I didn't see *that* coming
Sep. 13th, 2009 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgToday was an unexpectedly action-packed day, but in a good way, unless you happen to be a large marine mammal.
Coffee
The only part of today that was seriously planned in advance was to go with Husband to have a proper coffee in a proper cafe. Somewhere. We ended up at Tarts on Lake Street and had The Best Damn Coffee I've Had In Ages. And it was pretty! I even ate the foamy stuff! Phwoar!
I wish I had regular access to a place like that :-(
Art and Temptation
Today's gallery outing was in pursuit of my favourite medium: studio glass. Gorgeous exhibition of Tim Bassett chandeliers and curly twisty lovely things by Tali Dalton. I bonded seriously with a lovely purply twisty thing in the corner. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) one good coffee--whilst very happy-making--was insufficient to make me part with the necessary $4000.
I was so enamoured with the purply twisty thing that it protected me from buying a small red twisty thing for a mere $180.
I must say I was quite impressed with the gallery manager: although I made it quite clear that I was not about to spend $4000 he gave me as much respect as the loud woman who was looking to build a much larger property than her home in the city, and was looking for something suitably impressive oh-look-at-me-throwing-cash-all-over-the-place-but-of-course. Anyway, I learned much about the logistics of the exhibition (glass is uninsurable) and some of the technical information about the pieces. OK, we were the only people there so it was no loss to treat us nicely, but I don't take that for granted.
Mmmm. Shiny things. Nice man.
Planet Stuff
After I reluctantly peeled myself away from the gallery Husband asked if we could stop off at Planet Books (etc) for a Marx Brothers card to send to his ABC groupie. Yes, he has an ABC groupie of some years' standing. Always curious to see where we'd end up parking I agreed to the side trip and decided to look for my very own copy of Robocop while we were there. And by golly I found it too, a 2 disc collector's edition no less with a bucket o' special features.
Husband didn't find a Marx Brothers card, but he can find parking anywhere.
Let's go see the whale
The last time a dead whale washed up on a beach close to home Husband said he'd like to go see the next one. I'd heard there was a whale on City Beach (I'd assumed it was already dead) so I offered--as a precious gift--the chance to go and see it and enjoy the assumed stench. I've given up spoon conservation, but had not really anticipated what the trip might entail. Also: see coffee, above.
For a start, do you know where City Beach is? I do; I grew up in Wembley Downs, right next to City Beach. There's a dog beach, and no-where to park along West Coast Highway.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. Nearly 39 years of wrong. City Beach the suburb bears no practical relationship to City Beach the beach. Oops. Husband knew, but for peacekeeping reasons allowed me to direct him to a beach carpark in North Floreat. He politely pointed out where City Beach (the beach) was in relation to Floreat Beach (the beach, not Floreat the suburb, which I thought was south of City Beach, which it is, but only the suburb, not the beach). I insisted on consulting the road map, but only after we'd hiked through the dunes (on the approved path of course) in our good gallery gear to gaze upon the storm water outflow.
So, map. Look! Saith I, in triumph, Big black letters saying CITY BEACH, right where we were, and on the coastline... Ah. Sorry darling, south it is. We parked at the CBSLC and looked for other people looking at or for something. Around the point we saw some ants looking at a slightly larger ant in the surf. I knew it was a young whale, so wasn't terribly surprised it was so small. Although it was a fair way off, it was a nice day to be out and I stubbornly insisted on continuing now we'd almost found it.
A half-kilometre through soft much-churned sand later (in my boots), the ant-sized people were now people-sized, and the large ant-sized whale was much much bigger. The size of a year-old Humpback, to be precise. And alive, much to my surprise. It was rolling in the surf, but it was breathing and moving about. Over the next hour or so I watched it slap tail and flukes, and breathe with increasing difficulty. It was magnificent, but clearly near exhaustion.
With every wave that came in I felt a mingling of hope and despair: the water became deeper--maybe deep enough to float?--but the waves were quite strong and always cancelled out any progress the whale might make. I could feel the crowd willing it on, and the almost palpable urge to wade into the waves and push it out with bare hands. Sure, lots of people were just taking pictures, but the tone of the crowd was largely respectful, and many just stood quietly and watched the whole time I was there. I haven't a clue how many.
After a while a wildlife officer (I still call them CALM officers) explained to the crowd what was going on. Given that he had to explain why the authorities weren't rushing about trying to save the whale, and that it was almost certainly going to die, he did an amazingly good job of it. It couldn't be saved, nor could it be humanely destroyed under those circumstances. Too dangerous to try and shoot it while it could still thrash around, and too much of a toxic danger to wildlife to attempt to anaesthetise it.
He also explained, in gory but necessary detail, what would happen if people attempted to drag the whale out by ropes, and there was no scope for getting a sling around it. This was also the third time today the whale had beached itself (having escaped a pod of killer whales), and having used all that energy it probably wouldn't survive the trip to the next feeding grounds.
It was one of the best, most educational pieces of public speaking I have ever heard in my life. But poor whale :-(
I wasn't sure I'd survive the trip to the next feeding grounds either, for during the talk my legs started to shake. Husband had shifted the car while I watched so I only had a vertical trip up the dunes to look forward to, but I was wheezily out of breath by the time I got to the top. Haven't strained the lungs that much in ages, so it was probably good for me. I think I found my 30 today.
Einstein Factor
Tonight's Einstein Factor playoff featured the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lizzy_bbb and the impressive feat of maximum points in the first round. It was a close-run battle to the end, and she lost by a mere 100 points. However! There was much shouting at the screen in our household for she would have won but for a matter of opinion in pronunciation. She woz robbed! Robbed!
Coffee
The only part of today that was seriously planned in advance was to go with Husband to have a proper coffee in a proper cafe. Somewhere. We ended up at Tarts on Lake Street and had The Best Damn Coffee I've Had In Ages. And it was pretty! I even ate the foamy stuff! Phwoar!
I wish I had regular access to a place like that :-(
Art and Temptation
Today's gallery outing was in pursuit of my favourite medium: studio glass. Gorgeous exhibition of Tim Bassett chandeliers and curly twisty lovely things by Tali Dalton. I bonded seriously with a lovely purply twisty thing in the corner. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) one good coffee--whilst very happy-making--was insufficient to make me part with the necessary $4000.
I was so enamoured with the purply twisty thing that it protected me from buying a small red twisty thing for a mere $180.
I must say I was quite impressed with the gallery manager: although I made it quite clear that I was not about to spend $4000 he gave me as much respect as the loud woman who was looking to build a much larger property than her home in the city, and was looking for something suitably impressive oh-look-at-me-throwing-cash-all-over-the-place-but-of-course. Anyway, I learned much about the logistics of the exhibition (glass is uninsurable) and some of the technical information about the pieces. OK, we were the only people there so it was no loss to treat us nicely, but I don't take that for granted.
Mmmm. Shiny things. Nice man.
Planet Stuff
After I reluctantly peeled myself away from the gallery Husband asked if we could stop off at Planet Books (etc) for a Marx Brothers card to send to his ABC groupie. Yes, he has an ABC groupie of some years' standing. Always curious to see where we'd end up parking I agreed to the side trip and decided to look for my very own copy of Robocop while we were there. And by golly I found it too, a 2 disc collector's edition no less with a bucket o' special features.
Husband didn't find a Marx Brothers card, but he can find parking anywhere.
Let's go see the whale
The last time a dead whale washed up on a beach close to home Husband said he'd like to go see the next one. I'd heard there was a whale on City Beach (I'd assumed it was already dead) so I offered--as a precious gift--the chance to go and see it and enjoy the assumed stench. I've given up spoon conservation, but had not really anticipated what the trip might entail. Also: see coffee, above.
For a start, do you know where City Beach is? I do; I grew up in Wembley Downs, right next to City Beach. There's a dog beach, and no-where to park along West Coast Highway.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. Nearly 39 years of wrong. City Beach the suburb bears no practical relationship to City Beach the beach. Oops. Husband knew, but for peacekeeping reasons allowed me to direct him to a beach carpark in North Floreat. He politely pointed out where City Beach (the beach) was in relation to Floreat Beach (the beach, not Floreat the suburb, which I thought was south of City Beach, which it is, but only the suburb, not the beach). I insisted on consulting the road map, but only after we'd hiked through the dunes (on the approved path of course) in our good gallery gear to gaze upon the storm water outflow.
So, map. Look! Saith I, in triumph, Big black letters saying CITY BEACH, right where we were, and on the coastline... Ah. Sorry darling, south it is. We parked at the CBSLC and looked for other people looking at or for something. Around the point we saw some ants looking at a slightly larger ant in the surf. I knew it was a young whale, so wasn't terribly surprised it was so small. Although it was a fair way off, it was a nice day to be out and I stubbornly insisted on continuing now we'd almost found it.
A half-kilometre through soft much-churned sand later (in my boots), the ant-sized people were now people-sized, and the large ant-sized whale was much much bigger. The size of a year-old Humpback, to be precise. And alive, much to my surprise. It was rolling in the surf, but it was breathing and moving about. Over the next hour or so I watched it slap tail and flukes, and breathe with increasing difficulty. It was magnificent, but clearly near exhaustion.
With every wave that came in I felt a mingling of hope and despair: the water became deeper--maybe deep enough to float?--but the waves were quite strong and always cancelled out any progress the whale might make. I could feel the crowd willing it on, and the almost palpable urge to wade into the waves and push it out with bare hands. Sure, lots of people were just taking pictures, but the tone of the crowd was largely respectful, and many just stood quietly and watched the whole time I was there. I haven't a clue how many.
After a while a wildlife officer (I still call them CALM officers) explained to the crowd what was going on. Given that he had to explain why the authorities weren't rushing about trying to save the whale, and that it was almost certainly going to die, he did an amazingly good job of it. It couldn't be saved, nor could it be humanely destroyed under those circumstances. Too dangerous to try and shoot it while it could still thrash around, and too much of a toxic danger to wildlife to attempt to anaesthetise it.
He also explained, in gory but necessary detail, what would happen if people attempted to drag the whale out by ropes, and there was no scope for getting a sling around it. This was also the third time today the whale had beached itself (having escaped a pod of killer whales), and having used all that energy it probably wouldn't survive the trip to the next feeding grounds.
It was one of the best, most educational pieces of public speaking I have ever heard in my life. But poor whale :-(
I wasn't sure I'd survive the trip to the next feeding grounds either, for during the talk my legs started to shake. Husband had shifted the car while I watched so I only had a vertical trip up the dunes to look forward to, but I was wheezily out of breath by the time I got to the top. Haven't strained the lungs that much in ages, so it was probably good for me. I think I found my 30 today.
Einstein Factor
Tonight's Einstein Factor playoff featured the lovely
lizzy_bbb and the impressive feat of maximum points in the first round. It was a close-run battle to the end, and she lost by a mere 100 points. However! There was much shouting at the screen in our household for she would have won but for a matter of opinion in pronunciation. She woz robbed! Robbed!
