Coffee!

I am very sleepy tonight. Coffee's not helping.

Coffee/rust, next door.

I'm going to bed. Beach day tomorrow. Goodnight!

On a grey day in Steveston ...

An historic cannery,

Gulf of Georgia Cannery, 1894 - 1979

Roof decor

Its Ice House,

Then and now

And a warm welcome:

Window painting, Steveston Bakery.

Chilly afternoon, with cupcakes

"Which beach today?" The sun was shining brightly, but the thermometer was well below zero. Boundary Bay tends to be windy. Blackie Spit is worse. Crescent Beach is warm, up close to the hillside, but too rocky at high tide for a quick walk. White Rock faces a protected bay; White Rock it was.

Maybe we should have gone further west, up against the Semiahmoo Reserve lands. White Rock looked good, but ...

Green lawns, warm picnic tables.

It was colder than it looked, and we're not hardened to it yet this year. We bundled up; I layered a wool scarf over my hat, added a vest. Laurie wished for his longjohns. But the tide was going out; there would be sand and creeping things. We headed east.

Looking back at Mount Baker, to the southwest.

Gull, stepping out.

Rockweed and barnacles.

I picked up a couple of clams and examined them, poked at the rockweed. Got my gloves wet. My fingers started to ache. Laurie was following the tide, keeping out of trouble.

There's a hint of pink already in the sky. It's just past 3:00 PM.

Rock face. The "eyes" are probably limpet scars.

The usual contingent of gulls and mallards were poking around in the shallows. On the newly-drained sand, we came across a large section heavily tracked by smaller birds, the tiny footprints barely disturbing the surface. One peep flew alone across the bay, calling as it went. We didn't see any others.

The sun was low on the horizon already, making glittering paths across the waves. We took far too many photos of clouds and the glare of sunlight; mostly what we got were silhouettes of rocks and birds against a peach sky and yellow waves. The cameras don't adjust like our eyes do.

One that turned out, once I darkened the sky somewhat.

By now, my nose was as achy as my fingers were. I was holding my sleeves down over my fingertips; the nose was stuck out in the cold. Laurie was doing better, but it was time to find some warmth.

Not this. A big block of marked ice, lying broken on the sidewalk. Coors Silver ...? No colder than my fingers.

Tea time. There's a good little café near the pier, Tracycakes. We've stopped there before; the tea was good, the staff friendly. I had coffee, Laurie, tea. The muffins were bran, and the soup (hot!) was noodles; sounded good, but not in our diets. (Oh, to be young again!) A woman (Tracy?) was decorating cupcakes:

Yum! But too sweet for us.

Sprinkles and candy to go on top.

It was nice and warm inside. Outside, it only looked warm.

Lettering on the protective screen on the porch outside. "Have you had your Cupcake today?"

"It's High time for High Tea." And a palm tree.

When we left, warmed and happy, the sun was lying on the very horizon. The sky was aflame.

That pinpoint of light above the islands became two, then three. They weren't moving. Were they clouds, snowy mountain tops, towers? We don't know.

I like this scene, with a rock statue in the front. In this light, it acquires a mystery it doesn't have in broad daylight:

Here it is, last July. Rather prosaic, I think.

It was full dark by the time we got home for supper, just after 5:00 PM. Twelve more days 'till the solstice; twenty-four before the days are longer than today.

And how many days before it snows?

"Agreeable friends and slim concubines"

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. Of course, most of us celebrated yesterday, but the long weekend continues until midnight tonight.

This year, our familes scattered across the province, leaving us peacefully at home to housesit and tend to the ancient cat and the newest addition, a pair of lovebirds. As usual, since we were close to downtown, we did too much, ending up this afternoon at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden, a serene, meditative series of gardens, pools, courtyards and galleries. Beautiful and calming; just what we needed.

There will be photos and a more complete report, later. For now, here's a thought from the Eight Treasures Gift Shop, found in the tea display (we bought three different flavours):

Text, in larger print:

From The Chinese Tea Reader Ch'a-Su

Suitable Moments for Drinking Tea

When we are interrupted while contemplating

During a good conversation deep into the night

When there is a light, soft drizzle

With agreeable friends and slim concubines

When the children are at school

In a bamboo grove on a spring evening

Under unusual rocks

Unsuitable Moments For Drinking Tea

At the theatre

While opening letters

When the children are not at school

To Be Avoided When Drinking Tea

Sullen servants

Bad waters

Money worries

Large gatherings

To Be Avoided At All Costs

Shrieking children

Squabbling women

Garrulous people

Noisy streets

A bit sexist (Squabbling women? Squabbling men are worse. And "slim concubines"? Is there not a male equivalent? Do we even want a male equivalent?) , but there it is.

Outrage is the fad of the day, it seems. In case that list left you deprived of it, here's another bit of wisdom from the tea display; it was one of the proverbs on the back of a description of various teas.

In vain would coffee boast an equal good,

The crystal stream transcends the flowing mud ...

Motteux, 1712

In Motteux's defense, I might say that maybe they didn't make decent coffee back in the seventeen hundreds.

And now, I'll have a good, strong cup of flowing mud coffee, and head to bed. Goodnight, all!

.

Seen outside the Tim Horton's

In the street. Parked in a no-parking zone.

Not In Service.

Sorry 'bout that.

Numbers removed, to keep the driver out of trouble. Because no-one can be expected to withstand the draw of a good Tim Horton's coffee and a bag of TimBits. No-one.

Weekly Five, ad lib

I have been lax these last two weeks. (Well, Christmas and New Years' might have something to do with that.) So, whatever the excuse, I haven't built up a listing of science links for the regular link fest.

But here's what I've been browsing today, in no particular order:

From Rock, Paper, Lizard, "Arthropod Art". Right down my alley.

From Science Daily, "Insect attack may have finished off the dinosaurs". Not an asteroid impact after all? An interesting idea.

From the New York Times, "The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen." Can you guess?

One of my favourite blogs: Janet Stemwedel's "Adventures in Ethics and Science". Her weekly "Friday Sprog Blogging" is well worth watching for. This week, the sprogs discuss bears.

From Aardvarchaeology, "Mars Rover still working after Four Years". And the warranty was for 3 months! Someone was doing something right.

Tetrapod Zoology: Surreal caecilians, Part II: "Pass mom's skin, hold the mayo." I know, I know; don't click on this if you're squeamish, or if you object to ten-dollar words. But it has some very interesting tidbits; skim on down to the 8th paragraph for the title story.

And Shelley Batts has the beginning of a series, with her article, "Coffee as Treatment for the Plague". She says,

"Pretty much I'm just going to dig back into the forgotten and moldering annuls (sic) of scientific publications to find weird and interesting studies that very likely would never be published or done today (and perhaps never should have.)"

Have fun browsing!

(Photo from Wikipedia, under a Creative Commons license.)