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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for October 1st - 15th
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10/15/04 I want my moral outrage reduced.
Well, today was really a day of not much happening at all, I must admit. Andrew and I had a fairly quiet day together which was nice as he's had a busy week. We'd even planned to go for a walk tonight to return a movie but since it was raining didn't even do that. Andrew did make a solo trip to the grocery store, but otherwise excitement was taking a rest.
This is not bad at all, of course. I did my job-hunting stuff quietly, Andrew quietly read news and Mac stuff, Halo quietly slept and wandered around. This evening I decided to watch some T.V. as I've gotten rather into watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? So Andrew made dinner while I did that, then after dinner I felt like just vegetating some more, so went back and ended up watching (to Andrew's horror) Extreme Makeover. I have never been a supporter of these types of shows, ever. I was horrified by Fox's 'The Swan', where they did extreme plastic surgery makeovers then made the newly plasticized people compete with each other over who was then most attractive. Extreme Makeover doesn't do this, fortunately, but it's still questionable. They take people who are dissatisfied with their appearance, change what they want changed, then present them to their friends and families in some grand, overblown way, as if to say, "Look how we made him/her attractive at last!"
Andrew was disgusted. I was not as adversely affected as he was, I don't think, but did agree with him for the most part. They made over two people and it was sad to see the first woman explaining that she wanted the makeover so that her husband would make love to her again.
Then we cleansed our systems by watching an episode of Third Watch, which is just make-believe violence, mayhem and murder so it's O.K..
Oh, and to end this entry on a grand note I will share with you a little project that Andrew and I collaborated on. To add to my click-happiness, here is a shot of my beloved's heart-shaped birthmark. I won't tell you where it is other than to say that it's nowhere dirty or titillating, you pervs.
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I forgot to mention yesterday that Andrew cut my hair for me. I'd been thinking for quite a while about taking off quite a few inches because I hate my layers and I wanted to get rid of the many, many split ends I had, but having been reading the Long Hair Community for months now I've developed a bit of a distrust for these people who want to layer my hair every time I go in. Plus, I didn't want to spend the money. Soooooo, I decided to ask Andrew if he'd be willing to cut my hair for me, fully expecting him to make the sign of the cross at me and run out of the room. I mean, as anal rententive as I've gotten about my hair over the last while, would you want to be responsible for cutting it?
He surprised me by saying yes immediately. I think I even said something like, "Are you sure you want to? What if it goes horribly wrong?" Still, he readily took up scissors and followed my instructions. He took off about two or three inches at first, evened it up and had me look at it, then took off a couple more inches when I asked for more to go. We more or less followed the straight-across instructions on Feye's Self Trimming site. When he was done straightening it in the back I went to the bathroom and trimmed the front part. I think it turned out really well and I'm very, very happy with it. So, if you ever need your hair cut on the cheap, just come to our little salon. I have a pair of trimmers I can do buzz-cuts with and everything.
I don't have pictures of it to show you. If I'd been thinking clearly we'd have done a step-by-step pictorial journal of it. Jerome accused me today of being snap-happy with the digital camera and said disparaging things about the pictures of the cat toys. That's pure entertainment, buddy. I think that people are very interested in the quality of cat toy my little kittyboy plays with, and his devotion to the felt fish. At least it proves that cats are sweet, loveable creatures who can form bonds, contrary to the opinions of dog-lovers.
Speaking of cats and dogs, I went for a walk to the convenience store pretty late tonight and decided that rather than walk home back along Bank Street I'd instead take a more circuitous route through the pretty neighbourhood west of it. I was walking past the Glebe Community Centre and saw a guy walking a dog on a long leash. And walking behind the guy was a tri-colour cat. It looked to me as if he was out walking his dog and his cat, as he kept looking back at the kitty and talking to it. Weird. Cats aren't usually the going-for-walks type of pet, but this one seemed quite content to keep up with its human and its dog.
And after saying in my weblog a few days ago that I never see cats around, I've been proven wrong with that incident and one on the way home from Gav and Emily's (by the Glebe Community Centre again, actually) the other night. We were walking with Colin and Jen and a very friendly mackerel tabby approached us and talked to us. She had a collar with a tag so I picked her up and carried her into the light so I could see if she lived in the neighbourhood, but the writing was too faint. It makes me mad when animals actually have a tag and the information isn't there.
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Gosh, I'm tired. We just got in from an extra-late night of hanging out with friends and I wasn't sure I had the energy for a blog entry in me, but the walk home in the nice, cool air woke me up enough for it, so here I am.
We had a 'Family Friendly Fun Night', arranged by Jen. She and Colin had Gav, Emily and their two daughters Aladara and Taliah over. Andrew and I were also invited, but Andrew had classes tonight and couldn't go to the dinner portion of the evening so I went solo. After dinner, which was a tasty spread of pizza, pasta, soup and salad, we waited for Andrew to call then headed over to Gav and Emily's place to watch a movie on their video projection home theatre dealio. Way cool. We watched Shanghai Knights, which was terribly enjoyable in a terrible movie kind of way. I enjoyed the first one, Shanghai Noon, and enjoyed this one in the same manner. Owen Wilson is always funny, and Jackie Chan is funny when I'm in the mood for him, which apparently tonight I was.
When I got to Colin and Jen's place I realized that I had the Really Super Book About Squirrels that Jerome gave me in my purse. I showed it to Jen, who promptly sat down and read it aloud, making it even funnier than I found it in the first place. Then after dinner she pulled out some French books to show me that she and Colin had bought at a French bookstore here in town and read me a kid's book about a frog with a severe umbrella obsession. It was strange, but quite funny. Jen has a natural storytelling talent, you know. Someday when we have kids Andrew and I will get their Auntie Jen to come over and tell them stories all the time. The weirder, the better.
I went out this afternoon to pick up some stuff and while I was out decided to stop at Berry's Pet Food to pick up a treat for Halo. Andrew and I have been feeling sorry for him lately because the only toy he plays with is his sad little ex-catnip fish made out of felt. Once upon a time it was attached to a string on a stick and was full of heady catnip, but now it's just two pieces of felt sewn together. He really loves it, though. He pounces on it and throws it in the air, then pounces on it again. When he's feeling loveable sometimes he'll stretch out on the floor and just touch it with his paws, or make sure that it's kind of under his head a little bit. He's very fond of it. I think he deserves fancy toys, though, so I made an effort to buy him something he'd really enjoy. I hemmed and hawed, but finally settled on a Dr. Noys' Pet Toys Daddy Pompom Legs catnip toy. It's cool because it's refillable. It comes with catnip bags that look just like tea bags. Isn't it snazzy looking?
Halo isn't very impressed, of course. I put the catnip teabag in it, scrunched it a bit to get the catnip really working, then gave it to him. He was interested in the catnip smell, but every time he got excited about it he started playing with his dang fish. I think he really associates catnip with that fish or something. Anyhow, I think he did play with the pompom spider a bit while we were out because it was in a different spot when we got home. I wanted to take some comparison pictures of the fish and spider side by side, but Halo wanted in on the action too, so here's a picture of the three of them. And here's a bonus picture of the pompom spider killing Halo. He was a good cat.
Anyhow, the fish will remain his favourite toy, I'm sure. If that's his security blanket, who am I to take it away from him?
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10/12/04 Pictures galore! And Jerome is a stinker.
Once Jerome and I attended a wedding together. During some non-wedding time we drove around town and visited some stores. We went into a dollar store. While there we 'admired' a lot of the tacky crap that apparently sells well enough to always be found in those types of stores. There were some incredibly horrendous items, and Jerome came up with a great idea. Wouldn't it be funny to buy one of these gag-worthy items, gift bag it, write a card but 'forget' to sign a name and then give it to the couple? They'd wonder who gave them such a tasteless, ugly gift and would feel strange about it, wondering if it should go on an unobtrusive shelf somewhere in case the mystery giver visited and looked for it in their home. So we chose a vile item (if I recall correctly it was a snow-globe type thing with a dolphin or fairy or something inside it), bought a gift bag and card and set it on the newly married couple's gift table amongst the other, bigger, better gifts. Tee hee.
That was funny. Apparently Jerome really thinks so, because today I received a gift in the mail from him. He'd mentioned he was sending something, and I'd looked forward to it, whatever it might be. Ignorance is such lovely bliss. I brought the package in from the mailbox, excitedly opened it and read the card.
Keltie,
I found this beautiful piece of art and knew you'd love it. I fully expect to see it on your new Ottawa walls when I visit!
Jerome
Oh, a housewarming gift! I struggled with the excessive tape that bound the protective cardboard sheets together, finally managed to separate them, lifted out the gift, held it up and looked at it.
Yes, we have hung it on the wall. I honour my dear friend's wishes, of course. Andrew even chose where it should go. It adorns the wall of a very special room: the throne room. And I do apologize for the picture quality. I tried every setting on the camera and it still wouldn't photograph well. I think the camera resisted out of artistic integrity or something. I know, I know. Everyone's a critic. I guess creepy little fairy creatures unrolling rainbows aren't to everyone's taste. Who'd of thought? But really, thank you, Jerome. You're a dear, special, beloved friend and always will be. :)
We bought new batteries for the digital camera (which Jen is still graciously letting me use). I did promise pictures of our stunning dining room blinds when I had it up and running again, so here you go: The blinds up close and the blinds with part of the wall showing. Exciting, aren't they? They're actually not as private as regular blinds because of the gaps between the fancy little series of rods, but they look nice so I don't mind so much. And in the second picture you can see the current colour of our entire apartment. Well, the bedroom is actually a very blue sort of blue and the bathroom is white. Oh, and the kitchen is yellow. O.K., so the dining room, hallway and living room are the green.
And I will share one last picture with you all. I talked and talked about how one of my favourite things about our Toronto apartment was the fact that we could see the C.N. Tower from our kitchen window. Well, here's the view in all its glory. See that little toothpick on the horizon? That's the tower. I swear in real life it looked way bigger than that from our place, but the camera makes it look absolutely miniscule! And don't mind the rain dirt on the outside of the window, please. This shot shows the alley leading down to St. Clair (kind of) and if you could see more of the right hand side you'd see the convenience store and laundromat we went to all the time. Don't the trees look pretty? I do miss that neighbourhood. Sigh.
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10/11/04 Mysterious noises and excessive roadkill.
Andrew and I wanted to get enough sleep last night since we knew we'd be heading to Kingston today to visit my family. We did end up going to bed fairly late, but with enough time to get a sensible amount of sleep before leaving town. Sometime after two a.m., however, we realized that there was a lot of banging and thumping going on in the apartment above us and it was just getting louder. This struck us as particularly strange as we haven't heard a single noise from up there since we moved in, and the guy who lives there is an older gentleman. We could definitely hear a non-elderly female voice and a younger male voice as well, and the sounds were of the furniture-moving type for the most part.
Moving furniture isn't a strange thing to do. However, doing it from two until three thirty a.m. without noticeable pause is a little odd. At one point there was a particularly loud bang on the floor directly above us and a male voice saying clearly, "Oh, my god!" We were weirded out by all this and not a little annoyed, so finally at close to three thirty Andrew got up, got dressed and went up to say something, as it was definitely interfering with our ability to sleep. I was a bit nervous about him going up as the whole thing felt 'off', but waited for him to return. I could hear him going up the stairs, then I heard a pause above me in the noisiness. The woman's voice spoke, then the man said something that obviously contained the word 'f*ck'. I waited and waited, and was about to get dressed and go up myself when Andrew came back in.
Apparently he'd rung their doorbell twice and nobody answered. He could clearly hear them inside talking and moving around, and could hear the doorbell when he rang it, but they ignored it. He'd run into a guy from the third floor who seemed nice and friendly, but strangely there was also an enormous dog that belongs to a woman in the building just wandering around the halls on its own. Recall, this is at close to four a.m. at this point. Anyhow, after this the noises did appreciably diminish and we were able to get to sleep, but a heck of a lot later than we'd wanted to. It was badness all around. This morning Andrew called the landlord to complain about it and to ask why the heat wasn't on (it's been off for a few days) and the landlord seemed a bit disturbed by the story, since that's apparently fairly odd for this older guy. And the heat came back on today after some repairs, in case you're concerned.
So we slept a bit longer than we'd planned to make up for it, then got up and bombed off to Kingston for a turkey dinner with my family. On the way there we realized that there was an amazing number of dead raccoons and porcupines on the side of the road. I'm talking a lot of dead animal, folks. I only saw a couple of dead skunks, surprisingly. I mentioned it later when we were at my Mom's place and my Aunt Norma said that it's normal for this time of year. Apparently they're so fat and slow at this point before winter that they can't cross the roads as quickly and are more likely to get hit. Sad. We came very close to hitting a couple that were wandering in the road ourselves on the way back but Andrew managed to avoid them. Luckily there weren't any cars right behind us or he'd have had no choice but to pretty much drive over them.
My Mom's dinner was excellent as usual. I do live for her stuffing, and she made an absolutely orgasmic apple pie. My Mom's pastry is better than anyone else's. If you think your mom's is, well, you're wrong. Just ask Andrew. It was flaky and light and delicious, and the filling was incredible too. Go, Mom! I didn't have a piece of the pumpkin pie which I'm kicking myself for now, but there was no way I was going to be able to force any more food into myself at that point. Seriously.
Andrew found a nice picture of our apartment building online today. Check it out here if you want. Since the time this was taken they did a major cleaning job on the brick and it's much lighter now. More of a sandy yellow. We told Alannah that today and she was surprised as it doesn't look at all like it even has the potential for yellow in that shot, but it really has lightened up considerably. We're in the bottom left apartment and the left-most windows on the front are the ones that some loser banged on and scared the crap out of me last week. Also if you're interested there's a good article on the history of the Glebe that Andrew dug up as well.
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10/10/04 Veggietales of my own.
We had a great Thanksgiving dinner with Andrew's grandparents today. We went over there this afternoon with his mom and dad and had a nice visit for a couple of hours before we sat down to dinner. It wasn't a huge crowd of us this time. I'm used to these being large family affairs as Andrew comes from a rather large family. This time it was just his grandparents, his parents, us, and a very nice friend and neighbour of his grandparents named Mrs. Don. She mispronounced my name 'Kelsey' all night, but I can entirely forgive her that as she had me laughing the whole time.
Andrew's grandpa served us Kir to start things off and I was pretty happy about that. At his birthday celebration he'd served us Kir Royal and I'd liked it very much. However, since that time I've had a bit of a run-in with a bottle of white wine and a rather nasty hangover, and found tonight that the taste of white wine is kind of repulsive to me all of a sudden. Even the flavour of blackcurrant couldn't mask it. That's disappointing, because I've never been a fan of red so white was always my recourse when the wine was being served. I managed to drink it and a glass of white with dinner. It wasn't easy, though. When his grandpa served us seconds of the Kir I convinced Andrew to drink mine too. He didn't seem terribly upset about it, looking back.
Andrew had told me recently that his grandma always makes mushroom gravy, but the gravy she served tonight wasn't mushroom, it was just brown so that was a relief. I also ate green beans (gasp) and managed to choke down a brussels sprout. I'd taken two small brussels sprouts, thinking that I could force them down somehow. Don't worry, I didn't eat many green beans, and I made sure they had gravy and cranberry sauce on them, but I caught Andrew looking at me from across the table with a kind of funny little expression about me eating the beans and I very nearly lost it. I swear to you, if I'd thought too hard about what I was doing, it would have been bad. The brussels sprout was bad, no ifs, ands or buts and I very sweetly said to Andrew when my plate was empty except for the remaining vile little lump, "Sweetheart, I'm so full. Do you think you could eat my last brussels sprout?" He once again came to my rescue. He loves brussels sprouts, however, so he didn't seem too upset about that, either.
Dessert was pie. Yummy pie, and ice cream, all egg-free. Andrew's grandma has promised to send me a recipe for her Sussex pudding, since Andrew can't eat Yorkshire pudding and if I ever make a roast beef (ha ha) I'll want to have Yorkshire pudding and won't want him to be puddingless. Mrs. Don also promised me a recipe for something, but I can't for the life of me recall what it is. I'm sure I'll remember at four in the morning or something.
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I got in so late last night that I just didn't have it in me to write a weblog entry. It was Jen's birthday yesterday and we spent the evening with her, Colin, and her brother's girlfriend celebrating. First we went and played pool for a while at MacLaren's, then headed to a French crepe restaurant for dinner. I was pretty pleased with that restaurant until today when as a result of a conversation with Andrew I discovered something about it that didn't please me at all. I'd gotten the duck a l'orange for dinner and hadn't been quite sure of the price since there were no prices on the menu and Andrew had paid. I mentioned that you can tell when a restaurant is expensive since they don't even bother to list the prices on the menu. Andrew then informed me that actually, the prices had been on his menu. So, it seems that they have separate menus for the men and the ladies. Separate menus for the men and the ladies. I haven't checked with Jen or her brother's girlfriend as to whether their menus had prices, but if they didn't I'm officially pissed off, despite having enjoyed my meal thoroughly.
After that we went to a dessert place called Oh So Good which has dozens of cakes to choose from. I was stymied by which to choose, but in the end went for the one called The Real Deal which is a chocolate mousse sort of thing with chunks of cheescake scattered through it. Holy crap good, but it was too much for me. Colin got the same thing and he couldn't finish his either. Jen got a cheesecake, her brother's girlfriend got a tiramisu, and Andrew got a strawberry milkshake. There was nothing there that didn't have eggs, of course, but he said he enjoyed the milkshake thoroughly. There was a lot of great art on the wall depicting bees, too, which I found very cool. All of the artwork except one giant piece depicting a sun were for sale, and if I had extra money lying around I would have loved to have bought a bee painting. Ah, well. I'll just have to do my own, I guess.
Then we went to the video store and Jen chose Mystery Men as our movie entertainment for the night. Colin had promised us a satisfying array of snacks when we got back to their place and he didn't lie, but we'd stuffed ourselves so full of delicious foods already that it was a bit daunting. I did manage to eat a goodly amount of my beloved cheese candy (smoked gouda). It's dangerous to leave that stuff out around me, it seems. And I must attribute the name 'cheese candy' to Andrew's sister Jenny who called it that last Christmas when Colin and Jen served us some. I thought it was funny and true!
Anyhow, we all enjoyed the movie thoroughly, those of us who had seen it and those who were seeing it for the first time. It's very hilarious and I recommend it to everyone.
So, then today Andrew and I slept in pretty late, having been out partying so hard last night, and got up with the intention to do all the laundry we could do. Well, I got up with that intention and shared it with Andrew. We've been wondering about how best to do our laundry, having not heard great things about the facilities in the building. I went down to the basement to see what they were like and found the door locked. I figured out eventually that our apartment key also works in the laundry room door so we were much relieved that we could actually do our laundry on the premises. For a while. The washing machines work great! I was pleased with them. The dryers, however, don't work so terribly well. For smallish loads they seem O.K., but we'd let the laundry pile up and there was rather a lot of it. At $1.25 a load it's a bit pricey to run the clothes through the dryer multiple times, so I think that a collapsible laundry rack in the apartment may be a good investment also for letting them dry completely if they're still a bit damp.
We decided that we wanted to rent the South Park movie to watch tonight so we took a walk to the video store to rent it. After we'd rented it we decided to walk to the canal and go for a stroll along it, then follow Patterson Creek home. It was a gorgeous night for a walk. While we were on our way to the canal I stopped to talk to a friendly cat that was rolling around on the steps of what I assume was its home. I haven't seen any cat gangs around here. In fact, I haven't seen many cats around here at all, come to think of it. Lots of dogs on leashes walking their owners, of course, but the feline population seems small. I wonder why that is?
So, we came home. Andrew made dinner (his tried and true macaroni and cheese) and we watched the movie together. It was just the kind of day I like. Hanging around with my fiance, doing some productive things and some relaxing romantic things. Life is good.
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O.K., I don't know what it is about the Glebe Home Hardware, but so far Dan and Colin have both spoken up for it quite vehemently, and then tonight as we walked past it Andrew said fond things about it. I mean yeah, I know you guys are ... well, guys, but I'm surprised at how much you all love it. I admire your loyalty.
It was another quiet day around here as Andrew had classes until quite late. It was also Survivor/Apprentice night, though, so I passed the afternoon doing the job hunting and apartment sorting that has been my wee routine as of late. I'm starting to hit a wall when it comes to the boxes of stuff that are still around. It looks as though a lot of it is going to go into storage if it doesn't go on shelves. The Billy bookcases still need to be put back together and once that's done a lot of things will be cleared up. I want to get some Billy bookcases for myself, too. One of the best apartments I ever had came with huge shelves built right into one of the walls, and it was the tidiest apartment I ever had, I do believe.
I was telling Andrew recently about a show I used to love. It's called This Small Space on HGTV and it was all about learning to decorate without having to do a lot of renovation or customization since what you can do in rentals or just small living quarters is usually pretty limited. I watched it every chance I could get, but do you think I can remember anything I learned from it? Of course not. The point really is, however, that I think we need to pay attention to some ways to have nice-looking storage around the apartment instead of just stacks of things here and there. Ikea has lots of clever little things that fit the bill. We're going to turn into a total Ikea couple. I think perhaps we already are. Eek.
I'm sticking to my goal to accumulate lots of red things, though. The bench we got for Halo is red, and I just bought him a large water dish that's also red. Hmmm. O.K, so maybe I'm just buying red things for Halo. But it's a start. If the sofa and loveseat are some weird colours we can look into buying slipcovers in red rather than going to the trouble of recovering them ourselves, too, although Andrew seemed a little surprised when reading my entry on the 5th that I didn't seem to think he could help out with that. They make it look so easy on Trading Spaces, but I bet it's harder than it looks.
I signed up to do the NaNoWriMo project this year. A couple of people I know online do it every year and I've always been tempted, so I figured I'd sign up now and think about it. If I get a job and find myself too busy come November, well ... I just won't do it. If I do, though, I'll be adding this cute little image to my little gathering of images down at the bottom of my weblog pages:
The squirrel is in honour of a book that Jerome sent me called A Really Super Book About Squirrels which is quite possibly one of the funniest things I've read this year. If you get a chance, buy it and read it. If you don't, come over and I'll let you read my copy.
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So, like I said in the comments for yesterday, I went back to Home Hardware today. We needed to buy a new shower head to replace the one that Gundel and Julie left since they want it back. And no wonder, as it's a very cool shower head. It's a Waterpik Aquafall Adjustable, I believe, and Andrew and I like it very much. Enough that we wanted to buy something similar. Well, during my visit yesterday I saw a knockoff in a much cheaper brand and we figured that was good enough so I went back today and picked it up. Yay for our new funky showerhead! Yay for cleanliness!
I was doing some shifting around of various things tonight involving sorting through some boxes that are in the living room near the windows facing onto the street. I was innocently working away when all of a sudden someone on the street banged hard on the window right beside my head and scared the holy living crap right out of me. I swear, my heart ended up splattered on the wall above my head. I hollered something nasty out of sheer fright and surprise and I'm sure whoever it was heard me. It's funny because I've fully expected this sort of thing to happen facing right onto Bank street as we are, but when it did it scared me more and made me angrier than I thought it would. People get their jollies in the weirdest ways, I guess.
I saw an interesting website mentioned at the Long Hair Community of all places today and sent Andrew the link, thinking it might be something he'd be amused by. And apparently I was right. It's called Beatallica. I was wondering how to describe it, and Andrew says it's best described as the Beatles and Metallica stuck in an elevator together. Now, I'm neither a Beatles fan or a Metallica fan but I know what the Beatles are supposed to sound like. This is some funny stuff. If you decide to give it a listen, be aware that there's some liberal use of that dastardly F-word, O.K.? Not for the kids, no.
Really, not a heck of a lot else is going on around here that makes for interesting weblog writing, despite keeping us busy. Andrew is immersed in schoolwork, I'm job-hunting and unpacking and Halo is working on getting enough sleep. We do have plans on Friday to hang out with Colin and Jen since Friday is Jen's birthday (yay Jen!) and apparently there will be good food and things involved. Yeehaw! It's now Jen's turn to hit the 'big thirty' milestone. So far for me it's been no big deal, and I don't think that Jen's the type to get her feathers ruffled over a number.
Oh, I did hang up some masks today. The only problem is that the masks are small and we have a lot of wall space, so I'm going to have to get busy and make a lot more of them so they don't look so lost on the walls. I know I planned on finishing a mask by the end of the week but since that's not going to happen I might as well aim to at least start some by getting some paper pulp made. I want to make a few more bonsais, actually, since I think they'll look nice in our hallway if I don't end up giving them all away!
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I've come up with a very simple method of hanging my masks on the wall, so I'm going to unpack them and hang them all, I think. There are a lot of screws already in the walls kind of scattered around the apartment and I think I'd rather have something decorative hanging from them temporarily than have them just sticking out. We plan to remove them, putty the holes and then repaint at some point but they'll leave rather unsightly holes because there are plastic screw anchors holding them in the wall. So, I don't want to just take them out now.
Today was a nice, quiet day. Andrew had to go to the Carleton library so after he left I went to Home Hardware, the Glebe Loeb and Loblaws. Now, I so far absolutely love living in the Glebe. Truly do. It's nice not to walk on sidewalks coated with spit splats and gum. However, the stores with the things that you need on a day-to-day basis around here are ... well ... not so super. The Loeb is a very small Loeb. The Home Hardware is a very small Home Hardware. The Loblaws ... I don't even want to go into it. I think that Andrew's opinion of this state of affairs will be at odds with mine, but sometimes I like having a great big store nearby with everything I need in it (not mentioning any chain in particular here, of course). It was frustrating to go to three stores and not be able to find the things I was looking for. Sigh. My kingdom for a one and a half inch hair trap!
So far Halo has spurned the cute little Ikea Pastill bench we bought for him. I set him down on it when I got it all put together and that might have been my first mistake. I threw him directly onto the unknown! I haven't even seen him approach it since then, actually, unless he absolutely had to walk past it. Thankfully it's a nice bench and looks good in our apartment whether Halo uses it or not. The red does look great with the wall colour. I've realized, though, that I have no clue what colour the sofa or loveseat are that we're getting so we may have a rather interesting colour scheme going on. I could threaten to recover the furniture, but who am I kidding? That's probably not going to happen unless I have some kind of help, and my mom lives pretty far away.
So Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend and we'll be having dinner with Andrew's family on Sunday, then heading to Kingston on Monday for a meal with my family. Oh, baby. Turkey dinner two days in a row. I can hardly wait to get a plateful of my mom's stuffing. The funny thing is, my mom can't stand to eat it but she makes the most delicious stuffing I've ever eaten. I think it's the mushy bread aspect of it that she doesn't like, and if I thought about it too much maybe that would bother me too, but I refuse to think about it since it just tastes so heavenly. Maybe that's how people who like the flavour of mushrooms bring themselves to eat them, then. They ignore the fact that it's a nasty fungus and just concentrate on their taste buds. Well, I can safely say that I not only revile them for what they are, but I find the taste of them particularly disgusting as well. I grabbed a couple of packets of instant gravy the other day to have with tortiere and when we got home Andrew pointed out that one of them was mushroom gravy. Ugh. So, he ate tortiere with mushroom gravy and I let him enjoy it in solitude.
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10/04/04 Ah, well. Sleeping on the floor is good for our backs.
I didn't mention yesterday that my purse (otherwise known as Pursey) finally wore out. The strap, which was already broken, came right off and Pursey fell violently down onto the sidewalk. Being a (fake) leather purse it's not really the kind of injury that can be repaired easily with a bit of sewing, so I have since been using the tiny little purple handbag that May gave me with my birthday gift. It just holds my keys, some money and a lipstick but it did the job for a couple of days. Surprisingly (to me), Andrew insisted that I needed a new purse, so today I got a lovely new purse at Mountain Equipment Co-op. Check it out here. It's gray and blue, not black like the one pictured, and is obviously a utilitarian type bag, not a dressy one. This Pursey is going to last me a long time, though, and I will get another smaller and dressier one for fancy. Dearly departed Pursey was a good purse and served me well. It will be missed.
That wasn't the end of the shopping today. We did end up going back to Ikea. The bed that we wanted was the Noresund queen bed frame and we've been looking forward to getting it since we picked it out in Toronto. It wasn't in stock today, and when I went and asked an Ikea employee about it he informed me that there won't be any available until January! Holy crap! It turned out to be a lot more popular than Ikea had expected and they've been flying out of the stores worldwide. So, Andrew and I will not be getting a lovely Noresund bedframe. We dithered about getting the bedframe that matched the dressers we're buying, but decided no, we'd rather look elsewhere for a style similar to the Noresund. So we ended up leaving with a little dresser for me, a bench for Halo to sit on, and a computer desk for Andrew (which isn't on any Ikea site that I can find, or anywhere else on the web for that matter. It's a Bialitt corner desk, for what it's worth).
So we brought all this stuff home and then Andrew had to take the car back to his dad. While he was out Colin called and said that my earlier blog entry about our visit to New Mee Fung had caused a sudden craving for pho in him and Jen, so when Andrew got back they came and picked us up and we headed out to New Mee Fung once again. Andrew and I, both having had pho the other day, opted to get the barbeque beef with vermicelli, but I must admit that was a mistake. Why pass up pho? Silly, silly us. I did get cold rolls again, though, and a strawberry bubble tea. Then when we left Colin suggested we go out for ice cream. I've been missing Greg's, of course, and was pleased with the idea. So off we went to Pure Gelato. I think I've found my ice cream fix, my friends. There are flavours like blackberry, rum raisin, Crystal Maple, Orange Toblerone and tons more that are weird and wonderful. Jen and I both got Oreo, Andrew got Pina Colada and Colin got something coffee flavoured, the name of which escapes me. There's no Grape Nut, of course, but perhaps I will settle on a flavour obsession there. Next time I'm going to get the blackberry and see.
Then we came home. Andrew got to work assembling his desk, and I put together the bench and the dresser. The bench almost doesn't count because all it took was screwing in six screws, but the dresser was quite a bit more work. I did it entirely on my own except for nailing in the boards on the back which the instructions clearly stated required two people. So I called Andrew in and sat there and handed him nails while he hammered. I do think I could have done it myself, but whatever. I like to follow the rules. It's done, though, and it looks great and so does Andrew's desk. Andrew is a bit anxious about the fact that we're accumulating more and more stuff. As we were mulling over our furniture decisions at Ikea he realized that next time we move we may actually require professional assistance to get all of our belongings from one place to another. And he's right. Hooray for hired help, I say!
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Ah, the heat came on today and we weren't expecting it until tomorrow! Wonderful. I noticed a kind of 'hot' smell around the place, so we touched the rads and they were definitely on. Then we had to go around turning off all of them but a couple so it wouldn't get too hot. We went out shoppping, and when we came back and opened the door an absolute wall of heat met us. Andrew actually opened up a couple of windows to cool things off. I think we've reached a happy heat medium now, though, so we'll see how easy it is to maintain it. Halo is definitely happier about not freezing his whiskers off, I think.
We've been putting off grocery shopping for one reason or another since Wednesday, but today forced ourselves out to buy some food. We ended up at a Loblaw's superstore and couldn't even get a shopping cart to use since neither of us had a quarter to put in the stupid cart lock thingamajig. We just used a dumb basket and bought a few things. I'd discovered rather quickly that we'd forgotten our dish rack in Toronto under the sink so we grabbed one of those, and a much nicer and pleasing one to boot. The kitchen is now totally unpacked and put away which feels nice. Having one room in a state of completion is a good thing. I guess the bathroom can count as finished, too, but since there are still bathroom-like things that should go in the linen closet I'm not going to claim it is.
Andrew installed the dining room blinds today and I'm terribly happy with them. They're very nice blinds, you know. I did a lot of research trying to find a picture of them online to share them with y'all, but the Shade-O-Matic website is full of broken links and images, and the Home Depot site claims no knowledge of them. In fact, when I put in the word 'blinds' in their search engine, it informed me that my search produced no results despite their entire section entitled 'blinds'. Whatever, Home Depot. Just for that I'm not putting in a link to your crappy site.
So when we get batteries for Jen's digital camera I'll try to get a nice picture of them, I suppose.
Tonight we got to talk to Dan, May and Marcus on the phone! It was lovely to chat for a bit with them all, even though it does make us miss them more. I had to point out that it's Andrew's fault we left Toronto, not mine, and May suggested some ways in which I could punish him for that. She's so delightfully evil behind that sweet smile. I also got to talk to my Mom and Jerome tonight, and Mimi and Alannah the night before, so I've been keeping in touch with those I love dearly which is nice. It makes me feel less removed from the things that are familiar to me.
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10/02/04 Sleep sleep. Yes yes.
So it begins. It's getting very, very cold here in Ottawa. The heat won't be turned on until Monday as there are still radiator repairs that need to be made in some apartments in the building and I'm freezing. I think Halo feels it even more than we do, though. He's not got a lot of meat on his skinny little bones, poor guy, and his bare toes are always touching the floor. He even got under the blankets with me when I was on the phone with Mimi earlier, and he never does that.
We went to Ikea today, but it was so crowded and unpleasant that we decided to go back on Monday and get what we needed. I knew that I didn't want to deal with the annoyance, and we were both hungry enough to agree to put it off and go out for lunch instead. We did go to the storage place and pick up Andrew's futon mattress which we've got propped up in the living room as a makeshift seat until we get the other furniture, and we also retrieved some framed pictures that Andrew had brought to town on an earlier trip. So now there are some more things on the wall and the place is slowly but surely becoming more and more 'ours'.
I did have a moment today where I felt like we should be heading back to Toronto soon, though. We were driving on the Queensway and it suddenly seemed like we were visiting, not here permanently. I guess it hasn't really sunk in yet, despite the harrowing move. We still need to establish a routine and day-to-day sort of familiarity, I suppose. Hopefully it won't take too long.
I need to begin doing some mask making soon or I'm going to find myself out of the habit and not working it into that routine that I want to put together. I have a couple in mid-process sitting in a box that I need to get out and get finished, and I have so many more ideas that I want to begin. So this week I think I'll aim to create an artspace and finish one mask.
Anyhow, I'm totally exhausted tonight for some reason and I think it's making me more terse than usual. I think I need more sleep!
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10/01/04 A night of Faux and Pho.
I cannot tell you how much I love this apartment. Really, I do. I'm so pleased to like the space I'm living in. Andrew and I went to Home Depot tonight to buy some things for the place that we need, and it was a lot of fun. We bought blinds for the dining room, some shower curtains, and a nifty soap holder. We also bought a hair trap for the tub, but it's too large. I'm not too broken up about that as I don't really like the one we bought, anyhow. The blinds for the dining room are great, even though we got them in white and I wanted the brown. They're called Faux Woven Woods roman 'style' shades, but they look (to our untrained eye) very much like actual wood blinds. As Andrew pointed out, the brown ones wouldn't have matched the very dark stained trim around the windows, so white it is.
We didn't get curtains for the kitchen yet as Home Depot doesn't have a great curtain selection. We're planning to use the existing brackets and put in a curtain rod halfway down the window, then just buy something pretty to hang there. I'm not keen on having nothing there at the moment, though, so Andrew bought another of the cheap paper blinds we'd had in Toronto to put there temporarily. They're all of eight bucks, so not a big deal at all. It's great to have that window covered for the moment, although the dining room blinds have to wait until tomorrow. Sigh.
I'd say that this apartment is almost perfect, actually, except for the bathroom. There are a couple of things about it we'd have done differently had we designed the place (back in 1927 or so). The main thing that bugs us is that the bathroom window is in the shower. Really. The tub takes up that whole outside wall, and the window is set right there in it fairly low down. It's not like anyone could see in, as it opens onto a blank wall, but it's horrible for the wooden windowframe to have shower water spraying on it constantly. So, we bought a tension rod and hung a shower curtain over that wall to make ourselves feel better. I'd say the damage is pretty much already done, of course, but at least we don't feel like we're adding to it now.
And tomorrow we go to Ikea! Bedframe for us! Dressers for us! Possibly dining room chairs for us!
I actually felt pretty hungry today, so Andrew and I went on a little date to New Mee Fung, our Ottawa source for delicious pho. While we were eating I realized that there's a problem with New Mee Fung. It's not annoying enough there for me to complain about it affectionately in my weblog. The service is incredibly polite and startlingly fast. The atmosphere is very pleasant and attractive, and there's no feeling that you're kind of getting on their nerves by walking in the door. Oh, and the food is excellent! The cold rolls are bigger and better than the ones at Pho Hung, although Andrew informs me that their deep fried spring rolls are not as good as Pho Hung's. I wouldn't know, as he tricked me into not trying any of his. And then he rapped at me when I was already feeling a bit off from eating too much. I still had a good time, though I wasn't able to eat all of my soup. I guess barely eating for days on end took a toll on my stomach capacity or something.
After all the shopping and eating we ended up going over to Colin and Jen's place where they fed us tea and cheese and crackers, then we watched Escape From New York with them. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Jen has a fascination with watching bad movies. Really bad movies. This wasn't the worst movie ever, though. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and I'm looking forward to seeing the next one. No, the worst movie we've watched with friends so far has to be Logan's Run. I'm sorry, Dan and May. I truly am.
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