Cowboy Chicken! "He's a chicken who is a cowboy guy"

Halloween, maybe my favourite holiday. costumes+candy=funtimes.
Want to see how we rolled, costume wise?
WELLL! First we went to "Big Boy School" (the PFLC playgroup at our local school) Like this:

He's Biggles Bear, Flying Ace. And here's a tiny admission. There was no planning for that "costume" at all. The flight jacket and hat are just what he wears. And I grabbed a white "scarf" from my fabric stash and fringed the ends. But you guys. I love it. Love love. See, both my Grandpas (his great grandpas) were pilots. And my dad IS a pilot. (My mum has her  P.P.L. and I have about 17 hours of a Private Pilots Licence too; we're an aeronautical family)

So yep, my kid is Biggles. I might have put on my outfit with Amelia Earheart in mind. Maybe. but I'm admitting nothing. (and it's a brutally unflattering shot, gah).
So that was the morning, and a thrown together outfit so Teddy wouldn't BOIL in the overheated school.
This is the real deal:

He is a "COWBOY CHICKEN! BWOCKKK!"
Which... OK?
I have no idea how he came up with it but he asked to be a "chicken who is a cowboy guy".
For the last couple of weeks the whole "what to be" conversation has been a source of superfuntimes, and there was some talk of a Space Robot, a zookeeper, or a "RacingCarDriverVRooom". But on Wednesday he declared for Cowboy Chicken and stuck with it when asked three times.
So off we went to the Dolla' Stor'. We scored the hat, the orange "feet", some craft foam and (my favourite part) a handful off-brand swiffer-type dusters.
I pulled those suckers apart and tacked them on to the sleeve of a white hoodie. And voila, softie chicken wings. I could have used a feather boa but I'm monstrous allergic.
I chopped the toes off the orange sockies and tacked on felt chicken feet.
The vest/waistcoat we had.
The chicken mask I made because the chicken masks at the costume shop across the road were kind of... sinister looking? and too big. I did manage to hot-glue a chicken nosehole to my hand. Not cool you guys. Not cool.
Anyway, it came together, it looked like this and it was a hit when we went trick or treating last night. So I'm calling it a win.

grrr arrgh - zombie attack

You guys! it was Toronto's Zombie walk this weekend! And this was my 4th year of lurching and groaning along with the massed undead. As always it was a butt-load of fun. Kind of sticky, gross, fake-skin, candy-blood, hair-catastrophe fun; but fun all the same. Want to see my zombie outfit? It's pretty gory...

See? I'm a spa day zombie? From the Bates Hotel and Spa see? (because I like to mix it up, genre-wise).

It turns out that making a dressing gown out of two dollar store sheets is a Thing I Can Do. (Which is nice to know).

I used one of my super-precious pieces of Printable Iron On transfer paper to make the logo's (back and front) And the cucumber patches. 

The face mask is not actually real, which in retrospect seems a missed importunity, as I could use both soothing AND firming, also possibly pore minimizing? But no. It was just green face paint. 

It was COLD on saturday, so I have a bunch of layers on under my dressing gown.The first layer of gore on the 'gown is paint, the later, still-wet stuff is candy blood; but you guys, candy blood is pretty deeply umpleasant when you throw it all over yourself. It was like a symphony of cold-sticky-grossness all up in my hair and nack. Not cool.

If I was doing this again I would plump for the REAL fake blood instead of the candy sort, and I would have remembered to paint my dressing gown belt, and I would maybe make the eyeholes on my 'cumbers smaller, (But with a 5 k lurch and that many people, visability was an issue). But all in all, 4 dolla well spent I think.

I went with these two, a zombie 60's housewife and a zom-BEE (geddit?!)

And ran into a few other chums along the way, 

Festive!

You guys! We had us a Super Extra Awesome Funtimes christmas! Really, genuinely brill. With food and chums and The Fat Man and peanuts for reindeer (reindeer're all about the protein, flying requires muscle mass baby.) And gifties for my bear and chums and eating and eating and eating and chums. and REALLY BIG DEAL legal news (the good kind, I can't wait to tell you guys about it) and a New Year Soiree. And lounging around and reading books of dubious educational merit . And And And... Awesome.

Also a tiny bit of heartbreak. The switch to the big boy bed. Holy cats you guys! SO hard. (Teddy was stoked but I had to keep sneaking off to snivel.) And a writing assignment that must be good for me because it's brutal. I might get up the gumption to talk about it here in a bit.

Oh yah! I almost destroyed my computer and the ONLY copies of our pictures (um. backing up is a good idea. Turns out.) but my HEROIC sweetie and a good chum's BOY SCOUT PREPAREDNESS saved the day (thanks Ian).

I did miss my brother something fierce, he was gallivanting (GALLIVANTING I tell you!) around Europe. But he's home soon. Also! I have nefarious plans to lure my sis and her sweetie over here soon. Ok fine. Not that nefarious, I'm just going to ask her in a wheedly way a squillion times until she caves.

So far this '11 has been great and I have some REALLY BIG PLANS. Triathlon. Banjo. The BOOK. Driving (I'm not so excited about the last one).

Oh and hey! Want to see how many of my favourite guys it takes to cut down a toddler's hockey stick? This many!

OK, now I'm off to see what YOU'VE all been up to.

x

Shiny, lucky (and kinda rambly)

You guys! This weekend has been super shiny and awesome. With tree acquiring and salt dough and tree trimming and bunting making and friends and dinner and cocktail hat making and and secret santa-ing and a hors d'oeuvre and 25 people squeezed in here. SHINY I tells you!

The tree was acquired early Friday morning from City TV's Charity Tree Deal. Whereby the kids at City fill up Dundas Sq with Christmas trees (and this year a SUPER jaunty tenor choir - LOVED those guys) and sell Christmas trees to raise money for The Food Bank. Which just works for me on a bunch of different levels. Firstly of all, the getting up early and walking down there, all bundled up makes it seem like an occasion. And the square smells so GOOD. And we get our tree and we get to make a donation to a charity that's a pretty big deal for me.
As an aside, can you imagine how difficult it would be to have to worry about something as basic as feeding yourself or your family? I'm IMMENSELY grateful never to have been in that position; but you guys, I feel like all that is is luck.
Where was I?
OH YAH! My sweetie carried the tree home two and a half city blocks for us, hoisted over his SHOULDER. And oooh la la but that man looks good getting his lumberjack on. Mouth-dryingly yum. Then of course we had to grump and wrangle about where exactly we were going to put it. (I won!).
The bear was WIGGLY with excitement about the whole process. And was an enormous help putting the lights on the tree. He's available for a modest fee if you're looking for a short blond to help out by standing on wires and cooing
"Izz so boot-a-wul (beautiful). You see? you see? Ours tree is Boot-a wul!"

Next came a foray into the unknown for me. We made salt dough! I'd never done it before, but I saw the how-to over at Aunt Peaches (have you been over there? YOU SHOULD! Really, she makes beautiful stuff, but even better, her writing is extraordinary; I went for the paper flowers and stayed for the laugh-out-loud-with-a-dash-of-heartbreak storytelling. I'm a fan.)

Anyhow, the bear and I whipped up a batch of salt dough gingerbread chaps. Only some genius (me) decided to add a bit of food colouring to the dough. They turned out the same anemic, fleshy pink as my legs after a long winter. Not cool. Creepy in fact. Like a trayful of nekkid faceless people. But we painted them a nice gingerbready colour on Friday night and we're all agree to never mention it again.


On friday night I also made a bit of bunting,

And some smooching paper birds.

And Saturday morning the bear and I made craft paper gingerbread guys to decorate for our secret santa shindig.

And lastly I got WAY overdressed for that self same party. See:

And I made a cocktail hat! Well technically I stuck 3 dollarstore coasters on a dollarstore headband and painted them black. But I'm totally calling it a cocktail hat! See:

It was a fun time. And you guys are all invited for Our New Year's Soiree!

Hey as an aside, I worry a bit about sounding smug when I write about the nice stuff in my life. BUT, I AM lucky and writing it down helps me remember that I am, and it helps me to pluck the shiny, awesome moments out of the drab ones. That said, I TOTALLY won't be offended if you skip the Lucky Me posts!
x

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.

We Was Dapper!

Oh yes we were! See:


Dapper.
And was it fun? YAH it was!
We congregated as a dapper crew, and paraded our chapeaus to the Baskin Robbins. The short kid up in front there chose his own.

Teddy: strawwwbee. Stick please.
Me: Um, he means a cone of Very Berry?
Awesome Baskin Robbins Guy: Yep. A stick.

Anyway, after ice cream we went had a BOARD GAME SMACK-DOWN! Complete with trash talk,
"I OWN Taboo. Oh YAH? YAH! Hey, is it ON? I think it sounds like it's ON. Bring it!"
And that was fun too.
So what about you guys? Did you Dapper Hat? Do tell!

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?

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.

My Kung Fu is Strong -ish. Kinda. Maybe

I took another class. A Tai Chi class this time. And you guys! It was super fun too. I'm doing this thing where I have to do at least one thing that's out of my comfort zone every week.
I decided about an hour before the class that I was going to go (thereby robbing myself of days of barf-inducing anxiety). I just put on my sweats and went. And It was GREAT. It's a really interesting way of moving, like if yoga got mad and decided to kick someone's ass really slowly. And there was a diverse and interesting group of people too. Like

Hong Kong Grammie (a grammie from Hong Kong), who made all the moves look as easy and natural as shaking a towel to fold or stirring dinner.

Horny HORNY guy. Who's warm up included standing directly in front of the gaggle of cute ponytail girls and doing pant-splittingly high kicks. Badly.

Aforementioned cute ponytailed girls. All graceful leaping around in perky t-shirts and giggling.

Khaki Chan. The super-clean-cut looking white guy of indeterminate age who has all the poise in the world, barely moves a muscle and looks like he could kill you with the twitch of a perfectly sculpted buttock.

Tie dye t-shirt guy. Who does not have all the poise in the world but who bumbles along cheerfully.

And me. Wearing sweats that could expose my bum at any minute (got to have a lookit those) and a Fraggle Rock t-shirt. Grinning like a mad thing every time I pick up something new and don't fall over.
So yah. It was fun. And out of my comfort zone, and I think it helped me suck less at Flamenco. I'm going again next week.


P.S.
It's possible I'm going to end up with a schedule as busy as a 12 year old suburban kid.
Deep water running-Monday, Tai Chi - Tuesday, Flamenco - Wednesday. Gym all those other days. If I start cutting class to hang out with this cute boy from my building (hi sweetie, I mean you) and writing E.F. HEARTS A.T. FOR LIKE EVER on my binders somebody better call my parents.

Good(will) Karma

Remember how I was worried about working up some lousy karma by altering a vintage dress? And you all were so lovely and reassuring? (Thank you SO much for that by the way, consider me pep-talked!)

My sweetie comes home early on a Friday so I had some bear-free time to go poking and rummaging and prodding at The Goodwill. I put on something easy to whip off in a tiny-space-speed-changing-challenge, sharpened my elbows to optimal defensive capability then headed off.

And I totally scored!

Recently I've been eyeballing other peoples' denim skirts covetously. Old Navy has a few styles of them at the moment but I haven't even been trying things on in there (so as to avoid the shiny, mass-produced pretty temptation).

So, I had a vague idea that I wanted a denim skirt. An A-line one. In a light-ish wash. That wasn't too short...
OK, so not so vague; and I don't know 'bout you but normally going thrifting with a set idea of what I want means that there will be NOTHING but 1980's embroidered sweatshirts on the racks.

There were 5 skirts! In my size (squee!)! I had to try them all on, and eventually came home with two. Which you guys, has never happened to me before.
Here they are:


This one is by Tommy Hilfiger and it's nice and heavy and the stitching has that slightly more expensive look (what IS that? It's subtle but it's totally there.)
I love how my sweetie is flying Teddy around, superman style in the background of this picture.
I snagged this one because I liked the 70's retroesque thing the pockets have going on.



I also found a very silly lacy scarf that my inner 6 year old demanded (Oooou! Like a flamenco dancer! clap clap stomp. WE WANTS it. we wants. PLEEase?.)


I got it, it was all of 2 bucks and my poor inner 6 year old, I won't let her eat cookies anymore so she probably deserves something.
I also scored a shirt dress that I love so much it may get it's own post (or possibly a marriage proposal).
What I'm saying is, it looks like my karma is doing OK.

Mouse! Mice! Meese?

I've written before about how going to the ROM with Teddy is super fun times. We went this Thursday and it was no exception. Teddy conned his uncle Elliot into carting him around "UP? up? hug?" So that he could yodel animal names into his face more efficiently "BURD! BEAR! BURD! COWWWWW!".

We happened to be in the right place at the right time to take part in one of their animal Ambassador talks. And Who can resist the lure of a ringtailed lemur. I for sure can't.

So we sat in a darkened auditorium with about 20 other people. And waited quietly for them to bring out Cosmo the ringtailed Lemur.
As soon as Teddy spotted him he yelled"MOUSE! MOUSE! MOUSE!" breaking the silence and causing a ripple of giggles.
I whispered "Um, Teddy, that's a Lemur".
Teddy nodded in agreement "MOUSE".

So there we have it. Anything smaller than a dog is a mouse.
Including beavers.

This morning Teddy came racing into the kitchen yelling "Mouse 'n CAR". One blurry-eye pre-coffee "Huh?" later he showed me this:



It is, undeniably, a mouse in a car.

The Invites! Squee!

The invites are all ready to be handed over. Remember the guys from this post? Well here's where they ended up:



And you guys! I'm kind of in love with them. The slightly skewed angle of the monkey's smile gives me a happy. It was a complete accident so I can't really take credit for it.

I printed them out at the photo service in the pharmacy/drug store. The yellow behind the robot ended up way more yellow than the orange that it looked on my screen. Which almost caused me to wig out, but I think I like it better like this. So YAY!
Finding yellow accessories and paper napkins and balloons and STUFF looks to be easier than finding orange ones. So also YAY!

I came home with my printouts in my sweaty paws and stared at them mumbling "what to do what to do what to do?" with a slightly glazed look; until inspiration struck and I decided to make a double sided sammich board style thing.
Like this, see?



I did a bit of cutting and sticking using the blank cards I picked up at the dollar store a while ago and my brother's VERY expensive glue (which Elliot if you're reading this, I haven't seen. uh uh. Nope. Maybe goats ate it? Or warthogs? Maybe?).

Anyways, the whole shebang fits flat in the envelope and useful information stuff is on the other card.
Teddy and I are going to go give them out tomorrow and I have to say I am THIS excited about the party. You guys should totally come! There'll be CAKE!
x

Monkey Magic, Robot Wars

Versus

Confucius, Aristotle, Nietzsche. Luminaries throughout the ages have all pondered the same immortal question...

"DUDE? Would you rather have a MONKEY or a ROBOT?"

Now that question is the theme for Teddy's second birthday party. And you guys are, of course, all invited.

I whipped up these fellows to grace the invitations, once again reminding myself why graphic designers go to university to learn that stuff. I'm still not completely happy with the monkey's eyes but I think that they look OK ish overall. For a rank amateur using free software. I mean, you can tell what they are right?

I had to restrain myself from giving the robot scorching laser eyeballs and pointy, ripping/crushing teeth. As you might have gathered, I'm on Team Monkey (simian 'til I die bro). My sweetie is a robot guy. I'm pushing hard for Teddy to be a monkey guy, but it's not looking promising. He says "'BOT", I don't really know where he picked it up from, and my sweetie swears blind he hasn't been coaching him.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life... and I'm feeeeeeeelin'...

tiny bit hung over 'acshully.*
Last night was SO much fun you guys! Chums and chocolate and cheese and a spot of very good champagne (thank you lovely Mark!) a super New Year's make.

I made heaps of truffles, something I love doing, coating little balls of yum in more yum is really satisfying.
Here's what was left of them this morning as I (as blooming always) forgot to take pictures of them when they were all artfully arrayed,



Our chum Ian is a vegan, so I whipped together some Reese's PB cups inspired truffles sans dairy. And some almond and dark chocolate ones too. If you've a hankering for the recipes just let me know and I'll post them.

Our chum Ali brought cheese aplenty and caused something of a feeding frenzy. Mmmm cheese. And while we had intended to play Monopoly, we didn't get around to it, on account of the riotously fun times.

I hope you guys had as awesome a time as we did and are feeling as all "HELLS YAH!" about 2010 as we are.
xxx
*apologies to Nina Simone!

Castle Awesome - The Big Reveal

How the devil was your Yuletide? Ours was SUPER fun times. With PIE!

I finally put the last bloomin' stitch in the last bloomin' crenelation of Castle Awesome on Christmas Eve. The delay was because it was either take a break and make something else or toss the whole damn stinking thing down the garbage chute. On fire.
So I made some Very Weird Things, pics of the which will be posted once the Very Weird Things have been handed out as gifties.

As soon as I had finished the castle my sweetie decided that a photo shoot was in order, here's how that looks in his head:
Yup. Stormtrooper, Boba and a sand person. I LOVE it.

And here's what it looks like sans Lucas
That is Fred 2.0, notice his hair (mane?) and hoofs. And slightly skinnier neck. He's built for speed.

And here's the big reveal:



The longer version is HERE.
Opening gifties and lounging around and watching the bear poke his presents happily was HEAPS of fun. Also fun was how Crazy excited my sweetie was in the run up; Christmas eve he planned the big tree/present reveal with military precision and he wrapped all the Bear's presents so they were easily OPE-able by small monkey paws.

On Christmas day itself he rustled up a roast beast and trimmings and was ALMOST gracious about the catastrophic buttock kicking both he and I received at Monopoly.
Seriously, it was a brutal. Our chum Ian handed us our collective ass, but it was almost as if my sweetie had particularly angered the Monopoly gods by pooping in their knicker drawer. He was in jail 6 times. And he had a grand total of two properties. TWICE.

Present wise, I scored some very pretty earrings and a lovely sweater but more importantly, I had the BEST time with my boys AND my sweetie isn't back at work until after New Year's.
Oh and hey! did you see our tree? If not this is what it looks like:
and it smells yummy. OK. Done now.

blow baby blow (updated!)

Ladies and Gentlemen!
For ONE night only The Messy Couch Cafe PREEEEEE-sents....

Teddy "SHORT PANTS" Filby-Thorne and his blues Harmonica styling!


I thanks you.
That was yesterday.
This was this morning:

.

Should I be calling the Julliard School or what?

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.

Teddy Hearts Antiquities

My birthday giftie from my mama was membership to the R.O.M. The Royal Ontario Museum. I LOVE the place. In fact I am a big fan of pretty much all museums (even the tiny bizarro ones with someone's lint collection).
But the R.O.M is a p'ticly good museum. It's just had a massive revamp, and a new wing built. I feel weirdly proprietorial about the new wing, because I watched it being built. When we first arrived in Canada in October '06 the metal frame was going up and I watched it grow every day as I walked to and from work. I was unconvinced, it was an ugly baby, all pointy and awkward, but by the time it's shiny skin went on I was madly in love.

I watched it go from this:
To this:

Photo Credits Jcoop on flickr and Here

It turns out that The Bear loves the ROM as much as I do, we try and get there once a week, even if it's just for 20 minutes. I let him loose (with the priceless artifacts) and he is squeallingly enthusiastic about everything; he particularly loves the fishies and the bear and eagle ("BEAR! BURD!") in the foyer.
Here he is cooing over a pottery horsie:

NO mama, it's a HAN dynasty burial piece. Obviously. GAH!

and copping a squat by a pavilion:
and playing in the playroom:
My pictures are pretty lousy, but The Bear actually got paparazzi'd by a tourist that day. The chap asked and I didn't mind but it's brought up some interesting points of view amongst our chums.
Folks seem to be divided between "well he IS cute" and "dude, kind of creepy".
I am mostly in the first camp, but I think that it's not so much that he's cute (though I believe he is), it was more the completely rapt expression on his face. I don't think I have ever been as enthusiastic about anything as Teddy was about the little arctic fox that he was staring and woofing and cooing at when the tourist took the shot.