In here life is beautiful… The girls are beautiful…

I had such a busy day, I’ve completely sewn the top of the new baby quilt I started-get this-yesterday. No, I won’t post a picture of it yet, it’s a surprise gift for a friend who’s pregnant and if she can wait, so can the rest of the universe.

In lieu, here’s a picture of my sampler quilt, almost finished. I’ve done some of the quilting (and you can see my 8 million safety pins keeping all the layers together) and will finish that part on Tuesday at the workroom-my sewing machine can’t handle that kind of work. I’ve run pretty hot and cold on this project, but seeing it together in one giant lump makes me pretty happy and proud. And desirous of a new sewing machine, for real.

As for the three blocks that I haven’t posted yet, top left is called drunkard’s path, top middle is an appliqued block and bottom left is a pinwheel or somesuch. The dark pink between all the blocks is the top edge of an old sheet, the pink floral is the same sheet, the white with light pink and dark orange is ikea fabric. You can see the batting pinned in the middle, that’s the cream around the edge, and just a peek at the back, another old percale sheet. It’s soft and heavy and I can’t wait to snug up under this while watching a movie.

All I have left to do on it, after the quilting, is the edge. Woo!

Being new to the iphone sphere, I’ve been immersing myself into the podcast universe. I’ve found plenty I like a LOT but I know there must be more out there that I am missing. The nice thing about the phone is that there’s the notes feature so I have been keeping a list of my preferred podcasts, making it easy to go back and look for more. I wish there was a recommendation feature too (as in, you liked this, you might like that sort of thing) and I also with there were more podcast review blogs that were current. Anyway, here’s my shortlist of (free) podcasts I enjoy:

1. The Moth
2. Storylife
3. This American Life
4. The Spark
5. DNTO
6. PRI: Selected Short Stories
7. CBC’s Laugh Out Loud

I’ve also enjoyed some Harry Potter stuff (mostly at night because it’s pretty boring and long winded and puts me thoroughly to sleep).  The CBC really has a million different things, I’ve also listened to  Vinyl Cafe and Wiretapped, both are good, and I’ll probably get lots more different stuff there. Like The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (Oh! Strombo!).

If anyone has any further ideas for me, I’ll gladly take any and all advice.

One would think that living as close to Value Village as I do, that I’d spend a lot more time there than I do. But I don’t. It’s quite possibly the grossest VV I have ever had the misfortune of shopping in-all the clothes, literally, ALL the clothes are disgusting, dirty, ripped, full of crotch rot, bally sweaters, busted out shoes, I could go on and on. I don’t know what anyone finds there that’s worth it. And overpriced? Heck, yes. So when my inner VV clock started ticking on my way home the other evening, I knew I had to listen. It almost never makes a noise anymore. I went in thinking maybe yarn. Maybe.

But I did much better than that. First there was a bunch of my favourite kind of bedding, vintage floral silliness that you’d have found at your grandma’s cottage in 1978. It’s very specific, heavy, soft cotton that’s perfectly worn in. Score 4 pillow cases and a flat sheet that will potentially become patchwork quilts. Maybe.

And this, a perfect Spirograph kit. And to my extreme surprise and pleasure, it was absolutely complete, including the original pens (which, to be fair, don’t work anymore), all plastic pieces, instructions and a pad of blank paper. Amazing!

I did a couple the minute I brought it home. Ari’s quite intrigued, but I’ve made her promise to not touch it without my supervision. All this for $1.99 and that’s what I mean by good score.

My parents made the trip to Toronto today to celebrate xmas with us. Late, yes, but better than never.  I went to the AGO with them and took only a couple illicit pictures. And managed to not get kicked out. A beard free trip.

That’s all. Came home and ate a lot of food and drank some wine.

Dog owners. You know, the main reason I don’t have a dog is because there’s no way in HELL I would ever pick up dog crap. I know that somehow it would get on me, under my nails or a skid down my sleeve that would go unnoticed. And I think that a lot of dog owners also feel this way and either don’t bother picking up after their dogs or they dispose of the dog completely, like a Brita filter. Look at petfinder, you’ll see.

Anyway, I think winter must be seen as both a blessing and a curse for dog owners, a curse because it’s cold and sometimes dogs take a long time to find the right spot to squat, and a blessing because deep snow means they can’t find the poop and just don’t bother. Seriously, look in the parks in spring time, it’s revolting. This winter-and I use that term only in the technical sense-we’ve had virtually no snow but I think that because the calendar says it’s January, that means that some people think that it’s their time of the year not to stoop and scoop. Between here and the subway station, a 3 block walk, I believe there are at least a dozen smeared piles of dog shit. I mean, I hope it’s dog shit, you never know in this ‘hood. There was also a giant splat of vomit outside the subway station on Thursday, but that’s a different issue.

I took this picture today. It defies explanation. I call it “Still Life of Dog Shit and Underwear”.

Why go to a pro when I have a super pedicurist right here?

From big-baby toe, I got gold, white, pink, black and silver on both feet.

I had a super day: I went to ROM all by myself which is a great way to see everything I want to see without worrying if everyone else is having fun. It was so nice, the Vanity Fair show was wonderful, I love portrait photography. Plus it brought me up to the 4th floor where the gallery of textiles and costumes is, and I love that. Sad, sort of. Our family membership expires on the 30th so this was my last chance to go.

Then I ate at Whole Foods, again, I love it there. I looked around at everything first, then I ate at their hot and cold prepared food bars. SO GOOD. My favourite salad in the world is there, the purple kale with raw beets in an orange vinaigrette (and if any clever people out there have this exact recipe, PLEASE pass it on to me), and I have it with extra beets. Raw beets ftw. And I had some scalloped potatoes and broccoli and quinoa salad and a corn salad. All for almost $10. I also love the bathroom at Whole Foods, not just for the awesome sign on the door and the magical hand dryer, but because they have a thing at the bottom of the door that lets you open it with your foot, rather than dirtying up your hands on the handlebar. Perfect.

Then I went on to a weird designer sale in the basement of a church that had shoes and clothes and stuff but I managed to resist. Then more shopping, gearing up to Xmas.

OH. Then I overheard an awesome conversation at the corner of Bay and Bloor, right outside the Gap store there. An old man begging for money with one of his pants legs rolled up and picking at the most revolting leg ever: purple and drippy, his sock was stained OMG SO GROSS.  A young woman had stopped and was lecturing him “you should cover that up, it’s NASTY!” and he says “well, I don’t got my medication for it” and she says “yeah, well, you should get a bandage or pull your pants down ’cause it’s so NASTY!!!” and I couldn’t help but laugh because she was right, it was about as nasty a leg as I have ever seen. Poor old fella. He looked like this old weirdo that used to shop at the Snail when I worked there.

Anyway, when flying with a 6 year old there are many ways to entertain them, here is just one of thousands: draw on magazines. I think this is a habit I picked up from my sister (who’s birthday it is tomorrow, Happy Birthday Megan!) when I was a kid. It amused the hell out of Ari on our way home from Costa Rica.

Poor Jaycee and Elizabeth, we really went crazy on them. Not for any reason either, there just happened to be a lot of clear pictures of them. And you might notice that a couple of faces have been re-drawn to look like daddy. Hee hee!

I took this on my way home from Dufferin Mall today.

I had to squat down to take my camera out of my backpack plus I had my headphones in and an apple clamped in my teeth so naturally this is the perfect time to be harassed by a security guard. Now I know everyone has at least ONE story about some piece of shit security guard over extending himself, but I was on the grass between the sidewalk and the parking lot, and I took 2 pictures OF THE SKY. It’s really no wonder he felt compelled to ask me if everything was ok and then to helpfully inform me that “photography on mall property isn’t allowed”. Just, ya know, fyi.

Thanks. I guess I missed the sign informing me? I actually laughed really loudly after he said that. Anyone that knows me irl knows I laugh…loud. Anyway, he walked off with a boner, presumably.

Men.

Oh, and did you know how hot this new Shakira video is? Not the song, not so much, but her, wow. Her body is…dang.

Nuit Blanche started out as intensely irritating for me. Waiting for people to set up a sound system and then hunt for car keys is not my idea of fun. But once the trucks started rolling, it was GREAT.

Did you know that there are ravers in the world still/again? They’re different now, they appear to be more of a hybrid of raver/emo/goth/punk and they look awful funny to me. The music’s different too, it’s more main stream than I remember (not that I was a raver, not even close-I was too old back in the day and I am WAY too old now). My old friend James Hastings spun deep house, which I almost liked occasionally, but this is beeping and booping laid over top 10 hits from 1990. Well, whatever, the kids were up and dancing and having a great time and that’s all that matters.

I also spotted a Snug backpack which made me smile. How long has this guy been hanging on to that artifact?

Of course the littlest raver didn’t make it past 10.30pm, just as I’d predicted earlier.

I always marvel at little kids’ ability to sleep anywhere. The noise was amazing, not just the rave music, but the drummers were bashing away, people were leaning into my window to yell stuff at me every 2 minutes AND everyone was blowing cigarette smoke into the truck as they wandered past.  Zzzzzz.

*Making boxes is a rave reference-think about how the kids dance and make square shapes with their hands/arms. It’s funny if you do it yourself, even just mime making boxes to a beat and you’ll laugh.

This is all I had the time to hot glue together on Saturday.

Then I glued her to the wall under her friends Gluey and Glovey. Now she won’t be lonely.

Anyway, other than that, it’s business as usual. I’m completely, utterly, addicted to knitting and it’s making me crazy. I sure wish I hadn’t given away my set of needles (that included dpn’s and circulars and a cute holder for the whole shebang) but what can you do? At the time I thought I’d quit that habit. Ah well. I’ve already finished one scarf and have the first 2 on the go still. And a yarn date tomorrow, see ya at noon, Jana!