Friday, July 31, 2009

An appropriate slip of the tongue

I just accidentally called my boss "Dim" instead of "Jim"

I may have difficulty using his proper name now that I've realized how close a much more appropriate term for him is to his actual name.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

peeps around town

1. I liked the group of kids playing cards at a round table in the window of Tim Hortons...

2. ...and the little boy who wandered up to a car and poked it with one chubby finger, His Dad said "What colour is the car?", and he said "Geeen."

3. I liked the man at the bar near my work who said, "You don't drink beer, do you?" and when I shook my head said, "Only vodka, right?" which happened to be true.

4. I like the two kids in the wagon and their grinning dad who was pulling them, as they shouted "Run Daddy run! Run Fast! WHeeeee!"

5. I liked the roly poly boy in a green tshirt with the full moon face. He ran up, sat down on the bench, looked out over the water looked at us, made an incomprehensible and no doubt very wise remark and then dashed off to the next bench.

my beautiful cacti



o gorgeous blossoms
thrive alive in my garden-
heaven in flower.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Lisa and Vincent

I watched it yet again this morning. I LOVE that they did house on So You Think You Can Dance Canada. I love the flow of the movement, like they're on rollerskates or dancing around their kitchen in socks. It makes me feel like their whole bodies are saying "yeah, I'm having a fabulous time dancing, and I could do this all night."

Monday, July 27, 2009

I like Toronto






As my mom and I were driving up Warden just north of Warden Station on Saturday morning we were greeted by traffic stopped in both directions.

Wondering what this could possibly be for we peered out our windows to watch a group of Canadian Geese crossing the road from the completed housing development on one side of the street to the under construction housing development on the other side.

They were very kindly being assisted across by a group of burly construction workers holding up their shovels to make sure none of the cars tried to move before the geese were safely across.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

quotable quotes

"So that's how the cookie crumbles, after all the hype."

"If you believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who worked hard and weren't so lazy."


"Du hast mir die Lippen wund geküsst, nun küssen sie mir wieder besser." (you kissed my lips sore, and now kiss them better.)



"Go to your fields and your gardens, for to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, and to the flower, a bee is a messenger of love."

Ever So Stylin'

Nanermellon's paper towels have palm trees on them. Niftiest paper towels I have ever seen.
Her hallway is also (temporarily) Barbie's Dream House Pink. It looks fab.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Glorious Days of Summer

I went swimming! In a client's pool! In my underpants!
We went on a planting job to one of my favorite houses. It could only be the home of someone fabulously wealthy, but for once I feel that it was money well spent. The house sits on top of the bluffs and overlooks the lake. The lake is clear and blue, and the sky shines out one shade lighter. Standing on their back deck you can see nothing else. The rear of their house is almost entirely windows from floor to ceiling to drink in the view. The back deck is smooth stone as pale as white sand. In the middle of it is an infinity pool. The water falls off of it and off the edge of the world. It looks as though it is pouring off into the lake hundreds of feet below. It is breathtakingly beautiful.
Madmoiselle the Owner and I had finished planting urns with chinese fan palms to grace the pool deck and were cleaning up, when dizzy with heat, she nudged me and said "When we're done I plan on stripping down to my underpants and jumping in the pool. Feel like joining me?" The owners of the house were out and only the cleaning lady was home, so I shed my jeans, and dived in after her. It was delicious. I could have lived in that pool for days.
I also liked Kryptonite's response to my excitement of swimming. He wrote: "i vote that we go swimming in random people's pools in our underpants at night. we used to do it back home ;)" I think this is a MOST entrancing idea.

I also like this sentence from the novel I am reading now: "Brammingham Place was an enormous, rambling house that seemed to spread in all directions. Mairelon was lurking with Kim behind an overgrown topiary duck while they waited for the last lights inside to be put out..."

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Superheros

We had a discussion of Superhero names.

Jaja was Fly Girl. (with wings!)
Cassadina was Astro Girl. (blasting around on motorized booties)
Rafiki was Star Boy. (with a car with extra-extra, especially fins)
I was Mirage. (like a sandstorm)

Jaja has decided that part of your superpower IS your alter-ego. Like a Ms. Smith. Hidden in plain sight ;)

Luffly Stories

Jaja has been telling me luffly stories.

There's a very cool man in her tai chi class. The class is run by a woman's shelter, so all the ladies were giving him the eyeball, and he said things like "My mum really wanted a girl. My middle name is Muriel," or "I'm getting in touch with my feminine side." But his very best comment was after meditation, when Jaja asked if there were any questions, he said "Well, I don't have a question, but I did have a thought. I think that after our nap we should all get a bowl of ice cream."

Then today, she saw a construction worker sharing his lunch with the pigeons, with pigeons perched on every part of him.

After that Jaja had lunch at a table with a pigeon on it, and an old jamacian guy (who sat, but not on the table, and told her to stay lovely :)

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Fun Police

Rafiki showed up at my door as the fun police with a warrant for my arrest. He pointed a cardboard gun at me, pulled out some cardboard handcuffs, flipped open his badge and told me I had the right to have fun. So we went and got ice cream.

Monday, July 6, 2009

incidents and accidents

1. Mummy has been creating awesome murals with chinese bug chalk. Observe:










2. Jacki became as hysterical as any of us at the cottage had been even without the help of special brownies. Too much cleaning can have that effect. My new favorite saying is "You want some pusta (pasta), spi-natch (said to rhyme with "biatch")!" Cooking and hysteria :)

3. Madmoiselle the Owner greeted me at work today with, "Pashmina! You have psycho hair today! And little tiny eyes!"
Mighty Mouse's voice floated out from behind a shelf of plants, "She really knows how to complement a girl."
Madmoiselle the Owner became flustered, "I mean, your hair is all fluffy, and you look very sleepy. Like a wood nymph!"

4. Daddy was scraping a scrap of cheese off a hot tray, burnt himself, then licked the knife (oh god), and Jaja snaped, "Daddy. Leave the tray alone. You can scrape it off later and have the cheese on your porridge tomorrow morning."
Score one to Jaja :)

5. I adore the packaging of my hair dye which tells me it will give me "100% ultra long lasting colour. 100% maximum shiny colour with depth and highlights," and that "The non-drip Gel-Crème texture allows a 100% fast and 100% easy application even on long hair." So accordingly, I think that by running my fingers through my hair (100% easy) I should instantly (100% fast) have metallic (100% shiny) hair that will last forever (100% long lasting). Sounds exciting. As it turns out it dyed my hair gray in a brownish sort of way. I like it. Oh boy am I going to be a sexy old person!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

friends who are family

1. Kippen understands me, and speaks for me. What a relief and how nice it is to have a voice in the wilderness when I am too stressed to speak.

2. Felling quite alarmed and melty by the task before me, and the bugs which I am attempting to destroy through natural methods rather than chemical ones, and especially by the one that crawled along my baseboard (can't you bastards die already?), last night I messaged Kryptonite, and asked to be allowed to sleep over one more time. "Sure," he replied, and when I said in relief, "oh my god. THANK YOU." He wrote "That's what family is for." It meant a lot to me.