Sunday, January 20, 2008

A Day at the Beach

See any difference? Me neither. This sleepy Canadian road runs along the US border. It’s called '0 Avenue'. Perhaps the most uninspired naming of a street I’ve heard, it’s like saying, “you are nowhere”. But I love driving on it and pointing out to my kids, “Look, that side has American cows and this side has Canadian cows!”. More importantly I love the fact my kids don’t care about the distinctions, neither do the cows or the birds that fly across the street, switching countries dozens of times each day.

This is the road we usually take to go to the ocean. It was a fix I needed. Since I wasn’t doing art today, I thought I’d find it along the way. I spotted some creature-like driftwood, my daughter said ‘weird alien’, I thought, ‘calf fetus’. Anyone see anything more pleasant?


If I had concrete stairs I would love to do this mosaic.


Andy’s Ice cream was perhaps the friendliest service I’ve ever received and they let you write on the walls and ceiling! Pretty much every inch of this place is covered with black marker.



I would have tried to build an impressive sandcastle and let that be my art production of the day, but there would be risk of frostbite, so I end with a bit of winter sun and a whole lot of renewed spirits.

8 comments:

patricia said...

That piece of driftwood – I don't know if this is any more pleasant, but as soon as I saw it, I thought of the book 'The Doubtful Guest' by Edward Gorey. Here's a link to the book:
http://www.goblinville.com/bootique/images/gorey/gorey-doubtful-guest.jpg

How lucky you are to be surrounded by so much beauty! (Though one thing I recall about visiting Mission which wasn't so pleasant was the size of the slugs!! Big black monsters that would come out in droves after a rain. Ick).

andrea said...

Nice slice-of-Sunday post! I wish I'd been there (White Rock?) rather than trying to find a new gas cap for my truck and dragging kids to buy winter jackets! I once blogged about 0 Ave, too! April 2006 I think...

Ellen said...

Patricia: I checked out your link. Indeed it does look like that! I can't believe I've only vaguely heard of Edward Gorey, when after looking online at his work, he is the obvious source of so many imitations today.
The yellow slugs, called banana slugs are even ickier and about the size of, if not a banana, a small plantain. The landscape in BC can be positively prehistoric (pun intended).

Andrea: Yes, it was White Rock and I thought of you yesterday. It's hard to see, but in the photo of my daughter facing the scribble wall, to her right there is a pointy bubble encircling, "Anita Pratt and Robert" Small chance any relation?
I went and read your April post and then got lost in reading your life for that month. I had to bookmark it, there's so much good information there I wanted to explore later.

Angela Wales Rockett said...

Looks like a polar bear to me.

andrea said...

Ellen: There's no Anita in my family but my brother is Robert Pratt!

dinahmow said...

The driftwood might be a meerkat...
But I really came over to say I have the Rooftops picture on my living room wall. Everyone who sees it says "Hey!" or "Ooh!" or similar.If you get it, we can collate visitors' impressions, publish a wildly successful book and flick Andrea the royalties.Yes?

Ellen said...

Angela: Polar bear, that is much more pleasant. You must be an optimist!

Dinah: It's a fabulous photo isn't it. I did buy it. As for the book, it would be a lovely book, I'd buy it.

Janets Planet said...

The driftwood looks like a prairie dog poking up out of the ground.