Seattle, May long weekend, Saturday

I could have been camping and bear hunting but the camper repair place and insurance have dithered since fall and I’m not outfitted.  This used to bother me but now I just change my plans.

I’d long planned a long weekend in Seattle.  I invited at friend for a girls weekend but they were busy with family. I had to settle on my beau Madigan whose a cockapoo and for any adventure.

I’d hoped to get away on Friday but there were too many errands so packed and dressed I headed out Saturday.  It was a 2 hour line up at the Pacific crossing.  I’m glad I hadn’t had a second coffee. 

The first rest area I pulled my Cooper Mini in for a break.  Madigan was definitely antsy and glad for a walk. I had a piddle as well.   Madigan is only one and a half years, not at all patient. He’d been quite put off by the long wait in line so it was good to give him a chance to stretch his legs.  I like this rest area. I’ve stopped so many time, in various vehicles, in various attire, summer, winter, on a motorcycle. Now I was on another adventure.

It was nearly 3 pm when I arrived at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco. There’d been traffic due to lane closures coming into Seattle. I stopped in front of the Hotel on 4th near University. 

“Staying with us,” called out the young man

“Yes, valet parking?” I called back.

“Yes, do you need a hand with your luggage, ma’am?”  He said. I was wearing a blue sundress and Rimmel red lipstick. 

“I should be fine, “ I hauled out my one big green eagle medium bag and slipped my purse and tech sack over my shoulder.  It was time to check. In. Madigan was glad to pee on the way to the door.  

Room 518. I’d phoned in the booking and glad to be here.  I’ve stayed at Kimpton’s often. Dog friendly.  

In the room I emptied my bags into the closet and drawers, putting the mess of toiletries in the bathroom.  I changed into the Reitman’’s season front cut skirt, blouse and pink striped jacket.  I was glad I’d remember my brown leather saddles. I’d forgotten the black buckled flats.  Just make up and ready.  Madigan always glad for an adventure.  

We walked down 4th to University then to first and took a left down to first where we saw Noi’s the Thai Restaurnt the conceiarge had recommended as dog friendly.

After I went back to the hotel and changed .  I had left the restaurant when I realized I needed a bathroom break but had Madigan along.  I’ve no problem using the men’s washroom dressed as a lady. I could have used the washroom at Noi’s.  My hotel room was only a few blocks so good excuse to head back.  Once there I was also able to change dresses. I’d packed a few so could mix and match and enjoy wearing clothing I’d accumulated through Covid. I shop at Amazon on line, of course.  Also I have clothing from Walmart,  En Femme and Reitman’s.  Part of the inspiration for a girl weekend was shopping for the spring fashions at Reitman’s this month.  Now I was walking all the way down First Street to Pioneer Square in yet another outfit.

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I came across  Parfumiere Nasreenat the Alexis Hotel and made my first purchase.  Such fun. A specialty Turkish perfume called Dilox. The scent will remind me of the weekend. It brought back my visit to Istanbul, the Sofia, the market and the exciting time I had touring that ancient city, formerly Constantinople.  Before Covid I brought a friend here and bought her one of the perfumes she’d said she so loved. A perfect gift!. 

I took pictures with my phone. I had a great time.  I’d fasted Friday so was glad to find Nois, the famed Thai restaurant recommended by the Monaco staff.  

I had this carpaccio type beef, called tiger, and a chicken salad.  Madigan was glad to have most of the beef while I enjoyed the spicy salad.  The weather was perfect for sitting outside, I loved the sun .

I loved the post Covid freedom. I loved being able to walk about in a sleeveless dress feeling the warmth of the sun and the slight breeze coming in from the ocean. The sea gulls were happy to patrol the streets looking for any food dropped around the outdoor cafe’s. Truly a blue sky day. Madigan sniffed everything.

Ballet BC Program 2 Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Both Laura and I are getting over spring colds.  Vancouver is experiencing  dreariness with ugly rain holding back the coming of the sun.  If it weren’t for season’s tickets to the ballet neither of us would have got off the couch and escaped from the tv to culture.  It never seems like a good idea getting dressed but history has proven over and over again that an evening of Ballet BC is an uplifting intriguing consciousness raising event. It even puts a smile on my face. Curmudgeon that age is making me.

And true to form this ballet did.  The  Queen Elizabeth Theatre is  a bright oasis.  Tonight  the young women were truly gala in the latest fashions.  Marvellous dresses and splendid shoes. I like best the gaggles of the  early teens with their aunt or dance instructor mentor  all fluttering and vibrant. But tonight it was the 20 year olds looking truly mysterious and captivating.  The young men in jackets and fancy shirts and well scrubbed faces were there as well.  

There is always the older crowd. Fewer tonight  compared to the surge of youthful enthusiasm with it’s obvious appreciation of excellence. Us older folk are main stay.  The City set.  Very uptown.  Banyan Books meets Nordstrom crowd.  Uniquely Vancouver.  But this night seemed mostly for the young and beautiful people. My favourite place in the whole world for people watching is the Ballet.

 Queen Elizabeth really is a fine little theatre.  Not the Lincoln Centre by any means.  Neither is it shabby.   I like the seats and the view.  I like too when Emily Molnar comes on stage and briefly describes the coming show. I was miffed though she didn’t mention St. Patrick.  There was however a swath of green dresses and jackets in the audience.  I was wearing my patch vest from Dublin.  Laura looked divine in her Ivanka. 

When the lights went down, the Anthem choreographed by Lisa Gelly and Josh Martin exploded on the stage, a minimalist background, with functional costumes,  a plethora of new moves and impossible bodies reached out to meet the industrial music of Colin Stetson, Sarah Neufeld, Ginzburg and Purgus. It was something never considered possible and yet it worked all together as one, a most incredible explanation of space and sound emotionally explored by human.  I truly loved the piece.  A World Premiere and somehow especially 2017.

I love watching individual dancers. I’ve known Alexis Fletcher, Peter Smida, Rachel Prince, Rachel Meyers and Gilbert Small now for several seasons so truly appreciate their interpretations and sophistication.  Each night a dancer might capture my attention as tonight Nicole Ward and Brandon Alley stood out for me.  It’s the troop though that astonishes,, like a flock of birds moving together in ultimate unison.  

I loved Swan, choreography by Wen Wei Wang,  music from Swan Lake, Alexis Fletcher and Kirsten Wicklund sublime and Christoph von Reideman, Andrew Bartee, Gilbert Small and Peter Smida so strong and robust.  Combinations and permutations so very modern and refined. Such a tableau of exquisite form.  Robson Street and Davie.  Kate Burrows costume design rippled.

The audience loved the Lesly Telford composition, “If I were 2” , an exploration of narcissism, especially the young people. A dance duet by Emily Chessa and Brandon Alley set to the words of Barbara Adler sounding like a poem played by nightclub turntable.  It wasn’t my cup of tea, like  the other time they brought a painter on stage.  I just wish for Nutcracker at such times despite my overall joy of the contemporary.  

But then as always Ballet BC redeemed itself  with the especially intimate Solo Echo choreographed by Crystal Pite to the beautiful music of Brahms.   It actually had me crying and laughing at the same time as the dancers together reminded me of the otters holding onto each through the night at Vancouver Aquarium or at other times they became like a mob of inquisitive meerkats.  I’ve never seen the like of it in all my years of ballet attendance such an original work of humans holding to each other, letting go and finding one another, then holding together as a group or family or community. Such delicacy and love.  The tablleaus of human forms were mesmerizing.  

The audience really loved it and we all leapt to our feet to give the performers a well deserved standing ovation. Then we funnelled back out to cars and taxis and the less dreary still raining city of Vancouver.  I even had a little bounce in my step.  

 

BC Ballet - Rite

Laura cleans up very nicely.  I was rather proud having this  beautiful young woman riding next to me in my Miata Sportscar,  with the hood down. I’d had time to shower after work and wasn’t feeling too rough myself in a fresh shirt and black jacket. I figure when I’m sitting in the car no one can see the fat old guy belly.  They just see me looking not too shabby with the gorgeous babe beside me.    Blond hair, makeup, and this 30’s can can era short black evening dress.  We were going to the ballet.  It doesn’t get much better.  I later saw she was  wearing  gold shoes.
When we got to the ballet I ordered a double expresso  This is so I don’t snore.  I did that once at a symphony so ever since like a few shots of prevention.  While I’m having coffee Laura and I people watch. That’s when the shoes became apparent. The ladies were resplendent in haute couture spring evening frocks but it was the shoes that were the highest fashion.  Laura says her 4 inch heel days are behind her but there were a lot of 4 inch heels this night.  Ballet brings out a real spread in ages with a lot of lovely young people and enough of us grey hairs to appreciate them to the fullest.  Ballet crowds are almost sensual.  They have the most vitality and diversity of all the audiences I see.
Tonight BC Ballet outdid itself.  Rite was so utterly original I found myself thinking someone must the nuked Rothwell and this is what our neurons synapse like.  It was that weird. Futuristic and yet tribal. The dancing individually was utterly alien.  Arms moved like legs and legs like arms. I’ve never seen anything like it and that’s why it seem so weird.  Weird was the word that kept resounding in my mind.  It was like the first time I heard synthesizer music. There was no meme I could put it into. It was a thing of its own. That original. That unique. Emily Molnar is a  genius. Weird.  My very brain seemed be pulled like it was when I studied black hole physics for the first time.  The scenic design by Omar Arbel was sensational, futuristic, raw.  At times the dancers looked like they were on Crystal Meth while at other times I was reminded of choreas I’d seen in neurology wards yet there was a music and art to the whole and a transformative story. Weird.  I was glad to be there.  I loved that the audience seemed to get it too.  Elsewhere the police might be called to lock up the whole kit and caboodle.  But tonight we were blessed with something other and we loved it. Thank you BC Ballet.  Thank you Emily Molnar.  You challenge me.
In intermission I had the real joy of seeing my colleague Dr. John Christiansen. He was there with a young ballet dancer, Jesse.  John has always loved the ballet.
Consagracion with choreography by Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, and scenic design by Luis Crespo, to the music of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was mostly a series of incredible contemporary pas de deux. I believe it’s the most sophisticated male pas de adieux I’ve ever seen.  Yet they all were extraordinary, man and woman, women together, males together and  the company as a whole, it all just worked. I love the Ballet BC company. The dancers have such energy and each one has their own interpretative style. It’s been a great season and I loved being a part of it.
The applause went on forever.
Then it was a lovely top down ride home through this great city of Vancouver.  Summer in the city in May and a night at the ballet. It doesn’t get much better.

Fancy Friday

I've just learned that 'casual Friday' has been renamed 'Fancy Friday' and men are wearing ties and women frocks to work. It's a sound idea considering that end of the week is a celebration of sorts. I'd prefer 'casual Monday' myself. I'm not at all upset at losing Friday so long as I can have another day for slouching. "Maudlin Monday" would be a better alliteration though perhaps not convey the same as 'casual'.
There wasn't anything in the sound of 'casual Friday', just a general anti authority, socialistic anarchism with staff all glorying in jeans and bosses paying more for designer cuts now that they were wearing them other than the garden and garage. It was no doubt a move by the fashion industry to cut into the 'suit' sales which might be bypassed by 'Fancy Friday', the term suggesting something more over the top. Tuxedo Manufacturers and the Gown industry might be feeling the pinch of the economic times and unwilling to depend anymore on marriages, a dying institution since on line cheating became ubiquitous in the party circles.
I've long argued that Divorce Parties without the solemnity of lawyers and judges and merely managed by the local churches which claim God is Alpha and Omega should be taking back the institution of relationship from the cancerous growth of state supposedly banned from the bedrooms of the nations. I actually still have a tie somewhere.
 I never did like the golf shirt though my colleague wears shorts to work in winter. Another wears sandals all year, even in snow. There's certainly a lack of dress code in the computer geek set which might change with the spread of Skype. More people working out of their homes will certainly have to get out of their pyjamas with eyes on them. A Fancy Friday might be a start for the home work industry.
What a concept to dress and shave for some. I've never minded a turtleneck and jacket but having been to Europe where people dress as if others actually exist I was impressed with the general view of human nature, eye candy abounding but beyond that just the respectability. In the north american scene the running shoe has long been haute courture with the fattest most out of shape people sporting spandex. I've not seen a tailor on the street for years though love that shoe repairs and shoe cleaners are making a comeback. The Asian influx have brought nail care to an art form.
Women's hats are sexy once again with Matildas abounding. Men's fedoras are threatening the ball cap monopoly in America whereas in Europe the beret and togue are mainstays. Personally I'd fancy a top hat like Lincoln wore for Fancy Friday. With a really good Fancy Friday we might have the rest of the week a casual, since really, it is to a large extent, now. Sadly too.
We all know that the car runs better after it's been through the wash. And no doubt people work better out of pyjamas or sweats especially since it suggests developmentally a move beyond the group wear of adolescents when everyone thinks they're non conforming together. Fancy Friday might well be the new 'grunge' as children revolt against the carelessness that apparently threatens the very planet and show the first signs of self care in good grooming. Harry Potter didn't dress in rags. I'd enjoy a day of fine costume to celebrate the end of a week of work. Now who sells top hats still?

"Girlcott" Ashworth's Fat Women Lingerie Store for Male Bashing!!

http://www.cbc.ca/thisisthat/blog/2011/11/16/department-store-bans-men-from-lingerie-floor/
I was irked to hear on CBC "This is That" that Ashworth Department Store Winnipeg had banned men from the Lingerie Department. I've been buying lingerie for wives and girlfriends, among others, for a quarter century or more.  In fact as I've become older and my partners too the old standbys of jewelry, lingerie, flowers, perfumes and chocolates have tended more towards jewelry, lingerie, perfume and flowers.
When I lived in Winnipeg, I can honestly say I never bought lingerie at Ashworth's because it was specialized in 'fat old lady' lingerie.  Everyone in Winnipeg knew the best place for lingerie was St. Boniface. Who but the French know anything about women's sexy things.
ttp://www.yelp.ca/search?cflt=lingerie&find_loc=St+Boniface%2C+MB
Today I work with Transexuals and am thankful that the lingerie departments in Vancouver, especially Sears and Hudson Bay,  as well as all the top lingerie stores are notoriously 21st century in their approach to Victorian underpinnings.  My patients often men in the process of undergoing sex changes don't need the kind of sexist attitudes of gender bigots of Ashworth's.  None of my female patients who are in the process of becoming men have ever had to deal with the likes of Ashworth's Helen Cole-Adams when they buy Stanfields for themselves or get those James Bond pjs for their romantic encounters.
Naturally I don't think 'teen age girls" have any place in men's underwear departments either. So I didn't like hearing men and 'teen age boys' lumped together in an obvious 'marketting' strategy.  What real adults don't think twice about 'sex' at all, confronted with any teen agers in their midst?
In fact I was rather delighted to buy an item this summer for my girlfriend at  La Vie En Rose on south Granville Street here in Vancouver.  She was so pleased she said, "because 'that's where Goldie Hawn shops".  Now Goldie Hawn took 'sexy' and "romantic'  to a whole new level.  I don't think she ever objected to men being around her. If anything she still has to beat them off.  So Ainsworth could well learn something from La Vie En Rose!
Is  Ainsworth  really Winnipeg?  When I lived there Winnipeg was  a Canadian 'fashion capital'.  Admittedly Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary have all long surpassed it as such. But is it really becoming a place where lingerie is so bad it has to be cloistered and sold only to nuns who faint at the sight of man, especially a man who might well be buying lingerie for himself or herself.
I plan right now to throw a temper tantrum the next time I see a girl reaching for my Stanfields.  I can't concentrate when women are around me buying those 'boy boxers' the young girls love to 'pilfer' from the men's underwear store.
Ashworth's is pathetic.  I hope their fat woman lingerine store gets 'girlcotted'.  It's likely that  on line Victoria Secret will benefit from the likes of Ashworth.
I expect with that attitude in Winnipeg now, all the sexiest and finest women will have to wait till their next trip to Vancouver where they can shop at La Vie En Rose or  Dianne's on South Granville.
http://www.lavieenrose.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategoriesDisplay?storeId=10052&catalog
http://www.dianeslingerie.com/

The Black Bra

Laura read to me an article from Fall 2010 25th Anniversary Issue of Elle "One Vision, the story of Dolce and Gabbana". What caught her eye was "they are best known for the simple black bra. It is the one piece that has underpinned nearly every collection that Dolce and Gabbana have ever done."
Dolce and Gabbana had begun in 1985 and Laura got the impression that Dolce and Gabbana had developed the black bra. Naturally this is probably what some marketing agent would have one believe. Just as Pavlov wanted dogs to associate bells with steak dinners, marketing always attempts such association. Ideally for Dolce and Gabbana, a woman wanting a black bra would go for theirs and believe them not only to be the authority but the originator.
I have taken an interest in the bra since my first encounter as a boy with Sears catalogue. I appreciate that colour photography came later but I just couldn't believe that the 'black bra' was something that came after 1985.
Thanks to Google I began to search the subject.
First it turns out that bras have been around since about at least 1400 BC, about 3500 years ago and slightly before 1985. We do not know the colour of the first bras that appear to have been introduced by female athletes in ancient Greece. It's further clear that the binding of breasts was not what Betty Friedan and Jane Fonda said it was, 'an instrument of torture designed by men' in that bizarre bra burning era. Today 2nd wave feminists would like to forget their youthful silliness.
Ida Rosenthall of Maidenform asked about bra burning in the 60's said that women over 35 liked her support : "Time is on our side."she said. Certainly bras sales in this billion dollar industry prove Ida knew more about women than say Betty or Jane. Feminism in general by blaming all the woes of women and the world on men did much to empower men but today women have accepted that freedom comes with responsibility. They are apparently wearing bras without being forced and held down by men to do so. It's a multi billion dollar business!
As a man I can say that given the short shrift that bras have when men and women are intimate this suggests strongly that men are as happy to look at braless women as women with bras. (However we don't look at women at today overtly because 2nd wave feminist bra burners introducted "lookism" as a criminal offence for which men are still being imprisoned indiscriminately in America.)
Personally, I kind of miss the 40's bullet bras and was much enamored by Madonna, thinking fondly of my air force father and rancher grandfather being nostalgic about this previous unsung era. Hooray Madonna!
The bikini was also developed in the 1940's. Wikipedia's History of the bikini says that it shocked when it was introduced to French beaches in 1947 but it had been around for 'millennia'. The article points to two piece athletic garments dating to 1400 BC in Greece and a Bikini Girl Roman mosaic dating to 300 AD. Crete women fashion of the Knossos Palace era with regard to breasts predates Victoria Secret by nearly 4000 years.
The modern bra was developed by a woman not a man as feminist would claim. Ms Crosby (damn her) circa 1915 is said to have developed the first modern bra with two napkins and ribbons. Around the same time another woman Ms. Jacobs was developing a more substantial modern bra.
It's apparent that the bra has been around since long before Dolce and Gabbana no doubt added some sexy design features. Italian men and women have long been trendsetters in the world of Romeo and Juliett. America in contrast has given us Hillary's pantsuits and Pallins parkas.
The history of Maidenform, the Rosenthall company, suggests truly that everything that we think about bras was probably developed by them before their bankruptcy in 1997. I'm not surprised given the parallel engineering history of the american automobile before the 80's offered most of what we like best in cars.
A 1960 fashion catalogue offers bikinis in every colour imaginable. The black, white and red colours have been the most popular bra colours. Yet in the 60's plum was a colour that bras came in. Interestingly gingham was used for bras during WWII because of the availability of that material. One imagines that black would predate the gingham colours and say calico which was an earlier available dye colour. Dyes have been available since thousands of years ago in China. Europe had it's dye guilds during medieval times. The Scots, bless their souls, introduced bleaching and presbyterianism. Brown was an early available dye colour. Purple dates well before it's popularity with Roman emperors as red predated it's popularity with of Catholic cardinals hundreds of years ago. The common aniline black dye for cotton was developed in 1860. Searching the history of the black bra I was only able to find specific reference to it going back to the 1960's. Vintage wear collections date black bras to the 1950's.
In the end I do believe that the Milan Italian fashion firm's black bra might well be very complimentary but historically not as explosive as the bullet bra.
As for men's bras they seem to be a recent phenomena. I suspect there are black men's bras. However Stanford and Boxer, unlike Maidenform and Dolce and Gabbana, do not appear to be trendsetters in male underwear development.
Further, black is ,despite it's theological implications, a forgiving colour and my suspicion is that historically women have factored this into their buying decisions. Christians may have clung to white bras but secular women may have voted for black bras early especially before the introduction of the home washing machines.
I personally as a man like black Stanfields and can appreciate that.
The recent Facebook, what colour is your bra campaign presupposes women today are not only wearing bras but are wearing colored bras. While I cling to my black Stanfords boxers, I will gladly support women whether they are or are not wearing bras, whether they are burning them or seeking their remnants in the ashes, or casting them off for one reason or the other.
Thanks to my discussion this morning I assure you I will be glad to see any Dolce and Gabana black bras on or off the rack!


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Location:Lougheed Hwy,Burnaby,Canada

Sunny Day Vancouver

It's a manic depressive city. The mania is triggered by light. The streets are crawling with people. I've been among them. Joy in the air. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is real. Northern Lights Technologies make superb high intensity full spectrum lamps that with 20 minute a day use give the equivalent antidepressant benefit that 10 to 20 mg of fluoxetine (prozac) would give. The real thing is even more spectacular. St. John's Wart, the herbal antidepressant proven in German and Swiss studies with pharmaceutical pure ingredients not the "food supplements" that are 'knock offs' to the real things sold at obscene profit by big business preying on people's fears, (that said), St. John's Wart, works for SAD too.

But nothing is as great as the joy and conviviality of just getting out and enjoying the streets with the Vancouver sunshine. The fashion alone, ranging from hip to hockey is a delight. I enjoyed the girl with the wool mini skirt and tights but the crotch of the tights were around her knees and she was merrily making eyes at a young guy of the 'don't look down' politically correct set, fortune for her. Driving by in my truck I enjoyed what might well be a Canadian fashion trend, Surrey Rap. Here on commercial the girls are strutting their boots. There's no snow but lots of high fashion mucklucks. Alot of young guys have gone in for the black winter jacket to complement their ball caps. Commercial is the local new capital of lesbianism so the women are more entertaining to watch, the men being mostly out of work actors.

I just came from a meeting on Davie and tight leather winter jackets were in for guys. More fashionable gay. Robson is the overall fashion capital of Vancouver but I didn't have any reason to go there as there's nothing boating.

I've already been to Granville Island. I went looking for my water bladder but Kits boats was closed. I did get Rule boat bilge pumps at Steveston Marine and a marine TV antennae at West Marine. The guys at Steveston also cut me some floating dinghy rope. Checking the dinghy last night on deck while filling the water tanks I saw the sun and sea had done my old rode in. The marine environment respects nothing, least of all rope and sail. Even my steel boat is hard pressed to resist the forces of nature.

I've enjoyed another Waves Coffee shop panini and American. There's as many computers as people in this packed coffeeshop with all that Good Commercial Road feel. When I first came to Vancouver 25 years ago it was the haven of Italians and Greeks with soccer running on all the tv's. Today there's students, actors and the latest influx of more Lesbians. West end rental costs rose and more of the gay community moved east. There's always been a political flavour to the street with left wing book stores and now more social consciousness.

I've enjoyed listening to CBC radio 88. 1 in the truck. Heard a delightful interview with Skye a playwright talking of the gender bending of the 60's and laughing about the gay mainstreaming movement. "They're all into suit's." Harry Hay was mentioned as the original gay movement protagonist with his "fairies". Quite a shift.

After that I listened to General Hillier, who has a new book, talking about Kundahar and the Canadian troops in Afghanistan. I came away thinking of Barbara Fromm and "it's happening" and how CBC has contributed so much to my sense of Canada, the diversity and commonality.

It's good to be a Vancouverite today. The sun does that. I'm glad to be Canadian most days. Prime Minister Harper surprised everyone by improving relationships with China and not caving on the human rights issue which the businessmen had told him had to occur if the Chinese were to appreciate Canada. Then today's news item was how many Canadian Chinese are going to China to establish business. It's the Pacific Rim and we're apart of it.

Europe to the east and Asia to the West. Now I'm off in search of a Mexican Store a friend told me was here on Commercial. Inexpensive silver jewelry. In keeping with the metro male image I admit I 'm glad men can wear earrings. Tie clips were fine but without the tie, they didn't hold onto the front of a shirt that well.