cares? I embrace the wacky-it's what makes life interesting.

Catching Up!

(Graffiti I spied yesterday!)

Hello! It's been awhile since I last posted. I've been uber busy! May was a whirlwind and somehow that managed to spill over into June. I have had next to no time in the studio so far this month. Instead I've been running back and forth to doctor's appointments interspersed with socializing and a day or two of much needed down time.

Last night was the first Popluck flash mob picnic of the summer. (Or last one in the spring, depending on how you want to look at it.) We had a great time and saw a few familiar faces from last year. It was held in the square beside the Law Courts in New Westminster. The food was delicious and we got to meet some new people, which is always fun. Now we're just waiting for Al Fresco to launch theirs.

I received an invite from the UBC Health Mentors program to help interview potential Health Mentors over the summer. They are recruiting for 2013-2014, so if you live in the Lower Mainland and either live with chronic illness and/or disability or are a caregiver to someone who does and are interested in volunteering with the program, give me a shout and I'll put you in touch. I can't say enough good things about the program, it's value and the students and faculty involved. It's having such a positive impact.

I am about to embark on a *secret project* in the next week. It's something pretty big, but I can't say any more than that. It's really cool and a great adventure which I will share with you when I am free to do so. (It will be awhile, so you'll have to be patient!) Let's just say it's one of those life list things. *wink*

Next weekend in the wrap up for the volunteers for the FCM conference. The city is renting out a theatre and treating us to an afternoon at the movies. I'm looking forward to catching up with friends. The following Sunday, I have tickets (which I won from Vancouver Jazz Festival!) for Shane Koyczan. I just *adore* him! He's playing with Short Story Long at the Vogue. I've invited my friend Jenn to come with me. I can't wait!

I am grateful to have so many good things going on right now, to try and distract me from the fact that I am having to have treatment again. *sigh* Steroids, as my friend Nancy puts it are Satan's tic tacs. They are extremely hard on the body, but a necessary evil. I am doing a high dose pulse with pills (as a concession to my complete unwillingness to give up my plans to NMO right now) but if my neuro isn't happy with the results after 10 days, I will have to go in and do 3 (or possibly more) days of IV steroids. I'm battered, but unbowed and forging ahead through sheer force of will right now.

I have an art date in Early July with my pal Carol and we're going to spend an afternoon Gelli Printing, so there WILL be art on this blog again eventually! I've been stocking up on paint because I know once we start, we're not going to be able to stop! Oh and I should also mention that the fabulous Mary Ann Moss has a new class launching soon, called Sewn. The talented Roben-Marie Smith also has a new workshop, You've Got Mail...Art! which looks amazing. Both look like a lovely way to while away the summer!

Okay, must run! It's Father's Day and my darling husband is waiting for me to make him a special brekki. We're taking him out for lunch later at Granville Island. I'm hoping to shoot some nice photos of him with our son.

BONNE FÊTE CANADA !

Prairie Girl

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! BONNE FÊTE CANADA!

In honour of our 145th birthday, I give you my favourite spoken word poet, Shane Koyczan, who expresses who we are as Canadians better than anyone I know.

And with that, we are off to a pancake breakfast!
*waves from the west coast*

Rick Hansen 25th Anniversary Relay, Final Day & Concert

So this post brings us to the final day of the Rick Hansen relay. Day 273 took place yesterday in Vancouver, with the final End of Day Celebration at Terry Fox Plaza, in front of BC Place Stadium.

There was an entire school from Chilliwack who were bussed in to sing. These are the kindergarten kids in their paper crowns. Adorable!

Leading up to the final medal bearer and Rick arriving, they were showing footage of the relay from across Canada on the big screen.

Vancouver Mayor Gregore Robinson and an MLA from Richmond watch Rick's arrival.

This is the media crowding in around Rick. If you look at the centre of the photo, you can just barely make out his knees. They were actually standing on the ramp he was trying to wheel up to get on stage. I have marveled alot the past few days at his ability to gracefully handle being mobbed. Being in a crush of people freaks me out. He's far braver than I am!

Finally, they moved off the ramp so he could wheel up on stage.

BC Premier Christy Clark.

Some of the Vancouver Police department were on hand. I was surprised there weren't any RCMP officers present-they usually show up for big events. I guess because Vancouver has their own force, they were the ones invited.

 Rick and the end of day Medal Bearer, Amanda.

  

I wanted to recognize an unsung hero of the relay. This is the official photographer who has worked super hard, coast to coast capturing the memories for all the Medal Bearers. Her job is largely invisible (when I spoke to her, she said she actually kind of likes it that way) but her work was important to each and every person who was a part of this incredible journey. She's our Difference Maker. 

These are a pair of the gloves Rick wore during his Man in Motion World Tour. Wow, just wow.

They had a huge set of banners up for people to sign, so I added my name.

We don't often see police horses in the downtown core. The last time I saw them was during the 2010 games. In the summer, the mounted division of the VPD patrols Stanley Park on horseback, but it's a bit early for that here yet.

Terry Fox Plaza. It's fitting that Rick's Journey always ends here. 

Later in the evening, I went to the Rick Hansen Celebrate 25 concert. It was fabulous. What none of us knew was that it was being taped for television and will air on June 24th. It was an amazing night. Shawn Koyczan (if you watched the 2010 Opening ceremonies, you'll remember his stirring poem, We Are More.) performed with Don Alder, an amazing and gifted acoustic guitar player. (Look him up on iTunes-you won't be sorry!) Shane KILLED IT with a poem about Rick Hansen's life story. I can't wait to hear it again with the tv special airs. 

Sarah McLaughlin was beautiful and Jann Arden had everyone laughing. It was a night to honour heroes, the Difference Makers. The whole thing was just so amazing-not really something I can adequately convey in words. You just had to be there.

At one point, there was some information up on the big screens and it said that if Rick sustained the same injury today that he suffered when has was 15, chances are, he'd walk away. THAT is how far spinal cord research has come and that's happened because of him. 

1 country

600 communities

7000 Difference Makers

273 days

1 medal

= Inspiration from coast to coast to coast!

Our True North Strong & Free

Happy Canada Day, Joyeuse Fête du Canada to my fellow Canadians!

In celebration of today, I am reposting Shane Koyczan's "We Are More" which was presented at the Opening Ceremonies at the 2010 Games. He perfectly captured who we are as a nation and I could not say it any better myself.

Today I in addition to celebrating my country and all it means to me, I am also celebrating my 25th year (!) living in beautiful British Columbia. While I will always be a dyed-in-the-wool prairie girl, there is absolutely no other place in the world I'd rather be.

I always thought that people who lived here were so lucky and if I ever got to live here myself, I would never take the natural beauty of this province for granted. And I haven't. I wake up every day surrounded by mountains, ocean and forests and I never stop seeing it as if it were for the first time. My happiest moments are when I am hiking the wilds or combing the beaches or driving in the mountains. This province fills up my senses in the most soul satisfying way.

On a side note, happily, today is also the beginning of Light Hunters. It's a companion class to Wading In and I'm really excited to be spending the next 31 days adding to my photography skills. I am hoping the weather cooperates!

Bonne Fête Canada!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!!

In honour of our country's 143 birthday,

I give you once again Shane Koyczan's

We Are More.

Every time I hear this poem, my heart just fills up to spilling over with love and appreciation for my country and gratitude for the luck of being born here. There is truly no other place in the world I would rather live.

During the 2010 Games, I was witness to the birth of a new attitude amongst Canadians about our sense of patriotism. We're known worldwide as being oh-so-polite and humble about our love for our country. We don't tend to make a big show of waving flags-so much so in fact, that our Prime Minister had to encourage us to feel free to do so and worry about apologising for it later.

Yes, we are a funny bunch, shy almost in our pride in our identity, but all that changed during the Games-I began to see flags flying from apartment balconies, in windows of houses and on cars driving by. People stood in line for 3 or more hours at the Hudson's Bay just to have something in our national colours to wear. The streets were awash in red and white. Suddenly it became cool to be Canadian. We threw our humble hearts wide open and embraced our greatness with a fervor none of us had ever seen before and it felt good! Even the great Brian Williams commented on it in his closing remarks for CTV.

I am excited that today I will be out amongst my beautiful people, sharing the day in celebration of this amazing country we call home, OUR TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE!

P.S. The Olympic Flame will be lit outside of Canada Place tomorrow. To see how beautiful the post-Olympic installation is, you can get a wonderful peek here.

Happy, Happy Canada Day my friends!

2010 Opening Ceremonies

Hi Everyone! First of all, thank you for the absolute deluge of emails yesterday morning offering encouragement and support of my Olympic experience and good wishes for Canada and then last night for such glowing feedback of our Opening Ceremonies. It was such a surprise to receive them all and I thank you-it totally made my day!

Okay so I have TONS to share with you about last night and it's hard to even know where to start. Maybe I will start with telling you the job I have been doing.

About a week or so ago, I got a call asking me if I would like to "come rub elbows" with the athletes? Of course I said yes! I have no idea how I personally got that call, but it meant I was one of about 28 people out of over 1300 volunteers working in Events Services at the Stadium who would be helping to marshal the athlete's parade.

I went to a special training on Feb. 4th for this job, so that's why my Olympics started a bit earlier than I had anticipated. The job entailed standing in the seating area where the athletes would sit once they had done their parade lap around the stadium and getting them seated to enjoy the rest of the show. I spent hours going up and down the stairs, practicing so we'd get it right. I think by the times the Olympics are done, I will be in the best shape of my life. It's the world's best cardio workout!

As if this job wasn't cool enough, I also got to be one of 13 from my team of 28 to go down into what's referred to as "ring road" (essentially "backstage", which, because it is a stadium, is a ring shape) and help get the teams into place for the athlete's parade. This was the real "rubbing elbows" part because there was ALOT of Olympians. Each member of the ring road team had a flag and as the teams came into the ring road collected several teams and lead them around the ring to stage them.

As the teams arrived, it was like Christmas every few minutes because we'd all wait to see who was arriving. I looked over to my right and a few feet away, several very famous people were also watching! I saw Steve Nash, Anne Murray and Bobby Orr. I also saw Donald Sutherland and Barbara Ann Scott-King, who reminded me so much of Audrey Hepburn-so incredibly classy and beautiful.

While waiting for the parade to start, the athletes were taking photos with all the First Nations performers, who were in full regalia. It was a great moment to see strangers, smiling and laughing and wanting to connect in this way with one another. A smile is the same in any language.

Eventually, it was time for the big show to start, so I flew upstairs to be in place to work with my two partners to seat our section of athletes. I know that it doesn't sound all that complicated, but believe me, it's hard work. To get giant teams off the field, up into the stands, into their seats and sitting down before the next team in your section comes takes alot of focus, energy and not to mention team work!

My team was responsible for seating Albania, Algeria, Austria, Caymen Islands, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia-Macedonia, Israel, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Morocco, Norway, Portugal, Senegal and Uzbekistan. WHEW! That's 17 teams-we were a very busy section!

After all the athletes were seated, we took seats in amongst them, becoming a part of the audience until the end when we helped marshal them out again. I sat next to the Jamaican team. At one point, one of the athletes leaned over and said to me in French (and then in English) how utterly beautiful the ceremonies were. I had to agree. I kept glancing around to see the look of awe and delight on their faces. That made me so happy.

As for the ceremonies, here are the parts I enjoyed most:

-The whales in the floor. I saw the ceremonies four times over the last week and a half and every time, that gave me goosebumps. It seemed so real.

-The section where first you hear Donald Sutherland reading a quote about the Prairies by W. O. Mitchell, and then a performer who was on a wire came and Joni Mitchel's "Both Sides Now" played while waves of grain blew on the floor. That part was so much about the memories of my childhood that I cried ever single time I saw it, especially when the young man is running through the field.

-k.d. Lang singing the world's best version of "Halleluia", *EVER* and then the doves (projected ones) flying up through the "sky" (draping).

-Slam poet Shane Koyczan's "We Are More", which was just so utterly inspiring. If you missed it or wanted to see it again, it's here, but I think the version he did last night, which was slower and more deliberate, allowed for the words and their meaning sink in more.

It was an amazing night and all night long, I just kept saying to myself "Stop and breath it all in. You will never been in this time and place again." I kept taking snapshots in my mind of all the things, big and small that I wanted to remember. It felt slightly unreal to me to be in the thick of it all. I am racing now to get it all down on paper before I start forgetting small details.

Today is a day off while they prepare the stadium for the victory ceremonies. Each night there will be medal presentations for the athletes who won at venues in Vancouver and Richmond while the alpine events will be awarded at Whistler. After the presentation of medals, there will be a concert by some very big names and each night will feature talent from a different province in Canada. You can see who's playing here.

I do have photos coming. I didn't take my camera, because my understanding was we weren't permitted to, but some people did, so I should have some soon. (I imagine everyone is super busy today so it might take a couple days for me to get them.)

Anyway, wherever you are in the world reading this, I wish your teams good luck for the Games and I hope you keep watching. We will all have so much to celebrate!