9

Flickr turned 9 this weekend, and the challenge was to take a picture of "9". I was out of ideas and came up with this at the last moment. I wish I had fancier editing tools, or some way to blur parts of photos or something. I took this with my phone, and I had a decent focus on the 9, but some of the other keys came out sharper than I'd hoped. Oh well. I don't plan on winning any photography contests anytime soon.

I have been on Flickr for about 7 1/2 years. My first upload was August 15, 2005.



From my 2004 trip to Japan and Southeast Asia. Not even a digital photo. I had to scan that baby to get it online :-)

Over the years, I have uploaded over 6300 photos. The majority are from trips. My photos are organized with tags, and the two most common, not entirely surprisingly, are japan and france, with paris and egypt not far behind. Other tags include camping, apartment, puppy, and, somewhat oddly, volleyball.

The photo that has been viewed the most, with over 1,000 views?


Since that same photo is the one that has been favourited the most, which is the second-most favourited photo, with 4 people (rather than 5) calling it a favourite?


I have 108 sets grouped into 19 collections. Some of them are embarrassingly small. Some of them are embarrassingly incomplete. Some of them are either too large or too thorough. Someday I'll go through and compile a "Best Of". Someday I might actually get up-to-date on what's in there. At least, there's always hope.

Some of my favourite photos are from the Inuyama Festival in April 2007. You get the chaos and splendour of the one-day festival that takes over the town, and the magic of the lanterns on the shrines in the evening. It's a mini-Takayama Festival. I also took one of my favourite shots ever that day, far from the madness, noise, and bustle of the festival:



It's far from a perfect shot, but while the sky and water are grey, the walkway along the riverbank is paved and impersonal, and the distant landscape is bleak and industrial, the focus for me is on the ladies picknicking in the foreground, enjoying each others' company and relaxing on the mild, late spring day.

Everyone Loves Pie

This week's Flickr Friday theme was "Everyone Loves Pie".

Well, I don't know if everyone does, but I know bears do.



Especially if said pie is mini chocolate mint pie.*


* I live alone. I don't tend to keep pie in the house. But I do, much to my waistline's chagrin, keep these.

Beer, A Second Round

Jon, looking erudite as he mulls over Hello Kitty Psycho Killer...or maybe she was just a chair that he grew fond of and started to hallucinate that she was a Real Girl. If none of this makes sense, congratulations! You're normal. Keep reading...



This is the second entry in an occasional series of beer-tasting notes, also from the sunny locale of Pub Italia. Read the first here.


Kichessippi Cask

(Jess' first beer.) According to their website, Kichesippi Brewery does do a monthly cask, but what they described on their page was not what Pub Italia was serving. According to our waitress, however, this Cask was a mix of 1855 and the Natural Blond. It was a bit strange-tasting. It was warmer than beer normally is, and didn't have quite the zing it could or should have had. Jon said it's the guy you go out a date with, where you can't figure out if the Transformers shirt that he is wearing is being worn ironically or not. You need to go on a second date to figure it out, and it turns out that the answer is a resounding no, not ironic. Ouch. Jess and I both think this beer met a lot of good criteria, it checked off a lot of boxes re: what you are looking for in a relationship, but overall: "Meh." There's just something missing. Upon further reflection, Jon declared it to be unique, but in a bad way. We might start out being friends for a bit (after that second date when you decide that is not going anywhere), but then realize we are having the same conversations over and over. Jess offered that it's like you meet his parents (aka 1855 and Natural Blond) and they are really cool and awesome, leaving you to wonder how on earth these two great people managed to create someone so boring.


St Ambroise Oatmeal Stout by McAuslan Brewery

My beer. Full disclosure: I've had this beer before, though not for a very long time, and I'm not sure if I've ever actually drank a whole pint to myself (rather than just tasting others' pints). I ordered it because I'd had a very busy day full of much errand-running, and I only had 20 minutes at home before I had to leave to go to Pub Italia, and so I had oatmeal for dinner. Still somewhat peckish, I figured oatmeal for beer could count as a second serving of supper.

Anyway, I quite liked this. When I tried it before, I wasn't into stouts, and found it too heavy. But it's not (for a stout). It's very smooth. But then, after listening to it drip past our taste buds for a while, we wondered: It's almost too smooth. In fact, it might be the smooth talker who intrigues you at first, but eventually wears off, or far worse, the smooth talker you end up staying with because it's better than being single, and it keeps talking you back. A very dangerous beer to get involved with, obviously.


Flying Monkeys Netherworld Cascadian Dark Ale

Ahh, Flying Monkeys. The first time I bought one of their beers was a 6-pack of Hoptical Illusion from the LCBO, entirely because I liked the psychedelic packaging and the funky name. There also may have been a dare from a sibling involved. Anyway. Netherworld - Jon's beer, his theme being "animals" this week - was new for me. Jess found it to be too bitter for her, but said she'd definitely hook it up with a friend (and not just an acquaintance). I liked it, and would visit it when I'm in town, but we would never have a relationship together - just too different. Jon was slightly fascinated by this beer, labelling it the emo goth whom you date for a while, possibly even quite a long while, even though you sort of think that whole fashion and lifestyle scene is ridiculous, just because, well, you can, because for some weird reason, Emo Goth Girl likes you, too.


Cochonnette (Vapeur Brewery)

Jon's second beer, of course, pictured above. (A cochon being a pig. Apparently, a cochonnette is a bit lewder. I'll let you Google it. Don't do so in the presence of young children, or your grandmother.) Jon and Jess thought this beer was okay, though Jess admitted she would just want it once. Jon didn't know what to make of this one: Sort of like the guy in the Transformers shirt but darker. It's in a bottle, it's then poured into a giant goblet, and it's a really sweet beer. It's like the girl who says she likes Hello Kitty but that she kills hobos in her spare time. Two very opposite things - one loveable, one really really not - that just should never be together. This beer, for Jon and Jess was the fling you have over Spring Break; a summer romance would be far too long. As for me, my reaction was definite: This is not even a beer. This beer is not a relationship, not a date, not even a man. This beer is a lamp-post or a fire hydrant. It doesn't even merit me looking at it - it's not even a decorative lamp-post. I took one sip and asked Jon if he was sure it was even beer he was drinking. A second sip confirmed I hated this beer. I'm not even sure I hate my worst enemy as much as I hated this beer.*


Rogue Dead Guy

My second beer. There were no other oatmeal beers - at least none that the waitress could think of off the top of her head (and I didn't see anything in the Beer Bible - so I tried this at random. I also partly picked it since I had tried a beer called Dead Elephant at Pub Italia last summer, and it amused me (in a horribly morbid way) that there was another Dead Something beer (by a completely different brewery). I quite liked it. Jess did not have a strong reaction any which way. Jon said it was lovely, in that way that it's the beer you want once you've been married and then divorced, and you just want to settle down with someone nice, with no more drama ever again. I don't have a problem with that. I do suspect that part of the reason why I liked the Dead Guy so much** is because it did, in fact, immediately follow the traumatizing experience that was the Cochonnette.


Palm Speciale

A nice Belgian beer, which Jess ordered. For her, it's not the beer you stay with forever, but the one you have a fun fling with, and then wish each other super-well, actually meaning it, and move on. Jon is not so enamoured: for him, it's the beer that if he had common sense, he'd date, but since he doesn't, he won't, even though he probably should. It's not that he can't have a beer like that, but rather, that he can't seem to want a beer like that. I have no such qualms: It's nice, simple, clean, and no drama. Sometimes that's all you want in a beer. OK, maybe I'm still suffering trauma from the Cochonnette. *sigh*


Old Speckled Hen

Jon's third beer. Having gotten over the train wreck that was Julie Meets the Cochonnette, I am coming out of my dating shell once again and getting bold. I'd go out with this beer once or twice. We'd have a fine first date, and I'd probably agree to a second. But I'm not sure there's much more for me there. It's fine, and will do in a pinch, but I want more than just comfort. Jon, on the other hand, is more generous. While all 3 of us agree that it's not quite what we want in a long-term beer, Jon says that if this beer made a lot of money, he'd be willing to let it be his sugar daddy. I'm not sure that's a ringing endorsement, but there you have it.


Lasko Zlatorog

Jon's fourth beer. Yes, there's an animal - a goat - "long live the goat". It's the first beer you date. You later see it at parties of at least 30 people, where it's easy enough to tell it that it looks great, but you can then move on without getting trapped into a lengthy tête-à-tête. It's the beer of the insincere smile. It's the beer you go on your first date; you know, the one when your mom drives the two of you to the movie theatre and then picks you up again after a couple of hours. Jess says that any later than mid-teens, and she would not even give this beer her phone number. Jon says he'll take offensive over boring anyday. I am already halfway in the tank by this point (I was really tired!), and even I just want to leave this beer and go home alone.



UPCOMING:

I didn't take notes in situ, but I will tell you soon about the night I drank 12, yes twelve, different beers.



* Pure hyperbole: I don't hate anyone, really, and I certainly don't have any enemies...at least, none that I know of.
** OK, when I put it that way, that just sounds wrong. Definitely have no interest in necrophilia. Blech.

Beyond the Horizon...

So after years and years and years of being a member, I have tentatively taken a step into The Great Beyond, and joined a Flickr group. Flickr Friday posts a new challenge every Friday, then you have all weekend to take a picture encapsulating that week's theme.

Last week's theme was "Beyond the Horizon". I took a picture on Friday but only added it (and myself!) to the group today.



This was my view, for one last day, from my office high above the Carleton campus (11th floor of Dunton Tower), looking across the Canal and the Experimental Farm, near the Hartwell Locks. On Monday, we moved back to the library. It's a nice, new space, following extensive renovations, but alas - only second floor, and no windows for me.

Can't promise that I will always participate in Flickr Friday, but it was fun this time around, and I look forward to seeing future themes.

Of Beer and Men

Last year, I made only one New Year's resolution. It was a good one, and I managed to keep it all year. I enjoyed the execution of that resolution so much, in fact, that I made it again this year (plus a few others).

I resolved to drink as many new and different types of beer as possible.

Those who know me well (and, OK, even those who know me not so well) know I like beer. I'm not a heavy drinker, but I do like a good beer.

Last year, not entirely coincidentally, I also started frequenting Pub Italia, an Italian-restaurant-meets-Irish-pub just down the street from where I live. Truth be told, its food selection is mostly mediocre, but you don't go there for the food - you go for the Beer Bible.

Usually when I go, it is with my friends Jon and Jess. Jon is a beer nut - he wholeheartedly endorsed my 2012 resolution as well as my decision to trudge it out again for 2013. He has, however, no pretension to be classy about beer. Every night at Pub Italia with Jon is an adventure. He decides on a "theme" - beers in great bottles, beers with the most vowels in the name, beers that start with P, etc. One of the more memorable evenings was the night he kept challenging the waitress to bring him the most awful beers she could think of - we had some terrible ones that night, but one or two were decent.

I am not as dedicated to the cause of beer as Jon is, and as I'm usually only having two beer in the evening (and only rarely a third), I want them to count. Jess is the same way. So we don't always go all-out and join Jon in his theme, though we do of course engage in much aiding and abetting.

Sometime this past summer, we came up with a great rating system. Forget beers that have "notes of oak that last with you like a lingering summer breeze", forget a standard ranking from 1-10. Our rating system is visceral. You just GET it. We rate beers like relationships. The Kronenburg White with Frulli on top? It was like that time in college when you decided to experiment with, ahh, alternate relationships. Titillating at first, but ultimately not your thing. There was a beer that tasted like smoky bacon (I forget its name, unfortunately), that was like that guy you just couldn't shake out of your mind - the bad relationship guy where you knew it wasn't going to last; he was going to run off with that redhead in the end; but you just had to keep going back for a little more each time. You knew you shouldn't like him, but you couldn't help it. And the beer that is the gold standard, the one that is so good, the one you want to be still waking up next to when you are 80. For me, that beer is Innis & Gunn. There might be more exciting beers, more refreshing beers, more beers that have more punch or zing or zip, but in the end, I'll come back to my Innis & Gunn. Bliss.

The problem last year is that I drank a lot of new beers, but didn't keep track. So I decided 2013 would be different. 2013 would be the Year of Beer Documentation. We'll see. I'm not as good at keeping resolutions that involve some kind of regular, recurring action [see: blogging]. But I'll try.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon, Jess, and I went to Pub Italia, and I took notes. Yes, I am just that nerdy. But now, you get to read them!


Yellow Snow IPA from Rogue Ales
Described to me by the waitress as "citrusy with a bitter finish". I was in a weird mood, so anything with bitterness at the end struck me as being very à propos. This beer was kind of like the guy you date for a month or two - you want to like him more than you do, and you wish he liked you more than he obviously does. So you keep agreeing to another date for no good reason, even though you know there are better beers out there. (Full disclosure: I may have been projecting a prior failed why-did-I-bother relationship onto this beer.)


Mickeys
One of Jess's beers. Comes in a cute bottle (a stubby). There's a rebus puzzle in the cap. But as Jess said, the beer itself is the one referred to in those generic Canadian beer commercials, where the guy says, "If you wanted to drink a lake, you'd drink from a lake. Get yourself a real beer." The package is pleasing, but the product is boring, dull. This one lives in Barrhaven.


Hawaiian Pale Ale from Spearhead Brewery
Jon's first beer. (Challenge: beers with lots of letters. In the menu, this was listed as an Indian Pale Ale, so there are 2 more i's and one more a for you.) Starts out great and makes you go, "Wow," but fizzles off into empty feelings soon enough. A good time, but not The One. Which is sometimes all you ask from a beer.


2XIPA from Southern Tier
Jon's second beer. This one was the friend who ends up at the bottom of your favourites list. He's a nice enough guy, but nothing more there. You'll call him if you're having a big party and inviting everyone else; otherwise, you probably won't bother. Sorry, Double IPA.


Hacker-Pschorr Weisse
Jess' second beer. It was really very good, but in the end, not the beer for me. It was, as Jess said, the beer you don't want for yourself, but you want to set up with someone awesome.


Westmalle Abbey Tripel
My second beer, a Belgian Trappist beer. Not for the faint of heart. A sophisticated beer. Jon instantly thought that it could very well be the beer for him. I was not convinced. But then, later, I realized the beer had a hidden sweet note, and it was growing on me. Will definitely revisit this one (all - eep! - $15 and 9.5% of it).



Wellington's Iron Duke
Jon's third beer. I've had this many times before. I think it's good and deserves a good go at seeing if a relationship could work out, but not for me in the end. Would I set it up with a good friend? Sure! Jon and Jess think, on the other hand, that I need to give it more of a chance - that it could be one of those beers that start out weak but end up developing into an amazing relationship, as it has a lot of subtle flavour that creeps up on you.



There have been other beers in the last couple of weeks. I went, for example, on a tour of the Kichesippi Brewery which is just off Carling Avenue in Westboro. I love Kichesippi beer as a good, honest, friendly beer that never disappoints. Sad to see their seasonal Logger go - pictured above is the last growler I enjoyed - intrigued by the replacement seasonal Wujack (sp?) Black IPA. Richard is not crazy about the IPA; he finds the aftertaste too strong. I know what he means, but I find it oddly compelling.

New Year, New Roomie

I have a house guest! He arrived yesterday and is staying for another 9 days. So far he has proven himself to be handy with catching runaway toys (even those that don't belong to him), warming me up on the couch, and sleeping solidly. He also likes going for walks along the beach or elsewhere, and is bemused by the vast quantities of snow in my backyard, previously unsullied by any other canine paws. He's not much of a cook, and isn't the best at cleaning up after himself, but otherwise, he's a perfectly decent roomie.

musings on life and death

unlike these moths that could not stay out of the candles,
the blog is not dead

but it's not quite alive these days either

i'm considering my options, and a reboot may be in order; i'm just not sure yet what form it should or will take

but hey, in the meantime, i've uploaded a bunch of photos to flickr from the past year; you should take a look

We interrupt this (non) broadcast...

Cleaning out my phone, I came across this picture, taken just the other day:

I have no idea what it was supposed to be, but I like it.

Dog in da house!

There's currently a dog in my house, but he doesn't like to sit still for pictures.


Finally, after many, many attempts, I managed to get a shot (using my webcam) where we both looked semi-intelligent.


And now, we return to our regularly-scheduled puppy-snuggling.

34:38.1

This morning, I ran the Ottawa Winterman 5K. It was my first ever race!



  





My friend Christine (pictured with me above) had signed up for this a few weeks ago, and I thought I would also give it a try. It was cold starting out, but luckily I have gotten kind of used to winter running, and it wasn't so bad after a bit. For those who know Ottawa, we started at the Canadian War Museum and ran along the Parkway to Parkdale, with a short loop behind Tunney's Pasture, and then all the way back. Very similar to my usual running route, actually, which is along Scott almost all the way to Island Park, and back.

My favourite part of the run was near the beginning, as the Parkway curves down and away along the river, and seeing the sea of colourful runners stretched out along. It is also the part of the run I have no pictures of, as, well, I was running :)

  

I placed 127th out of 186. For my troubles they gave me a bagel, a banana, and a nice sweet water.* Oh, and a nice, shiny snowflake medal. My time was 34:38.1, at a pace of 6:56. I'd been hoping it would be a bit faster, but I am still quite pleased. I passed a bunch of people, I ran almost the entire way (walked maybe 200-300 metres in total, and stopped maybe 30 seconds at the turning point for a drink), and most importantly, I had fun! I only started running in earnest last summer, and I am not competitive by nature, so this really is a "all I have to do is finish" kind of thing for me.

Now I am debating if I am going to sign up for the 10K in the Ottawa Race Weekend this May. I think I am maybe just crazy enough :)

* For those of you who know it, it tasted like Pocari Sweat. Ahhhh, Pocari Sweat, how I miss you!!!

Everything in its own time...

So with the exception of 15 months in 2006-07, I have lived in Ottawa since September 2004. That's almost 7 1/2 years now. And you know what I did today for the FIRST TIME?



Yes, I know. Amazing, and kind of sad, all at once.*

I have walked across the Canal once or twice in the wintertime in my boots. But I don't think I ever went skating. Maaaaaybe once, but I don't even think so.

So today, after Settlers' brunch,** I walked down to my friend Emily's place in the Glebe, and we went to the Canal. We got on near Fifth Avenue, and skated all the way up to the National Arts Centre, where this photo was taken (as well as the following ones). Then we skated all the way back down to the Bank Street Bridge, which is as far as the Canal is currently open, then back up to Fifth.





It was awesome, and I plan on going a few more times in the next couple of weeks for sure.


* And as an aside to myself, next time I get my picture snapped whilst wearing my backpack, take off the waist strap. It is just not flattering over a puffy winter jacket.

** Some friends of mine have been meeting every Sunday for 2+ years for brunch at one of the pubs on Elgin Street to play Settlers of Catan (Cities & Knights). I started going in mid-November. Such a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Nom nom nom.*

This evening, a friend of mine posted on her Facebook page about these awesome sweet-yet-spicy cupcakes she had just made. And it turns out that, while I thought I was feeling relaxed, sleepy (having just gone swimming at the local pool), and ready to turn in for the night, I was actually feeling highly suggestible.



Seriously. What am I going to do with 24 cupcakes?**

The recipe is an all-vegan one, and it just happened I had all the ingredients to make both the cupcakes and the icing.

Or so I thought.

Recipes aren't actually meant to be followed, are they? I thought my actual "challenge" would be the fact that I had no cocoa powder, just unsweetened chocolate squares. Not such a challenge, actually: Unsweetened Chocolate Squares, meet Food Processor! Well, to be more specific, meet Food Processor Whom I Have Owned For At Least 18 Months But Have Never Used. Which meant I had to go (dig out of an as-yet unpacked box and) introduce myself to the manual for said Food Processor.***

Once I got the food processor up and running, I realized I also had no icing sugar for the frosting, just regular sugar, the icing sugar having met its fate a couple of weeks previously in some Christmas and New Year's desserts. So thus began the long evening of Googling various baking substitutes.

To wit:

• Icing sugar can be made by blending regular sugar.
  
• When you stupidly use all your regular sugar to make icing sugar, you can then substitute brown sugar for regular sugar.
  
• Baking powder instead of baking soda, but only if you use 3-4 times the amount called for, and never the other way around.
  
• Butter instead of margarine is always recommended, but when you run out of butter halfway through your substitution, you're screwed. Or, like I did, you can use some canola/vegetable oil to top up.
  
• When you run out of canola oil, you can top up using margarine (don't ask).
  
• No vanilla extract? Yeah, too bad.

The above list is the sort of reason why I think I make a better librarian than baker.

However. The cupcakes turned out fantastic! Sooooo tasty. The cayenne pepper dances lightly on your tongue, yet they are sweet. Lovely.

But the icing! Alas. When I made the icing sugar, I hadn't had quite enough regular organic sugar, so I mixed it with raw turbinado. Apparently I haven't learned my lesson from Christmas when I managed to muff up the Best Brownies In The World recipe, which I have been making for 25+ years, by using turbinado instead of regular sugar. Those members of my family who tried to eat the resulting brownie might find the following picture of the icing familiar.



While it looked pretty, it tasted like someone put sucre à crème directly on top. Granular and crunchy, not in a good way.

Tomorrow I have to go to the grocery store - having managed to exhaust my supply of 2 different kinds of sugar, vanilla extract, flour, vegetable oil and butter, all in one night**** - and I have decided that what these cupcakes really, truly need is cream cheese icing. Probably from Betty Crocker; my kitchen is enough of a mess now, thank you.





* Alternately titled, The Benefit Of Living Alone Is That No One Knows You Baked And Ate Cupcakes After Spending The Evening Swimming At The Pool.

** Well, 23 cupcakes now. But who's counting?

*** I first tried to figure it out sans manual. But it turns out my parents were right when they told my grade-9 Industrial Technology teacher that "Julie just has no head for machines".

**** Plus I need chili powder and beans for my next foray into strange and unusual cooking.

And now, for something completely different

I am totally addicted to the sad adventures of Misery Bear, brought to us by some brilliant minds at BBC.

You can access all his films on his website and on YouTube (I note there are some listed on YouTube that aren't on his website). My favourite, of course, is Dawn of the Ted:




Genius. Though I have to admit, the Red Nose Day special with Kate Moss* comes a close second, because of the ironic-yet-oh-so-clever twist at the end.* Not to mention it starts and finishes with one of the best songs EVER**.

OMG am I ever addicted; I just spent a ton of time exploring his website and discovered that Misery Bear even has his own Twitter feed, which I am now (of course) subscribed to.

And THEN, as if that wasn't exciting enough, I discovered Misery Bear has a WEBCAM!!! I am never going to get anything done, ever again.***


* Red Nose Day is apparently a national day of fundraising by doing something funny.

** Seriously, I can't express how much I love this song - I honestly can listen to it over and over and over again. And the video is so lovely, all 9 minutes of it.

*** OK, maybe the fact I like the Kate Moss episode so much is a sign of something more...disturbing...

All's quiet on --SPLAT!

Last night I went to Trailer Park Bingo for the first time ever. A couple of friends of mine go almost every week. This week, Kate and I decided to go as well (she has been before).

I won a bingo! Very exciting. I had to roll a ring down the "Blingo" board to see what my prize would be.




There's loads of great and not-so-great prizes you can win. Old board games, VHS movies, tacky wall hangings, etc. Mostly, the prizes have the "kitsch that's kind of kitschy but is so ending up back at Goodwill" factor. But no. I don't win one of those. No way. Nothing quite so pedestrian for me.

Twice my Blingo ended up on "Mystery Box", but there weren't any boxes left. Then I ended up on "Nut", which is where you pick a number out of this large wooden nut, and then Flash Cadillac, the Bingo caller, matches up the number off his list of prizes. I won "PIE". Then, I had to pick out of a second, smaller nut, to see whom I would be pie-ing. The piece of paper said "EWE".

There's sheep at Trailer Park Bingo???

... ...

Aww, crap.



Yup, on my very first-ever Trailer Park Bingo, I managed to win, via a very circuitous, labyrinthine route, the prize of being pied in the face. C.P., one of the guys who works the bar, got to do the honours.

My post-pie reaction? "Mmm, tasty!" It was whipped cream and raspberry/strawberry drizzle. I am apparently lucky - one of the guys we were with, Alex, has been pied in the past, and his pie was alphagetti and grenadine. Kinda ick.

After helping me clean up, C.P. gave me a free beer and shots for my table.* I debated drinking them all myself, but I was nice, and shared with the 4 people I used to consider my friends.



For the record, whipped cream detritus makes your hair really crunchy and stiff. It also makes you smell nice, if a little flowery :)

* Alex also said he didn't get any free booze after being pied. So I win!

You Bought A Zoo! I Went Swimming!

When I moved to my new neighbourhood in October, my good friend Kate, who lives right near here, made me promise that we would go swimming on a regular basis at the newly-renovated community centre pool which is literally a 2-minute walk from my place (and about 7 minutes from her place). Absolutely, I said!

Well, as you can probably guess, what then ensued was a weeks-long-turned-months-long set of creative excuses, day after day, why one or the other of us couldn't go swimming the next day. As Kate said at one point, we're such hipsters we stopped swimming before we even started. Ha.

But now! We are swimming! Last Friday, we actually made it out. Kate went another time this week as well, and then we went again tonight. And while I don't remember swimming ever being this...EXHAUSTING...it's fun! Tonight after work, I bought swim goggles because I realized last week that I'm slightly panicked about putting my head in the water and not being able to see (I wear contacts so I have to close my eyes).* I'm used to snorkeling and scuba-diving, see, and a key feature of those activities is that YOU CAN SEE. That's kind of the point, actually. My new goggles rock! Though it turns out I am TERRIBLE at swimming. It's a lot of work when you don't have a BCD or flippers! I may look into remedial adult-swim classes later this winter. In the meantime, there's absolutely no shame in swimming with a flutterboard in the slow lane, right?


* Wearing contacts, which I only started doing just over a year ago, is a definite plus. One of the reasons I was always reluctant to go swimming in the past is that I couldn't find my way around. Swimming is no fun when you can't tell the swimmers from the sharks in the pool.**

** When I was a kid, I was convinced that if I took my eyes off the deep end, a shark would swim out of one of the water-exchange grills. This was particularly a danger at the pool at my grandmaman's old condo in Quebec City, which was kind of dark, shadowy and mysterious, at least to a 10-year-old.

Rion the Extra-Terrier

I leave my dog alone all day and when I get home, I can't find him because he's doing his best E.T. impression.*



But that's not the best shot from today. No, that prize goes to "Would someone get this frackin' paparazzi out of my face already!"



I love my dog :)
     


* All together now: "Ell-ee-ott. Owww."

Last night of vacation!

Tonight is my last night of vacation, and my best guy and I got all dolled up for a night out on the town!


After getting lost in the townhouse complex on Primrose, however, we decided to call it a night and head home.*

This morning, I busted Rion out of prison,** then we had a 2-hour nap,*** then we had pretzels for lunch and played on the computer all the rest of the afternoon. It's been an almost perfect last day of vacation.

I have Rion for at least the rest of the week, so we'll have to see what madcap adventures we can have over the next few days. At the very least, I'd like to get him hooked on Arrested Development.


* Getting lost on Primrose takes talent if you know what a short block this end of Primrose is.

** aka the kennel. Though I suspect he wouldn't have been sad if I hadn't come to get him, since he absolutely loves it there. And there are way more dogs at the kennel than there are at my house.

*** Actual length: 2 1/2 hours. It was the best decision I made all day.

Happy New Year 2012!

Visual representation of how I felt this morning when I woke up:



And further visual representation of the post-NYE morning (well, early afternoon) debauchery:

aka breakfast cereal and coffee with friends, complete with invitation to zombie movie marathon (alas, i did not make it)


Happy New Year 2012!
this is pixxiefish in the sea, making no promises for the year to come :)

What's she building in there?*

Recently spotted in my bedroom. What could it be???




Too small for a hat.




Too round for a pair of socks.




The stumpiest, most unattached gloves you ever did see?




A ball for the dog, perhaps?




Complete with oozing green stuff.






But yes, of course, it's another Elefante!

I made this one for my friends Rebecca and Jonathan's little girl, Jada. I love this yarn. It's self-striping sock yarn, so it looks more complicated than my last Elefante, but it wasn't. This one is smaller. The ears went on a little wonky, however, so it looks a bit more like a mouse with a very long nose than an elephant. But so easy! And so much fun to knit! I'm planning to make at least two more in the near future.

* With apologies to Tom Waits.

So this one time? In Vancouver?

I went to a conference in Prince George, B.C.,* near the end of June, and afterwards, spent a day and a half in Vancouver visiting with my good friend Donna.



I first met Donna 18 years ago when my family moved to Thornhill. We used to walk home from school together, about a 40-minute walk.** Donna and I have not lived in the same city for well over 12 years now - probably longer - so I only get to see her once or, if I'm lucky, twice a year. Not nearly enough.

Arriving late in Vancouver on a Friday night and then leaving just after lunch on Sunday afternoon means you call your visit "a day and a half in length", but it really is just one day. We had grand plans for our day together, the majority of which were quickly scuttled by car troubles. Doing the Grouse Grind*** had to give way to walking to the Canadian Tire to buy a new car battery and then walking back to Donna's place with the car battery in the baby stroller and the baby strapped to his mom.**** In the rain.

But we did get to chat till late together, and we did get to go for breakfast together (twice!), and we did get to wander the streets together, and we did get to generally hang out and catch up. Later on the Saturday, once the car problems were resolved, the sun was coming out so we drove out to West Vancouver to meet up with Donna's husband Matt once he got off work, and we walked the seawall.

That was the point when I remembered I had packed a camera:







I think something is wrong with my camera, however. Because other than the one I posted above, the only picture I got of my lovely hosts is of their backsides:



And despite him being one of my favourite babies of all time, I didn't manage to get a single photo of little Jacob, though I did manage to get no less than 5 - five! - shots of this little guy:



Neither as cute nor as cuddly, not by a long shot.

You can see the full set of West Vancouver seawall photos, including a surprise a little cuddlier than the giant slug, on my Flickr pages.


* It rained the entire time in PG. And my hotel was in the middle of nowhere. The conference was about copyright issues, so not very photographic. So I have no pictures of PG, other than my hotel room.

** We never walked to school together, just home. I think because I mostly would get a ride down with my dad in the mornings. There was also a school bus that I avoided like the plague - I think I took it to school about 3 times in one year.

*** I'm not saying we would have done the Grouse Grind, just that it quickly became not-an-option.

**** I got to pretend I had a child, as I pushed the stroller, albeit a child with wires and acid. LOL :)