in praise of lamp light

everything looks better with lamp light! did i mention that unlike every other nice house on the block, we went NON neutral with our colour scheme? bye, sage green! bye, taupe! bye, mocha!

hello, sea-green/cucumber! hello vintage grape purple! hello, teal! hello, citron! the colours look fantastic in the light of day but much less so under the cold, intensely unflattering, blue-spectrum glare of the fluorescents we have in most of the rooms (we inherited them!!!) good god, blue spectrum fluorescents are THE WORST!

last week when i had lunch with my dad, that was one of his parting words of wisdom: GET RID OF FLUORESCENT LIGHTING. specifically, "god, you know! fluorescent lighting! it makes chinese people in particular look terrible. the yellow tone of the skin! GOD!" lol!

anyway, any time we have the lights on, it makes me want to scream and it makes me hate lil' ugmo. last night, we brought over some of our lamps...i plugged them in and IMMEDIATELY my "SELL THIS MONSTROSITY NOW!" impulse abated, ebbing into the warm pull of lamp light. WHY OH WHY do people love overhead lighting so much?!? lamps are way more fun! WAY more fun! so much more flattering!

also, if one more person asks us if we're getting pot lights, i'm going to vomit. who cares? why does everyone have such a big horny for pot lights? i don't get it.

so the citron wall is INTENSE. it is NOT JOKING AROUND. it is CITRON! at first i was freaking out about how we would work around it as a colour (ie. drapes, etc.) - but i've found some online inspiration - we can do navy or dark grey or hot pink - it's actually quite versatile:

this is from a wedding blog i stalk. it's a pretty sophisticated colour combo. i like the blue and the grey, but i think together it's a little severe.

i keep leaning towards this fabric for drapes for the master:

i know, it's pretty intense - but i kind of love it. the issue with this print is then the bedding - you'd want something fairly solid, with white. but i just bought some gorgeous sheet sets that are bright (the marimekko one) or super colourful (the pottery barn flower set).

this one is another option, if i want to tone it down a bit. or this:

but i keep being drawn towards the floral. we're going to do two layers - one set of sheers and one set of drapes hung on a double rod.

the dotytron is getting this for his studio drapes. his room is mostly blues, whites, and red - with a big teal wall.

i have the fabric already for the drapes in my craft room.

i'm the iffiest about the colour in the dining room. it ended up more blue than i wanted - really baby's room. kind of like this:

which is fine - and it even looks good with the white accents and teak furniture they have - similar to the buffet we're putting in there. but i wanted more this:

a little lighter - a little clearer with a bit more green in it. we'll see. i'm off all next week so if i get fed up enough, i must just go buck and paint over it while i've got the time.

i REALLY REALLY REALLY want these shelves for above the bed in the master:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i know they're for a kids room but good god! they're adorable! and will be perfect spaced out over the bed - i wonder if it's too juvenile? i think it'll add the right touch of whimsy and give us a spot to put pictures and prints. i effin' love these more than anything! anything!!! i want i want i want!

tonight H and that guy were total lambs and helped us give a second coat on the hallways and paint the trim on the doors and windows upstairs. wheee! now all we have to do is paint the baseboard, the master bedroom trim, the doors themselves, the window and door trim downstairs, and do some touch ups on the grey and our painting is mostly done. it sounds like a lot but it's not that bad.

we have SO much to do between now and moving day! how did this happen! for a while i thought we were doing so well staying on top of it. but now i feel like we have mountains of work to do and negative time to do it.

gadzooks, i say!

fin.

i'm fixed

thanks to these people - there aren't enough words to describe how grateful we are - we pretty much put a double coat on a whole house in about 7 hours. it was insane. i love each and every one of the people in this photo for their grace, kindness, generosity of spirit, and sweat equity.

fin.

i'm broken.

the past 48 hours has broken down roughly like this: 12 hours sleep, 8 hours in a professional development course, and the other 28 hours either prostrate on my hands and knees outlining EVERYTHING with blue painter's tape, or moving a ladder in 2 foot increments as i edge and paint MY ENTIRE F**KING HOUSE. i have paint blisters. i barely have a partner anymore as our relationship has devolved into terse, military war-room strategizing over plans of attack, priority targets, etc. interspersed with shouting obscenities at each other. a small percentage of the remaining time also consists of singing along to the "100 greatest power ballads" that i grabbed off the interwebs and discussing how cory hart's "sunglasses at night" doesn't count as a power ballad. and how i hate it when joe cocker makes things all awkward by openly breaking down during "you are so beautiful to me". joe cocker crying is hella awkward.

i'm not usually good at asking for help. a favorite anecdote of the ex-roomie's is when we were walking home from grocery shopping, conducting auto-psychoanalysis, as is our wont. me: wearing a knapsack with about 30 lbs of groceries and my hands full with several more bags of groceries, talking about how i have a hard time accepting help. i am just expressing this fundamental weakness as i come to the front door and fumble awkwardly with shifting the bags from hand to hand so that i might grab the mail, sort it, discard the junk AND open the door to let us in, when the roomie asks, "can i take one of those bags" and i immediately interrupt with "THANKS, NO I'VE GOT IT." lol! talk about lack of reflexivity!

this house has broken that willful pride. i am OPENLY BEGGING FOR HELP. please, please, please.



the dotytron isn't much better.

me: "so...i've been flirting with ___ (contractor)"
him: *looks up from his book* "?"
me: "i'm hoping that he'll give us a break on the cost or something"

now, we're notoriously relaxed when it comes to traditional possessive jealousy. we're pretty okay with shiz like that. but the enthusiasm with which the dotytron pounced on that off-the-cuff comment caught me a little off guard. he had it all planned out: "we'll obviously pay for the materials, but if you give him 1 bj a month, he could give us the labour for free - what? look, i would GLADLY give (contractor) one bj a month for free contracting labour, but i don't think he wants one from me, k?"

i'll leave you with that image of my partner pimping me out for contracting services. i'm off to steal whatever bits of sleep i'm permitted before getting up and doing it all over again tomorrow.

fin.

conferencing

i went to a conference today. it was okay. my chief concern was making sure that i ate enough - to that end, i spent $20 on food (nutella crepe, italian sausage, poutine, water). i also saw richie florida. he was the keynote speaker. i don't want to say he comes off a little greasy except i just did. also, i know nothing about him but i was kind of suspicious already (in the way that i'm always suspicious and mistrusting of anything i don't know about), so i was blathering to K, "what kind of credentials does he have anyway?" only to find out in the intro that he's taught at harvard, got his phd from columbia - you know, provincial colleges like that. lol! his talk was decent, but unsubstantiated by data, which he claims is in the book. now i'm going to have to read the book(s) so i can tear him a new a-hole with authority.

i also went to my first camp/unconference session...it was called WIREDcamp. it was all about how anyone who doesn't use social networking is a tool (that's their position, not mine) and how twitter is the be all and end all. i called someone a fascist. mainly for saying that use of social networking tools should be used as a base-level skill before hiring someone. i was like, ummmmm...how many of you know how to manipulate data effectively in an excel spreadsheet? and the rebuttal i got was that those skills were way more specific. how 'bout you come talk to me when oh, i don't know, INTELLECTUAL RIGOR, READING COMPREHENSION, AND THE CONCEPT OF COMPARABLE DATA becomes a base-level skill before hiring someone? how about that? you gotta crawl before you can walk, son.

i was like, you know why people hate you guys? because you act like freakin' social networking moonies. the discourse gets framed with a quasi-religious fervour that can be QUITE off-putting and alienating. also, SOCIAL NETWORKING IS ABOUT THE SOCIAL! there has to be a USE for it in your day to day work life. so yes, if you're in communications or running consultations or something, then i can see the use of it. but it shouldn't be mandatory for someone working in payroll or something - especially as it can't be demonstrated that for their WORK it's necessary or will make things easier. let people have fun on facebook on their time off, to chat with their friends. and another thing - it's one thing for twitter to exist, it's another thing to force our work flows to adapt to it for the SAKE of it. make the technology work for you, don't force your work into the technology.

also the discourse gets framed in a very antagonistic way and you know what? that's REALLY OFF-PUTTING. plus, it's hard to get into social networking for work when you work in a politically sensitive environment. social networking tools allow for the collapse between different subject positions that we assume in our lives - so work people can suddenly access stuff about me, whereas traditionally - those avenues were kept separate. at the same time, when you work in a professional environment, you have to MAINTAIN those subject positions concurrently - so you can't really be "you" if you link your job information to your profile.

i'm coming across as more negative than i actually am. i think this stuff is great, overall. wikis really helped my family plan our family vacay and it has cut down on the backlog of email convos when you're doing group projects at work. and twitter is fantastic in giving me a window into REAL TIME spats between lindsay lohan and samantha ronson. but i think the discourse is all-too-often really patronizing to people who don't use the stuff. like you HAVE to. it's a choice! remember choice? and "social networking tools" becomes this black box for a larger picture that's not being discussed - stuff like knowledge management and retention, like information management, like general media literacy. it should be part of a larger dialogue to make the base of skills in a workplace more well-rounded - so that i know how to use outlook effectively AND post on a wiki AND understand what it means to be flamebroiled on a messageboard for being an attention whore AND organize your blog reading list. it's all part of it. knowledge and information as a WHOLE, not solely through the lens of social networking tools.

[/rant]

we got rid of the dining set. yay! so all that leaves now is the bed. the bed isn't a deal-breaker - it's easy enough to take apart and move. so now we need a new dining table. i kind of want something that's expandable - as you all know, i love to entertain and frequently host large groups. i'd like it to comfortably seat 8, if at all possible. space is a bit of an issue. the easiest route for me to go would be mid-century danish style - but i don't want our whole house to be that and we already have a buffet in the dining room that's going to be like that.

really, i want something kind of rustic, solid wood, and rough hewn - maybe with industrial touches like metal legs. something like this:

from visitor parking.

from kiosk furniture and accessories.

i know we're talking tables, but these chairs (also from kiosk) are hot fiyah:



from design within reach.

but those are all at least 2 g's if not more. CRAZY! then you peep crate and barrel and you say, "damn sons...why you gotta be all sensible and shiz?" check out these beauties (on sale for $699! seats up to 8!):

terravida (new and reclaimed teak)

basque dining table (solid mango wood)

pacifica (solid teak)

drake extension table (less enamored with this guy, but it's the only one that's an extension table)

this one is a grand and a bit - but so nice! solid european white oak!

solid american walnut! over a grand, too (closer to 2).

the big sur - a little light coloured for my liking and also coming close to 2 grand.

the thing with the crate and barrel tables is that they're 99% all wood, whereas the super design-y king east ones are way more expensive AND they're particle board with veneer. so wack!

surprisingly, those school chairs i posted a while ago, are kind of cheap compared to regular dining chairs. adult sized ones average about $40 a chair and you know those mothers are built to last - plus they come in a wide range of colours. i like 'em.

okay that's enough outta me for one night.

fin.

it was only a matter of time...

we had our first craigslist crazy. thankfully, not in the "craigslist killer" vein, more in the "aging artsy OCAD escapee rabid michael snow fan" vector of the socially maladjusted spectrum.

this woman had been ADAMANT that the dresser i was selling was to be hers. lots of phone calls! email contact! so i made arrangements for her to come and see the piece - then the stipulations start coming in. no, she doesn't have a cell phone. make sure my husband will be home as she has a bad back and can't lift anything.

the prearranged time arrives and she appears. she is a vision of aging wackadoo artist stereotypes. two toned hair that goes from white roots to faded patricia field magenta. kooky eyeglasses in the oversized, edith head-homage style favored by elderly eccentrics the world over. her stooped body was draped in batik with dr. scholl's shod trotters. oy.

she comes into our house and starts poring over the dresser. the dresser is wood, with a particle board top. it's a beast - almost 9 feet long and 18" deep. i'm selling it for $150. she fawns over our cats (kooky old lady cliché, check!) and then proceeds to go over the dresser with a rigor that would make sotheby's proud - seriously, all she was missing was a jeweler's loupe. she says there is sun damage, that there are deep, field furrow gouges (admittedly, there are minor surface scratches) and then she proceeds to tell me that she has to call her friend, to check in as the dresser is for him, not her. she asks to use the phone. the dotytron hands over his blackberry. ohhh, you have one of those she says, lifting the spectacles away from her eyes and peering myopically at this strange device from the 21st century. the numbers are so small! she decries and then asks for a pen to help her dial. at this point, the dotytron interjects, "i can dial the number for you, if you want." "oh no no, if you would just give me a pen, i can use that to dial" the dotytron: "but. i. don't. want. you. using. a. pen. on. my. phone." lol!

then she proceeds to have a FIFTEEN minute conversation with her friend, in plain view of us, talking smack about the dresser while the dotytron and i give each other exaggerated eye rolls and mouth "GET. OUT. OF. OUR. HOUSE." to each other. her part of the conversation goes something like this, "yes, i've seen the dreser. well, it needs A LOT of work. the whole top needs to be refinished. i'm guessing you're looking at $200 work to put into it. i mean, if it was for me, i'd be fine with it, but i don't know that you want to put that much money in. well, it's walnut. there are deep gouges. yes, well, they simply don't know enough to know, you know what i mean?" etc. etc. LADY, PLEASE! that line put eye-rolling into maximum overdrive - seriously, we almost hit g-force. do you REALLY think we would be selling a solid wood, giant, walnut dresser from the 60s for ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!????? i couldn't believe the conversation went on for that long. when she finally hung up, i couldn't resist the urge to bait her: "is your friend a collector?" i asked, innocently. "he's actually a DEALER" she responded and then started to make predatory moves towards my rosewood buffet.

i gave her the boot. seriously - what kind of self-respecting fine furniture dealer sends THAT LADY as their proxy? and what kind of furniture dealer DOESN'T HAVE A CAR?!??

on a totally different tack - in times when you and your partner, in all your over-worked, under-slept, drywall dust-lunged and deeply indebted glory, are having mini world war III type arguments (with f-bomb ammunition) (precipitated in no small part by the confluence of all of the above factors), it pays to remember things like -

i'm glad i'm partnered up with a total, emotionally available mushball. to wit: us, driving in captain save a ho' to markham, early saturday morning. on the cd player: les miserables (of course). the dotytron: sunglasses on. the song: "javert's suicide". the dotytron has always loved that the closing of "javert's suicide" invokes the refrain from "stars" (javert's theme) in a towering crescendo of strings. the song never gets played without some kind of remark or other. as the strings swell, i get goosebumps, and turn to the dotytron whose skin is strangely flushed: "are you crying?" "i don't want to talk about it." lol! we honestly can't listen to the cd without one or the other of us demanding: "WHY. WON'T. THEY. REVIVE. THIS. ALREADY." lol!

the other cute thing is watching him grow in his profession. check out his kindergarten microphone:

doesn't it kind of make your heart explode with cuteness? what's EVEN CUTER is when you see our cat smudge (already a zenith of feline cute) walking around with the kindergarten microphone in his mouth - he carries it by the orange foam ball part. gah!

we were cleaning lil' ugmo ALL DAY on sunday. when a chest freezer we were moving out to the curb knocked me on the head, i unleashed a string of swears the likes of which has probably unendeared me to the family friendly neighbourhood for aeons. it was trying - we had several mini-fights borne of that volatile cocktail of stress, frustration, and an available target who's kind of stuck with you. sunday night we met up with dr. rei and hanbo and it was so gratifying to hear about their mini apocalyptica moments whilst planning their nuptials. it adds a veneer of normalcy to the proceedings. it also helped asking our neighbour, the one we share the wall with, "so...ummm...does EVERYONE put their home improvements on their line of credit?" and to be met with the affirmative. our direct neighbours are THE BEST. we kind of love them. we're so glad that out of all the people we've met on the street, we share a wall with them.

the dotytron has been talking up my pumpkin carving skills to them already. gah! i was hoping to have a "soft open" on the halloween front but i guess that's not an option. i already know 2 of my possibly 3 pumpkins. the dotytron is trying to get me to compromise my artistic integrity and sell out by changing one of my more obscure references to something a little more friendly for the gen-pop. i say NAY! this comes around but once a year! apparently they get around 80 kids. crikey! we kind of want to establish ourselves as THE house on the street so we've been kicking around ideas. i want to be "can of pop" house. the dotytron things we should cement things by being "can of pop" house AND "help yourself from the bowl of candy" house. i was like, well then, we might as well go all out and be "can of pop", "help yourself from the bowl of candy" "p.s. did i mention that the bowl of candy will be full of REGULAR sized chocolate bars" house. lol!!! we'd be mobbed in 2010. mobbed!

or we could make kids do the truffle shuffle before getting any loot:



we're also kicking around the idea of doing fake front lawn graveyard. i'd do it if the gravestones were like, "RIP J DILLA" "RIP GOOD TASTE" but the dotytron thinks that's all too political - that we should go the pun-y route. do we all know how i feel about puns? I HATE THEM. front lawn graveyard is TBD at this point. on the costume tip, i've got 4 potentially good costumes - 1 of which would be pretty hilarious but wouldn't have a matching dotytron costume counterpart. decisions!

tonight for dinner i made us a tofu, long bean, and chili black bean sauce stirfry on chow mein noodles. i'm trying really hard to establish the supremacy of the dotytron's lunches in the staffroom. these are the kinds of petty rivalries that will sustain me through the long, poor winter nights to come.

fin.

craigslist baron von slangingheimer

reporting for duty.

i've been slanging mad shiz on craigslist - it's been pretty lucrative. it's all about finding that sweet spot - pricing it low enough to stimulate a lot of interest so that you can pit prospective buyers against each other, but also high enough so that you have room to grow in the negotiations and don't end up getting shortchanged.

it's looking increasingly likely that our dreams of having the place painted before we move in are of the when-pigs-fly variety. we've "managed expectations" down from painting the entire house, to just the upstairs, to one room, to maybe the baseboard on the main floor if we're lucky (and even that's not likely). it's extremely cheering to talk to people who've done it before though. we met some of our neighbours last night - one of whom had their house rented for TWENTY FIVE YEARS prior to them taking possession. he's been working on it off and on (doing the work himself) for 3 years and only now is it up to snuff - so our little mice/roach problem isn't so bad.

that's the kind of stuff that warms the cockles of a fixer-upper's heart. to know that everyone else is in the same boat. we all gazed adoringly at the house across from all our properties that sold for half a million - the whole street worships that house's selling price like an idol and is counting on the residual warmth of that considerable appreciation to warm us when our spirits flag during renovation, dust-filled lungs hell. neighbour guy told us about showering with a hose rigged up in the basement draining into the floor drain - stories like that are THE BEST! they make you realize that despite the rude comments of tactless schmoes - you DIDN'T buy the only lemon in the fruit basket.

i'm totally stoked about halloween this year. it's a shame, because we've been invite to our friend H's tarantino-themed halloween party in cleveland. he's my mom's gradeschool friend's son and he's THE BEST. i mentioned him a while ago when s-dawg, the dotytron, c-hova and i met him for the first time and were like flabbergasted that ONLY NOW were we meeting kids of my mom's friends that were actually cool and not like, future doctors of america or something. one time we went for dinner with my mom's doctor friend whose five year old child played mental chess, had his kids enrolled in u of t's school for gifted children, AND who selected all the books his daughter read. when he found out what we did for a living (at the time i was a cook) he turned to my mom and said, "mama lagerfeld, do you ever worry about your children's futures?" - what a jerk! anyway, H and his gf A are the bomb. the tragic thing is that they live in CLEVELAND and we're just adding to the list of amazing people we know who for some inexplicable reason insist on living far away from us (i'm looking at you, kdubsguelph).

the dotytron's been talking up my pumpkin carving skills to the neighbs - i'm a little worried. i know what i'm doing this year, but still - it's a whole new audience. there's actually going to be kids out trick or treating! so exciting!!! i'm going to make a felt banner - i already bought all these orange-brown patterned fabric scraps ... i'm thinking something like this:

but obviously a zillion times cuter. i'm going to hang it on the front of our enclosed porch.

this weekend was ram jammed. so much fun! we went to the fundraising ball my mum does every year (usually we look after my sister's kids) and sat at the same table as sdawg and my sis and outlaw bro and H and A and this random couple that we promptly scared off with our drunken obnoxious antics. the night before, when i was picking out what i was going to wear, i pulled this crazy silver sequined number from the back of my closet. i wasn't going to wear it, but the dotytron said that nothing says "ball" like silver sequins so i went for it:

i basically looked like a human disco ball. i gotta say, it looked pretty fly with a kicky, mod high ponytail and dramatic eyes. here are some shots of the evening:

matchy matchy!

H (aka asian farrakhan) and A

sdawg and his friend L


my sis and outlaw bro

the evening culminated in us all storming the loose moose (the traditional after-ball watering hole) - which was empty - and watching UFC repeats and singing "living on a prayer" at the top of our lungs to the dismay and chagrin of the assembled staff.

then we all hit the hot house cafe for brunch the next day, which is another tradition. met up with dr. rei and hanbo. dr. rei, i hate to say, is an AYCE buffet n00b. the first thing she put on her plate was crab salad! CRAB SALAD!

after that we headed home, whereupon we found that the cats had thrashed their food bowls. i bought them 2 nice ceramic water bowls and 2 nice ceramic food bowls, but the dotytron had forgotten to feed them the night before, so they had knocked them over, tossed the tray upon which their bowls rest halfway across the kitchen, AND knocked over the tin that holds their cat food (the lid stayed on). it was quite a dramatic feat - mostly because that tin was almost full, which is like 5 lbs of dry kibble. then we discovered that SMUDGIE HAD GONE MISSING. we couldn't figure out when/how it had happened until we saw that there was a HOLE in the window screen in the bedroom. so basically the little bugger saw something outside, went apeshiz and TORE A HOLE in the screen chasing after it. so we spent an hour crawling the neighbourhood, going into people's backyards, shouting "smudgieeeeeee!!!!!!!" at the top of our lungs.

then i cried. i love that cat. if it was boddington, sure - no biggie. but smudgie is the best cat to ever walk the earth. he's so soft! and so handsome! and so debonair!

then we decided that we might as well go to canadian tire and do our errands and then come back at night and look again. just as we're stepping out the door - guess who comes sauntering in like he doesn't have a care in the world? the smudge. the prevailing theory is that smudge and boddington ran out of food, things got desperate, and smudge went on a mission to rustle up some grub, leaving his weaker counterpart (el stupido, boddington) to hold down the fort.

sunday night we had dinner at the dotytron's sis' pad. she's so grown up now! it's the cutest thing ever. she's grown into herself so much in the last little while - it's incredible. we had delicious bean and corn chile, a lovely romaine salad with capers and artichoke hearts, and this awesome appetizer of peach salsa with brie on baguette that i'm totally ripping off. followed by a mint tart and a raspberry tart from the queen of tarts.

i wish we could have stayed longer but we were wiped from killing an ENTIRE bottle of industrial-strength bleach cleaner on our kitchen that afternoon. so many mouse poops! so many dried carapaces of cockroaches past! *shudder* i don't understand how people LIVE like that. it's one thing to have a roach or mouse problem - heck, it's happened to everyone. but to LIVE like that??? how does that happen? how are you okay with that?



monday night we had a quickie dinner of perogies with onions, bacon, sour cream, and sautéed zucchini from the momma and poppa d's friends' farm.


tuesday night i made us a black bean and kidney bean chili with corn bread and avocado schmoo and sour cream.

tonight we ate leftovers and then hit up home depot to spend buckets on painting supplies, which included home depot emblazoned jaunty painting caps (impulse buy!)

roll call of awesome/my fair lil' ugmo:

mobiles! i'm currently obsessed with integrating vertical space into the design of the rooms in lil' ugmo - i think one or another of the above options is definitely going to be occupying a quiet corner or two. the top one is from etsy seller royalbuffet and the middle one is from frazier & wing - i ADORE their stuff. i love the sophisticated colour combinations. the last one is a diy wedding (but really, pom pom vines can certainly be employed for non-nuptial decorative ends) tutorial from oncewed.


blanca gomez prints. when i have a bit of extra flush, i'm going to get the top one, entitled "bang!" from poster cabaret.

this dress. this shirt. squeal!!!

this and this style of light fixtures. i love old fashioned looking ceiling mounted lights. love them.

i also LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the firefly pendant lamp from cb2. if i have my way - this will be our dining room lighting, on a dimmer - so we can get a range of light. ideally, if i was going to be a big energy wasting hog, i'd put traditional filament bulbs in there, but ultimately i know my conscience won't let me - a red spectrum compact fluoro will have to do.

fin.

can't talk...

...to busy slanging all my worldly possessions on craigslist.

too bad too - had an epic weekend of fun and being dressed like a giant disco ball. in the throes of home renos - running behind schedule (but of course). lots to tell - no time to tell it.

update soon, lovelies!

fin.

SUCCESS!

things are looking up in lil' ugmoville. well, kinda. structurally, in terms of renos and repairs - not so much. the electrical will be done on monday at which point we can have our contractor in doing drywall and whatnot. it's looking increasingly UN-likely that we'll have everything painted before the big move. but what can you do. that was a bit of a pipe dream anyway, considering the fact that we're PAINTING AN ENTIRE HOUSE.

but i'm tired of focusing on the negative! here's how you can tell that the dotytron and i have been together forever - we're a good balancing act. like a lever and a fulcrum if we remember our 5 (6?) simple machines from grade 3. when one of us is down, invariably the other one will be totally optimistic to prevent a downward spiral into split-wristville.

more often than not, ***I'M*** captain half-full. i know, surprising, right? the thing is - i get negative about the small things: dishes not being done, neighbours sullying my immaculate green bin, people cutting in line representing the downfall of civilization as we know it, etc. when it comes to THE BIG STUFF, i just put my head down and plow through until its done. get 'er done, is my motto. it's the indomitability of the karl lagerfeld spirit. i'm driven as a mofo. the dotytron is all-too-easily bogged down by the perception of the magnitude of whatever the task is at hand. i can see EXACTLY where we have to be and then i just work myself to the bone getting there. sure, my life isn't RELAXING, per se - but it's productive. and in the lagerfeld universe productivity is worshiped with the fervour of the true believer.

the point is: the dotytron had to pull a rotting mouse carcass from the kitchen cupboard in lil' ugmo yesterday and it damn near broke him.
ming).

here's the positive side. this is the kitchen we inherited:




so. gross. (that's not the positive side - it's coming) our budget for renoing the kitchen right now: -$2002020202020202. (still not the positive side). i was so disgusted by this kitchen that i had hatched an elaborate plan to spend a whole year cooking dinner using ONLY the following: microwave, toaster oven, panini machine, rice steamer, slow cooker, deep fryer - until such time as it was possible to gut the thing and have the kitchen of my dreams (cork floors! gas stove! stainless look appliances! bosch dishwasher!) (STILL not the positive side). that plan is obviously impractical - but let's face it, if i spent a year doing it and blogging about it, i would probably turn into some kind of blogging celebrity and get a book deal. not half bad. look at what that "julie and julia" broad is doing now. precisely.

so i decided to paint the cabinets. BRILLIANT IDEA. the cabinets are laminate. normally, i would have to sand, prime, and apply two coats. i was feeling lazy. we bought behr paint and primer in one and i removed the hardware and started slapping that shiz on. COLOUR ME IMPRESSED. it's sticking! like crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on LAMINATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is kind of a big deal. i've saved myself like 5 hours of sanding and priming time and jebus knows how much drying time. i think 2 coats should do it, so the first batch will be done by the end of the weekend. it's going to make the kitchen look MUCH better. and maybe i won't have to do my weird, restrictive cooking-for-a-year-sans-stove challenge after all.

in other good news - our landlord is a SWEETHEART and is GIVING us extermination services for our mouse/roach problem (he works for orkin) as a WEDDING PRESENT. how effing sweet is that? so cute! AND he can do the treatment whenever. we were kind of worried we'd need to get him in there while the ceilings were open and everything was exposed but he says he doesn't have to. we can move in, have our shiz in there, and he can do it in a couple of hours. sweet! amazing! apparently people like to throw around the word "fumigate" but to actually fumigate you have to close down like a block. they don't do that anymore. they just put poison traps around and the roaches take it back and slowly die a horrible death and take their roachy brethren down with them. amazing.

probably the most awesome thing about getting hitched was how the community comes together around you. to wit: the dotytron needed dress socks. he goes to ashraf at lb luomo (that muslim men's clothing store across from the big mosque that the dotytron loves shopping at) to get the socks, happens to mention to ashraf that we're getting hitched, and ashraf GIVES HIM DRESS SOCKS. so sweet! so cute! stuff like that tears my heart into a million pieces of joy. THAT'S the kind of stuff worth fighting for. when you really become a PART of your community - the community will come together.

ANYWAY, the other success story of the day is that i got an amazing massage from my massage therapist who worked me like a stiff sourdough. it felt goooooood.

but the principal one is that WE FOUND A QUEEN SIZED BED FRAME. and by "we" i mean "i". as you well know, i LOVE my teak veneer headboard and bed with the built-in nightstands. love it. adore it. but the dotytron is 6'4" and costco has really affordable memory foam mattresses and while-we're-moving-why-bother-taking-our-crappy 50-year-old-double-mattress-with-us-and-why-not-upgrade, etc. but the dilemma is, our current headboard is almost 9ft long - so a queen is going to be even longer and the master bedroom isn't THAT big. so we want our bed to be in proportion to the room. i believe in that. i'm willing to sacrifice the queen sized bed in order to serve the higher cause of proportion and form. form over function! did i mention that i LOVE our current bed frame? so the last little while i've been trawling craigslist and coming up with bupkes. sad perogie.

so today i went by g.u.f.f. probably my FAVORITE store for mid-century modern furniture (along with upsidedive). the prices there are always fair and they've had lovely queen teak beds before - but nothing lately. so i wander in and ask. i'm told that queen is the most common size for frames and the fact that i have a double is actually a little rare. but queen frames sell out in the store in MINUTES. they JUST had one, but before they could even get it into the store, a dealer came by and whisked it away. BEFORE THEY COULD GET IT INTO THE STORE! so i kept walking, bought a lovely mid-century electric lemon lamp to assuage my aggrieved soul and SAW THE GUFF GUYS DROPPING OFF A BED FRAME TO ZIG ZAG ON QUEEN EAST. i waited a bit, walked in, and casually inquired if he had a queen sized bed frame. and (of course) he did. i saw it. it's quite lovely. needs a little bit of cleaning and an oiling but it'll be fine. the lines are actually nicer than the one i have now - it's got lovely tapered legs and the HEADBOARD IS ACTUALLY SHORTER THAN OUR DOUBLE. which means it'll fit into the room even BETTER! huzzah!

he told me that he didn't charge me much over what he paid for it at G.U.F.F. plus, once is slang my double on craigslist it'll offset the costs. so that's one thing i can scratch off our list and now we can order our memory foam mattress and have it delivered to the house and it's all glorious.

i was also describing the rosewood buffet that we have to the zig zag guy (remember it? it's got the slatted wood doors - the zig zag guys says the correct nomenclature for that style is tambour). apparently rosewood pieces are collector's items, because rosewood is rare or endangered now. and the fact that ours has tamboured doors makes it even MORE rare - he told me to hold onto that piece and that it's highly sought after. according to zig zag guy, if i ever get tired of it, it's better for us to refinish it rather than get rid of it. score! i wouldn't ever get rid of it anyway - i love that piece and it was a total find.

so yeah, that's the good news.

today is my day off from work. i'm off to take our water sample to the city to get it tested for lead. i'm also going to do some light grocery shopping and then do some errands. we're going to go back to the house tonight to try to rip out more of the baseboards.

last night i made us nicoise sandwiches for dinner. i'll post a pic later - the dotytron has absconded with the camera. tonight i don't know what we're going to have - maybe take out at lil' ugmo while we're going to town on the baseboard and boraxing the hell out of the kitchen to kill les cucarachas.

fin.

latin fest ftw!

bwong's new digs are the BOMB. right on the subway line - it took us 30 minutes to get there AND there's a wendy's in the building! AND a sheffield and sons! his condo is so centrally located AND he's got a light fixture that looks like a cross between HAL and an ipod. i think he should rig it up to look like an ipod. he also did the magnetic chalkboard wall, which was a good lesson for me because i want to do it too and i wanted to see how the magnetic primer works. i'd read that you have to use a crapload of coats and use those rare earth, super magnetic magnets that have such a powerful you can really injure yourself if your skin gets pinched. the magnetic primer is just basically thick primer with little metal bits in it...so you have to stir it up good to get the metal bits evenly distributed and also use a tonne of coats.

ANYWAY, on to the goods:

communication snafu with bwonger (aka us not reading the fb message thoroughly) meant that we waited an inordinate time to meet up. this time was not wasted. we had pre-dinner churros (stuffed with milk caramel - dulce de leche/cajeta).

then we warmed up with some chicharrons. basically this version was strips of deep fried pork belly. the fat, oh, the glorious, glorious fat!

we went with the standard fair/food court divide and conquer approach. we each lined up and bought some food so that we could go splitsies. i think this is barbacoa or some kind of beef soft taco.

beef filled flautas.

carnitas soft tacos.

grilled chicken (kind of underwhelming)

roasted pork ("the best in town!" the sign proclaimed - i'm not going to argue). with potato "omelette" basically mashed potato cooked on a griddle. so good!

grilled steak.


pupusas.

fried plantain stuffed with queso fresco and more meat.

our spread before (for 4 people!)

the aftermath of the decimation we wreaked (clearly, we were meat hungry and rice was not our go-to).

i'm waiting on tenterhooks for our final quote from our reno guy. eeks! we'll see how much we have to shell out...kind of nervous.


tonight for dinner i made us fried eggplant, campari tomato, basil, and olive pasta. for dessert we're having leftover cherry brown butter almond streusel tart with whipped cream. it's my treat for being too busy to eat lunch today and subsisting all day on water and my meagre cereal portion from this morning.

fin.