Category: shameless

boring vacation photos, part I…

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(…and don’t say you weren’t warned.  Now is your chance to hit the back button.)

I must say that JJ and I both had a blast on our extended vacation down East.  JJ had decided that we should take the train both ways.  At first, I was a tad sceptical (it takes just over 27 hours total, and I am not all that guid in close quarters as you can imagine).  But then I learned that they had a bar car on the train…

… so all was well.  It was also a great way to travel in that I got to see parts of Quebec I’ve never been in, and also New Brunswick…

…and somehow I didn’t even manage to piss off JJ!

Our first port of call was Halifax, which is on the Atlantic Ocean.  So you get to see lots and lots of big fancy boats:

… and look how clean the water is right in the dock!

A far cry from Lake Ontario, I can tell you.

Unexpectedly, I got to see Pier 21, where most of the immigrants to Canada landed prior to 1971, including my own father.  They had an interesting museum, including a photo of the boat that he came in on!

Halifax is also chock full of Irish pubs, which didnae take us too long to find.

And after a few pints of Guinness, JJ even managed to capsize a ship!

I should really, really be living in Halifax.  I mean, check this out… they give you potato chip topping for your street meat!!

While in Halifax, we also went on a real life pirate sailboat!

And see… here’s Johnny Depp piloting it!

Well, OK… not Johnny Depp.  Lars Lancebottom or something like that (I’m sure that was his real name, too)… but he was a nice guy.

And then we found another Irish pub of JJ’s past acquaintance, with real-live Irish snugs!

We were actually staying in Dartmouth, which is a twin city to Halifax and across the water.  Since JJ did not want to pay the 75 cent toll for the bridge, we had to take the ferry…

Oh – and I got to meet my all-time hero, Mr. Alexander Keith!!!!

We would have taken a tour of the brewery, but they wanted $16.50 per head and we decided that was best spent on some cold Keith’s.  Far cheaper, by the way, than in Toronto.

After a couple of days of debauchery and hanging around the Halifax waterfront, we decided to rent a car and hit the road.  The first stop was apparently a mandatory one if you visit this province: the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove.

This is quite the tourist spot and I was happy we were there out of season, I can tell you!  They have spooky signs hanging around such as this one:

… and if you picture this coastline in winter, you can see why.

We then spent a day travelling the South coast of the province, which includes such lovely sights as Lunenberg:

It’s full of houses like that, all painted different colours! Lunenberg is also home of the Bluenose II, featured on our dime:

This is what she looks like in real life, at least when on vacation:

We then decided to travel to Cape Breton, a large island which is part of Nova Scotia.  Upon JJs insistence, the first stop there was at an old French military installation at Louisburg:

I thought this would be quite boring, but the scenery was spectacular!


They have set the fort up as an exact replica of what it would have looked like in the 1700s when it was in active use – right down to the house of worship that the soldiers were all forced to attend:

This is just a small part of the grand apartment designated for the Governor (Old French for “Grand Poobah”) at the base:

And, pray tell, where did his wife stay?

Er… not quite.  But this was about the extent of her quarters:

Go figure, eh?  Leaving the fortress, you come upon an ancient (by Canadian standards, anyway) cemetery right next to the water:

We then found a place to stay with, reputedly, the best sunsets in the East Coast:

This is the beach at Inverness, where we stayed for five days or so:

I must confess that I was fascinated by the ocean rocks and brought an embarrassing number home with me.  So many, in fact, that our baggage weighed… ahem… well over the alloted amount.

We tried to leave our mark on the beach…

…but sadly the ocean had washed it away within five minutes or so.  Sigh.

Well, I think that’s about enough for now.  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installation, with more pictures of the Cabot Trail than you want to see, I’m sure… and also the PayDay Haul.  Here is a preview:

Cheers,

Kristina

neatness: just say no!

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While at the office yesterday, I was quite tickled to read this tagline to a story in the Toronto Star:

You may see a disaster, a desk that looks hurricane-ravaged, strewn with papers and debris. Josh Freed sees creativity in the making.

This is the office of Josh Freed, a journalist who has just made a documentary about the “evangelism of neat freaks”.  He suggests that they worship at big churches otherwise known as container shops.  But he’s had it with being judged as a lazy slob just because he is messy.

His theory: a messy office means a creative mind:

I find almost everything fairly quickly. I think the issue with a mess is the aesthetics. There is an organizing principle underneath. I work with the archaeological system – the farther down in the pile, the more years back. While thrashing through, you find other things that give you ideas. It creates accidental thinking.

I love this guy! So, there is a method to my madness in not cleaning up that spare room after all!

Now, ironically enough, the head office of the organisation I work for just instituted a “clean desk policy”.  Ordinarily a neat freak myself at the workplace, I’ve noticed that clutter seems to have built up on my des, perhaps as a form of rebellion.  How dare some big shadowy boss/CEO make rules about how I organise my work, anyway! Sheesh!

Perhaps I could bring a constitutional challenge on the grounds that the clean desk policy stifles my inner creativity… hmm.

Anyone care to join me?!

Happy Saturday.  Now that I don’t have to tidy up the house, I’m going to indulge in some knitting.

tallest freestanding tower in… Legoland!

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Well, it’s not quite the CN Tower…

… but pretty impressive all the same.

I present to you – the world’s tallest Lego tower!!!

It was built in the Legoland Windsor theme park in the U.K. of 500,000 LEGO bricks – man, I only wish my mother would have let me have so much Lego when I was a kid!

At just under 100 feet high, it breaks the old record of 96.1 feet from August 2007 by more than three feet.

Colourful, and amusing: kind of like this Bollywood spoof of Barack Obama’s campaign that someone sent me yesterday, called Barack O’Bollywood. “Bollywood”, if you haven’t heard this term, is shorthand for a certain style of musical movies made in India, very cheesy and camp but with fab dancing. So, even if you don’t like Obama, check this out!

(I think he’s rather hot myself. Don’t tell JJ, eh?)

I’m a happy camper today because two seasons’ worth of Fry and Laurie DVDs came my way courtesy of the interlibrary loan system!

Which meant that I laughed my @$$ off all last night while watching them. I’d never seen the series before.

In case one of these guys looks familiar but you can’t place him – it’s Dr. House on the right above, and the left here:

Nice shirt, eh?

Anyway, that’s about it for me. No huge plans for the weekend… but it’s JJs PayDay, meaning large food shopping. I know you’ll be looking forward to that particular post!

Happy Friday!

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conferences can be productive…

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… and I’m living proof – because I have not one, but two finished objects to share which were knitted from start to finish at a tenant advocate conference I attended earlier today!

They were both one skein projects – but then what the hell do you expect from me?!?

First up, number 1. I’m calling it “Feudal Forest”.

It was knitted with a yarn called Estelle 12 which I picked up at Knitomatic.

The yarn was advertised as 12 yarns in one. And I think that was correct, although I lost count. Finished scarf is 47″ by 5″, knitted on 10mm needles.

This one was just a simple garter stitch, but knitted lengthwise. I can’t tell you how many stitches I cast on. In fact, I freaked out a couple of coworkers because I had started knitting this from the short end but didn’t like how it looked, so just ripped back the whole thing, having knitted about 8″ worth. Two people at least at this point gave me the “what the hell are you doing?!?!?!” sign language …

And here is a photo with the proud (for now) owner.

And now for number 2, which I will call “Purple Prose” for this exercise.

This was knitted with one skein of Berocco Quest on 9mm needles.

Again, I cast on lengthwise (the needles were 24″ length and I just cast on as many stitches as fit). The pattern is as follows:

Row 1: K1, (K2TOG, yo) x whatever it needs to get to the last stitch, then K1

Row 2: P all

Yes, yes, I know the ends aren’t darned in. But I knit two scarves in five hours!!! What more do you want from me?!?

Finished size = 38″ x 6″ or so.

Oh, I should note that I lied slightly above when I said I knit all of this at the conference. In fact, I finished the purple one at the pub… but this is only because (a) I had to rip out the first scarf; and (b) I had to spend the lunch hour scouting the pub location for after the festivities with my trusty social co-convenor, J.

And here’s a photo with the proud owner of Purple Prose.

Now, put this all together with the fact that today I wore my Crazed Harlequin Dress:

…together with my Tuscany:

… and I know I came across as some knitting eccentric. But then again, apparently I’ve gained some fame in the wider admin law/poverty law circle… a lecturer today whom I’ve never met approached me and said “You’re the knitting lawyer, aren’t you?? I’ve heard of you!”

Hey, I’ve been called worse in my time.

Happy Tuesday!

Sherwood and other forests

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A burning question: if April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring?

The answer: gloom and doom, with a beacon of hope.

I don’t know how people live in a climate where it rains all the time. I can’t stand three days in a row of rain, myself! Not to mention the damp chill.

So, I had to take some photos in the forest to remind myself that there is hope of regrowth after all.

And what did I find? Dead trees…

…and more dead trees.

Auuuggghhh!

But then I decided to take the glass half full approach to life for once, and was able to notice signs of life after all:

…both real and metaphorical!

And another shot of the Toronto forest (as opposed to Sherwood):

So, how is Sherwood anyway? Well, he’s ticking along quite merrily – as did Robin Hood and his men, apparently.

Gotta love these beads (there will be 1300 or so in the finished object, or so I’m told)! The yarn is Misti Alpaca Handpaints laceweight in the prosaically named “EZ05” colourway. I’m calling it Sunset in the Forest, myself.

And here’s the money shot:

Not bad, eh? It will be approximately 16″ wide when finished and I don’t know how long, but suffice it to say there are many, many more pattern repeats to go.

But now off to gather my materials for the big all-day legal training session I’m attending today…

Luckily I’m not presenting, which means that I might actually have the time to whip up a scarf!

Happy Monday!

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Never on Sunday…

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I tend to refrain from shopping for yarn on Sunday, preferring instead to clean the house laze about, go out for coffee, knit, etc.  It is, after all, meant to be a day of rest (I am a subscriber of the “take what you like and leave the rest” school of religion, obviously).

Which meant, of course, that I had to go trolling for yarn yesterday!

Yes, yes – I was unfaithful to the Handmaiden yet again! I should be hanging my head in shame, not gloating about it over the Internet, I suppose.

But in my defence, I had the car yesterday and was in the mood to explore. So I headed up to a shop I had heard about some time back called The Enchanted Needle.

This shop is located in a city called Woodbridge, just north of Toronto:

Woodbridge used to look like this, apparently:

Now it looks more like this:

And it’s full of these:

Argh.  Let me tell you that the Enchanted Needle was the only beacon of light in what otherwise seems to be Strip Mall Hell.  It is a great shop, primarily focusing on needlepoints and tapestries.  I saw some kits for pieces like this:

I had to avert my eyes, because the last thing I need is another expensive and time-consuming hobby.  So, instead, I headed upstairs to the smaller space where they sell knitting yarns.

It is there that I found the Misti Alpaca Handpaints depicted above there.  Blue, turquoise and lime green – what’s not to like?!  I won’t tell you how many skeins I got there.  Suffice it to say that if I were to tie all the skeins together, affix one end to the doorknob in my apartment building and venture out on foot in Toronto, there are few places I couldn’t find my way back from.

For good measure, I threw these in:

2.25 mm knitting needles!  If you had told me I’d be buying such a skinny pair of needles a year ago, I would tell you that you had taken leave of your senses.  Instead, the senseless one is I.

I guess having new kilometres of yarn in the stash wasn’t enough, as I promptly arrived home and ordered the following from Blue Moon Fiber Arts: Blue Moonstone…

…and Star Sapphire.

Why did I have to take up lace knitting! It requires kilometres of yarn and every project takes a long time to finish.  This ensures that the stash will grow to brobdignanian proportions.

On that note, I think it’s time to go off and re-organize the stash.

But not before I explain the photo at the top.  That is a photo of Melina Mercouri, who was a famous Greek actress and singer:

The film she is probably known most for here in North America is Never On Sunday…

… where she played a hooker with a heart of gold who organized all the other hookers in Athens to stand up to the big bad bossman pimp, and led them in a strike!

A woman after my own pinko heart, clearly.  She later became a Minister of Parliament and they’ve even made stamps with her on it!

The whole country mourned when she died some time back.

Vale Melina.  I want to be you when I grow up.

Happy Sunday!

PayDay mysteries… and a new family member!

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Well, what a coincidence that on PayDay, I came across a mysterious door…

…which led to a long and winding path through an enchanted forest.

And where did the path end?

My local yarn store!

Amazing, isn’t it? So, of course I just had to buy some yarn.

Misti Alpaca has managed to outdo themselves, I learned, with some new handpainted lace yarn in 800g skeins!

(In actual fact, I had learned this before PayDay. But it was a guid excuse to lay in some more stock.)

Isn’t this sumptuous?

I also succumbed, finally, to the temptation to give in to that dreaded Siren, Kureyon.

Now, I don’t quite get why I would want to knit socks out of this scratchy-as-hell yarn. However, I couldn’t resist the lure of the rainbow…

So, the lovely Leane suggested that I pair the Kureyon with a strand of this Kid Seta and make a shawl:

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I am highly suggestible to anything to do with the acquisition of yarn. But it’s lovely in itself, isn’t it?

Almost like a sunset in a skein!

I even bought some novelty yarn on sale because of the fab colour:

Fit for a Yarn Queen.

And, finally, this rather uncharacteristic purchase. The yarn is called Twelve and it’s got twelve types of yarn in one.

Funky, eh? I thought it would make a cute party scarf at some point.

But lest you think I was selfish on this very fine day, let it be known that JJ got a goodie as well:

A garden gnome for the balcony flowerbox!!!

And not only that, but it comes with a handy reference manual on All Things Gnomish:

In this photo is the author of the guidebook (I’ll leave you to guess who that might be):

JJ is quite chuffed, and as I write is talking to the gnome. I’m advised that his name is Wee John. (And now you understand why it is that JJ actually puts up with all my foolishness. He’s a bit barmy himself, eh?

And finally now I realise why I was so inspired to do my Group of Seven project!!

Methinks the wee pagan Quack Junior and Wee John will become fast friends…

I just hope that they don’t run off to the forest together!

Happy Thursday!


Big Friday, redux

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I’m feeling lazy today…I’m taking a day off for religious observance. That’s right, folks – it’s Big Friday for all us Greekish types (see my post this past Good Friday if you want to know why this is so).

So, being the high holy day in the Orthodox calendar, I’m spending the whole day in church, right?

Yep. The Church of Icarus.

(Oh, what’s that? You don’t think that knitting is a real religion? Check out this recent blog post by fellow raveller Genuine: The Sacraments of Knitting: A Simple Tract. I was a skeptic too, but she persuaded me and I’m a lawyer and all – I don’t believe anything, really.)

Anyway, if that excuse doesn’t work, my back up excuse is that I need to finish Icarus ASAP so that I can start on a test-knitting project that I’m doing for Susan of Sunflower Designs! The project in question is called Sherwood:

So, of course I had to go out and buy some new yarn for it today at Amerigo:

Llama!

I know, I know – it’s not really my usual type of colour choices. Unlike, for example, the llama I already bought from Amerigo a month ago…

… or the Handmaiden Sea Silk from the stash that I had already designated for this project.

But I figured, what with the forest-like name and all, that I should go with a bit more natural hue. Makes sense, eh?

Sherwood also calls for 1300 beads to be strung on. Here they are:

I figured I’d have to get a bit of zip in with the beads, at any rate. That’s fair, right?

And hope I’m not jinxing Icarus.  I’ve just finished the 3rd chart and now have only 20 (very long) rows plus the edging left.  Decided to pin part of it out to shore myself up last evening:

JJ just said to me “Aren’t ye glad ye didnae throw it off the balcony, hen”.  So I am. And I will be praying this Big Friday – if only to the Goddess of Knitting to ward off the dreaded Frogman.

So, that’s how my Big Friday will pass. Oh, and am I going to observe the traditional Big Friday fast (i.e. no meat, no dairy, no oil, no food that tastes remotely edible)?

Am I hell! (as JJ is wont to say). In fact, I’ll be hooking up with some friends on the Danforth for a big fat Greek meal which will involve as much pork souvlaki, saganaki (fried cheese) and galactoboureko (custard phyllo dreamy treat) as I can manage to ingest.

Hey, we can’t all be saints, eh?

A happy Friday to you all!

colouring my world

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You’re not going to believe this… the other day was the 15th (a.k.a. PayDay) and I did not go to a yarn shop. What steely self-discipline!! (I should confess something, though – that was only because I went to the mosaic shop instead.) My middle name should be “magpie”. I cannot resist shiny glass things, particularly when they are mirrored and I can see my face in miniature warped dwarfdom. I then hit the Goodwill across the street and came across some treasures: The purchases would seem to indicate that I am just about ready to get back to mosaic. For some reason, spring and summer are the only times I seem to break plates and stick them to things anymore. Guess I’ve got to go with the muse when she hits, eh? But now I’m torturing myself because I came across these fabulous tapestry photos on line.

I want one!!!! And check out this stunning tapestries by Irene Dunn!

If I had one of these in my apartment, I’d feel like King Henry VIII. And by all accounts, he had a great time! I’m reminded of the fabric mosaic that the very talented Sequana sent me sometime back, although her colours are bolder as befits the modern ethic, of course!

Oh no. Now I want to take up tapestry and needlework. When will it end?!?! Then again, I probably won’t bother because this is about as talented as I get in that particular arena:

Hmm. I’d be defeated before I started, I think. Wah.

KB pix pics! (coming soon…)

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Well, you may have noticed that I have an odd predilection with photos from the Globe and Mail, the PMO, and other fine publications. I’m going to try this page as a repository for some of them which don’t fit neatly anywhere else, with funny captions as appropriate. Examples:

“Now, now, Mr. Carnival… I told you I don’t do that on the first date. And not on the second, either…”

“$#&*$&*##($$##%#)(*)! There goes the whole part I had to frog last night… AGAIN!!!”

Stay tuned…