In here life is beautiful… The girls are beautiful…

I woke up from a very strange dream yesterday: that Rush Limbaugh had come out of the closet to a not terribly positive reception. I was somehow friends with him or maybe an aide or assistant and he was a total mess, his shirt stained, his hair sticking up and dirty. He was a sad, broken man and I felt quite sorry for him.

It was such a vivid dream that I had to ask Shannon if it were true when I got up. He wasn’t sure, haha, but I realised it was because I had fallen asleep with Howard Stern in my ear.  He was talking about the republican senator that had come out of the closet recently. Brain, stop filling in the gaps!

This wing belonged to a seagull that met a terrible fate, I guess. The wing was all I could see. After being told that coyotes are on the rise and that they’re hungry, that was my first guess, but I doubt they’re taking over Dufferin Mall yet.

You may well be wondering why I go to Value Village so often, and that’s very reasonable. I’m on the hunt for vintage percale sheets. That is ALL. Well, ok, you never know when you really will find a treasure, I also look at hand knit sweaters and for yarn/crafting supplies. I’ve never found anything worth while, because the store is full of this type of win:

For real. It’s full length and yours for ONLY $12.99. It’s size 15 and I bet that it’s still there right now if you run quickly NOW.

But wait. There’s this:

Cute, eh? It’s short and made of poly-cotton knit. And it’s a mere $24.99. Srsly. A bally worn out dress that someone probably wore to bed or over their swimsuit for $24.99. Dresses at Winners-NEW DRESSES-average out at the same price. New, pretty dresses that are current styles. Or you could get this:

This dress not only has stains AND a pull in the fabric right on the front, not only has the seems literally coming apart with threads flapping in the wind, NOT only is 100% polyester, it’s also $24.99.

I actually flagged down an employee to ask her wtf is going on with these insane prices (and there were LOTS of dresses in this one size section with similar insane issues) and she waved me away, don’t bug me ask a manager. Which I did try to do but I was totally distracted by an incredible art collection. I was literally laughing my head off with a huge lineup of people right beside me, my phone out and taking pictures brazenly.

Sorry they’re blurry but I think you get the gist.

All by the same artist. But here’s my favourite:

Ho. Lee. Shit. Balls. Can you imagine that hanging in your house? Over your baby’s crib maybe? Oh. I love that painting so much. It belongs in the Museum of Bad Art.  Maybe they all do?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering-because you ARE-how much to bring to buy an original painting?

Don’t worry, they accept all major credit cards there.

I’ve been super lucky to have spent the last 2 weekends hanging out with old friends and their gorgeous (and well behaved!) children. No favourites here, they’re all lovely and somewhat jealous making.

Here’s Molly Jane, the grand finale to Ryan and Corrie’s family.  She’s got navy blue eyes, 2 teeth and no worries in the world. Her cheeks could win awards for extreme chubbiness.

Oh my, what a stunner.  All their children are beauties, all carbon copies of each other.

This most recent weekend I headed up to Kincardine to see Ashley and Scott and their kids and their vast and varied  animal collection. Bob. Well. Bob’s too hilarious for words. He’s a busy boy who’s in love with the world and wants to know everything about everything. These are his glorious green feet.

We also stuck stickers all over them, because green feet need further fancying.

Proud of his efforts.

Could you die?

Then there’s the infamous Meeps.  I didn’t get any really great pictures of her because she always seemed to be so close when I had my camera out. My…phone, sorry. She’s a snuggly little noodle that likes to show off her muscles. Oh, sigh.

It was a girl’s night in. Ashley and I drank 2 tetra packs of wine and Meeps had boob. Delicious, wine-filled boob.

And the animals. Again, constant movement, no really usable pictures, but this one of GooGooEyes (and Ashley, correct me if I’m wrong on that name) made me die.

Playing the cello.

I’m slowly but surely getting used to using Ubuntu. It’s been rather frustrating at times but at this point I have no desire to return to windows, and specifically Vista, at all. I just need to figure out how to get my Sirius to work.

Anyway, here are the 2 more interesting fabrics I got at Fabricland. The first is the deer print I found on the table of Xmas prints. It doesn’t look that festive to me, but what do I know?

I’m planning on using it (and other green prints) to make a souped up version of Denyse Schmidt’s Hills ‘n’ Hollers quilt. I want it to look more like trees. At least, that’s the plan for now.

This stuff, I don’t know. It just appealed to me and I don’t have any black based fabric and now I do.

It’s pretty silly looking, I know, but once it’s chopped into squares or strips, it will look totally different.

I got rid of Windows from my computer. This laptop came with Vista installed, and while I had no real personal problems with it, my computer got seriously, virally infected on Saturday so we dumped Windows and installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It’s nice. It’s clean and free and (in theory) easy to use. Well. Easy if you know HOW to use it, I guess, but as a total n00b, I’m feeling pretty frustrated by a lot of it, including the fact that it doesn’t support Photoshop, the program I use to manipulate my photos. That I post here. Ugh.

So I’ve installed GIMP and that seems to be pretty close to pshop but different enough to cause a certain amount of frustration too.

I was going to blog about my exciting trip to Fabricland yesterday, the one that’s shutting it’s doors by the end of March in Lindsey and has all it’s fabric and notions on sale for at least 66% off (I spent $26 and came out with an enormous bag of stuff) but in order to go  through my pictures I need more time than I have right now. I’ll take care of them later. Good practice anyway.

Here’s the ONE that I managed to whine my way through, it’s thread, obvi. But it’s pretty, shiny rayon variegated thread for quilting with and denim thread for…denim.

I hope it doesn’t gum up my machine.

As I already told Laura, I am having an all-choked-up sort of day and these 2 fellows patiently waiting their master inside the grocery store really captured my mood.

The lighter coloured dog has a funny sort of lumpy head that at first I thought was snow piling up. It’s -6C here, pretty chilly. They were gone by the time I was done inside.

My new hat kept my head warm, so that’s something.

In an effort to be healthier, I’ve switched up my normal diet. Of course, I’ve become addicted to this meal and eat it daily. Well, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing bad in it.

It’s a baked sweet potato with a mixed green salad dumped on top, with a lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper dressing and nothing else. Well, today-as in this picture-I included some leftover asparagus from last night and sprinkled it with nutritional yeast.  The yeast scares Shannon a little, but I find it to be largely tasteless.

I think I want a spritz bottle for the olive oil.

I also got a jar of brown rice syrup to put in coffee instead of refined sugar. Again, Shannon declined but I thought it tasted fine. Plus it gives me the excuse to make granola bars again. I take back what I earlier blogged about brown rice syrup!

Vagoo. It just sounds funny.

And it’s a pretty darn funny thing to spray paint on a building. This is the building formerly known as The Big Bop, corner of Queen St W and Bathurst.

When I worked at Value Village my parents were dismayed to find out that the store does not wash anything before it’s put out on the floor for sale.

“How come it all smells the same, then?” Asked my dad. Because when your stink mixes with thousands of different people’s stink, it all becomes one general stink. And the air ‘fresheners’ that are strategically placed throughout the store also have an effect on the smell.

When I say that it was the worst job I have ever had, I am not kidding. I worked in production, pricing clothing, first womens, then mens and kids. I was on my feet for the entire shift (yeah, I know, boo hoo, but at first it really was a whole lot of boo hoo, I’d come home and cry my feet hurt so bad) and each person that works there is expected to fulfill their quota, each shirt, pair of pants, sheet, china lamb is counted and accounted for. Tallied. Yes, people pad (fudge, aka stealing) their tally sheets, especially after being threatened with losing their job. I was constantly being told that I was in line for a managerial position, just learn this, do that, do all this extra work and it will be yours…some day. I quit well before some day ever came.

Anyway, part of pricing clothing is deciding if it the pair of jeans is even worth putting a price tag on and hanging it out to sell. What makes something unsellable, you ask? Stains. Rips. Crotch rot (lots of that, hoo boy!). Bally sweaters. Hand altered anything. Deodorant streaks. Stink. Mold. You get the idea. In summer time when people are busy donating sweaters that no one wants to buy because it’s 120 in the shade, you can be even pickier on each sweater that comes down the line.

So what’s the deal at the Value Village that is (almost) right next door to me? I really have to wonder. I know pricing techniques have changed since I was employed there (we had to staple the tags onto the garment and then hand write the price in grease pencil and they have those plastic hanger tags now) and maybe that has something to do with it, but for real, the clothes there are horrific. I can honestly say that I have never, EVER found anything even remotely worth buying and wearing. Even the time I went before we went cob house building so I could get grotty work pants, I came home empty handed. Both pairs that I found that would fit me had someone’s left over yeast infection inside. No thanks.

Today I took a few pictures just to show that I’m not just talking out of my ass.

#1 Sheet with glorious white ‘mystery’ stain. It’s so obvious, it’s right at the fold of fabric that is on top of the hanger. How could the person pricing this MISS THIS STAIN?!?!

So you can see, it’s not a small stain either. It’s a lot of stain.

I just shivered and felt a little like puking.

#2 Jeans with hole.

and how much are they charging for ripped jeans these days?

Plus tax, people. To be fair, these were Diesel jeans. But they were also Diesel jeans from at least 10 years ago. If I’d gotten these on my line when I worked at VV I would have ragged them off. Or, if we were desperate for jeans, I might have put them out for 99 cents.  No, I take that back. I would have ragged them off.

#3 World’s prettiest dress. This dress is home made. It’s easy to tell, the seams are 2″ wide and all the edges are just pinked. It’s really badly made and it’s an extremely ugly pattern. Even the fabric isn’t worth salvaging for anything, it’s cheap and (not really) cheerful.

It’s so gruesome that not even a hipster, desperate for attention and validation would buy it. Can you guess the price on it? I know, you’re thinking “free” right? Well, you’re close:

That’s right. It’s also $7.99, same as the ripped jeans! Maybe that pricer’s pricing doo-dad was stuck on that number? Again, this is the type of dress I would have priced for 99 cents and it still wouldn’t sell. Just for the tally.

#3 and #4 Filthy jeans. All I did was walk down one aisle of womens jeans and these were blatantly just hanging there for anyone (like management!) to see. This is a common ailment of jeans and pants, the hems all ripped, dirty and stepped on. I’d have ragged these off without a second glance.

And I didn’t even have to look for any of these in the store, they were all out in the open. Not smashed into a rack, not covertly folded to hide the problem. And it certainly isn’t like there’s a lack of jeans in this particular store, there’s rows of them, all jammed in. Imagine what I couldn’t see.

And so? If you find problems like this at your local Value Village (or equivalent type store), you really ought to point them out to the manager on duty, and preferably to the Production Manager. That is the person in charge of the people who do the pricing. I’ve done this before, at this very store, but I guess they don’t care because it’s in a pretty ghetto area of Toronto.

All I ask is that you remember, before you wear it,  to WASH EVERYTHING YOU BUY SECONDHAND. Especially anything that will come in direct contact with your skin. And happy hunting!

I took these on my walk home from Dufferin Mall today. I tried to take a picture of an hilarious hipster but missed him by inches so I turned my camera to myself instead. I’m almost as hip, with my Gap for Kids sunglasses, right?

It’s better blown up, if you click it you can see. It’s motion.

Speaking of my phone, I’ve had a few problems with it for a couple days. I’m new to the world of macs and all that so I find them hard to use and confusing. Especially itunes. I just don’t understand why I can delete apps directly from my phone but not podcasts or songs. Not even the podcasts I download directly onto it. Then for about 24 hours itunes wasn’t even seeing my phone when it was plugged in. Not only that, but itunes was also freezing when the phone was plugged in. Unplugged? Everything’s kosher.

I installed the newest version of itunes on both my computer and my phone. Here’s me hoping it works better.

I have a headache. I made these but they’re not for eating for another 45 minutes.  If they’re not good I am going to blow a gasket. Watch me.

In other news, Roger Ebert’s interview on Esquire is quite amazing, leading me to read his blog , lots of movie reviews and other interesting stories. I was thrilled to read that he thought Synecdoche NY was the best film of the past decade. I loved it too and look forward to having time to watch it again.