PEOPLE...this hood is rockin' it!

People really do make the difference!! Let’s celebrate good news!! The Flats Arterial Community Panel recommendations are in aaaaaannnnnd “read all about it! 68% vote in favour of the National-Charles route”. Bravo panel, bravo and kudos to all the people for their hard work in educating the city, panelists and citizens about this issue. Dan and Richard from the SRA worked tirelessly to develop the route (good job Richard) develop a coherent presentation to express this option to the city. With National-Charles included as an option there became 9 routes of choice; although really there was no choice in my opinion and why Prior ever reared it’s ugly head again is valid to question.

It was the effort of so many people like Dan and Richard who were not paid but gave of themselves: their time, their expertise, their efforts… It was an excellent example of people taking their community power and articulating it in a healthy, positive, thoughtful and sensitive manner to balance the powers that be. We’re steps closer to creating wonderful things for this neighbourhood and it’s good to take a moment to celebrate and be thankful for those people.

https://fcfcommunitypanel.com/2019/04/06/flats-arterial-community-panel-recommends-national-charles-for-the-false-creek-flats-arterial-route/?fbclid=IwAR0xu2RVNATPNiUt9JccagDMpeE_XN9ZAa0rbIP27TY87RfZh9spe6anLTY

Taking the moment is an important thing to do, as it breaks the times you feel like you’re chasing your tail and running in circles: (feeling like it’s one big zoom-a-thon).

or watching the world just spin by with it’s ups and downs :

or maybe you don’t have the energy to do anything but sit and watch:

or sometimes you just want to think about what’s happening next week and not today: (p.s. this art show is happening next week Friday April 12th)

But you know when you take the time, gather your friends, talk to people in your community and look forward (or up) with a strong conviction and don’t give up that is when magic moments happen.

That is when you take your time in the sun and enjoy the rewards!! (and your cake)

Here’s a BIG PINK HOUSE and OCTOPUS thanks to all those great people in the neigbourhood (Dan, Richard, Claudio, Gloria, David, …) you know who you are and what you quietly do for everyone.

COMMUNITY...lights, roads and parks.

Last Community post included an update on Union Street’s street lights with the intention of extending a consistent look throughout Strathcona. I don’t have a further update at the moment but Claudio has advised me something is in the works and the community will be updated in a week or two — yeah, exciting!!

As for roads, omg, what can we say about that ongoing saga? Fingers crossed it will be as positive as the street light situation but I’m not holding my breath on that one. Here’s information for anyone who’s not aware of the Flats Arterial Community Panel (a mouthful I know) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flats-arterial-community-panel… Tomorrow night is the last chance for the community to give the community panel feedback about their community on which the community panel is deciding for the community — they will be giving the city a recommendation on an arterial road route that has been going on since the 80’s with many many repeated attempts by the community to express their point of view. If one didn’t know better they’d think the city had a hidden agenda, as how can this go on for sooooo many years?. The last big community rally was held 6 years ago, oh ya and of course most recently for the panel. It’s madness, my friend, madness.

Now onto parks you ask? I kind of threw that in there as an extra as it’s so beautiful in our parks right now and they help with the sanity during the mad times. Oh ya, and also the arterial road options includes one plan that would drive a road right through Strathcona park — that being the William Street option that the city was pushing the community to go for. I know, I know it’s completely ridiculous. hahaha you have to laugh at how crazy that is, like where else in this city have they actually proposed taking away part of a highly used park? Remember we’re calling ourselves the greenest city hahahaha.

Further to the community action noted above let’s look to the community action in the park, pink house, octopus… (it takes a village to pull this off):

Pony in the park and art dog checking things out!!

The perfect pink match!! (no Mel they are not sausages, they be gutters)

Dino and Johnny are the leaders of the heavy duty metal men working on those stairs — homage to the men of metal; machinists, steel workers, blacksmiths…

Rinketty dink pink and the details of the curl on the front porch.

It takes a squad to deliver boxes — oh ya we have boxes.

These tree planters know how to work together and still get input for the right position!

and last but not least…

Koko-cola the Art Dog cases her happy place of community art in graffiti land (only a few blocks away from her house)!!

PROGRESS...planting change

As we inch our way closer to completion of “the village” of project 851 one can’t help but notice the progress of flow on the property. I just love the way the individual units come together yet remain distinct and unique. It literally “feels” good to see Landscapers bring the landscape architecture plan (thank you Hapa ) to life; the reality is better than anything I could have imagined, or tried to decipher from drawings.

Drawings: (might be hard to read but you get the idea aaaaaand you can always come and ask me …)

OLD: (best to look at it from land only perspective— ‘cause there will be changes)

NEW: now remember the drawings… now think about all the choices in materials; concrete, stone, wood, glass, paint etc.)

Getting closer to final stages:

and you gotta love the Bird’s eye view:

but wait there’s more…(never get tired of being a bird):

Looks great in real life right? Now there is a big check for the Katsura Tree which is growing out of the back deck and I’m looking forward to the arrival of the following: hedges, deciduous trees (other than the katsura), shrubs, perennials and ground cover and grasses. Hmmm, so the question becomes what are you looking forward to the most? The white roses! No, wait the pink climing roses. Oh no, now that the Katsura is in it will be the corsican mint and mexican feather grass. Owwww, wait, I forgot about the Italian plum tree. How could I forget the Italian plum tree? I’ve always had a plum tree in the yard, since I was a kid? Oh heck I don’t know I’m looking forward to them all!!

ART...do we need a stair update?

I was talking to Dino the other day trying to figure out exactly when we started the construction phase of Project 851; It would have been too easy, or made too much sense, to actually look back on the blog I’ve been writing to figure it out (lol). At any rate, I was pretty sure we started work in May 2017 but Dino pointed out that it was actually earlier and we are at that two year point now. WOW! It came as a surprise since life seems to present itself in moments and only when you reflect do you, or at least its the case for me, connect the dots to the bigger picture: I’ve been trapped in moment to moment land for quite sometime. So here we are 2 years into what I originally thought was my swan song project heading into early retirement!! haha we’ll see when all is said in done if it’s more like Dua Lipa’s version…

This weeks bigger picture is going to reflect on the moments for the stairs going into the BIG PINK HOUSE. Fingers crossed it won’t take two more years to get them finished. When they’ll be done it will truly be a work of art.

First your start with a ladder, until working stairs arrive and then you need to talk to the experts who can take it from paper to reality.

Experts, experts…. ??? How do they get in the door and to the top floor? ??? more experts, experts…Okay let’s just take out the top floor stairs all together… Oh my, there’s a lot of prep going down to make this happen.

It gets serious when the work horses they bring in are heavier than your car… The Templates are transformed into the actual steel pieces of staircase and side structures… Owwww and the hoisting gear… (“by the way Mira did we mention this was going to look industrial?”)

Above are details, taking pause before the drum roll and the stairs getting installed… (and drum roll please)

WOW, right? From coming in the door to gracefully placed in their perfect spot — it was an industrial dance!

These last 4 are just ‘cause I can, and I love them, and they allude to things to come (hopefully not in 2 years) — fingers crossed it will be 2 weeks..

Swan song — swan dive …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8fTk6oKQg