Shedding light on KL Activities

August full moon over the water

To be added to information list for:


1. Movie Mavens2 - meet alternate Tuesdays usually around 1 pm for movie on site or in nearby cinema - email gillatkl@yahoo.ca

2. View Group - movies alternate Wednesday evenings - email trehearne@shaw.ca

3. Book Club - meets around 3rd Thursday of month - email mgoebel98125@yahoo.com

4. Pilates classes Monday and Friday morning - email kjk@telus.net

5. Bike group for Sunday rides - email ltoriel@hotmail.com

6.Bridge group - email gillatkl@yahoo.ca

7. Dine-outs, Movable feasts, quarterly parties - email gillatkl@yahoo.ca

Patio Propriety – or “water your plants, not your neighbors”

On these warm summer days it is great to have our spacious patios where we can relax and enjoy spectacular views of our city. Many of us are also container gardeners; some are into floral beauty- others who have less green thumb talent focus on herbs.

I have a thriving herb garden with rosemary, thyme, chives, and basil, basil, basil. If anyone needs a few leaves for a bocconcini and tomato salad, let me know. I would be happy to share the green bounty.

Fortunately, since I tend to neglect plants, my garden thrives on minimal watering.

However I gather from the repeated reminders from the concierge desk, that perhaps some people are either over watering their plants or else washing away the black construction dust that accumulates so rapidly on our outdoor surfaces. The net effect is that water pours down from their patio wetting the glass and the surfaces of the neighbors below. This is not responsible behaviour. This picture shows water pouring down the glass of one of the units in the west tower from a patio above.

We are privileged to live in a really great complex with wonderful shared facilities. But with privilege comes responsibility. Please be considerate of your neighbors. Allowing your visitors to flick cigarette butts over the balcony or watering the patio of your neighbor below, is disrespectful of your community.

Lucky 8, lucky 16 – KLers visit the Night Market

I guess it was an auspicious sign when we counted heads for the visit to the Night Market and dinner in Chinatown. In Chinese superstition eight is a lucky number because it is like the word for prospering. We read about the many couples marrying on the 8th August 2008 because of the triple luck of 08/08/08. My scientific mind says it would have been interesting to compare this cohort with those who got married on 04/04/04 since 4 is deemed an unlucky number. Hmmm… wouldn’t that be interesting.

Anyway I digress. So 8 is lucky, and we were 16 – double the luck. In the picture down below you can see the table at the restaurant which consisted on two round tables pulled together – an 8. We should definitely go and buy lottery tickets tomorrow.

We set off on a brisk walk after a debate about the quickest route. With all the conversation we arrived seemingly in no time at all at the market. I am not normally much of a shopper but I acquired a one dollar fan – the humidity was unusually high today and a great pair of dance pants for 12 dollars.

It is amazing what you can find there. I also found a wrist guard for my aching pisiform bone. That’s one of the tiny bones in the wrist. It seems like a nonentity but when you hurt it – it’s not just “ouch” but “oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” (stronger language prohibited by the censor.) I was amused to read on the box containing this neoprene wrist guard, that “if anaphylaxis occurs, discontinue using this product.” Somehow I find the thought, that someone writhing on the ground unable to breath would be capable of even thinking about pulling off the wrist guard, rather funny. Must be my medical background.

Clutching our purchases we crowded into an elevator – so how many KLers can fit into one elevator? – and headed up to the restaurant for a filling and reasonably priced dinner with brilliant conversations.

See the waiter demonstrating how to eat Peking Duck.

A pleasant walk back through quiet neighborhood streets was a healthy end to a great evening – thanks to our organizer extraordinaire - Susan.

Watch the newsletter and keep your eyes open for the next KL dine out experience, sometime in the fall.

Bridge Anyone?

Earlier this year we found a Bridge teacher who thrives on teaching Beginner Bridge! He is obviously a VERY patient man. Anyway we had ten people sign up, a few who played a bit years ago, the rest absolute beginners including one or two of us who had problems remembering what was a club and what was a spade. I confess I was one of the latter – and I don’t play poker either! No card sense and a face like an open book – it was a sure bet that I would not be able to actually ever play a hand.

But 10 lessons later and a little bit of memorizing, I was kind of hooked on the game. Since then we have tried to get together to play most weeks. There is a core group of about 6 to 8 who turn up and everyone gets a turn to play. We are still sometimes painfully slow both during the bidding and the actual play, but the idea is that we treat it as a learning experience – the couple of really good players who come are very patient teachers and there is NO PRESSURE! But our silly mistakes are getting fewer and we are all having fun.

Hopefully in the fall the KL Bridge Club will be inaugurated with a regular evening game that new members will join. At the moment we play in the reading room. It would be great to get several tables going up in the Grand Room so people can play a few hands at one table and then mix with into another group. The purpose is social and fun and meeting your neighbors. If you are interested and have not been part of the bridge group, let me know that you may want to play- and what your level is. So when things get going tin the fall you will be on the email list.

If you have never played and want to learn, let me know and we may be able to organize another set of lessons.

The Theatre-Going Gang

Cast of TUTS 2008 "Annie Get YOur Gun. Photo by Tim Matheson"

So working my way through letting you know of other social activities that KL community members indulge in, I am on to performing arts. Various combinations of KL residents get together to see plays and musicals. Examples of recent shows - Spamalot at the Centre for Performing Arts, and this week, Annie Get your Gun at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park. You can read my take on this show by clicking the link in the side bar to the right.

theaterseenvancouver.blogspot.com/2008/08/review-from-house-annie-get-your-gun.html

Future theatre going plans will be featured in this newsletter so keep reading if you want to join in.

Sassy Sixties Scooter Chicks

For many of us, King’s Landing represents a major change in lifestyle. The obvious differences for me were switching from a car-dependent, suburban house dweller, fretting about pool, garden and keeping the house in good shape to a down-town denizen, who can walk almost everywhere and only has to worry about switching off the gas burner or cleaning lint from the dryer filter.

What I did not anticipate was how liberating that would be in other ways. Yes, that’s really me, sitting with my far more adventuresome friend on her scooter, having just returned from a jaunt down to Tickets Tonight at the north end of Burrard. See my review of Annie Get Your Gun. I will provide the link in a later posting.

I have never been wild about high-speed activities - except I love rollercoasters – and my family has never been able to figure that one out. I’m the person who gave up down-hill skiing because of pain –in my jaw.

So even though the scooter is not really a high speed vehicle –chug-chug-chug up the hills- apologies to Linda – this may seem like a trivial accomplishment to you, but for me –it ‘s a giant step forward.

Cyclopaths and scootering for me so far,– other new lifestyle changes to be described in the future.

But this KL Newsletter is supposed to be interactive, not my personal blog. My intent is to show how easy it is to share information and ideas. Your contributions are needed if our community newsletter is to thrive. How to do it?

See the comment link below? Have you found a great restaurant, taken up golf, belly-dancing, martial arts? Want to organize a group to share craft tips, learn to rollerblade, try new recipes? Send a paragraph about your King’s Landing lifestyle by clicking on the comment link and posting your thoughts.

Cycling with the KL Cyclopaths.

Photo Credits Michael Winters and Jill

“It’s just like riding a bike- it doesn’t matter how long it is since you’ve done it, you never forget how.”

That’s the reassuring statement commonly used to encourage a person who is hesitant to try something they have not done for a while. So when the intrepid leaders of the KL Cyclopaths strongly suggested it was time I joined their Sunday morning ride – I just had to hope I had not forgotten how!

Although as a kid I had spent many hours racing around forest paths and along the river bank with my friends, as an adult in Vancouver, cycling was neither my mode of transport nor my favored physical activity. So it is literally several decades since I owned a bike and who knows what has happened to my sense of balance… or my quadriceps over that long time.

Anyway, new neighborhood, new lifestyle- so at the end of last summer I headed off to our very friendly neighborhood bike store that was having an end of summer sale and acquired a really cool bike, a lock and a helmet. After a very patiently delivered tutorial on using the gears - I don’t think gears had been invented when I last rode a bike – ok we may have had about three – I rode happily off into the sunset -my place being west of the bike shop – and only had a few short rides before it got rainy and miserable and I retreated back to the gym for the winter.

But finally today, dance classes over for a while, I had no excuse to duck out of the ride, the weather was cool but clear- and off we went. Three Mean Mothers (the really really fit dudes) headed off to the North Shore while 5 Part-Time Peddlers set off to Stanley Park.

So I admit, once a bike rider, it is part of you and my anxiety about needing training wheels dissipated immediately - only to be replaced by something far worse. It’s not exactly competitiveness (hmmm) but somewhere between an absolute determination to keep up with the leader and a fear of getting separated from the group (on the sea wall- go figure). So when the leader of our little gang took off like a bat from hell so did I. And although at times I saw the white shirt disappearing round a distant corner, on the whole for most of the ride I was not too far behind. Too my surprise it was quite an aerobic workout so we must have kept up quite a pace.
I must confess that I was too busy watching out for roller bladers, other cyclists and stray dogs to appreciate much of the beauty around me – next time a slower pace might be better. But an hour and a half later, back at our front entrance, I was aware of muscles I had forgotten about since anatomy class. Don’t think I will make it to swing class tonight without a rest.

However there is always a reward for hard work. And in the second pictures there we are, replenishing the amino acids and carbohydrates needed to restore our hard working muscles. Ok – it was actually beer and pizza.

But the Cyclopaths are just one of the social groups in our Kings Landing community. They leave 10:30 Sundays from the corner of Beach and Homer. So whether you are in the mean-mother or the part-time peddler category – there is a ride for you. And in case you are wondering, much as I love puns, I did not dream up the names. Credit for Cyclopath, Mean Mothers and Part-Time Peddlers goes to the organizer/leaders, B and L.

Keep reading to find out what else is happening in the KL Community.