Catching Up in The Litter Box
Topic: this 'n that 'n the other

It's been a while, but Spring has sprung and I've been enjoying the warm sun and the melting snow! Spring seems to be here for a while at least.  The snow is melting, the sun is shining, and I'm planning my garden for the summer.  I've got lots of seeds and seed starting stuff.  I'm starting my usual marigolds and celosia and coleus for the rock garden.  Ive got lots of allysium for the flower bed by the porch,  These flowers are Lucky's (the cat) favourite and he loves to lay in the middle of them and sleep in the sun.  I'm quite sure that we will get more snow, but for now it's nice to take long walks in the warm early spring sun.

I put aside the denim jacket for a while.  The bulky seams on the collar and shouilders were driving me crazy so I decided to take a break and picked it up again yesterday.  I graded the facing and collar and under-stitched and it's now behaving itself.  I can start the top stitching on the collar and lapels now and then do the sleeve vent.  I think I'll do the sleeve vent in leather.  It can be worked in a single layer with no turning under, so there will be less bulk.  I hope.  Putting it away let me get a way from the frustrating part which was mostly completed.  Now I can work on the non-bulky stuff.

I'm also thinking about entering a jewelry contest.  The theme is "jungle" and the piece needs one stitched element and it needs green.   I'm thinking orchids, bromeliads, and other jungle flora, maybe with a small stitched critter.  I don't want lions and tigers and zebras, and I don't want palm leaves. Maybe a liana vine with ants? Or maybe something far less literal?  For the Starry Night challenge I did the "heart full of stars"  necklace.  Maybe I should use a large natural stone in green and smaller ones...I think I have my idea! Cool!

I got a whole bunch of crystal beads from Bead Bazaar in pale lilacs, pinks, green, mauve...I feel the need to make a simple "breath of spring" piece with these crystals and some fine gold chains.  I've also got a bit of fabric that's in a similar color scheme so I am also thinking "Elaborate beaded and chain embellished dress."  I can't help notice some old 1920's styles and thinking that there are ways to make them modern and far less old, and thinking that there needs to be a way to work beads and chains in the 1920's and modern and get it to work all together.

Best Google Search That Found My Blog EVAR: mushrooms in my litterbox edible? DOOOOOD!  If you have mushrooms growing in your litterbox your first thought should NOT be "are they edible?"  You might want to look at some cleaning websites first.

Speaking of webstuff, I have a new hobby.  I am collecting, downloading and installing fonts.  For some reason fonts have been tickling the old fancy and I've been searching for as many as possible.  I have some from a Lovecraft site, I have a bunch that look like kid's printing and writing, I have graffiti and urban... Once i learned how to properly install fonts so they work in my drawing and painting programs I've been having some fun. I might have a new Cthulhu inspired banner for the blog.  

I'll try to get a couple pictures of the jacket on my dress stand and also a picture of my new beads.  Later!

So the demon jacket broke two needles on me.  It was at the sholder seam while sewing in the facing so there was the two layers of the facing, the two layers of the collar, the two layers of the front and then two layers of the back, PLUS the leather yokes. That's...well you can do the math, a whole crap load of layers. I re-cut the facing so there was no longer a shoulder seam, it had a center back seam instead and that solved the problem.  Mostly. That and switching to a size 130/20 leather needle.  90 is the all purpose size for everything medium weight, 100 is for denim, 110 is for canvas and leather, 120 is for coated back upholstery fabrics and 130 is for luggage.

So now that the worst part of the job is done I can do the sleeves and then work on the embellishments.  That's the fun part.  Then I can add the lining and it's done.  I'm adding a lining because the blue dye bleeds and I don't what what I am wearing underneath to become blue, too.

After this I want to work on some delicate shell pink cotton voile.  I want to make some feminine lace and embroidered blouses.  I have some lace thread in the same pink and I managed to find lace tape in the same pink.  It originally had some pink satin cord attached so it could be used as a rope edge piping, but I needed the cord and not the tape so now the tape can be used to make tape lace.

Sewing fine voile will be a refreshing change from sewing heavy denim! I just need to be sure to change the needle.  A 130 will poke huge holes in the voile. Of course I could say that it's a specialty sewing machine technique to make machine lace and I can write a book and go on Sewing With Nancy and get invited to speak at sewing and craft shows and get paid ridiculous speaker's fees...hey...I think I'm off to sew some fine cotton voile with a size GINORMOUS needle!

Later!

What I am Sewing: A demon jacket

The Denim jacket is becoming a DEMON jacket.  The leather is a bit thick at intersecting seams so I'm spending time skiving (to skive: a leather working process that thins leather for sewing by shaving away top or bottom layers of the leather) the shoulder areas and then hammering the seams flat with a large mallet.  I'm not going to use any leather on the collar unless it's for embellishment and the leather stays out of the seam allowances.  The piping in the seams is being enormously tricky because the piping is trying to stretch one way while the denim want to stretch another way ad they two get into all kinds of fights and arguments.  I can hear them in the sewing room now fighting over the waist to hip curve.

Overall, technical glitches aside; I am quite pleased with how it is turning out.  It's project that is more about the details and the decoration than the actual pieces being sewn together.  There are still rivets to add, eyelets to hammer in, collar points, top stitching, and edge trims that need to be added.  It's the devilish details that will either make or break the jacket. 

We are having an extended period of sunshine, slightly above freezing temperatures and lots of melting snow and ice.  It's maple syrup weather. It's also perfect weather for long walks and thinking about gardens. I am now craving spring onions, fresh dandelion greens and fresh winter-cress and wild broccoli! 

And not only is it early spring it's time for the annual "odd book title award" poll.  This years candidates are The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Plane, Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua, and last and surely he least: The Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter. Needless to say, I'm voting for the crochet book! http://www.thebookseller.com

So that's all. It's off to the sewing room for a while, then off for a nice long spring walk! Later

I now have an Olympic sized butt.  Time to get off it and back to some real work. The best part of the Olympics, other than Canada kicking ass was that it made the normally slow weeks of February zoom by as fast as a speedskater on speed.  For that we are all eternally grateful.  The last two weeks of February always feel at least six weeks long. Don't let those 28 little days fool you: February is the longest month of the year.

Rachel the spider is a bit of a problem.  I don't think she's dead...she isn't balled up into the little spider fist of death...but she's not moving much.  Or moving at all. I've been reading up on tarantulas and how to tell if they are dead...don't give me that look, apparently it is almost impossible to tell a dead tarantula from a comatose tarantula...and they do occasionally go into comas... So now I am operating on the assumption she is comatose. 

According to aracnoweb I should leave her alone for a while, but give her drops of water near her fangs and keep her somewhere warm and semi-moist.  If she continues to not move for an excessive length of time (Although not one of the spider experts agreed what constitutes and excessive length of time) she needs some tarantula intensive care.  I need to move her to a tupperware container with holes poked in it all around for air, place her on wet paper towels, place a small water source near her (clam shells are the perfect, size and depth) and keep her very warm and moist.  supposedly wearing the tupperware container in a pouch near the body (my body) will allow me to keep her at the perfect temperature.

I can be like those ladies who carry dog slings and have their pampered pooches peeping out from under their winter coats. Only I'll have a hairy spider!  I can freak out people at the mall.  I can freak out neighbors!  I can freak out myself!

My favourite spider story was from one of the owners of the site, who told a tale of a spider that didn't move for two months so he gave up, wrapped it in paper towels and placed it in the trash.  The next morning a very angry  T. was walking across the kitchen floor saying "I am not dead!"

And that's all for today.  I hope Rachel is okay and is soon slaughtering crickets again.  We miss her underside jammed up against the glass feeling our vibrations when we are at the dinner table.  It's like she's listening to what we are talking about.

And why is someone on goolgle looking for "cartoon porn Ginormica" and finding my blog?

Topic: The Kreative Kat

I now have a denim jacket with really kool patchwork leather shoulder yokes.  After discarding six methods that were far to long and complicated I decided to do it like a quilter would do paper piecing, and changed the method to suit what I wanted.  And I am quite happy with the results and as a bonus it took less time that my original ideas. Here are some pictures, the looses threads haven't yet been cut away.

This is the back of the jacket.  The edge has yet to be finished. You can see some plain cotton muslin under the leather.  I ended up using a base of light muslin cut in the shape of the yoke and then sewed the patches to the muslin.  I began with the large roundy thing at the neck and arranged the rest around it, cutting away excess after i stitched down a shape, or placing some of the leather under the previous shape and stitching it down. I then sewed the completed piece onto the jacket back.  All the leathers are vintage scraps from the same stash as the psychedelic vintage blouse.

Here's the front of the jacket.  I wanted the taupe leather to be the main colour as the seams will receive some taupe leather piping.  The dark brown leather is silky soft and the piece was labeled "cordovan col 32" I guess colour 32 is called cordovan.  It had a rich aged fine leather smell.  The heavy textured yellow was nowhere near as hard and heavy as it looks, it was almost as supple as the "cordovan" 

And now for something completely different: A couple lace samples.  The top is worked in fine 50 gauge linen in beige and that little bit took over a week. It's go lots of picots and lots of dangle loops. I added a crocheted edge for sewing.  The bottom is a sample scrap of some black valenciennes (or everlasting) bobbin lace.  It has a sewing edge at the foot-side, a small lattice in the middle and the edge has loops than can have a cord laced through it.  It's from an old french book and it is to be used on camisoles, corset covers and any undergarment that needs lacing up with ribbons.  I use it on the satin and cotton spandex rockabilly t-shirts along the necks and down the fronts and it works perfectly for lacing them either tight or cleavage-revealing loose.

And that's all for today.  I'll be working more on this jacket.  After the sewing is finished I'll need to fade some of the seams and seamlines so it looks a little bit older and bit more worn.  Later.

...a few things bugging me...
Mood:  silly
Topic: grumble grumble

I have a complaint or two: One thing I will not miss when the Olympics are over- That highly annoying "i believe" song that they play over and over and over, before commercial breaks, after commercial breaks, as the segue between events, in the background as a new graphic pops up....SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!!!!  They play it every five minutes and it is driving me crazy!!!

So I now have the non-beta of the new blog editor. I had the beta edition one day, and sort of liked it.  Now i'm not so sure. The main panel is a sort of a weird green rounded edge web 2.0 table that's jammed far to the left margin leaving a large 30% black space on the left margin.  The background colour of the page is a jaundiced liver bile green.  The text edit window has shrunk.  On the plus side: It is worlds better than the old HTML notepad where you had enter all your own tags. I think I'll send a comment about all the wasted space on the right margin side.

I finally had a chance to check out the new relocated Vincenzo's Italian market in the New Bauer Lofts building. http://www.vincenzosonline.com/MovingDay.aspx There's a map of the new place. It's much larger than the little corridor they had on Belmont and they have a larger selection of everything, including dried mushrooms.  I got a package of black Morels, a package of boletes, some Black Trumpets, Wood Ears, and a package labeled "forest mushrooms" that included oysters, chantrelles, and a few others. I picked up a package of fresh shiitakes to accent the dried shrooms.  I also got real Arborio rice from Italy and I made some smokey forest mushroom and Spinach risotto. The flavor was deep, smokey, earthy and rich.  To go with it I made some fresh battered haddock with lemon.  Fish can be a bit bland, so I always pair it with something flavorful.  Dave thought it was food worthy of a five star restaurant. All I know is that it was delicious.

The Bauer Lofts is quite the urban hipster hang out.  There's a couple home decor shops, a bistro, a card and gift shoppe, a very large tea shop, a "holistic nutrition wellness center" an art gallery, and a few stores yet to open. Vincenzo's has an expanded Cafe/Bistro area and lots of table for eating in store.  All of Waterloo is going from Hippy to hipster. An American Apparel is opening soon, either in the lofts or beside Waterloo Square. More Hipster stuff!  

In sewing news...I am working on a denim jacket with leather trim.  The shoulder yokes will be patch-worked leather, all seams will be piped with leather trim, and there will be some leather corset lacing detailing on several seams.  There' will also be bold copper rivets on the yoke and several other places.  The jacket is supposed to look rugged, with the corset lacing being a witty, feminine accent.  it's supposed to go with the denim and leather pencil skirt and the high waisted corset-detailed wide leg jeans. 

I was having trouble with the yoke, trying to figure out how to do it, how to keep it from being bulky...I fell asleep thinking about it and ended up dream about sewing leather ALL NIGHT! Almost everyone I have ever known in my life affered up advice, a first grade teacher, people who are now dead, Dave Sim had a few word to offer saying I tend to get stuck on small details...which of course he's right...he said that about one of my paintings I was working on many years ago...for the most part their advice had nothing to do with what I was trying to accomplish.  I think nine tenths of the advice we get in our lives is quite useless, but the one tenth that is worthwhile more than makes up for the nonsense.  Looking back it's amazing how much useless advice came from kindergarten to grade six teachers.

So I watched American Idol online...and thie show is now so far over the shark it's gone right inot the whale tank.  or some tank.  This is the worst bunch ever, not one can sing anything.  They should have cancelled after last year.  Ther's no one even trying to be so bad their good, like Bird Girl Meagan last year.  I can't see Queen wanting to share the stage with any of these losers. 

Someone e-mailed methis picture of a necklace that they found on one of the crafter's marketplace websites.  It's a zipper and some plastic beads.  It's sort of cute, not overly original and HOLY HELL it's being sold for $110. there's an identical black one going for 130$ and it's made with gold plated resin beads.  That's double speak for gold plated PLASTIC! There are bunches of crap made with dime store jewelry findings and metal zippers. The seller lists it as a "statement piece"  yeah, the statement is "I like to spend 100$ on stuff made with 5$ worth of supplies from Len's Mill Store!"

And now not a grumble: Maybelline's new Lash Stilletto Voluptuous Mascara.  It's good, as good as the late lamented and discontinued Sky High Curves.   The original lash Stiletto had a weird plastic smell and made lashes look spiky and unnatural, the newest incarnation looks much nicer.  And the waterproof is almost as good as the washable version.  As a bonus, it's far less expensive than DiorShow Iconic -which is the gold standard for mascaras.

And that's all my mild complaining for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a sketch of the jacket i am making. 

More stuff about skating...

I have been hard at work on my Olympic sized ass, and so far all my hard work seems to be paying off.  Next week I will begin work on getting rid of the five ring sized butt cheeks and paring them down to a more manageable two ring size, and hopefully a one ring size for summer.

So lets get to what's important: ice dance costumes.  I have a copy of costumes rules from the International Skating Union, from when Dan skated.  They aren't difficult to understand. The rules for costumes are very simply worded and quite explicit.  No custume can suggest nudity.  Costumes must be modest and suitable for athletics.  Costumes may not be overly garish and excessively theatrical. Men must wear pants, no ballet tights and no bulging packages. Women are allowed to wear pants, provided they are appropriate, suitable for athletics and in good taste.  Costumes must not be offensive and they must be in good taste.

Ignoring the whole "cultural insensitivity" thing...this is probably the single most tasteless costume I have ever seen.  It beats out the flesh colored body stocking with a crucifix on the front and the arms covering the boobs from many years back. Where to begin...how about the obvious flesh coloured body stocking to suggest nudity...the loin cloths... the leaves that make them look like Baloo the Bear from the jungle book...to be fair, they changed a few things from the Europeans.  They are no longer wearing dark brown body stockings, they are no longer wearing face paint or feathers, they have toned down the white fabric/body paint... Nevertheless, nothing changes the fact that this is utterlay tasteless.

They didn't do much better for final dance, she wore pinky-flesh colours again and had a face painted over one boob, with a pair of lips right on the nipple, making it look for all the world like she had an exposed niple.  Can't find a picture! Russia was keeping it classy! The guy also used belts and straps on her costume for lifts and spins, which is illegal.  Expect to see that written into the rules next year. 

Bollywood rules! This is the American couple of Davis and White. These look so authentic, I wouldn't be surprised if they came from india and were altered so they could be skated in. They captured the essence of Bollywood in all it's brilliant colours.  But all the fancy costumes in the world can't hide poor skating.  Dan's coaches told me that at every competition there's always some poor kid in a thousand sequins who can barely skate and ends up flat on her ass and someone in a home made outfit who skates better than everyone else.  They said better to be the one in the simple costume and let your skating do the talking.

When you have the moves you don't need the distracting crap. This is Virtue and Moir of Canada.  A simple lace top and satin skirt, and he's in a basic skating outfit for guys with some subtle sparkle.  All of their costumes were subtle and added to their performance.

There final dance was utterly pure grace, dignity, skill, softness and strength; never once looking clunky herky jerky or awkward;  and the costumes reflected this purity.  They were smooth as freshly zamboni'ed ice and they glided flawlessly from beginning to end.

Virtue and Moir used to skate at the KW club.  I remember them taking many of their dance tests while Dan did his freeskate tests.   One of the oldhome movies shown on CTV shoes them doing a test at Rink in The Park.  Man...I spent a lot of time there! I met the Gamut of skating parents, from nice people who had a kid with a talent and wanted to support the kid, to absolute screaming raging monsters. Some parents would scream at their kids from the side of the ice.  The coaches hated that.  In recrational skating there was always one family skate, and the coaches gave the parents a little lesson while the kids stood on the side lines.  I siad thay should do that for test and competitive level skating, and have the kids treat the parents they way they treat their kids.  All the coaches loved it, and they said they would encourage the kids to scream at their parents.

Competitions were surreal experiences.  Some of the parents were more inot the whole experience than the kids, the mams in their "skating mother fur coats" (that's what we called them) dragging along their reluctant "ice babies" (very young girls in expensive costumes with lots of glitter) as they paraded through the halls and corridors of the arena, doing nthing more than showing off.  I have never been anti fur, except and competitions where I would hand out peta brochures an how fur is murder.  Some of the other parents went right along with me, one going as far as carrying a small can of spray paint in her purse.  Since these women wore these coats to intimidate others, we had no qualms about leveling our own form of intimidation. 

The guys were all friendly before competing, they would hang out and watch the others...until it was time for skating, then they took all the competitive urges out on the ice.  Girls on the other hand...they were mean rotten vicious little demons. They warned girls not to leave their skates untended because some girls would take screwdrivers to the blade mountings and loosen them.  Some would laugh at costumes, some would laugh at routines, they were absolute bitches to each other.  I felt sorry for some of the skaters.

The local club tended to stick together at out of town competitions.  We supported each other, especially if someone was having trouble with mean girls.  Whenever Dan skated all the girls would squeal and applaud like he was Justin Beiber on ice. Many of the girls had a crush on him at one time or another.  I remember being in the lobby and one girl running from the arena and shouting "DANNY"S SKATING! EVERYBODY COME SEE!" and hearing a lot of squealing. 

Back to the other end of the skating rainbow...the Olympics: Overall, I can see I'm not the only one who has fallen in love with hot fix crystals.  I think there must have been millions of them used for the olymipcs, and that hasn't included the women's even yet.  Some skater is supposed to be wearing a 20,000$ costume.  Think she'll be flat on her butt?

In other news: we got hit with our first real snowstorm of the year. It's been a very easy winter, weather wise. the last couple weeks have been a bit of a drag with the wall to wall grey skies, but it hasn't been excessively cold. And our big storm was a mere 15-20 cm, which isn't all that bad.  I'm beginning to think of planning my garden and what seeds I need to start and when to start them.  My Dad's bonsai collection has it's new home here, so I have to incorporate that into my plans.  I might also be getting some of the neighbour's bonsai tress, so Dad can groom them and ready them for sale. It's almost the end of February, we have more winter behind us than in front of us.  

Later!

Topic: Squirrels in the news

For about two months we were receiving the National Post newspaper every morning.  I have no idea why, we never paid a penny for it, we didn't request it, and we were never asked in advance if we wanted to get the Post plopped on our door step every morning.  It just began showing up one morning, and now it no longer shows up.

And I find myself now, after only four days, missing it terribly. I miss Corcoran's column, I miss Samuel Pepys diary, (the first celebrity blog) I miss the ridiculous right wing ravings Conrad Black scrapes onto the walls of his jail cell transmit themselves into the paper ...and mostly I miss the balance The Post brings alongside our local overly left wing rag. Especially when it comes to the climate change debate, which our local paper has covered once in a four paragraph filler piece on the next to last page alongside advertisements for"adult escort services"

Yes, I may be a tree hugging hippie, but I am not an idiot.  Yes, the wholesale destruction and depletion our wanton wasteful ways are placing on the earth's resources are very bad and damaging long term, but the global warming crisis raised too many unanswered questions in my mind. There seemed to be no acknowledgment of many historic climate events, from the classic period warming, the mini ice age, the long period of middle age warming.  These all seemed oddly absent from the climate change graphs.  Even more puzzling was the disappearance of these events from wikipedia and several other on-line resource sites. Any questions or conflicting statements were always met with "it's real, your ignorant now shut up and pay more taxes". Stonewall statements such as that have always raised my suspicions.

Our local paper is completely on the global warming band wagon and does not publish any contrarian opinions. It was quite a shock to me then to read the scandal surrounding leaked e-mails from the CRU showing that some of the data was fudged at best, and constructed to fit the theory at worst. Our paper reported none of this.  And yet, somehow it all seemed make some odd sense.  It explained where the middle ages warming period went, where the cold spell of the mid 1800's went, and so much else.  It seemed to be more about one group of high-ups controlling the masses. Our new overlords care about the earth, more than us so we need to all just shut up, listen to them and pay our carbon taxes to enrich them.

I am not anti-science, I do not believe in a flat earth, creationism or any other such nonsense.  The problem with climate change science is that it relies too heavily on personal attacks against those who ask questions with such "if you don't believe the earth is warming than you are anti science and believe the earth is flat etc." That's not the way to respond to critics. Answer the questions; do not attack the questioner. 

Once again, poisoning the earth with heavy metals, blotting out the sun with clouds of dust and chemicals, and turning the oceans into industrial waste pits is not in anyone's interest, that's not what anti global-warming is about.  It is about silencing dissent; it is about manipulation of science, politics and media; it is about debate and discussion before policy and politics, it is about education before indoctrination. 

Our local newspaper, television news outlet, and even our local school system has been perpetuating hysteria: not science.  Children repeat "global warming is bad and we must save out planet" in the same learned-by-rote voice used to recite the ABC's or Mary had a Little Lamb.

The biggest scandal is how climate change money demanded by the UN Climate intiatives has taken away money from legitimate environmental  spending. Money,  time and resources were taken away from real work such as reducing pollution and cleaning up the environment. Money that countries could use to clean up a river, build better waste management facilities, and deal with the realities of pollution and modern life.  As it stands now the Global climate change intiative is nothing but a political cash grab, a redistribution of wealth, a punishment of wealthy resource rich nations.  As Ghandi once said, you can not elevate the poor by bringing down the rich.  And The UN initiative is trying exactly that.

I don't go along with "let big petros do what they want it's all a lie..." that's too far the other way and does not acknowledge that there are serious problems.  But we at least need to hear those arguments, no matter how offensive they might be.  To silence dissent is far worse than refining crude oil. There's no transparency,something real scientific research encourages -indeed something real researchers thrive on. Real science is honest, apolitical, and transparent.  Real science is willing to admit to errors and to change the direction of research when errors are discovered. Real science doesn't attack those who question results. Because global warming proponents do all this,  it brings their suspicious science even further into question.

The reality is that the climate of the earth has been changing since it stopped being a ball of gas and dust and began coalescing into a sold sphere.  It has not stopped changing for one single second of its long and varied life.  We are basing our theories on far to limited a time frame.  For all we know the earth could be returning to what it was for millions of years before the ice age, a verdant green tropical wonderland when giant ferns ruled the forests. This could be a return to normalcy, for all we know.

On the other hand, some of the Post's far right rantings are as bad as our local paper's far left rantings.  The only thing they both agree on?  Sarah Palin should never ever become president of the US, but for completely different reasons.

Enough with the heavy stuff. This is the article that got that rant going full steam ahead: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/17/lorne-gunter-they-re-finally-admitting-the-science-isn-t-settled.aspx

So In other news: OMG! You have got to try Dior's Diorshow Iconic Mascara!  It is amazing!  The BEST MASCARA EVAR! Even though I hate spending too much money on make-up, this was worth it. just as good is Dior's DiorShow Blackout Waterproof Mascara.  The Only caveat for the waterproof is that it is difficult to remove.  It is, however, long lasting. Like for a couple days long lasting and that's after trying to remove it TWICE! I must be weird because I wasn't as impressed with Lancome's classic Definicils mascara.  I think if i tried it before the Dior Iconic I might have felt different.  From now on the Iconic mascara is my new favorite.

And that's all for today. And so this post is true to the topic selected:  To finish, here's a picture from this article which may or may not be true, and the picture features a squirrel that might possibly be a toy or not:  

Trixie would look at this and say, "Share your lunch with me?"

And that's all for today!

No, I haven't forgotten about blogging.  I just haven't had much to say. And yesterday my site was unavailable due to server upgrades which I knew about for a long time.  You may not notice anything, but from my end everything looks bright and shiny and fresh and new. And I have a whole bunch of shiny new things with which to screw up my site. 

And it's New York Fashion Week.  There are 11 collections for the project runway shows, that means a mere five didn't get to show.  I'm not going to say anything now, the pictures are far too smal to get any kind of idea of what the clothes actually look like.  All I know is that Ping is not in the top eleven because after last episode's BUTT-TUCKS! dress -which is how she  pronounced it...she doesn't deserve to be in fashion week.  So far my two favourites are Miss Anthony and Seth Aaron, who I have taken to calling "Adam Ant" as he looks more like the Ant-man that the Ant-man did himself back in the day. 

I'll comment later on everything I have seen.  There are a few more celebrity lines again.  They are all infrequent contributors to fashion week at best, and none ever seem to present collections as overwhelming as the advance hype they all get. I do, however like Rag and Bone again, while alice+olivia have recovered from their past few mis-steps. Anna Sui has yet to show, and as we all know she is my all time favourite designer, with Betsey Johnson a close second.

So that's my little short entry for today.  Check back tomorrow when i might have something to say...or not. 

Olympic fever, only slightly less annoying that this cold.

So far Dave and I have been rather meh about the olympics.  We have managed to keep ourselves immune to olympic fever, we have managed to stay apart from the insane clamor that surrounds every store display of olympic shirts, keychains, and the ubiquitous red mittens.  Un til yesterday.  it started out harmless enough.  At Dave's place of employment they said anyone wearing olympic clothes could participate in a dress down day.  So we though...why not go to Zeller's and pick up a t-shirt so he can wear jeans to work?  Dave agreed and we went to Zeller's after meeting Dave at the end of the work day.

So twenty minutes later there we were, tossing t-shirts, hoodies, hats and mitts in the search for the elusive Men's extra large red olymipic shirt.  We were extra pleased with ourselves after scoring the VERY LAST MEN"S HOODIE!  and when one of us suggested "let's find a t-shirt now!" that the insanity took hold. There we were with the common masses searching for that last red t-shirt in men's large and for the last women's hoodie with the contoured fit.  We were not alone, there were many like us all tossing shirts in the air, ripping through piles of scarves, tossing around mitts...the rest of the store was empty but the olympic displays were insane! We came away with a t's and hoodies for both of us, and because we spent way too much money we also got a $10 gift card good until the end of the month Woo-hoo. 

So needless to say out butts will be planted firmly on the couch for the next two weeks and we'll be wearing our t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the Hudson's Bay Company logo and the word "Canada" in big bright red letters.  We tried hard to ignore it, but in the end we gave in to the fever.  It's easier that fighting and really...it's not hurting anyone.  And when it's over there's the added bonus that February will be over and it will be march!

And march is very special because it is when the local H&M store is opening.  Now if only Conestoga Mall could get a Sephora and maybe an Aldo shoe store...then I would move into the mall and live there forever.

In other news: Dave's shirt is finished except for buttons.  I made myself a shirt with the last of the anniversary dress fabric.  Now I'm going back to those pants that I mis-cut before Christmas.  I'm going to add a panel to the side and embellish it with lace, suede and other trims so it will look like a design detail and not an oops-i-screwed-up! cover up. 

I just finished watching the latest Project runway on-line.  I liked the instructions, create a cover dress to be worn by Heidi Klum for the spring Marie Claire AND NO BLACK!  Finally. Like Nina, I am so bored of every designer doing a black dress.  No more black dresses!  Give us some color!  Color is HUGE right now. (Pantone declared turquoise to be the color of the year) (It has been my color of the year for seven years now!)  Heidi, with her classic german blond Valkyrie look needs a color like turquoise to look stunning.  And to the surprise of no-on: a turquoise dress won! Some took no black to mean "even more boring beige!" and "emphasis should be from the waist up" to mean "Hems? We don need no stickin' even hems around here!"  I can hardly wait to see the episode on the big screen, if it doesn't interfere with our olymipc couch sit-in.

Here's something funny...a video of a Swedish hockey player who crashes on the ice because he forgot to take off his skate guards:  Reminds me of when Dan was skating... that happened with surprising frequency, and Dan did it once himself.

These olymipcs sort of have an alternate reality going on a bout them for our family.  When Dan was younger he took figure skating.  He was first interested in figure skating when he watched the 1988 Calgary olympics, he bounced and hopped and jumped all over the place telling us he was an "yimbic" skater and some day he was going to win a medal in the "yimbics" When he was older we took him for lessons and after a while it became apparent that he did have potential.  He went to group lessons and every year at the beginning of the season they had the big parent/coach meeting.  They went through the usual crap and just before the end they asked a the parent of some kids to stay behind.  The rest of the parents were dismissed and we were left waiting in the change room.  After 20 nerve racking minutes (what did our kids do wrong? we wondered) the head coach came back in and sat down and told us our kids were identified as having talent and that we should get them private lessons and move them into the competitive stream.

So we did.  The next season we combined group and private lessons along with a few competitions and soon Dan was that kid who stood out from all the others.  Well him and another older guy who was there.  He was a hockey player and he was taking figure skating to correct some posture and skating flaws. Dan and him got along well, they skated faster than the others and they would race each other.  What was his name...oh yeah..Derek. Derek Roy. Yeah...THAT Derek Roy.  Dan had made so much progress that by January we had competitive coaches and scouts looking at him.  And Derek had made so much progress that there were OHL and CHL and other high level coaches and scouts there for him.  And Dan was so good it was bringing out the jealousy in some parents.

One time I was hanging around the arena and just beyond the corner someone had cornered a coach.  She wanted to know who all these people were and why they were talking about Dan (and Derek) and she wanted to know why Dan skated different from the other kids.  The coach explained that Dan was far beyond the others in his skill level and he stand head and shoulders above all the other kids and he's surprised everyone with his progress and that some of the top coaches from the club are scouting him. 

Wrong thing to say apparently, because the parent cornered me and told me my kid was keeping the coaches from noticing how talented her little ice baby was. There was more but i ignored most of it. I told Dan's private coaches and they said that I was witnessing the ugly side of skating, the insane skating mom. We discussed Dan's future and we decided that if the olympics was what Dan wanted, the we would aim for 2010.  It had little to do with natural talent and everything to do with grit, determination and relentless hard work and practice.  He needed to be willing to fall a hundred times to get one landed jump.  Making the olympics was about practicing over and over.

Dan skated until he was 16.  He did well in ice dance, well enough that he was being streamed into it full time.  He had natural deep sharp edges and turns and was undaunted by complex footwork.  At competitions he stood out because of his height, wingspan, and his senior competitive level footwork sequence in his free-skate.  At junior Bronze he was doing a sequence that was more complicated than most senior Comp level guys.  Dan was scouted by Elvis Stojko's coach a few times, and Dan's coach got a few pointers from him.  They put on music by Queen and told Dan to let the music move him and show them what he's got.  I guess he had something. Dan was one of the skaters who was int what was called "the new ultra masculine style of skating"  For all his free skates he used music with a military march mood and themes from war movies.

At sixteen all skaters reach a crossroads and Dan was no exception.  Either devote himself full time to skating and drop out of school, or focus on school.  Dan chose to focus on school.  He wanted to explore computer technology form both the hardware and software side of things. It's a dirty little secret of most skaters: almost all leave high school at 16 to skate full time. That dirty little secret is why such a fuss is made of skaters who are in competition and still in school.  it is a rare combination.

So in an alternate reality Our family is probably at the olympics right now.  I have no doubt Dan's grit and determination would have led him to the top. He understand what is needed to take himself to the next level in almost everything and I'm sure that would have been the same in skating as well as in school and computer work.  It would have been something...skate Canada was in Kitchener, The nationals were in London, and the Olympics in Canada, all somewhat local.  In that alternate reality Dan would probably be at all three and we would be traveling with him and spending lots of time and money in skating rinks and hotels.  I would probably be making skating costumes full time.  And I would probably operate a little costume repair sewing booth at most competitions and charge people an arm and leg for sewing up little rips and tears.

But I live in this reality, not that, and although we don't have a world class skater, we have money. skating was becoming almost too expensive so when he chose school over skating we were relieved somewhat. A year later when our old car died it meant we could afford a new car.  And it meant we could afford a few other things that we couldn't before. And Dan quite likely wouldn't be with Heather or have a future at RIM.  So when things don't work for the best out one way, they do work out for the best another way.

In other news, I have a mild cold.  Nothing serious, just enough to make me sniffy, sneezy, and stuffy.  Fortunately the dwarves Dopey, grumpy and sleazy have stayed far away!  Later!