In here life is beautiful… The girls are beautiful…

I worked at the Silver Snail a long, long time ago. Superman died when I was there, remember that? 1992? Yes, long ago. Anyway, I did cash there and I was a bit of a snob about comic book fanboys, and had less than no interest in the actual comics, at least, anything superhero related. Neil Gaiman did a signing once and the place was jammed, full of fans and crazies, it was a fun day. Everyone told me, read his work! Sandman is so good! Blah blah blah!

Did I listen? Hell no. I read his short series, Death, which was 3 comics and pretty good, but just thinking about getting into the Sandman series, ugh, no.

Then someone, I think Ali? loaned me one of his novels and I really enjoyed it, but I returned it and forgot everything, even the title.

Then I read something on boingboing about Terry Pratchett, a group of his fans had made a quilt with pictures and phrases from his books, and I’d never really even heard of him, so I got to thinking about his books and thought, yeah, ok, I will try one, see what it’s like, then I found out that he’d co-written a book with Neil Gaiman so I went to Chapter’s and guess what, they didn’t have the Pratchett book I wanted, they only had a mangled copy of the book he did with Gaiman, but they had a bunch of books by Gaiman and I was in the right mood, so I bought Anansi Boys. And it’s so good. So good I went back to Chapter’s and got 2 more books, American Gods and Smoke and Mirrors, and I can’t wait to read them both.

Ah.

Remember this post? Remember how it was gross enough without the visuals? Ha ha on YOU. Shannon bought me a teeny tiny memory card for my phone and now I can post my phone pictures! Yay for everyone!

Really. Is that not the grossest thing ever?

I got a new night shirt which I wore to bed last night. Funny how some of what I buy is specifically chosen to impress a certain 5 year old. Well, luckily we have similar taste in clothing.

I miss you.

I got new shoes and I am finally wearing them to work today. I’ve got a birthday party to go to tonight (no, lovey, not yours) and I am hoping no one spills their drink on them. To be honest, I doubt it will be that kind of party anyway.

Yep, they are Vans. I wanted slip on shoes because as much as I love my super hi top Vans, they are a pain in the neck to get on and off. I loved the colour of these–I’d call it chartreuse–and the soles are dark orange. No, I didn’t get them from Get Outside, like my first pair, I got them at Winner’s for less than half price. There were these totally cute Vans rubberized canvas boots there too, yellow with black plastic skull buttons, which very much tempted me, but I resisted. I also pretty much love the Iron Maiden ones, but I thought I might not love them for forever.

ps I saw a woman at the CNE yesterday actually wearing those fake tattoo sleeves. I screamed with laughter. I didn’t notice if she was also wearing an Ed Hardy shirt, but I did notice her giant ass. I wish I’d had my camera ready for her, she was a sight to behold.

I’d been dreaming about having an air popper, so Shannon picked up some Jiffy Pop instead. It was surprisingly good! Not how I remembered it at all, not burnt or nasty. The only mishap was the foil bursting and popcorn flying everywhere. Then we went for a swim and the sky also looked like popcorn.

Oh, and last night I had a dream that my eyes turned brown. If anyone who reads this has insight into what dreams mean, feel free to comment.

They left just before it rained today to get groceries for lunch and dinner. I watched them leave the building, then watched them pet a little white dog before getting on their way. Of course I dashed indoors to get my camera to get a few long distance shots.

They bike verrrry slowly, so it was easy to get a couple pictures. I really like these two!

I got to make supper today because the other people that live here -and I am mostly speaking of the taller one- were out at Buskerfest all day changing the colour of their faces.  I already wrote about making pickled beets, so I won’t repeat that story, but I also made stuffed zucchini and half a pepper, due to an excess of stuffing and a shortage of zucchini. My mother never, EVER made stuffed anything when I was a kid (and I bet she’ll challenge me on this) because she claimed she didn’t have time to stuff something into something else. This left me craving anything stuffed.

Making supper in a liberated house means you get to relax after eating while the other people clean up. Ah.

They were stuffed quinoa, crushed tomato, onion, garlic and the innards of the zucchini. A little salt, pepper, thyme, basil and parsley. We ate them with lamb sausages and had sour cream on the side.

Toot toot!

We went to the CNE with Joan and Anika today, and we all had a great time. I hadn’t been in years and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that great, but it really was, seriously. I am going again on Monday, I think, so I will see a bunch of different things that day.

The rides were great. The only one I went on was called Crazy Mouse and I don’t think I will ever need to go on it again. Travelling companies have scary rides no matter what, and it seems every year something terrible happens on one.

The other picture that is taken automatically on this ride is super crazy and will be scanned in and posted later today.

Since I the first time I read Found Magazine (yeah, try NOT to spend hours looking at that), I have been meaning to send in my box of ’special stuff’ that I found at a certain shitty job I worked at. I know, technically it’s called stealing, but it’s dumb stuff that isn’t sellable and is just considered garbage. One man’s trash…I happen to LOVE this kind of stuff. Part of the reason that I haven’t sent it in is because it’s just so hard to part with. Every time I look at the pile of photos, every time I read those letters, I start laughing and clutch them to my chest in joy. I’ve shown my Kangaroo shoe box of treasures to a few people, and after reading this website, it spurred me into sharing with the world.

I call this montage ‘cute kids’.  When I first moved back to Toronto I planned on carrying a couple of them in my wallet and pretending that I’d squeezed out a couple puppies while in Windsor. There’s no way I could do that with a straight face, so I didn’t. Still, cute, huh?

These two, I wonder if they are bff. I also wonder what year these were taken, hard to guess.

They might be the same age as my sister. Sadly I was just a little too young for hair like this.

This is the greatest treasure of all time. I love this phone so much, holy, I can’t even tell you. I carried it around like a real cell phone for about a week but I got worried that it would rip, so I have it safe and sound. I especially love that there’s a price tag on the back. One cent? Cheap, even by today’s standards.

I have all these letters too, but I will save them for another day when I have nothing better going on.

Let this also be a gentle warning to anyone who has clothes ready to be donated: someone will be going through those pockets at the other end. They will find your pictures, your ticket stubs, your letters, your id and your money. Any and every thing will be found and looked at by someone who most likely doesn’t know you, love you or care about you. I’d had WAY more stuff from those days but some of it was too funny to bring home and got wrecked there and then (or confiscated by supervisors as was the case of the penis polaroid).

PS Check out the comments on this entry!

Ok, I wasn’t going to tell this little story, but because I had such a fun evening-in which I went to see Mamma Mia! with the woman I work for who decided that she’s so in love with Pierce Brosnan that he feels the same way about her-that ended so hilariously, I have to share.

The other day I went to Sephora to look at makeup and maybe buy a little treat. I go to Shopper’s a lot, like, a LOT, and wind up playing in their makeup section but I don’t really trust the makeup ladies there, so I thought I could ask more questions at Sephora about Smashbox Cosmetics. There’s this anti-shine stuff that’s so awesome, really, I hate wearing powder and I really hate wearing foundation. So I was kind of drooling over that and the magical blush stuff (will someone please tell me how this works) and across the room I saw the most incredible person ever: a man wearing makeup. Not that it’s that huge a deal, I guess. You see dudes with eyeliner all the time, right? Well, this guy was one up on those guys. He had foundation, bronzer, perfectly waxed eyebrows and…what can only be described as makeup sideburns. His head was shaved very closely (not bald, though) and he’d filled in his hairline with some kind of soft black makeup. It was subtle, yes, but it was SO crazy obvious.

And I laughed. I laughed and laughed and called Emily, who wasn’t home so I told her mom about the guy. Then I laughed more and tried to hide but he kept wanting to look at the same stuff as me and I finally bought what I wanted and left with no further browsing. I was super tempted to say something to one of the employees there (something clever like ‘holy, I dig his burns!’) but what if they know him? What if he’s a regular customer that spends tons of money and they all love him? What if he’s a personal friend of one of them?

I resisted. It was hard. I have been laughing about it since and everyone I tell this story to is quite jealous and wish they’d seen him irl…

Lucky me, I ran into him again tonight. I was laughing my head off again, at something else, and there he was out of the corner of my eye, Sideburn Makeup. He must think I am crazy. I know, I should have followed him, but I didn’t…