I have been blessed, over the years, to be friends with artists who like me enough to make beautiful paintings for me. It’s different than going to an art gallery and just buying something you like, it’s more personal than that. And so, a history:
1. Tony Holiday made this for me back when his last name started with an E. We’d just broken up and I’d found an ugly painting in the new studio that was being set up for the tattoo shop I worked for at the time. A big painting measuring about 36X36″.
2. Pongo made this for me, we were supposed to trade something, I was making bags at the time, but I have a feeling I did NOT live up to my end of the bargain. Pongo, wherever you are, I apologize, and I owe you big time. This painting is small, about 12X12″.
3 and 4. Shannon started with the dragon and strawberry and made a frame for it, but it was slightly too small, so Ari did a drawing within the too small frame which Shannon then painted. Hers is a picture of her first day of school, with a two horned unicorn (they are more special), a bird, apple trees and a mountain. The ball on the ground has fallen out of her backpack. Each of these, with the custom frame, measures 21X17″, approximately.
5. Ari made this, it’s a princess, and while the story changed when she gave it to me, originally it was a princess being scared by a bear (not pictured). I love her terrified expression. This painting is quite small, 6″ square.
I have told this story to several people over the past couple days, so I know it very well.
Coming up the long escalator at Dundas West Station the other night, I looked up and noticed something small and grey tumbling over and over on the very last (top? first?) step of the escalator, the last one you see as it gets sucked into the floor. I wondered what it could be, maybe garbage, maybe something…When I got to the top I had to jump away when I realized it was a mouse trying to run down the up escalator. Silly mouse. He was running and running and clearly getting tired, would stop running, get sucked to the end of the escalator and get bumped and start running and running again. Poor thing.
Two completely separate people asked if I stopped to help it. Um. Like, kick it down that up escalator? That would be nice, sort of, not, I guess. There were a lot of people in the station that night, it wasn’t like I could stop and get people to move around me while I rescued a mouse. And it was a subway mouse, a FERAL mouse. He might have scabies or herpes or something bad.
Aw. Poor, diseased mouse. Now I feel sad, a little.
Perhaps my mouse’s fate? I figure someone stomped on him, accidentally, after our brief encounter.
I found the peanut, he almost ate it and I stopped him. Who’d eat such a cute legume? That baby was made for stardom.
Peanut-duck on left, rubber duck on right. FYI.
1. Awww!
That’s Bea on the left, Gabe on the right, at home, where they belong.
2. Ha ha!
Funniest potato ever, located near the back door at Em’s house.
3. Eeep.
Supposed to be a picture of my beloved rubber boots, but you can barely see them.
I like your coffee, I really do. Of all the chain type coffee out there, yours is the best hands down. Tim Horton’s? Too muddy. Starbucks? Too strong. Second Cup? I can’t trust a place with so many flavours. Seven Eleven? Burnt. Your coffee is always the same, every restaurant, totally consistent, and I like that when I am drinking coffee.
Here is my problem: your cups are terrible. I end up with coffee all down my coat and all over my hands, down my sleeves. I fiddle with the lid, trying to fix it each time, but nothing helps. And I have realized it’s not the lid, it’s the cup. Today my cup’s rim was all crushed, only about a third of it was still nicely round, filling the lid’s lip. The rest of it was leak city, dripping all over my boots and the subway. I ended up taking the lid off and risking a bump from a fellow passenger to avoid further dripping.
This leaves me with a dilemma. Do I drink the chain coffee that I like better, taste wise, and pay for my dry cleaning bills later? Or do I drink murky slop from somewhere else and not worry about looking like a total slob?
Please reply soon, I can feel a caffeine headache coming on quickly,
Yours faithfully,
Caitlin
ps Normally I make coffee at home. When I am not at home and want coffee, I prefer to get it from a nice local coffee shop that serves fair trade organic coffee. I will always get drinks from a place like this before I go to a chain. Sometimes, I don’t have that option, and I am forced to go corporate.
Every Monday evening I go to school with the guy I work for. It’s fun because it’s a small group of people learning basic skills and they all love it. Next week is their Christmas potluck party, yay! I think this year I will be attending more potlucks than anyone else in the world.
This is my friend David. He’s hilarious and he works for the Toronto Argonauts. He won’t be at the potluck next week, he’s having a party at his own apartment, which he did NOT invite me to, and I will remember this eternally. Either way, he’s totally awesome.
Picture taken after he’d been calling me pig for 10 minutes and we were laughing our heads off.
No, I didn’t make this hat, I wish. I love it because it’s cute and warm and no one else I know has one like it. Shannon’s hat is mine too, boring though, so I added a ZZ Top pin. When I wear it, people say “Is that a ZZ Top pin?” Yesssss!
We don’t look as festive as we were feeling at that exact moment, checking out our new property. Nor can you see the his’n'hers rubber boots going on.
Man, we’re cute.
