introducing....

The newest member of our little family. A very little kitten.
Still yet unnamed, perhaps I should take suggestions like Michelle did. If you have any name suggestions I'll take them but I'm not making any guarantees.

Here are some pictures of her to inspire you. Also I'm quite proud of my low-budget project. We went into the pet store to get some items for our kitten and they had scratching posts there. They wanted $79.00 for the smallest one. I said no way! I went to the carpet store and got some scraps (for free), then went to Rona and got some scrap wood for $3.00. So the total cost is $3.00 instead of $79.00. A consumer triumph indeed.




She likes to chase shadows as illustrated by this photo.

I heard about this... (and pictures of our house)

So I went to check my blog this morning to see if anyone commented (such a guilty habit) and I saw that there were new ones. I opened up one and it was Kryptonite telling me how sorry they were that my bike was stolen with a link to their page. Then I open up the other one and it was a Peugeot forum, another link to how great their products are. I was listening to the cbc to a new program called the age of persuasion. It was talking about how an advertiser's best friend is "buzz" or word of mouth advertising. It was also talking about how companies are using the world of the internet to accomplish this: especially through blogs and chat rooms. I thought to myself as I was listening that my blog has never been a victim. Well I guess I should've knocked on wood because it happened twice now! Unbelievable.

Perhaps from now on I will avoid the use of brand names on my blog. Unless of course if Kona wants to replace my bike, then that would be okay.

On a completely different tangent, I have been asked to post pictures of our new place. You asked for it, you got it! Presenting our little abode...

The dining room:

Our bedroom:
Kitchen:
Living room:

Bike room/guest room:


Now as you'll notice, the guest room has a nice big bed in it...for guests! nudge nudge, wink wink.

have no fear, peugeot's here!

Since the loss of my Kona I've devised a new bike strategy. Have a mountain bike for mountain biking and a city bike for city biking. Chris has always been a believer in having a bicycle for each purpose. I've scoffed in the past because I thought I only needed one bike that could do everything. Turns out I was wrong and I need to be able to ride a bicycle around the city that doesn't scream "STEAL ME".

There's this fantastic website called usedottawa. It's like a garage sale but better because you can look specifically for what you want. What I wanted was a bike and what I got was a beautiful Peugeot. Chris says it compares in stature to his Yellow Jockey Allen (his favourite bicycle of all time).



I've been wanting a bike with a rack on the back for ages, and fenders are a must-have in rainy Ottawa. Chris and I bought some Dynamo lights when we were in Amsterdam and so I'm going to get those put them on so I can generate my own light power.

As for the mountain bike, I test drove a few and really liked the Giant Rainier. There is a bike rental company here that sells off their stock at the end of each year and they have some Rainiers for sale. What luck that they have the exact model I want. Is that karma evening out for my bike getting stolen?

p.s. Thanks for everyone's condolences on the loss of my bicycle. It is much appreciated.

a hole in my heart

Let me ask you... is there something missing in this picture?
Perhaps this next shot will give you a clue as to what's gone missing.



Chris and I went to the market to go see a few bands (You say party! We say die!, The D'urbervilles and controller controller) and we decided to take our bikes down there. It was a beautiful night and it takes about 20 minutes to bike downtown. We went inside for about two hours and came back to find my bike gone with a cut lock on the ground. I can't even describe the feeling. It was like a friend had been taken from me. I had no idea I was so attached to my bicycle but I was. It had given me so much joy in the short time I had it. It hadn't even been a year since I bought it. We went home and filed a police report. They said because they have the serial number, pawn shops can't sell it without clearing it through the police. It probably won't go through a pawn shop though, it'll probably be sold for a hit of crack. So sad.

Its been a few days now and the disappointment is fading. We went bike shopping on Saturday and that helped as well. I didn't find any that I liked as much as my kona but perhaps one that will serve the purpose.

As an ode to my first ever "proper" bicycle I'll show you some of our good times together.

I'm not so much riding the bicycle here but this is a ride Chris and I took in the mountains on Mother's Day. For the record there were big rocks on this hill that were impossible to ride up.


This is me after riding through a stream. Fun!


A classic ride down into the coulees. My favourite riding spot thus far. I'm sure we'll find a good place to go near Ottawa.

For all those out there that love their bikes, maybe you should go and give it a hug for all the fun times you've had together. You never know when you'll part ways. It can come so fast. Also, don't use a cable lock. Turns out the security needed in Lethbridge is a little lower than in Ottawa. For my next lock I'll be getting the "new york city" u-lock from kryptonite. Hopefully they've fixed that whole bic pen fiasco.

Ultimate

So Chris and I decided to join an Ultimate team. They say its really big here and the only place its bigger is in Vancouver. That is impressive to me because I hear that everyone and their dog plays ultimate in Vancouver.
It was last Monday and Chris saw a post on the Ottawa's Ultimate forum that a team was looking for a few more players. He emailed Chris back and said "We're playing tonight, want to come?" It was easy as that. Now we're on an Ultimate team. Its kind of nice because they needed quite a few extra players so its a mishmash of random people put together. There's a student and some new Moms and a couple of teachers and a couple of people who work for the government. (which it seems every second person does here) We lost our first game but I think we did pretty good for a team who had just met that night. The team we were playing against had matching shirts for crying out loud. They were tight. We scored 5 goals which I think is quite impressive considering.

The funniest thing to me is the lingo. For example, its not a frisbee, its a disc. You don't throw it, you chuck it. When you run and try to get around the person who's defending you, that's called cutting. My favourite term has a story.

When you catch the 'disc' you're not allowed to run. You stay planted in one place and have ten seconds to throw it to someone else on your team. Often when people have the disc they feel the need to throw it quickly but its pretty standard to hear someone else call from the team to take your time. A girl from my team was doing just that, she was saying to the person with the disc "time, time" A girl from the opposing team looked at her and said "You don't say time, say 'chilly' otherwise people will think you're calling for a time-out."

It was funny. So I guess you're supposed to say "chilly" which sounds really lame to me. I had a discussion with the girl on my team who was saying 'time' and I told her I would join her in saying time. Everyone knows you can't call a time out when you're in the middle of the play anyways. (or maybe you can, I have no idea)

Also, instead of saying good defence, because maybe that takes too much time to say the whole word DEEEEEFFFFEEEEEENNNNNCCCE, they say "good D" People told me that a few times. There was a few times where I intercepted the disc along with a battle cry. The folks really loved that one.

Chris and I will have to go and buy some kleats I think. In fact everyone on the field had kleats except us. It turns out its really slippery without them.



This is what the other team looked like with their matching shirts. Actually I got this picture from the Croatia Ultimate team. Don't they look great?

montreal. osheaga festival: c'est magnifique

Last weekend, in the midst of unpacking Chris and I went up to Montreal for the Osheaga Festival .

It was amazing to say the least. The lineup was a listing of all of my newest and favourite cds. Incredible. A few highlights were:

1. The Bell Orchestre. This Arcade Fire side project brings classical music to the masses. I saw a trend with many of the bands and it goes something like this. There were a lot of non-rock instruments up on stage (bass clarinet, violin, french horn, accordian etc.) in a lot of bands. There seems to be a reclaiming of these "uncool" instruments by people of our generation. I imagine that these musicians were forced to play these classical instruments by their parents and have now reclaimed them as their own. They've infused rock music into classical and brought something totally new to the music scene. I applaud them. It makes for some great music. Besides Bell Orchestre, Final Fantasy does this as well.

I don't know what it is but I LOVE when bands dress in matching outfits.

2. Patrick Watson. He was a new find. Excellent music.

3. The Flaming Lips. Oh my. I can't even to describe to you the preposterousness of these guys.
I'll try though. It begins with the guitar player and drummer on stage. They build and build the music up. No sign yet of the lead singer. Out come two groups of people on either side of the stage. One group is dressed like aliens, the other dressed like Santa's. They both have bright flashlights that they are waving around. (they were onstage for the entire show) Then on one corner of the stage a giant bubble begins to blow up. Inside is the lead singer. Once its fully inflated, he steps out onto the crowd, like a hamster in a ball and crowd surfs in his gigantic ball. It was pure entertainment. The theatrics were incredible.

I looked to see if this was posted on youtube and indeed it was. Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or2XmW8BpmY


If you ever get a chance to see them, go! They've got great music and they put on an amazing show. Here are some pics.
An epic experience indeed!


They had pyrotechnics and streamers like at New Years in Times Square.

The obligatory self portrait shot so you know we were really there and I didn't just download these pictures from the internet.

Moving in!

We are finally moved in, though not completely unpacked. We were supposed to get our things on Monday, however the truck that was hauling all of our things blew a transmission in Thunder Bay. So we got our stuff on Thursday and have been unpacking for the last few days. We stayed in a hotel until Tuesday night but then spent Wednesday night in our apartment. Thermarests are a lot more comfortable on the ground than on hardwood. Alas, we only had to suffer one night because on Thursday our stuff came. I can't believe how excited I was. It was fantastic after living for two months out of suitcases to have all of our things back.

We decided to paint feature walls in the the living room and bedroom to spice things up a bit. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days. I'll post more pictures once our place is actually set up so you can get a feel for it.

Also, I got a spice rack yesterday. I've been wanting a spice rack for years, actually I think I've wanted one for 8 years. Ever since I lived in Calgary. I finally got one. I'm so pleased.


Chris putting the finishing touches on the "feature wall".

That's our stuff crammed into that little space. Our stuff was from the door to the end of the U. They really know how to compact.



The mother of all spice racks.