In here life is beautiful… The girls are beautiful…

I have been begging Shannon to take me to T&T for so long and finally, today, we made the trip out to Cherry Beach. Put simply, I love it there. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer produce and foods with a smaller carbon footprint, but really? It’s fantastic! First, it has everything you’d ever want in a grocery store PLUS dim sum. We got some weird pops, a couple cold cans of coffee (for me), soba noodles, a couple apples, candy and a ton of sushi. We had sushi for lunch AND supper.

Check out how cute the front of the tin of candy is:

The back is even better:

Shannon’s going to get the second one tattoed somewhere on himself. Feel free to make suggestions as to where.

This was taken when I was in grade 10 at the Dr.Disc we all hung out at in St. Catharines. I am wearing one of my dad’s sport coat jackets and a plaid scarf that I used to spritz with Ralph Lauren’s Polo at the drug store whenever I went with my friend Kathy Rose. This was 1987 ok? The drawing I did last summer isn’t too inaccurate, is it? My best friend Teilhard took it, and as you can tell, I hate getting my picture taken, so this was me being very reluctant. Or, perhaps, being a rebel, haha.

Anyway, thanks for sending me this picture, Teilhard. I am glad I found you after all these years!

We had a work Christmas party to go to the other night so I decided to wear festive makeup. And colours. I dread the day when this green shirt is too worn out.

The next picture is me when I am frustrated by how not great my self portraits are. Hm, whatever.

I have also stopped washing/brushing my hair. No, I don’t want dreadlocks, but I just hate washing it. It gets totally disgusting, my scalp can be pretty itchy after 2 weeks, and when I do wash it, the soapy water rinsing down the drain is black. Literally.

In good news, the shirt I was coveting at Zara was on sale so I got that plus another shirt plus a new pair of jeans. No, I can’t afford it, but my 3 favourite pairs of jeans are falling apart on me. Zara jeans are…uh, low cut. And the website is…uh, annoying.

Guess who I met today?

Most of the time I dream about escaping this city and living on a farm on Cape Breton Island, but sometimes, like today at Bloor station, Santa was there with a polaroid elf, it makes me glad I live in a big city. I must have gotten to him at the exact right moment because later when I was gloating to a co-worker about it, she was bummed because the line was so long she missed out.

Ha ha! Or, ho ho!

We had what can only be described as a great day. The morning was spent at ROM with our Moleskine books and pencils. Then we ate lunch out, got a new board game all three of us can play, came home and played it, then video games (Ooh, Littlest Pet Shop!), supper, and then we went out for the evening.

Toronto does a party at City Hall every Saturday night in December: Cavalcade of Lights. There’s a concert, then fireworks followed by skating. It’s great! Last week I met friends and I heard the top three singers from Canadian Idol (yeah, uh, huh) and the fireworks were GREAT, so this week Shannon and Ari and I all went together and enjoyed Dragonette (who were fun, cute and poppy) and the fireworks. 2 guys with twirling rigs on their backs actually rappelled from the roof. They are all synced to music and it’s crazy loud.

Enjoying the music:

Rappelling:

It all reminded me of Die Hard, it’s the right time of year:

We suffered through a couple viewings of terrible unicorn videos on youtube on the weekend, complete with sad songs. So awful. Good thing they generated some great art:

I especially love the baby unicorn Ari drew, it’s SO cute. It’s eyebrow was specifically drawn to represent happiness. I also love Shannon’s mommy unicorn’s mouth/tongue. And the sandcastle in the background (although probably not intended as a sand castle, just a regular castle) that makes me think that the unicorns were working on that before a little snuzzle and a rest.

Very, very cute.

I said I would write a complete review of the book Twilight when I finished reading it. Sorry, folks, I lied. I finished it a while ago and it immediately slipped my mind-that’s how vacuous the book is. Instead, I will provide a couple other peoples reviews of the book/movie. This one is good, he uses further reviews to make his point, and this one is great. Exactly how I feel.

Remember the Queen St West fire? I worked on that block at the infamous Stainless Studios (which is where I met Shannon!) and that fire made me really sad, it really drove home how that era has ended. I walked past the location yesterday-the building Stainless was in is still standing, although who knows how long. It’s been graffitied:

The pile of rubble hasn’t been cleaned up and there’s a mountain of garbage too, what mostly seems to be purple plastic shopping bags:

When you get to the corner of Queen West and Portland, that parking lot is gonzo. It’s being excavated, presumably to put in some big box store, which is a huge shame. What’s interesting is that the parking lot must have been slapped on top of old buildings that hadn’t been dug up, just smashed down and paved over. It’s neat to see the old brick work and wonder what used to be there, what businesses and people and history is being buried under Home Depot:

Part of me feels sad about all of it. Part of me embraces change and thinks that looking to the future is healthy. Mostly I want to get out of the city and live somewhere that I can see stars at night, collect fresh eggs in the morning and breath air that isn’t full of pollution.

Oh, and while I was taking these pictures I was accosted by what can only be described as a mentally disabled transvestite. She was really nice, although at first, made me a little nervous. Here’s the conversation as I was rummaging in my purse for my camera:

Her: “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”

Me: “Sure!”

Her: “Uh, why do they have those walls at street car stops that block you from going in the street because this morning I was talking on my phone and I tripped on it and almost fell down so why do they have them I could have been hurt?!?”

Me: “Gosh, I don’t know, that sounds dangerous. Are you ok?”

Her: “Yes. But I almost got hurt.”

Me: “Good that you didn’t. I have to go to work now, have a great day!”

And we parted ways. This is the one thing about living in a big city, you get to meet nice, interesting people who only want to make contact with other people.

I’ve been feeling super crappy for the past couple days and I don’t know why. All I want is to be at home with the people I love.  Even retail therapy hasn’t been helping. Home is not only where my heart is, it’s where my yarn stash is. I’ve made 2 more toys in the past 4 days.

The rabbit is made of cotton yarn. It’s about 8″ big. The elephant is made of self-striping sock yarn and has plastic beans in it’s bottom to weigh it down. Both patterns by me.

You know, if you want something I have made, you should say something. If you want to pay for something I have made, that would be nice, but if you just really want it, you can probably just have it.

Edit: both have gone to loving homes!

When I was a little kid nothing got me more excited than getting something in the mail. Usually it meant that Christmas was coming (my English relatives would send stuff so early it was torturous) or my birthday. But it always meant that someone, somewhere was thinking about me and went to some effort to show me they loved me.

See, when you are a little kid your sense of time and distance is pretty much non-existent. A week could be a month, a block might be a mile. When your family -the people that you love and that you think love you back- are far away and you only see them once or twice a year (if you’re lucky), it can sometimes be hard to remember that they really do love you. Little kids are no good for email or telephone, so that doesn’t really help. The best thing, barring visits, is mail. Send a post card from your travels, send a photo to remind them what you look like or of your dog, send a calendar with days marked off for your next visit. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or expensive, just send something to remind them that you think about them and you love them very much. Because sometimes being a little kid can be lonely. It is your responsibility as an adult relative to maintain that relationship, don’t expect a child to extend themselves to you first, they just don’t know how.

So why not do that today? I bet you haven’t visited the local post office in a while, they would be happy to see you too.

And if you think this is directed at anyone specific, it isn’t. But if you were thinking about sending something to a certain person who lives here and don’t have our current address, that’s ok, use the old one. We have forwarding paid on it for a full year and we get all mail redirected here. Alternately you could email me (that would be my name, Caitlinjane, and I use gmail) and ask for the current one or ask Shannon.

Amended to say: This is in no way, shape or form about anyone’s parents. She lives full time with her dad and sees her mom at least once a month and speaks to her every day on the phone. Any and all visits with her mom are very eagerly anticipated, marked on calendars and counted down to. And this also wasn’t about her grandma on her mother’s side-she’d gotten some gifts in the mail about a month ago that made her very, VERY happy.

So take a deep breath.