A Professional Whimsilist’s Weekend

Sometimes I can’t believe what a giant dork I am. This afternoon Taylor and I took Kichou for a walk along the Seawall from Sunset Beach to English Bay, and before we left I stuffed my pockets with my vinyl Olympic mascots so I could take pictures of them ~out in the world~


clockwise from left: Sumi the Spirit Animal, Quatchi the Sasquatch, Miga the Seabear, and Mukmuk the Vancouver Island Marmot (which is a real animal)

Taylor took this picture of me and titled it “Tanie – Professional Whimsilist”

I took this one of him and titled it “Taylor: Mascot Portrait Photographer”

Miga on the beach.

Sumi at the Aids memorial.

Quatchi in the grass.

Mukmuk in the moss.

We also photographed some non-embarrassing things:

These two girls actually went swimming. IT’S FEBRUARY.

This is a really cool sculpture called “WE” at the top of the hill above Sunset Beach. It’s made of letters in all different alphabets. At night it’s all dramatically lit from within but during the day it almost seems to disappear. It’s also super muddy from people climbing it.

My proof that we DO have snow for the Winter Olympics. Just not. Well. Anywhere close to the city!

Whoever did this is basically the most patriotic person in the country. Canadian flag on a hockey stick, genius. (Aside: our men’s team actually just lost to the US. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we DON’T have another embarrassing hockey riot tonight.)

This guy is less ambitious but no less patriotic.

Looking east and west on Sunset Beach.

This is a sculpture called “A-maze-ing Laughter” and it’s a bunch of self-portrait statues of the artist standing in different positions and laughing. They are quite big and SO. CREEPY.

I mean:

AAHHH! Sym and I walk by this every Tuesday night on the way to her dad’s after piano and she haaaaaaates it. Kichou was also not impressed when I picked him up and put him in one statues hand.

He’s thinking :”I want to die right now.”

After we left the beach we stopped for frozen yogurt at Qoola on Denman.

chocolate w/chocolate shavings & strawberries; original w/pineapple & cantaloupe

It was delicious but FREEZING- we had to sit outside because of Kichou and it really isn’t warm enough yet! When we got home I climbed straight into some cozy sweatpants and a heap of blankets on the couch.

We also did other things this weekend that I didn’t take pictures of- On Saturday Taylor, Symphony and I went to the pet store to buy dog food (Taylor) and freak out over the cage full of hamsters that were all trying to run on the wheel at the same time (me and Sym). Afterwards we had a super-late brunch at Hamburger Mary’s and then Sym had a playdate with her friend Ali and I read while Taylor napped for four hours. Later, after Sym had gone to her dad’s house, Taylor and I went to our friends Richard and Jenn’s for their Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Wii party (Taylor played; I drank wine and stuffed myself with humus and brownies).

Earlier today we had brunch with Richard and Jenn and then headed into the craziness of downtown so I could go to American Apparel to buy a tri-black raglan pullover. I have the grey one and I love it so much that I’ve been wearing it to death. After that I kind of wanted to wander around some more, but Taylor’s knee was starting to get sore- he hurt it last month almost bailing on the treadmill, so instead we came home. I was kind of bummed out- it was so nice and I really didn’t want to just sit around the house, or worse, clean it, but I also didn’t want Taylor to be in pain. I worked on my new unicorn painting for a little while and then Taylor said his knee felt better so we were able to go out and take all those awesome mascot photographs! I’m so glad- not just because it was fun but because Sunday afternoons are practically the only time Taylor and I can spend together, with just us, during the day.