To whom it may concern – Page 59

Please shine down on me

Hi friends!

I am writing to you from balmy and beautiful Palm Desert. Here the sun dances across the sky, all day everyday, the lemons taste like candy, and the cacti will jump up and bite you (if you don’t take care to treat them nicely.)

CIMG8829 — Palm trees at night, Ethel's delight!

It’s been a pretty excellent experience so far, and since we’ve only been here for a day, I am apt to believe that the trip is just going to keep getting better and better.

This morning we hiked the three-mile “Randall Hendersen Trail”, marvelling at all the different vegetation that was on display (so very different from that of our temperate West Coast rainforests) and giggling at all the little critters that would scurry about, looking for a rest stop, or perhaps shelter, from the strong, relentless sun.

The sky here is so blue, it is difficult to describe. It has an almost thickness to it – a blue that shouldn’t actually exist, save for in crayon packages, or on Caribbean beach fronts.

After our hike, M and I walked to the pool, where we swan the early afternoon away, alternating between the tepid waters of the pool and the searing warmth of the hot tub. Then we stretched out on the deck chairs and read our books until our skin began to blush pink and our eyelids grew heavy.

CIMG8833 - Copy — Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Walking back to the house I picked some oranges off of one of the many fruit trees that populate the golf course. It was a pretty surreal experience. I don’t think that I have ever imagined a day when I would just reach up and grab an orange right off a branch, simply at my own pleasure.

I will need to see, but I think I can wager a guess that there might not be anything quite like looking out your window, only to see grapefruits hanging low off of a tree so close, you could probably reach and out touch it if you really tried.

I will have let you know.

…

One strange thing that I have to say about Palm Desert is that I don’t think that anyone here walks, you know, to a destination, therefore making it an extremely rare, and perhaps perplexing sight, to actually see two individuals who are going somewhere on foot.

M and I decided to stroll (who am I kidding – we don’t stroll anywhere – in fact we motor places. Seriously, we have Barney and Fred feet here.) over to the Westfield’s to try to find him some shoes and maybe a treat or two.

We received a few confused stares along the way.

Luckily, we managed to make it there in one piece and found both treats, shoes, and SO MUCH more.

M scooped up a sweet pair of Steve Madden’s for a great deal, drank some Jamba Juice and I got to eat my fill of Tutti Frutti.

(All I have to say about that is we NEED serve-yourself frozen yogurt in Canada and we NEED IT NOW. SERIOUSLY HARPER, GET ON THAT SHIT.)

After shoes and treats we stumbled upon one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Seriously folks, let me introduce you to the magic that is: Lipo Illusion!

Holy frick.

CIMG8835 — WHO WOULD WEAR THIS!? This is why humanity is in a decline. NO ONE needs this. PERIOD.

Well, if you thought that the 19th century girdle would never make its long-awaited triumphant return, heck, you thought wrong!
I can imagine the advertisement now, voice over and all:

Have you never wanted to be your natural shape and are desperate to try to mold yourself into a new person? Spanx not working? Actual Lipo too expensive? We thought as much! Come to Lipo Illusion where we will outfit you with industrial strength spandex, that will not only make sure all your fat pools in your shoes, but ensure a streamlined, thinner you! Because remember folks, while everyone likes you – they’ll like a thinner you EVEN MORE.

Yeesh.

There is good news however, because after seeing that grim fandango of a display, we encountered a Forever XXI and I learned that

CIMG8836 — To keep the homesickness at bay...

they use the same models as the one at Metrotown.

Excellent show you crazy bastards!

Man, I need to find out where they purchase these mannequins and get a couple for our house. I can only imagine what the neighbors will think once I start to outfit them with my wackiest clothing and display them in rotation from our guest bedroom window.

Instead of a PhD, THIS will be my next project.

Oh, and one more thing.

Do you have a football fanatic in your life? Do they also love blankets, warmth and the word “COMFY”? Are they willing to try anything once? If you have answered yes to all three of these questions (or just have someone you kind of want to screw over in a secret santa), then friends, have I found the buy for you.

Introducing – THE NFL SNUGGIE.

Seriously dudes, DISCUSS.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Do you ever get the feeling that, no matter what, you’re just going to have a good day? And while you cannot quite put your finger on it (whatever it may be), somehow you know that everything is going to work out in your favor?

This happens to me.

At least sometimes.

Erm.

You see, I have many small idiosyncrasies and quirks (to be fair, I have many BIG idiosyncrasies and quirks, but let’s leave a thorough exploration of those for another day, shall we?) that have a peculiar way of letting me know (or at least, making me think I know) what the morning, noon and night has in store for me.

It's a new day! It's a new life! SING IT BUBLÉ.

Seriously, these strange twists of character probably aren’t the best barometer for the day’s happening (aka I give them WAY too much credit), but no matter how hard I try, I cannot rid myself of them.

For real, it’s mostly just me believing I have an uncanny affinity for zeroing in on my rather random or mundane early-morning events, and then ascribing to them crazy superstitious qualities, or even worse, horoscope-like powers.

In short, I’ll pick up on little things that happen once or twice, and then before I know it, I’ll have weaved them into own personal mythology as stand-ins for whether or not I think the day will bode well in my favor, or (more pessimistically) come to the realization that because these events have occurred, the whole world is doomed.

DOOMED!

Luckily I haven’t had any nuclear fallout premonitions as of yet. But I’ll keep you posted.

I do, however, experience this phenomenon on a much smaller scale, and weirdly enough, almost daily at that. For instance, today on my way to work I finished two Metro Newspaper crosswords in the time it took me to travel from New West station to Metrotown.

Now, this in itself isn’t some awe-inspiring feat.

I mean, it’s the Metro News.

Yeesh.

Also, if you do enough of them (as I have), you come to pretty much memorize the rotation of clues, so it’s more of an exercise in filling in the blanks AS FAST AS YOU CAN, and not, you know, actually working out the appropriate number-of-letters synonym.

BUT! Today, I took it as a sign.

You see, I have come to assume, that anytime I manage to complete multiple crosswords on my way to my job that whatever the day holds for me, the scales are sure to come out weighted in my favour by day end.

And annoyingly enough, I actually had a darn good day. I was super productive at work, met up with a lovely friend for lunch, had a terrific work out at the gym, and ate a hearty, healthy dinner.

Bliss my friends. BLISS!

Now, while some of you may think that this is actually a healthy process, in so far as I am easily, albeit, inadvertently, setting myself up for a day of magic, because I have unconsciously ensured a day-long good mood, I cannot help but give myself some major side eye.

Sure no one likes to laugh at the crazy superstitions of anyone (take professional athletes for instance) especially because most people brush them off, thinking what harm can these little beliefs do, especially if they seem to work for the people involved?

Yet for me, more and more, these little oddities of mine are making me feel less Sidney Crosby, and more Sidney Crosby’s mustache.

(I cannot make fun of the lad too much though because 1.) his brain might be broken and 2.) because of said broken brain, may have to work the rest of his life at SportsChek.)

Take, for instance, my behavior during the two-week long process of applying for my (now) job: on my first day of interviews I walked by a neighborhood park that was COMPLETELY overrun my ducks.

Now, as many of you know, I am a deranged waterfowl fiend, so I somehow got it stuck in my head that as long as the ducks were in the park every morning, the job for sure would be mine.

You should have seen the sweat I broke out on the morning of my final interview when I arrived at the park that day and there wasn’t one little mallard to be found.

I was sure that I was hooped, and the new suit I had purchased would be all for naught.

(Least of all because I certainly did not have the sweet cash dollars to pay for the blasted suit in the first place. Though to be fair, it’s probably one of the hottest outfits I have ever owned.)

I mean, starting your day off on the right foot because you managed to complete a crossword is all well and good, but when you’ve freaked yourself out about your employment prospects and gotten yourself into a worrisome mindset, isn’t doing you any favors.

Least of all because actually thinking that a park’s lack of ducks would be the cause of my not getting a job is COMPLETELY BATSHIT CRAZY.

That’s right folks. I, like our one dollar coin, and a complete loonie.

Although I can’t help but wonder, dear friends, what I am to do with this information?

I mean, I’m definitely working on it. And I’ll keep you abreast of my progress.

But in the meantime, if someone would just pass me a bag full of stale bread, there’s a park close by that probably holds the answer.

Tomorrow, tomorrow

Seeing as though I got my rant on yesterday (and get it on did I ever), I am trying to look at the bright side of things on this rainy December day.

I feel really fortunate to have so many solid individuals in my life whom I can count on to comfort (or at least abide) me when I am at my utmost dejected. Without them, I would probably slink off the forest and live out my days in obscurity, becoming feral and losing my ability to speak and maintain healthy (if any) human relationships. I would either end up in the National Enquirer, or have Jodi Foster play me in some Oscar-winning biopic, scored by Howard Shore.

Like my blood pressure, the sun will rise again...

So thank you my friends. Thank you for your support and for helping me rebuild my humpty-dumpty confidence in humanity (or at least chose to stay in society for a little while longer.)

(Man, speaking of that nursery rhyme – what the heck were all the King’s horses going to accomplish? THEY ARE HORSES. If anything, they were probably responsible for further smashing up Mr. Egg Wall-sitter’s remains.)

Anywho, yesterday night I met up with my Little Sister (I’ve worked with Big Sisters for the past three years) and hanging out with that little firecracker of genius was exactly what I needed to regroup and refocus.

Working with my Little has been life changing in many different ways, and knowing that as much as she has transformed my life, I have had a positive impact on hers, is something I very much cherish. When I am overwhelmed to the point of tears by what I see to be insurmountable, soul-crushing obstacles, I have to remember that little by little, constructive actions are capable of chipping away at the our society’s monolithic, and firmly-rooted ills.

So remember kids: Only you can prevent further reinforcement of institutionalized, overarching destructive norms!

That, and you know, forest fires.

As they say, baby steps.

Either way, today I am focusing on the positive!

Case in point, a couple of nights ago I was invited to a friend’s house to bake sugar cookies and watch The Muppet

Rolling pins are good for getting out stress.

Christmas Carol. It was a gas and a half: munching on junk food, laughing at Gonzo (playing Charles Dickens, of course), loving Michael Caine as Scrooge, sharing the bizarre and equally funny parts of our day.

Sometimes you cannot get any better than that.

Of course, our first batch of cookies wasn’t hugely successful. We tried to fit two sheets on one rack at the same time. It wasn’t until I started to see smoke seeping out from the top of the door that we decided we might have to exercise some restraint and only do one batch at a time.

I would be lying if I said we didn't eat quite a few of these anyway...

(This worked to varying degrees, as the more we talked – and the more we laughed – the harder it seemed to be to actually make sure we timed the baking process properly.)

Now, I am not by nature a very visually artistic individual, but years of dedication to cookie decoration has left me with a particular prowess in this department that I am not afraid to talk up.

Back home in Halifax my mother goes absolutely bonkers in the kitchen every Christmas, whipping up batches of (sometimes) up to two hundred ginger bread men. I will spend hours hunched over the kitchen table, painstakingly decorating cookie after cookie, to the point where it is almost a little heartbreaking to watch people cart them off, or even worse, scarf them down without properly admiring their long-endured edible beautification process!

Yeah. That’s definitely a little sad on my part.

But I don’t care! Love live the cookie decorator! PEACE, LAND, BREAD!

Erm…

Nom nom - WAIT! Tell me how pretty they are!

I mean: ICING, SPRINKLES, SMARTIES!

I hope you all have a wonderful, rage-out-free weekend.

And if not, I’ll do my darndest to put you back together again.

Oh make me over

I have a question for all the beautiful people.

What, pray tell, is the difference between “very black” and “classic black” in terms of mascara?

Or equally confounding, in life?

Won't somebody please think of the children!?

I mean, there can’t actually be a discernible distinction between the two – can there?

From what I remember of Art 8, (and there really isn’t much) black isn’t even a colour, so there can’t be all that much variation in terms of its presentation (or interpretation).

Right?

Of course this conundrum doesn’t even begin to scrape the surface of the impossible and completely insufferable colour coding on the (seemingly) millions of packaged eyelash-extending products available for purchase at your friendly neighborhood drug and/or department store.

The amount of merchandise on display is overwhelming to the point of paralysis.

Seriously, what is this? Bill’s Candy Shop? I mean, a company (that shall remain nameless) actually markets a product called “blackest-black”.

Those twisted bastards.

To be fair, I totally get why they do it. They’re just trying to make as much money as they possibly can, through their totally warped and markedly transparent manipulation of the otherwise blissfully unassuming masses, and yet I still want to scream: HELLO COMPANY EXECS! WE ALL SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING HERE AND WE KNOW ITS ALL ABOUT STUFFING THOSE GIANT ALREADY FIT-TO-BURSTING MONEY BAGS OF YOURS!

Also, if we are going to venture into this totally inane, waste-of-time-marketing-territory couldn’t we get a little creative? Where is my “the-Grinch’s-heart-pre-Cindy-Lou-Who-black,” or “black-hole-before-you-knew-anything-about-physics-black,” or “everyone-knows-you-look-skinnier-in-black-black”?

No?

Well, give me time. I’m working on it.

In the interim, I can’t bring myself to buy any other brand than this one pictured below:

It’s still the cheapest product available that (in my opinion) provides the best results. Yet, I’m worried. The price has been steadily rising and I’m afraid that its affordability may be heading the way of the dodo.

So, in the near future, should you see a woman stockpiling Greatlash mascara with an almost deranged fervor, don’t fret – I’m just saving up in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. Because if there is one thing I’ve learned from the Resident Evil franchise, (and I’ve learned a lot), it’s that the hotter I look, the more proficient I will be at kicking major flesh-eating, walking-dead butt.

So boy do I plan to look SMOKING.

…

Another point I feel as though I must touch on today is a bit of a post-script to my post from Monday, in which I mercilessly lampooned Forever Twenty-One’s horrifying fashions and equally disastrous window display.

Not to be outdone, it seems as though Holt Renfrew has thrown its hat into the ring in order to compete for the “erm…right…okay…” prize of the year.

Exhibit A:

Yeah, I’m pretty sure the last time I checked, right below “buy couture clothing” on my bucket list DOES NOT READ “bottle feed baby cow.”

In fact, the more I think about it, those two enterprises done in tandem just seem downright counter-intuitive.

(I’ll let you guys guess which of those two is actually on my bucket list. Please, be nice.)

Also, I cannot help but think of all the individuals of Swiss heritage I know, and how hard they would laugh at this display – not so much in a “hah! What a novel idea for a high-end department store to employ over the holidays,” but more of a “hah! Canadians are such silly, simple creatures. Please pass the gruyere.”

The other displays are equally alarming: bird people playing tin-can telephone? French maids wearing lace corsets over Victorian-style blouses?

Voulez-vous acheter des vetements vraiments cher? EH?

Didn’t anyone ever teach the store’s head display designer the dangers of mixed metaphors?

Can they even read?

(I kid. I kid.)

(Maybe.)

I worry that someone could end up with a bad case of mistaken (or even lost) identity from simply setting foot in the store! Though to be fair, something tells me they are more likely to suffer from massive hemorrhaging of sweet cash dollars that anything else.

But I digress.

I also shouldn’t lie and say that I don’t desperately want those birds chilling out on the teeter-totter. These awesome dudes were what definitely caught my eye in the first place:

IMG00086 - Copy — Come on Jim! Left, left, left, right, left!

(Though the Swiss-miss Vogue cover shoot was a close second.)

They would make an excellent addition to my office, any day of the year.

…

Finally, yesterday my excellent friend A accompanied me to the Hyatt over lunch where we perused some of the stellar gingerbread creations currently on display in the hotel’s lobby.

It’s really quite amazing to behold how creative people can be in terms of the tasty treat! These people aren’t just culinary masters – they are bloody architects to boot!

Now, if I can just find a way to make this one life size I’ll be set.

Even more so if those Holt Renfrew birds want to join me.

…

I can see your halo

Hi folks! Welcome to the latest edition of the Friday fry-up.

First on today’s docket:

Holy fresh hell – am I ever digging Sigur Ros these days. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to start listening to them.

Most of the reactions I’ve been getting to this news have been pretty hilarious. The lovely M put it best when he said: “Jeeze lady. You’re only ten years too late to the party.”

No doubt!

CIMG7806 — "Sigur who?" Asks Nymeria. (She too being late to the shindig)

Even worse, it’s not as though I didn’t know the band existed.

In my last year of undergrad I read one of the most breathtakingly beautiful books of all time – an Icelandic work entitled Angels of the Universe. I sobbed through the last three chapters and watched as my heart broke into thousands of tiny pieces as I turned the novel’s last page.

I actually don’t know if I’ve ever been the same since.

If you ever have a chance to read it, please do. It’s a must.

Anyways, in the lead up to exams we watched the movie that was made from the book in order to facilitate a discussion on the similarities and differences employed by the two artistic mediums.

(Or you know…kill time during the last week of school.)

I liked the film and thought they did a fair job adapting the material. But in the end it just couldn’t live up to the overwhelming majesty, power and heart-wrenching grief of the book.

I did however find the soundtrack haunting in its melancholy. And even though I knew many of the songs were by Sigur Ros, I just didn’t take any steps to explore the band or their discography once the course was over.

For some reason I just always lumped them together with Radiohead, a band which I cannot like no matter how hard I try (and believe me I’VE TRIED – they’re my husband’s all-time-favorite) and just assumed that Sigur Ros was the Iceland equivalent to the music that makes me want to take a bath in a tub full of razorblades. (This pretty much sums up all my musical ventures with Mr. T. Yorke in any and all incarnations.)

And FYI – I’m all for music making me feel things, I’m just not on board with it taking me to a place where I believe that there will never be anything good about the world ever again.

Seriously dudes, to me, Radiohead are the bloody Dementors of the music world.

Good grief.

Either way, it’s all water under the bridge now.

One last note on Scandinavian tunes though – the best song ever to be featured in a movie (or perhaps indeed EVER) is Paha Vaanii by Marko Haavisto from the brilliant and hilarious The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki.

I routinely listen to this on loop as I frenetically clean my house on weekends. I pretend to know the words and everything. For serious, the day I arrive in Helsinki I’m going to have this song DOWN PAT.

Check it:

…

Number two on the dial for the fry-up is not nearly as sexy as Icelandic post-rock but, any way you slice it, just as important:

DINNER.

More specifically, those dinners where you’re not really eating a traditional “dinner” but you’ve still taken the time to prepare something totally tasty and exactly what you’ve been craving all day and you’re about to sit down to a really good book, or maybe a collection of New York Times Crosswords, or a new Parks and Recreation or even better yet, a combination of all three to be shared with the person you love more than anything in the wide world, and everything is just GOOD.

No. GREAT.

Who are we kidding here? EXCELLENT.

And if you are alone maybe you’re eating this:

Or, perhaps you are with someone else, and you’ve both decided that breakfast for dinner is pretty much the most incredible invention of all time so you cook up some apples in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar and make chai French toast with raspberries, whipping cream and maple syrup:

_Device Memory_home_user_pictures_IMG00076 — Okay, this photo is terrible BUT! It tasted like heaven.

Or any incarnations of these meals:

CIMG8669 — Baked sole with homemade salsa and roasted veggies!

I guess for me, I used to spend so much of my life agonizing over every meal – what I was going to eat, how much I was going to eat, who I was going to eat with, what I was going to do after I ate – that I cannot help but feel totally excited and liberated just looking at these (totally crap quality, sorry peeps) photos.

I sometimes like to take pictures of the food I prepare because it is proof for how far I’ve come: that I cannot just take pride in the excellent meals I’ve prepared, but also a new strength that allows me to enjoy the excellent food I’ve prepared ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME.

Now, if only I could quit diet pop drinks I would be a bloody superwoman and my office desk wouldn’t look like this every day at 3pm.

Baby steps!

AAAAANNNNNNNNDDDDD –

DANCE!