Gerrr Argh

Yesterday we ZOMBIE WALKED. Brains? mmmmm BRAAAAINS! And it was as super fun as always. Thousands of the undead lurching around Toronto, what's not to love?
This year I went for a Zombie Mime thing. Because you guys, the only good mime is a DEAD mime! Here's me, pre-leakybrain lunch:


and meddling with my gore-stained gloves.
And us guys, looking like we just ate the Reservoir Dogs (complete with candy blood mouth dribble. It tasted like EVIL. Super super yucky)

The outfit was dirt cheap too (naturally).
I used one very old (kind of insalubrious) plain white tee - stolen from my sweetie's vestie drawer
A pair of black trousers I already had (they remained relatively gore free)
A cardigan - ditto
beret - ditto
A pair of white cotton gloves - $2 from the costume place (the dollar store has them too with the cleaning and painting stuff)
Some black ribbon from the stash to make braces (suspenders) like this see:

I just safety pinned them to the trews.

The trick with the shirt and gloves is to give them time to dry before you have to wear them (or get paint literally everywhere in the world) I mixed up a bit of red and a spot black paint, then thinned it with water, put my shirt on and drizzled the gore onto myself. It's a good idea to jam a plastic bag or something between your skin and the shirt. Gravity will sort out the drip patterns (just like on CSI, but with less Horatio).
Then take it off carefully and let it dry, if you only want ick on one side of your shirt then best leave the plastic bag inside.
And that's it. Apply lurching walk and add braaaaaains for fun times.

Um. There's an elephant in here. No really, there is...

I LOVE this city for lots of reasons but today especially because of elephants.

Our local park, Allan Gardens, is not normally a pachyderm playground. In fact lots of the time it's full of drunk guys shouting and peeing. But the thing our park DOES have is a Palm House.
And today the Palm House was all dressed up like a Sikh temple (pretty!) for a movie set. But that wasn't the first thing we saw. Nope. This was:


Sure, she's pretending to be a lighting boom (she's totally down with the crew, no diva moves for her) But she's DEFINITELY an elephant.

I stopped and did a massive double take, and was all
"TEDDY! There's an elephant!"
He looked up from the business of scooting along on his bike with a "say what now lady?" look
But then I hoisted him up and showed him and his mouth made an O.
"Elephant"
"Yup baby, it's an elephant"
And here's the conservatory, all gussied up:


It COMPLETELY made my day.

Bounce

Yup. been slack. but you guys, BOY IS IT EVER HOT HERE.
I love it. I lufff it. I EL OH VEE EEEI it!
30 ° C (feels like 36 °) makes me a happy. It makes my skin sing little songs where every word is "awesome tra la la awesome la"
So I've mostly been doing that.
We had a Canada Day/Pride double whammy too. It felt like a whole week of noisyfuntimes shenanigans in my 'hood. Mostly 'cause it was.

On the 1st we went over and celebrated Canada day with Ontario's newest Canadians in Queens Park. I LOVE that there's a ceremony AND bouncy castles. Here's my bear getting his first bounce on:


On Friday we took a stroll with chums down to the harbour front where there were tall ships. Ships! Tall ones! and pretty!
I gave some thought to a career in piracy. The swashbuckling kind. Not so much the Somalian warlord kind.

Saturday and Sunday are the big deal days for Toronto's pride week. We live in the heart of the village (it's a great place to live) but it gets crazy NOISY round here!
We hung out on a neighbour's balcony (our own overlooks a stage and was a bit ear bleedy) had a few drinkies and watched the shenanigans in the courtyard.


So I think that's us mostly caught up. How the devil have YOU been?

How public opinion sways...

Well, MY opinion at anyrate.
I don't know if you caught any news coverage of the G20 protests yesterday. It's been a BIT messy out there (though we still managed to shop for a potty for the bear, have dinner with chums and go out for some drinkies).
Anyway, here's how my opinion sways...

This is shot from my bedroom window. Looking over to the southeast corner of Queen's Park. Where police used rubber bullets yesterday.

I was a bit cross. Rubber bullets seem a tad draconian and I wasn't too impressed with our chief of police labeling all protesters either criminal of naive. There were some important messages lost as the media fixated on JUST ONE MORE SHOT of those burning police cars.

BUT then I saw this shot from just around the corner:


Not the TIMMIES! Noooooooooooooo. You FOOLS! Where will I get my food-like breakfast sammich NOW?
Rubber bullets? PAH! FETCH THE WATER CANNONS.
Image from Citynews

Shoe! Zoo! Gnu!

Did I mention the super awesomeness of this weekend? Oh I did? Well it. was. blooming. brill.
Friday night was drinkies and chow with chums (at our house; we might not get out a lot but we still have a social life due to our lovely chums willingness to hang out at our place).
Saturday morning was... early. A few cups of strong coffee and a cuddly bear sorted me out though.
Then it was NU SHU SATURDAY! Wherein my boys got new shoes. A pair a piece. That almost match (this was unintentional but holy gibbons is it ever cute).
Now, my sweetie is pretty much the WORLD'S MOST IMPOSSIBLE MAN to shop for shoes with. He'll buy ONE pair then wear them until they need a full military burial. Then he will spend six months hmmmming and hawing over which pair to get next. To wind up with something that looks EXACTLY like his last pair. It's adorable. And infuriating. (I, on the other hand, am a person who can buy shoes with the ease of breathing. Le sigh.)
So new kicks for both my fella's (It was BOGOHO at Footlocker).


Sunday was ZOO DAY!
Which was fun times squared. With MONKEYS! The bear was hilariously enthusiastic about pretty much everything but p'ticly enamored with the simians and the hippos.
Also rocks.

And this lovely hippo lady,

Who MAY have been creating "bubbles" in the watering hole, which MIGHT have caused my bear to declare "HIPPO GAS!" to general hilarity (and a tiny bit of mummy cringing). It's no wonder she left.


There was grass to make whistles out of (that's what my sweetie is handing Teddy).



And cuddles to be had


OH and there were sammiches, I've mentioned that my sweetie makes the worlds best sammiches haven't I? Well he does, and when he's in charge of the picnic deliciousness happens. It really was a lovely day.

What Mama Scored

How did it get to be Wednesday already? I could have sworn it was just the weekend seconds ago. Was there time travel? I suspect time travel. Or maybe aliens.

Anyway. Did all the (non- European) mama types have a lovely mothers day? Mine was pretty awesome, stinky weather notwithstanding.

Sunday I got presents delivered to me in bed.
"MUMmeeeeeeee parcel mum-mee ope parcel mum-mee. MUMMMMMeeeeeee parcels!"
And the bear was gracious enough to let me open them myself. I knew what I was getting as I had helped choose it, but it was my sweetie's idea so that totally counts.
I got a hat. Just like Teddy's. See:


And a little red watch. Both inexpensive little presents that my sweetie thought about. I LOVE them.
Then we had a spot of breakfast, English bacon sammiches, made by my sweetie.
Then we went back to TCAF, the Toronto Comics Art Festival, (it's fairly indie so think Ghost World or Jellaby as opposed to superhero-giant-boobs-guys-in-tiny-pants).
I wandered around, talked to some folks and had a really nice moment with Joey Comeau (AND I totally managed to not choke and say something creepy. So yay for me.)
My sweetie took Teddy home when it was his nap time and left me with a crisp shiny $20 bill. Which was a brilliant present.

Does that sound stupid? It wasn't, it was AWESOME. In a couple of ways. Firstly, who doesn't love a shiny new bill, all ready to be spent on nothing but silliness; not boring old stuff that you need or even something useful-but-fun like lunch, but just plain old life gravy (you know, the extra stuff that goes on top and makes life more delicious?).
And also $20 is just enough to get something nice but not enough to feel guilty about.
That's not just me right?
Anyway. Here's what my $20 of gravy money bought me:


The two big ones are Rice Boy posters. Rice Boy is a blisteringly brilliant online comic that is by turns funny, achingly sweet and heart-scaldingly tragic. You can read the whole thing here; in one sitting, while your bottom gets completely numb and 3 or 4 cups of coffee go cold if you like.

And the frogs! See the frogs? Frogs are a bit special for me. And these ones are a letter-pressed, limited edition card by David Huyck. He does really great stuff, and I think you should check it out (but only if you have eyeballs and are into awesomeness!).

So that was the weekend. It was super. The week has been little suckier on account of rain and politics and grumpiness but this weekend is looking like a trip to the zoo. SQUEE!

Dance with the one that brung ya...

You guys! You see before you a FLAMENCO DANCIN' FOOL!
See, remember way back when I scored this scarf from the goodwill? My inner six year old demanded it because it looks like a flamenco scarf?
Well that got me thinking.
Thinking that I've always wanted to try Flamenco dancing. And how come I haven't? And dude I should get on that.
So I found a school with a 6 week total-rookie, can't-dance-at-all beginner class and I signed up. Then I had to wait for two weeks for the first class. Which was last week. I was so brutally nervous that I thought I was going to barf and I only just barely made it up the rickety stairs to the studio.
But I did.
And I LOVED it. I wasn't any good, but I LOVED it. And nobody else was super awesome at it either. It was heaps of fun in the way that learning new stuff always is, and Flamenco itself is so girly. No wait, I don't mean girly, I mean womanly (gah, that word makes me cringe), but it's grown up and powerful and super feminine. And really, I LOVED it.
Tonight's class was EVEN better. I CAN'T wait for next week.

If you've ever thought "huh, I bet it would be fun to learn flamenco (or whatever)". Then you totally should. (If you're in T.O. then these guys are lovely).

Hey talking of stuff that's girly, look at the ridiculous thing I made!



It's a petticoat, to make my skirts puffier. And it's almost impossible not to twirl around in it as soon as I put it on. It's loosely based on an Anthro one that Gertie posted about here.
I'm thinking of a tute for it too (it's just rectangles), and I'll be throwing together the Swimmy tute tomorrow or Friday (I bought the most ridiculously cute swimwear knit today, I can't wait to show you!)
UPDATED - You guys! Gertie has a tute that I didn't see until after I made this. It's GREAT. And Gertie is so cute I could put her in my pocket.

And lastly, about the title, I am going to be resigning over at WR and holding on to see how things shake down. Which might seem incongruous as I've also signed up for The Thrifty Garde Robe. I am genuinely impressed at ninjaEema's proactiveness (wait proactivity? -nicity?) in starting the new blog and I'm totally checking it regularly, I feel like I want to post at WR while I still can. To dance with the one that brung me, it you like.

Perfect Happiness

My dog. Perfectly happy. With mud.

Teddy thinks she's HI-larious.

You Devils You

It's been a while since I've had one of these


And this one, well this one is special.
Our chum James' (remember him from here?) band played their very first gig. And it was AWESOME.

They're The Black Devils Brigade and they play proper rock. Music for drinking and dancing to. And you should ABSOLUTELY check it out here.
Teddy is a HUGE fan of Raised By Wolves (and he is something of a connoisseur).

But you guys, they were EVEN BETTER live.
Seriously.
They had a sweet mix of crazy energy and the kind of relaxed competence that made them look like they were all born holding guitar picks and a couple fingers of Jameson.
Ted, (the lead singer, not my kid) has a raspy, shiver-inducing, melodic howl of a voice and he was using every bit of it last night.
And it was their FIRST GIG. Their first gig and they played the back room at Clinton's with a stadiums worth of awesome. I can't wait to see what they do next.

It Really IS a Wonderful Life

Last friday, before I got embroiled in a weekend of battlement-sewing HELL (ok not hell, but man, I am sick of crenellations) I went to the movies.

With Britt. To see It's A Wonderful Life at Bloor cimena. It was funtimes squared.
Firstly, It's A Wonderful Life is magic. I love it so much. I managed not to cry like a baby from start to finish but DUDE, it was a near thing. This is my very favorite part:



It SLAYS me. "I know you feel bad Mr. Gower..."

Secondly, The Bloor Cinema is pretty magic too, it's a hundred year old picture house in delightfully creaky repair and the folks who run it are LOVELY.
We went to the Winter Gala performance of IWL and there were cookies and cakes, eggnog and cider and reindeer/movie trivia games. The audience weren't afraid to sigh and laugh and and wolf whistle in the right places, which I LOVE, other people's responses are my favorite thing about going to the movies.

And lastly I got to dress up. I happen to have made Vogue pattern 8615 and it has this vintagey vibe to it. So that's what I wore.

My very favorite thing about the dress is the back.
I also threw some VERY RED lipstick on; which, you guys, SO far out of my comfort zone. I felt a bit like the Joker but it kind of worked for the occasion; of course the whole thing made a little less sense at the Green Room bar afterwards... but after a couple of drinkies I really didn't care. So yay for Dark Rum.

You Guys! The 'Lympics!

I love the Olympics. Love love love them. Even the winter ones. Even the politically contentious ones. And they're going to be in Canada (again) and REALLY soon!
Which meant that the Olympic Torch came to the T.O.!
One of the super awesome things about living in the heart of the city is that things happen RIGHT HERE. So, they're easy to get to (or even look out of the window at).

The Torch relay route was right down Yonge st, not 100 meters from us and would be culminating a few blocks away in Nathan Phillips Sq. So when our chums Tracy and Andrew asked if we wanted to go see it with them I was all "HELLS YES!"
Lovely, kind and generous Tracy knocked on the door this afternoon with gifties. She had hunted down pairs of the official Olympics mittens for my sweetie, Teddy and me. They are red and toasty and they have a maple leaf on them and they are LOVELY. And did I mention red? I like red.

Teddy yelled "MITT" and jammed his daddy's pair on. They come up to his armpits; he strutted around patting things with his giant and hilarious man-hands."mittmittmitt".

There's a chance I have too much time and too much crazy on my hands.
Watching my bear telling T-bone "mitt mitt miiiiiiitt" made me think
"Hey you know who has hands? And who also, I bet, totally loves the 'lypmics? T-BONE that's WHO."
So I made t-bone some red mittens out of some of the felt I compulsively bought yesterday (see I knew there was a reason I needed it).

And lookit, here's those two waiting for the torch.

and here's ANOTHER one of them:

and here's a close up of T-bone's mittens:
So, we waited at the end of our street, watching the lights getting closer, Teddy waved to folks like he was running for office and pointed "PLANE" at the helicopters.
Then UP the road came a bunch of protesters. Chanting "No ol-ym-pics on stolennativelands!"
Bless their little cotton socks. They held up the Torch for an hour and made me nostalgic as hell for when I was a rock-throwing protester myself (le sigh, it's been a while). They were very well behaved and the police were light-handed and relaxed. We weren't sure if the flame was being diverted so decided to trot down to Nathan Phillips sq and wait there. So off we went, chatting to a bemused Texan tourist.
We cut through the Eaton center to warm our toesies up (it was minus 11 out there) and as we came out of the queen street exit there it was! Rounding the corner, chap running with Torch. I went "EEEEEI!" and whipped Teddy out of his cart. We watched as it whistled past and it was... kind of magic.
It's so shiny. Pretty in reality and as an idea. I felt surprisingly moved, and our timing was serendipitous ( I love when that happens). As we got to the square the chap who had carried the Torch was leaving still holding his torch (though it wasn't on fire anymore) and I snapped a quick shot of him.
Doesn't he look like he's had a good night? We definitely did and now I CAN'T WAIT for the games to begin. Bring on the giant crazy ski jumping and the pretty twirly ice dancing. T-Bone and Teddy and I have our mittens ALL READY!

The BEAR Flu

So, the bear had the flu, here's what happened, recorded for posterity.

When we got home from the shops/digger adventure we all snuggled up on the couch and had some dinner. Until the bear's temperature went from normal to 39.6 degrees in twenty minutes flat. I was after 7pm so I called the urgent care docs and they were all "off to Sick Kids ER with you".
So that's where we went. Us and every parent in Toronto with a runny nosed child.
We waited for two hours to see the triage nurse. Who bumped us down to the urgent care center. where the wait was going to be another 3 hours minimum. So we made the call and brought the bear home. Dosed him with Tylenol and put him in bed. I checked on him every hour, on the sodding hour.
In the morning he was a very tired kid and at about 11 am his fever spiked again and wasn't coming down with Tylenol. I felt completely racked with guilt, and all second guessy about the decision to bring him home. We packed him into the cart and were headed over to Sick Kids again when Andy suggested the Walk-In Clinic down the road. I figured it couldn't hurt to try them as it was on the way.
They were great. We didn't even stop in the waiting room, they were all "we don't want babies sitting in here with all the sick people" so we breezed past the lineup and were seen in less than 5 minutes. The very sweet doctor took a look at Teddy and said essentially
"Uh, Guys? Don't freak out, but this looks like H1N1. Have either of you been sick?".
We nodded sheepishly and I could practiaclly hear my sweetie thinking HAH! I told you I was actually sick.
The doctor told us there was no point in giving Teddy tami-flu and that Tylenol and Ibuprofen, liquids and rest were what we should be doing. Which made me feel slightly less guilty about bringing him home from the hospital.
He was a stoical little fellow (way less whiney that his daddy). It took a couple of weeks but we're all of us better now.

Go for the head shot....

Zombies are awesome.
Just are.
Dressing up like a zombie and lurching through the streets of Toronto with a bunch of other people? That, my friends is, La BOMB.
My chum Ali introduced us to the phenomenon. Last year we were zombie housewives complete with curlers and housecoats. Those pictures are here.

This year there was a plan to be Beauty Queen Zombies. But I could not find a thing to wear! I was having trouble coming up with an alternative idea but at 2 am on the night before the walk, inspiration struck. I love when that happens.
So the morning of the walk I whipped up a Zombie Waitress costume. Which worked out nicely because unbeknownst to me the boys were Zombie Butchers.

I had happened to pick up a couple of meters of REALLY pink, vintage 100% plastic fabric (I'm guessing polyester but who knows, it could be made of used Kleenex and tiger whiskers) from the Goodwill when I was hunting( unsuccessfully) for evening wear. So I whipped up a VERY simple A line shift dress.
I was going to make a mock collar out of black felt, I fooled around with the design for about 20 minutes. Got bored. Got angry. Said some swears and decided to use a shirt collar instead and make contrasting cuffs.
The final touches are what really made the outfit work I think. I whipped up a hat thingy. I have no idea what these are called and my google-fu is not strong today so if anybody knows shout 'er out. The Brain on a platter is actually a paper bag scrunched up and covered in paint and fake blood.
Here's the whole deal. You want fries with that?

(photo credit)
the whole gang is HERE.

Oh HAI!

Turns out when I said "tomorrow", in that last whiny post thur I actually meant "In exactly one months time".
Yep.

(oh hey an awkward silence!)

So, how the devil are you? Been doing anything fun? Like turning 3-stinking-1 and having the bacon lung?
I only ask 'cause that's mostly what we've been doing.

Firstly though, Dapper Hat Day! It was fun, there was ice-cream and enough sugar to induce slight nausea and the shakes.
That morning my chum Kate and I went shopping for chapeaus at Wildhagen, a hand-crafted hat joint on Queen st. It's lovely and it just happens to be above a ribbon shop, making it pretty much a perfect storm of establishments-that-I-am-into awesomeness. You should go. Right now.

Dapper hats were found and purchased. and lookit here they are in ACTION. The action of being hats...
Doesn't everyone look fine! and can we take a quick moment to observe how cute Kate is in that hat? See, ador-ibble!
there are a few more pictures here.
Notice that there's no picture of MY dapper hat? Well, here's why... my hat was my bird day present. So after I'd worn it that night I made my sweetie HIDE it. For reals.
I know it sounds a bit stupid but this way I totally got to SUPER enjoy it three times. Firstly with the shopping for it. Secondly at the D.H.D ice cream slurping and thirdly with the whole anticipation/present opening thing.
So dapper hats... fun times.

After dapper hat day came... THE TORONTO ZOMBIE WALK! Which gets a whole post all to itself. Because hey, it's my damn blog and I have a hour to kill while the bear is napping and I am avoiding cleaning the bathroom.

Two things happened this Saturday, the first was Nuit Blanche the second was our three year anniversary of moving to Toronto.

Nuit Blanche was awesometastical, it's a one-night-only, all-night art exhibition that covers the whole city. What you do is stomp around in your sensible shoes looking at lovely art things. (I salute you girl in Dundas Sq with the hooker heels on, though in retrospect it's possible you were in fact a hooker)
Lovely art things like this:
Which is a message I can really get behind! This was a huge light rig strung across city hall, and it would flick through random letters then settle on the words for a few minutes. We happened to be around for this sequence, which came complete with creepy jackboot-y sounds and was very 1984. Standing around with a 100 or so other people in the night, trying to find meaning in random letters was deliciously surreal, and kinda fun. I reckon that if we'd have got the Hope, Love, Life phase the experience might have been a little different (and suckier maybe?)

And this:

Run! Run from the giant silver bunny of awesome. Save yourselves, I'll stay here and loot the shoe shops of the Eaton center.

The night was just warm enough, it didn't honk down with rain and the atmosphere was completely Torontonian, as in friendly, cheerful and willing to be entertained. I really do love this city.

And you guys! It's been three years! We've lived in Toronto for three years! Sometimes it feels like they've gone gaspingly, blinkingly, crazily quick. Other times it seems like we've been here for ever.
And they've been three really big years. Big, life changey years, with the baking a baby and the HAVING a bear around and the head injuries. And the complete lifestyle changes and the career choices and the pooch acquiring and the adulthood finally arriving. They've been awesome for the most part. I really feel that our lives here are better and fuller and happier than they were in London.
A big part of that is our lovely chums, really we know some seriously awesome folks, this whole emigrating thing could have been lonely and hard and kinda poops without them. So big kisses right at y'all.

Webcomics and... Stalking? (well maybe a tiny bit)

This Weekend was The Word on the Street. A book thing in Queen's Park that was completely awesome.

There were all kinds of talks and book signings. The one I was most excited about was the Webcomics one, where I might have been (a tiny bit) stalking Ryan North creator of Dinosaur Comics and Emily Horne of A Softer World.
They were both completely charming, as were Faith Erin Hicks and Kean Soo. Andy Belanger was there too.

I am rubbish at being a fan girl, really rubbish. The guys did signings after and that would have been the perfect opportunity to get something, you know, signed and maybe say hi. But I didn't because I totally choke around super-talented people. Totally.
In my head I'll be all ready to say,
"Hey Emily Horne of A Softer World! Your pictures are so pretty! and I like how benevolent your lens is to people's silly, beautiful minutiae, it makes the contrast of Joey's words even more of a sucker punch in the awesome nerve. "
Which is a bit dorky and long-winded but all true stuff.
Except, put me in front of Emily Horne of A Softer World and what comes out of my mouth is,
"HI! I like your EYEBALLS".
or "HEY Ryan North creator of Dinosaur Comics! Your brain makes me a happy"
or something even creepier than that.
Which is not cool.

Want to know what's so awesome about A Softer World, and also to feel like someone sucked all the air out of your lungs? Then go here.
And Dinosaur Comics? Well it's all awesome, all the time. Find it here.

Margret Atwood was also doing a reading and signing (I might have had a plan to use my fan girl spaziness that involved sitting in the front row of her reading and whispering slightly suggestive things while repeatedly touching my own face. That plan might have been thwarted by my tardiness.)
But lookit, here's a picture of her signing books and looking beautiful (you can't see them but she has great shoes).