Photos – Page 9 – Rant and Roll

Love is all around me

Hi kitty cats!

My lovely man snapped this bonkers photo of me late Saturday night (actually now that I think about it, it was more like early Sunday morning) after returning home from two shindigs with our lovely friends.

I shouted down from upstairs that I needed him to take a photo of my skirt and as I raced downstairs this is what happened:

I kind of love it.

Almost as much as I love this skirt.

Either way, ho hum, pigs bum.

And elsewhere in the cosmic kitchen –

Kitten love.

Fondue festivities.

All the noms were enjoyed in this photo. Oh yes.

Also, in cool news on the comedy front, I was invited to perform at an open mic in Surrey on Sunday night (and I did it! HUZZAH!)

This turned out to be excellent fun times. I brought a rad posse of bad-ass friends to keep me company, as I was a little nervous about being the only girl comic there – as I imagine this position to be one with some inherent loneliness.

I can only imagine how nuts it would have been had I showed up and just proceeded to read some Brothers Karamazov while waiting to do my set.

Actually, I kind of want to do that next time just to see the reaction.

Good grief.

I am also going to be performing at a Pro-Am show on December 20th.

Meep.

So things are happening! Funny things are happening!

In the meantime, I am actually dead alive on my feet after a weekend of madcappery and brilliance.

On Friday night I met up with a fab friend for a post-work drink, and goodness gracious was that ever a laugh and a half.

Seriously dudes, when I say that all the laughs were belong to us, THIS IS NO JOKE.

We also might be clinically insane.

As I rode skytrain home I kept trying to read my book but couldn’t because I just kept giggling like a bloody loon. People were looking at me like I was absolutely mad.

(Not a heck of a lot different from my everyday experience, but hey, at least I’m always enjoying myself, right?)

When I got home M had prepared for us an amazing fondue feast and we gorged ourselves on gruyere before retiring to our newly transformed Christmas den (aka living room) to watch Love Actually and drink scotch (him) and tea (me.)

Don’t think I’ll ever be able to do the scotch thing, but it seems as though Mr. M is turning into el suavo extraordinaire.

Such a total, total, stud.

The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of parties, runs, cleaning sprees, gift shopping, and catch-up brunches (are there any other kind?)

Goodness I hope not.

What did you all get up to this weekend?

I want to hear all about it.

(And that’s no joke.)

The sound of silence

No words today friends.

There are just no words.

Instead:

Coffee.

Guard cat.

Croissant cat.

Sky.

Pre-party.

Post-dinner.

Mystery.

…

“O God, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the market-place.” – Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing (Act IV, Secene i)

Rooting around in my bag of tricks

Happy Friday friends!

You know it’s going to be a good day when you wake up to this kind of magic.

Tonight M and I are going round two with our local movie theatre in an effort to finally see Skyfall. We went last week, but the film was already sold out.

My excitement is palpable (and growing!)

I keep hearing about this electric scene between Javier Bardem and Daniel Craig that makes my tummy feel all a-flutter.

Ahem.

In the mean time, Nymeria is cute-ing up the joint like nobody’s business. Last night she snuggled up next to my legs and slept on my feet, purring up a storm.

I managed to catch her with one of her mice friends:

This also gives my stomach butterflies (for monstrously different reasons, of course.)

In the meantime, fry-up time!

An apple a day.

Arriving home last night the only thing I wanted to do was make something that tasted of autumn deliciousness.

So I baked an apple-blueberry crisp.

I have a few recipes committed to memory, and this one is so easy-peasy that I feel as though I could put it together with my eyes closed.

(What with how zonked I have been for the past couple of days – or, ahem, weeks – this a boon and a half.)

First, start with your ingredients:

Then, don’t take any other photos of putting the crisp together, save this one:

Eat the remainder of your triscuits. While the crisp is in the oven, go see your Little Sister, help her with her math homework, and make plans to take her to the Vancouver Christmas Market in December.

Upon your return home thank your husband for taking the dessert out of the oven. Then turn on the fire, curl up on the couch with your love, and dig in.

Also, a little vanilla ice cream never hurt anyone (or a crisp for that matter.)

Dee-lish.

Prairie Royalty.

Being the good Canadian girl that I am, I pride myself on being a fan of the Tragically Hip.

Gord Downie and his posse make some darn fine music, and as such I was shocked to hear a song of theirs just the other day on CBC that I had never before heard.

Wheat Kings is a beautiful, haunting song.

I am currently doing the thing I always do when I crown a new favourite tune – listening to it over and over again until I cannot stomach hearing it again for at the very least the foreseeable future.

As of today, I am still very much in love with it and I implore you to take a moment and let this magic into your lives:

Werner Herzog.

I’ve written before about Herzog and his films, and the other night M and I watched Happy People: A Year in the Taiga.

This. Guy.

What a film maker.

I cannot say much besides I have no idea how this man has never before won an academy award.

He is a absolute master.

(Also, I really wish he narrated my dreams.)

Happy People is a documentary that looks at the life of the indigenous people of the village Bakhtia at the river Yenisei in the Siberian Taiga.

It is beautiful and smart and touching and inspiring. And it will really make you want to get a husky.

Watch this movie. Please.

…

So that’s all she wrote you crazy cats.

Joyeux fin de semaine to you all!

Take a deep breath, and jump right in

Home again home again, jiggity jog.

Our short sojourn up the BC mainland has come to an end – much too quickly (as always), but we have many hilarious and brilliant memories to keep us content and warm until our next hop to paradise.

The mercury has dipped like a salsa chip here on the west coast – if I had to wager a guess, I would say that it dropped at least ten degrees Celsius over the past few days, from sitting comfortably in the low-teens on Thursday, to flirting with just above zero this morning.

Something shifts when the weather changes.

Just this morning, out on my run, my interactions with nature seemed both comforting and slightly stilted.

Like my environs were a dense wool sweater – protection against the frost – that I hadn’t yet grown into.

I swear I could hear ever rustle of every leaf, every gust of wind winding its way through every branch of every tree. The piercing call of a steller’s jay, the haunting call of a loon, the unsure bark of a dog – everything somehow magnified and yet muffled, overwhelming but also out of reach.

The rhythm of my breathing, a friendly, reassuring constant, despite the slight discomfort in my little lungs, adjusting to those first big gulps of frigid air.

My favourite route – high hills, blind curves, douglas firs. The sea salt air tickling my (red, running) nose.

Sometimes I run so fast I cry; tears streaming down my face, propelled by the wind, the cold, my speed.

Sometimes I don’t want to blink.

Because if I blink, it will be gone.

Magic:

Ferry.

Morning sunshine.

Afternoon fade.

Work.

Into the woods.

Games.

Dinners.

Music.

Fires.

Fog.

…

So there you have it beauty cats.

Memories, for another day.

We are now back at home, hunkered down. The fire roars and the fat rain drops coat the world a cool, slick, black.

What did you all get up to for the weekend?

Hang up those wet coats, and rest awhile.

Let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic

Short post tonight beauty cats.

I am knackered, and as much as I want to writewritewrite, I just don’t have any energy to put together something grand.

Alas, thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.

I do, however, have one thing to say.

I have written in the past about the amount of time I have spent in the United States, and how these trips have been for a myriad of reasons – be it sports, school, pleasure, or what have you.

For instance –

I got engaged in Hawaii.

My older sister lives in New York.

My dad lives in Palm Dessert six months of the year.

Seattle always feels a little bit like my home away from home. (A city from another missy?)

In short, I have never had a bad experience in any of the places I have visited.

So while I have no qualms at all about the outcome of last night’s election, (I am in fact elated) I would also be lying if I said that I didn’t find the political and ideological divide that currently exists in America to be incredibly disconcerting.

Versipellusfenris over at Unnecessary Words wrote a great op-ed today, reflecting on this (growing) disconnect and the future (but also the past) of the Republican Party. I urge you to read it, as it is excellent food for thought.

In this vein, I want to leave you all with this quote from Jack Layton, the late leader of the Federal New Democratic Party (and official leader of the opposition) here in Canada.

I feel as though his words are very fitting for not only Americans, but indeed all those struggling to find common ground in our world today.

So how about it?

Let’s change the world.

All of us.