Category: Uncategorized

Last night Jenn and I went to the Lady Gaga concert, and let me just tell you it was AMAZING. But then I had a terrible experience this morning so I’m all traumatized. Okay. Good story first!

We met at Subeez at 6 and quickly determined it would be more cost effective to get a whole bottle of sparkling wine instead of cocktails (but then we had cocktails too, opps haha).

I don’t have any real pictures of what I wore but here is a photobooth pic from after I got home.

Georgie was FREAKIN OUT and wouldn’t let me put her down. I bought that sequin skirt back in January to wear on my birthday, and I legitimately forgot to take the tags off so afterwards I was going to return it (YES I’M AWFUL I KNOW) but I never got around to taking it back and now I’m glad I kept it! I wore it with one of my signature grey tank tops, my vintage black crystal necklace, and (not pictured) some grey flats (that MURDERED my feet), and this great black trenchcoat with grey leopard lining I got at H&M last winter.

I bought tickets in March right before we went to Hawaii so I couldn’t really justify getting expensive ones so we ended up in the balcony, but close to the front and less than halfway down the stadium. So while our seats weren’t great, they definitely could have been worse!

Now it’s time for a series of fuzzy photos that demonstrate my camera’s zoom capabilities, haha.

One of my e-friends WENT OFF about this dress (it’s remote control and all the pieces move around) but almost the whole time Lady Gaga had it on she faced the opposite side of the stadium!

The “Fame Monster,” it was like a giant inflatable octopus-anglerfish hybrid.

AMAZING!!

Now for the HORROR STORY (and be happy I DIDN’T take pictures of this): When I took Georgie out this morning I noticed Tina Fey‘s grave looked disturbed, so I went over to check it out and it had been straight up DESECRATED. I had buried him in a box under some bricks but I guess that wasn’t enough to stop raccoons because the bricks were tossed aside and the box was TORE UP. There were scraps of cardboard and paper and little tufts of hair everywhere, it was so horrible.

I figured I’d just shovel everything back into the grave and pretend he was still buried there, but while I was in the middle of that I happened to glance into the grass and that is when I found out that even though the raccoons had dug up the grave and torn open the box, they didn’t eat what was inside. My poor little dead hamster was now a horrible reeking bloated rotting corpse and I HAD TO CLEAN IT UP. I puked in the bushes twice, it was awful. Later this morning Georgie had diarrhea on the kitchen floor and I was like “HOW IS DOG DIARRHEA THE LEAST DISGUSTING THING I HAVE TO DEAL WITH TODAY??” I’m seriously so traumatized.

Taylor is the best husband in the world- he offered to clean up the carcass after work (I didn’t want to leave it there so I did it myself in spite of the HIDEOUS STENCH), but he did finish filling in the grave (which also stinks, I need to go dump a bunch of Borax or baking soda or something in it) AND since I was having such a bad day he stopped at Chapters on his way home and got me a present.

MOCKINGJAY !! I’M SO EXCITED YOU GUYS.

Saturday was the least fun day of the year: carpet cleaning day. Yay, let’s get up early on the weekend and move furniture and vacuum! Fun! The cleaner was supposed to come between 10-12 but he actually showed up at 9:30, which was good because he was done faster but bad because it meant I didn’t get to have a shower.

He was done by eleven, and rather than spend the whole afternoon hanging out in the linoleum-floored parts of the apartment while the dogs languished in their crates Taylor and I decided instead to embark on an Epic Quest.

First, we went down to Barking Babies in Yaletown so I could buy Georgie a new collar- she already outgrew her baby one! I got the same colour/style/brand: red glitter! I haven’t put it on her yet but it’s very cute.

The next leg of our journey took us to the edge of Chinatown and the weird Tinseltown mall. Taylor wanted to go check out some nerd hobby shop so I went to Yoko Yaya and bought a bag full of origami paper, Japanese stationery, glitter stickers, pens and tiny plates. Taylor was disappointed by the store he went to and Yoko Yaya makes him crabby, so he went and sat outside. When I found him he said he just wanted to go home, but I was like “… and spend the whole afternoon hanging out in the linoleum-floored parts of the apartment while the dogs languish in their crates??” and he agreed to accompany me into Chinatown proper. To try to cheer him up I took us to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park (the free side, not the classical garden you have to pay to get into). I love it there, it’s like a ~hidden oasis~

when I took this picture I realized that I could see this Martin Creed piece almost perfectly from where I was standing

After a quick trip up the street to try to find some good Hello Kitty toys (no dice) we swung back past Tinseltown, where I’d promised to buy Taylor a frappuccino and some doughnuts- he was pretty hangry (hungry + angry) by this point and I didn’t want our day ruined. Once we were re-energized we headed into Gastown, where we stopped at nood– we were looking for end tables for the living room, a chair for my new desk (I think I may have found one at a different store yesterday but that’s another story) and Taylor also bought a salad spinner (another story, this one about lettuce).

Taylor trying to find out what this store was going to be

some Halo thing next to Waterfront Station

the exterior of the Fairmont Pacific Rim, it says “lying on top of a building… lying on top of a building… lying on top of a building… the clouds looked no nearer than when I was lying on the street”

Instead of cutting through downtown to get back home we kept heading west until we reached the Olympic cauldron (which is a fountain now), at which point we got down onto the Seawall. Other than a couple cauldron-viewing sessions back in February I hadn’t been down to that area in forever, back when it was all detours and construction sites. Now it’s all little parks and restaurants and weird art sculptures all the way through Coal Harbour, so it as a really nice walk. We went as far as Cardero St before heading up the hill to go home. We got back here at about 4 o’clock, which means we’d been out walking around the city for FIVE HOURS. Wow. WOW!

Digital Orca by Douglas Coupland- how Vancouvery!

Kichou is all wet because he fell in a fountain, haha

I think we really made the best of Carpet Cleaning Day, although by the end I was pretty footsore and hangry myself, so I don’t think we’ll be doing that again soon, I do want to go back and check out some of the stuff we saw again, just not all in one fell swoop, you know? Spread out.

Guess what? This blog has a new domain, and it is SUPER GENIUS (I can’t take any credit since Taylor thought of it. I didn’t change the hosting so old links will still work (you can update them if you want) but you might have to add the new address to your google reader? I’m not sure.

(also sorry for the double post I HAVE MY REASONS)

I thought for this week I’d try something different than juice and fruit, with somewhat peculiar results. BEHOLD: the Nutella/Vanilla Yogurt Pop!

It looks… I don’t even know. Anyway.

These were pretty simple- I mixed together 1/2 a cup of vanilla yogurt and 1/2 a cup of Nutella and used my trusty piping bag to get the result into the popsicle mold. My popsicle mold holds more than a cup of popsicle mix? batter? but I didn’t want to make a full batch in case these were a gross failure.

The result was… idk. They were hard to get out of the mold and I had to run hot water over them for longer than I would have liked so they were pretty melty. I don’t think Nutella is a good candidate for freezing anyway. Symphony and her friend Ali said they were good at first but halfway through they were like “WE DON’T LIKE THESE ANYMORE” and threw them in the sink. I think Taylor’s face pretty much says it all here.

before:

Old, beat-up, possibly bedbug infested desk I found in the alley.
after:

I took the drawer handles off and sanded the whole thing, then primed and painted with 2 shades of yellow paint by Benjamin Moore: Sundance and Banana Yellow. I varnished the top with some leftover Varathane I had from making the little mushroom table, although in retrospect that was kind of a mistake because the can had little flecks of rust in it that I had to pick off :/

Of course I also had to fill the screw holes from the old handles and drill new holes for the vintage crystal knobs I stumbled across at the Little Hardware Co by my house. The big drawer at the bottom right has a secret compartment for all my secret secrets and on each side there’s a little pull-out tray in case I need more desk space.

Cost: the desk itself was free, and although I spent like, $130 on primer and paint and wood filler, I have enough of all those things left to refinish the dresser and maybe even the piano. WHO KNOWS. Anyway the most $$$ expense was the crystal knobs, at $7.50 each, but I think they are worth it, they look so much better than the old bulky drawer pulls.

I meant to post this last night but Taylor slept late and I was too tired, but here is the outcome of this:

Now, just so you all remember here is Taylor Classic:

… and after taunting and tormenting me for days with veiled threats about going platinum or red or ginger, here is the result, New Taylor:

What!? I asked him why he went silver and he said it’s because he’s an old man (he’ll be 31 next week, oh BOOHOO I’m 33 and a half) and this is merely the first phase in his becoming Roger Sterling.

Hopefully with less infidelity, heart attacks and blackface! Anyway, I think his REAL ~hairspiration~ was this grey muzzled little fellow.

In related dog news, I think Kichou and Georgie are really and truly finally reaching some sort of we-don’t-hate-each-other accord.

Please observe the crossed paws. Can playing and snuggling be far off?

Remember when I said I hadn’t done any more work on my self-portrait painting?

Supplies: painted canvas board, all my sketches, carbon paper, tape and a 9H pencil that hurts my teeth to use.

I can finish this tonight! I will finish this tonight!

Someone took the batteries out of this dog, he is all deflated.

Stay tuned for an exciting post later tonight that addresses this issue:

THE MIND BOGGLES.

I am sososo close to being finished my project! I think it’s turning out pretty great but I’ve built it up so much that when I finally do a big ~reveal~ you all are going to be like “Really? THAT’S your ‘big project?’” *eyeroll*

In other news I thought I’d give a little update on my plans from this post. How’s it all going? Did I do all the things I said I would and did it make me feel better? Let’s see:
1. Start going to the gym again. I did this for a week and then I threw my neck out, ugh lame. I’m not beating myself up over it though (that would be detrimental to the whole making-myself-feel-better thing anyway), the whole neck thing was unforeseeable, and if there are no other neck related crises then I’m going to REstart going on Thursday.
2. Canceling the water delivery service and donating the money I used to spend on it to a water-specific charity. In the background of this picture of Sym you can see the LAST jug of delivered water. SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE! I’ve decided to donate to Charity:Water; 100% of the donations they receive goes toward water projects and you can really set up an automatic monthly donation through my Paypal account. This appeals to both my philanthropic side and my super lazy side, haha. EDIT I figured that while I had that tab open I may as well sign up and make my first donation. And you know what? I do feel better!
3. Restart work on my self-portrait painting. I haven’t even touched this because I’ve been CONSUMED with finishing my big project. Whoops. However, working on anything creative helps, and the big project has also helped declutter my apartment, which is a bonus. That’s always a bonus!

So. Basically I haven’t really accomplished anything from my list yet, but somehow I still feel better. I think it wasn’t so much doing what I put on the list, but more just concentrating on what I could do to create positivity in my own life (which the list brought into focus) that helped to make me happier. So like. I guess it worked! Go me!

This week I went through my links on the right-hand side there and deleted a bunch of dead blogs and added some new ones. I also added handy-dandy buttons to get to Ask Pacey (ask for advice!) and the lookbook.nu I started for Symphony (become a fan! hype her looks!). So like, look at my stuff and my friends stuff, and if you’d like to do a link exchange leave a comment 🙂

For your trouble her is a picture of Taylor being attacked by wild Poms, and I swear this is my last post about nothing today!

Georgie is growing like a fuzzy little weed. She's all long coltish legs and wispy hairs. People keep asking me if she's had a haircut , but she's actually just kind of grown out of her puppy coat.

She has her rabies shot tomorrow and then no more vet appointments until it’s time to have her spayed, thank goodness. I’ve been taking her in every two weeks for vaccinations and I’m Over. It.