Lazy, lazy, lazy

Today I was totally planning on going to work. You know, grudgingly, since like Jo Stockton, I love, love long days doing nothing. I have only recently realized this deep love. Last summer I remember hating the "doing nothing" days. What was I thinking? Such wonderful leisure, completely taken for granted! Sure this week hasn't been ideal, what with the chipmunk cheeks and the throbbing and the salt water gargling, but the afternoons of lying in bed listening to music and reading and dozing have been lovely. The percocet is not so bad either. Also, LC from two months ago? Those bamboo sheets were a WONDERFUL idea.

All this aside, I have a lot of things to get done at work and I won't be in next week due to a family vaca (yes, vay-kay) to Vancouver, so I really thought a few hours' work would be a good plan. So I put aside my lounge-y clothes and got the ole' blouse out of the closet. Relatedly, I have perfected the art of lounge-wear, and no, there is no lululemon involved. I looked super foxy today, ask Sarah who came over to watch SYTYCD on my couch.*

So the going to work things was thwarted by the Killer Headache, subtype: Worst I Have Ever Had. I procured this headache via hipster overload. No, I'm joking, kind of. I was cajoled into going to the Metric concert at Bluesfest last night. I enjoy Metric, I enjoyed the last show of theirs I saw and I really like their new CD. The show was fine, but it went on too long and the headache attacked me. We left after Stadium Love and I dragged my guy friends over to Iron and Wine which I was very much looking forward to. Unfortunately, I had the same experience as Stella, and thought it was underwhelming. I felt a bit like I was in a holding cell for all the Ben Harper fans who wanted to be far from Metric.

I beat it home after and lay on my bed with a cold cloth on my head to soothe my head and block out the light as I Skype chatted. I went to sleep around my normal bed time, not so much looking forward to work. When I woke up in the morning I felt like someone had tied a heavy weight around my head. Neither tea nor a shower helped and I gave up and went back to bed. I slept til noon, and I am not a sleeping in kind of gal. I'm not. But it was glorious.

I've spent the rest of today on the edge of a headache. Tonight I'm staying in quietly with a borrowed copy of Vanity Fair and a DVD, curled up under said bamboo sheets and nursing my head. I hear tomorrow is going to be a dreadful day weather-wsie, so I intend to stay in a CLEAN! MY! ROOM! You heard it here first. Oh! And make eggs for breakfast.

My life is soooo exciting.

*New TV show? So You Think You Can Dance On My Couch? I volunteer to host it. Mia Michaels can come over to my house anytime.

Less wise

Monday morning at 10am I had my wisdom teeth pulled out of my head. Two days in and I'm feeling OK (thank you percocet). More to come when I'm more coherent.

Current cravings: Quasedillas, hambuger, pizza pop.

I fully understand being judged by the position taken (re: Spice Girls) in this post.

I sort of wish I’d been weirder when I was younger. My name was the one the supply teachers never pronounced properly and other kids loved turning it into less than charitable nicknames, but my weird factor was pretty limited beyond that. Average height, average weight, blond hair, brown eyes, an outgoing bookworm. I wore a lot of pink. As much as I remember that kids can be mean, I also remember being very normal. I wasn’t leading any trends, but nor was I ignoring them. In fact, I remember following a lot of trends. I played with Barbies and My Little Ponies and knew all the words to Spiceworld (a skill that has come in handy more than once in the years since).

The Spice Girls were really not that bad. I mean, sure it was all manufactured and the songs contained subject matter than wasn’t really appropriate, but all I remember is sitting on the playground assigning Spice names (I was Baby Spice. Blond hair, natch). My mother put up with our tape playing over and over – she used it to entice us to get ready on time for school. At least the catchphrase my friends and I took from the Spice Girls was “Girl Power”.

I look at the girl band du jour now, and gag. The friendly, smiling faces and bizarre costumes of my childhood favourites have been replaced by a series of glorified strippers in dominatrix outfits. Um, gag? If they had been around when I was ten, no way would my mother have even allowed the tape in the house, and rightly so. Poor little girls can’t even play with Barbies anymore; they weren't the best for body image, but the “new Barbie”, the Bratz dolls, shouldn’t be anywhere near anyone who isn’t old enough to wear a bra. Also, Gap? Babies don’t need skinny jeans. Thanks.

What is wrong with the world? I’m a little bit disgusted. It must be hard for all the moms out there with their daughters being bombarded by the Pussycat Dolls. I do not envy their predicament. I remember being ten, I remember how everything friends were allowed to do and I wasn’t were SO unfair. Kids don’t see the big picture. I certainly didn’t. At least my number one role model was Claudia Kishi from the Babysitter’s Club. Does anyone read those anymore? Does anyone read anything anymore? My own little sister is only three years younger than I am and she and her friends barely ever read unless forced to. Without all those fabulous literary characters to draw on, pop culture retains an even larger influence.

Yikes. When I have kids, I’m chucking out the TV.

Oh, Canada.

I had a perfectly civilized Canada Day that I thoroughly enjoyed. Best on record.

I accomplished an early goal -- sleeping in. I've done precious little sleeping in during this break and any time I get for that is wonderful. I stayed in bed until noon, when I finally got up and picked out a red and white outfit.

Eventually, I made it downtown. I love the feeling of the city on Canada Day; every street is buzzing with the energy, every third house is humming with the sounds of a party, BBQs are going with the smell of hot dogs, people are handing out free stuff, there is an incredible surplus of South American music and Eastern traditions being played out on Wellington.

A large mob of us gathered and did the traditional mid-afternoon Canada Day walkaround. We loop down Elgin, down Sussex to the NAG, back past Major's Hill and then back down Elgin. You see a lot going that way. We got the sun, the sights, and the spiked slushies that are the cornerstone of our Canada Day.



While at the NAG, showing off Maman to our out-of-town aquaintance, we got caught in the brief, but heavy, downpour. I took shelter.


After the walkaround, we ended up moseying back down the canal toward my neighbourhood. We spotted a rainbow as we passed over the Bank Street Bridge, en route to the next location.

After a few beers and some catching up, as well as a mandatory drunk dial to my cousin Nathan, I was feeling my day wrapping up beautifully. As everyone started to get ready for the march downtown to the fireworks, I decided what I really wanted was my bed. My decision was rewarded with a call from my other cousin (it's a Canada Day tradition!) and a call from Phil. Beer and shawarma in my belly and sun on my face, I crawled into bed and listened to the fireworks in the distance.
Happy Canada Day! I hope everyone had as great a day as I did.

Vinyl Cafe

Tonight I saw the Vinyl Cafe at the Museum of Civilization. I heard that a fellow blogger/one of my favourite musicians, Andrea, was playing and immediately bought tickets. And invited two friends along. I was hoping they'd say yes so I wouldn't end up going all by my lonesome , and turns out it doesn't take much arm twisting to get people to listen to Stuart McLean. He has a wonderful way of enchanting his audience so he's our friend and so are his characters and he's also going to share some damn good music with us. Cause he's that kind of friend.

Andrea's voice is so lovely and she played my favourite song, so no complaints from me. My two friends were immediately in love with her music. I also really enjoyed Hawkley Workman, who I knew I should know, but didn't. His songs made me smile. And, of course, there was Stuart.

Stuart fidgeted and squirmed. He tapped his feet and stepped and reach and flapped his arms as if to push free of the ground and take us all up, up and away from the sold-out theatre where we sat, up to this wonderful, free floating playground where Stuart's imagination lives. We all suspended our disbelief and flew with him. We were all make-believers for a couple of hours. We floated away on Andrea's voice.

It was so familiar. It was so comforting. It was so what I wanted to do the day before Canada Day. I love my CBC.

During the show, the producer came out at intervals for various reasons. At the end of the show, my friends both told me "LC, that's what you should do!". I'll file that one away for future reference.

Now I'm planning on sleeping in, leisurely waking up, dressing in red and white and finding my way to my friends downtown to celebrate this country we live in. Cheers!

In which I am severly sleep deprived.

I am just back from my whirlwind trip to Halifax. I left Thursday night and spent three full, glorious days breathing in the Haligonian air (and holding off the rain). The weekend ended up being a lot nicer than the forecasted "rain, rain, rain". In fact, the rain pretty much held off altogether until this morning when I got up at four in the morning to trek to the airport. Was I sensible enough to go to bed early? Why, no, I was not. Unfortunately.

Halifax is great and I love it and I miss it. Canada is so large. It's so inconvenient. And our ability to travel so quickly astounds me. Was I really in Halifax, trudging through the chilly rain and wind at 4:00am? I asked myself as I stood in the warm sunshine at noon in Ottawa. Yes, the sky answered me at 6:00pm, yes you were. Here's a reminder in the form of a huge downpour for you to walk in.

Maybe my whole weekend was too good to be true. Maybe I fell asleep and dreamed my way through it. Maybe I never went to stay the weekend with Phil and never met his awesome roommates. Maybe I never sat with random brits in the front room as they compared notes on their night out. Maybe I never actually went to see Transformers 2 at Park Lane Cinemas before eating delicious sushi (with mango!) at Hamachi House. Maybe I never saw all those people I miss. Maybe. Because here I am, in a different place, in a different time (zone) and I can't help but feel that this is all a little surreal. If it was a dream, it was a good one.

Here are my dream-photos:

Citadel Hill

Down toward the water

The Public Gardens (I)

The Public Gardens (II)

The Public Gardens (III)

Phil, eating bread dough off his fingers:
"Well, I don't want it to go to waste."

I love my library

This summer, I'm working next door to my local library, which is a pretty sweet deal. I find myself in there two or three times a week -- so I've actually been returning things on time... well, more than I used to.

Me and my library go way back. It's a damp, old, small and well-loved. When I was little, it was a spot for reading and crafts hour. My mom used to cart my sister and I off to the library, cramming the stroller into the tiny basement that is the children's section. The way our community uses the space, it could easily be twice as big. I loved picking the books off the shelf, feeling the covers crinkle under my hands. And the smell... the smell of a library book is one of the most wonderful smells in the world.

When my friends and I were released from school every day for lunch as intermediates, we spent a lot of our cold winter days in the library, reading and playing computer games. And gossiping. The books we read were all fluffy chick-lit romances, and between chapters, we framed our own lives the same way. I have no idea how the librarians managed to put up with us, but somehow they did. My favourite librarian always had a kind word and a smile for me.

A few years back, they almost took away my library. I hadn't set foot in the place for years, but I suddenly felt so protective. Every community needs (and deserves) a library. It has been such an influence on me.

This summer, the library has again become the exciting playground it used to be. I feel like a kid in a candy store when I step inside. I finally started all the reading I wanted to do this summer -- although, I was thinking of a more impressive reading list than the steady stream of historical fiction that is my guilty pleasure. Oh well, it's summer, isn't it? A girl's got to have some fun. And it is fun when I walk over to the library after work, pick up some books, and sit down to look them over. I didn't realize how comfortable I was there until I came back to it.

Now, if I could only master the art of returning things on time.