Our last full day in Vancouver. We took advantage of the fact that it was only misting out, not a down pour, and headed over to Gastown, the historic area of the city. Shops, art galleries, food....the usual, just set in an older section of town by the waterfront. Pretty cobblestone streets shimmering and reflective in the wetness . There were some amazing looking leaves-maple, oak, etc. that we don't have in Alaska. Their colors of reds, yellows, umbers, maroons, oranges, intertwined in a way I have never seen before. Freshly fallen leaves lying atop the older ones that were already splitting apart and melding into the sidewalks from being trod upon. It was so beautiful and decoupage-like! I collected some to press in a magazine for Willa. At some point we'll varnish them to try to recapture that glistening wet beauty of color play!
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| The famous Steam Clock...to please your inner geek. |
That evening NYL held it's final dinner. A combination of bad food-I KNEW we should have just gotten some Ben and Jerry's....- and kinda schmaltzy entertainment. It was an off-Vegas-esque Cirque de Somesuchshit. Lot's of neat folks walking around and performing fun stuff during dinner, but the actual show? Meh. There were some muscle bound dudes climbing all over each other which was sorta cool, but the "aerial" stuff was asi asi. I had on an AWESOME pair of shoes, though!
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| Human marionette. Neato! |
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| Our friends |
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| Wedgieeeeeee! |
The hot tub called to us once again. Back at the Hyatt, we donned our swimsuits and hotel issued bathrobes, grabbed a lovely bottle of wine that we had purchased, a couple glasse,s and headed out to the tub. After soaking and chatting with another NYLer, a man appears dressed in a dark suit, and, I SWEAR, one of those thingies in his ear like the secret service! Very Matrix. So agent Smith says to stop drinking alcoholic beverages in that hot tub!!! ......or, uh, cough cough, just keep it outta sight. Off he goes and I say to Miles,"Let get our robes and slippers and walk around town for a goof!" He's always up for teh silly, so I grab my camera, wrap my hair in a towel, and off we go.
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| Lay your head back in the rain and this is the view from the roiling hot tub.... |
LOTS of weird stares as we walk through the hotel lobby, outside and down the street! Passing Hermes and Tiffany, snapping photos, smiling innocently at folks, I suggest we head over to the Winking Judge because that's a cool name for a pub. Once inside the first thing we hear is, "MILES PRUNERRRR!!!!!". A NYL bigwig type, lousy with booze, screams about our awesomeness walking about in bathroom gear and buys us a round! Thus begins our evening of "Dana and Miles-ROCK STARS". After the Judge, we made our way toward Granville Street and to our surprise, the street has been shut down for a few blocks! We are no longer the few wacky ones in costume. We are HOME. Freaks galore! And then people start FLOCKING to us for pictures! Now, there were some pretty creative costumes out there, but everyone thought WE were the shit! NUTS! And we were a HIT with the Asians!!!! We felt like the Beatles being chased down the sidewalk! Actually, we weren't moving very fast because everyone wanted photos of us! We walked up and down that street laughing our asses off. Who knew?! Our "costumes" were free, drinks free, and now we are out there plastered, I'm sure, ALL OVER FACEBOOKS WORLDWIDE.
Here is just a visual taste of our silly crazy-ass Halloween: Wait! Disclaimer! Yes, we were sans kids for this Halloween. And that SUCKED. Some douchenozzle at NYL thought it would be ok to schedule Council during fekking Halloween. Between various friends and Dylan( who was a stellar big sis), Willa was well taken care of . She had a great time with her buddy carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating. She was a tornado.
I KNOW.
I fretted over how the hell I was going to make a fucking TORNADO outfit for the whole month prior. Anyway, afterward she got to have a sleepover with Dylan at Dylan's friend's house and all was well. Even though we didn't get to trick or treat with our little girl, :( , Mommy and Daddy had an uproariously FUN NIGHT!!!!! And Mommys and Daddys need those once and awhile, yes?!!
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| Tee hee heeee! |
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| Awwwwwww! |
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| NO idea what he's doing here. |
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| It's just a JUMP to the left! |
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| FRIDA!!! I LOVE your work!!!! |
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| "We love these 2 crazy American spa people!" |
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| Just a quiet interlude... |
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| Awwwww, again!!! |
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| Me and "V fer Vendella" (a Willa-ism) Occupy! |
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| creepy |
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| Get the hell out of the way, Miles! That's Robert Downy Jr.!!!!! |
We STILL have perma grin pain from that night! It beat the hell out of sitting in our hotel room watching "Strange Addictions".
Sometimes you just need to step out of your comfort zone.
