Chris said to me yesterday "What are you reading about?"

"Hair salons" I replied. "What are you reading about?"

"Nondisclosure agreements" he said.

And then I burst out laughing. I believe this is a perfect summation of us.

I was actually reading about a hair salon run by a member of Le Tigre and Chris was reading JPod, the new Douglas Coupland. Its still really funny though, even when you know the bigger picture.

Also, I took the car in today to get winter tires put on. Bring on the snow!

is this art?

Chris washed the carrots tonight and here's what they looked like as they dried.
Is this art?
(for more of a context, see Fraser's post on foetuses and the comments that follow. The question was posed, is every photograph art?)

I heart steamrollers!

I came home tonight from work to a beautiful sight. A steamroller was doing its thing on the street beside our house. My heart skipped a beat. You see, when we arrived at our new home a sign was posted on the door: Construction to begin September 5, to upgrade the water lines, ending November 30.

Every day since September 5, excluding weekends, I have woken up to the noise of heavy machinery and their blasted, backing up beeping. I have tried my best to ignore it, and have been quite successful. Even yesterday when they were pouring sidewalks I didn't get too excited because I thought to myself "They won't finish the project on time, they never finish these projects on time" Especially because its been such a rainy fall in Ottawa. Rain delays these projects I hear.

But when I saw that steam roller in all its steam rolling glory today I couldn't help it. I think they're going to be done when they said. I can't wait! The silence will be golden. No more beeping or heavy diesel engines or City of Ottawa workers outside my windows yelling to each other. I'll just have the sound of traffic, which I think will be bliss in comparison.

fell off the wagon

I think it's fair to say I fell off the blogging wagon. This happened for two reasons.
1. My parents were visiting
2. I was working a whole lot!!! Hooray.

Now that I have a day off I can tell you all the exciting things that are happening in my life. Perhaps I'll go through them in alphabetical order.

Curling: Chris and I joined up with some folks from our church and are now curlers extraordinaire on Sunday nights. I feel like I'm discovering a part of my Canadianess that I didn't know was there. I went curling when I was in high school but hadn't been since then. Let me tell you, it is fun. The best part is when you hear the familiar yell of "hurry hard!" echoing in the curling club. Actually, the real reason I wanted to curl is because I have a really wicked curling sweater. I was even complimented on it by the mother of a curling superstar when we were at the Ottawa Curling Club. The club is 150 years old and started on the Rideau Canal, which I think is amazing.


Remembering: We attended the Rememberance Day ceremony at the War Memorial in Ottawa. It was raining and very cold. We couldn't really see much either but it was exciting to be there all the same. This picture displays our view of the parade of veterans (it had stopped raining by this time, before this there were umbrellas as far as the eye could see).

Tour Guiding: When my parents were here we did a bit of tour guiding. A highlight was a storytelling concert. Chris and I were remarking a few months ago how storytelling is a lost art. Turns out it's not, it's just a bit more underground. There's a group here called the Ottawa Storytellers who put on a festival every year. They brought in a storyteller from Texas named Elizabeth Ellis. I was completely entranced while she was speaking.

Working: I've recently started supply teaching at a school called Sir Guy Carleton. It's great! I've been getting lots of work there. The staff and students are fantastic and are really welcoming. I was there three times this week.

That concludes my update.

Also as a side note, there was a discussion of starting a housewives blog of activities to keep oneself from going crazy. It's up and running now and I've put the link on the side. Its called ladies of leisure (marc's suggestion, thanks marc!). If any other housewives, or non-housewives for that matter, would like to join, just let me know.

my new hobby

I've had a bit of spare time on my hands (where it says "a bit" read "a lot") as I'm getting established as a supply teacher here. I've been wanting to do some screenprinting for a long time now and so I figured, what better time to start. I did my first major run yesterday and documented it for you.

My fancy apron.

The screen that I burned crooked.

Making the print.

Voila!

This is about half of the run that I did. There was a set of red that I did as well.

My brother was here visiting because we had a funeral to attend in Montreal. While we were out exploring, the first snowfall of the year hit. It was so beautiful and made for a picturesque day. We went to the market and to the Parliament buildings and then checked out the war museum which was the best museum I think I've ever been to. It was built quite recently and they took such care and attention with the architecture and the display. It was fantastic. If ever you're in Ottawa, be sure to check it out!

And now for some pictures:


Joel likes to pretend that he hates kittens, but really he loves them and couldn't put Betty down the whole time he was here. I'm totally busting his image right now.



Here we are outside the US Embassy. Its interesting to compare the US embassy to the Greek embassy for example. The US embassy is a large grey looming structure with a big spiky fence and a concrete barrier beside the road, where the Greek embassy that we saw earlier that day was a converted house. I think they may have had security cameras but I can't be sure.


I'm not sure if you can tell in this picture, but its snowing. It was the first snowfall of the year and we actually enjoyed it. You can see Parliament and the Peace Tower in the background here.


When its open, you can go up the Peace Tower and look out over Ottawa. That's what Joel is doing here.


This is inside the War Museum. Its a very new building, they broke ground on it in 2003 so I don't even think its been open for that long. The architecture is stunning and in this area here it feels like you're in a bunker. They have these massive painting displayed and you lose sense of the scale because everything is so large.


Looking down the barrel of a very big gun.


Me with a big tank!


This tank fell through some ice and landed in a bog in the 1940's. All the passengers were able to escape when it fell. It was preserved inside that bog for decades until they finally pulled it out.


The controls inside a jeep.


This is what the back of the really big tank I'm standing beside looks like. There's a cabinet of sorts and this is the inside of it. I'm guessing they put missiles in it.


Does it look like Top Gun? This is Chris and Joel in front of a big plane.

a fabulous thanksgiving

It didn't rain for three whole days in Ottawa. That's a record. It was timed perfectly because we were itching to get outside. Why were we itching to get outside? To ride bicycles of course! I replaced my mountain bike and so we went up to the Gatineau Hills as we had planned to do when my bicycle was stolen. We went directly after Chris was finished work.

The fall colours were out in all their glory and it was absolutely stunning.




I've made a step up with my bicycle and gone to clipless pedals. I've got the hang of it now and have only fallen a few times still attached to my bicycle. I haven't fallen while I've been riding, only when I'm standing still while I have one foot still clipped in. Its so ridiculous because I'll just be standing there and then all of a sudden I'm on the ground.

Jodi and Kevan made it down and on Saturday we took our bikes out and headed downtown along the Rideau canal. We live close to the end of it and there's a path that runs along the canal that takes you downtown to the Parliament buildings.

On Sunday we went to the Gatineau Hills. We encountered some major traffic problems as everyone else wanted to go to the Hills as well. We ended up skirting around the backway and came across a lovely path full of the fall colours. (though they say its not a good year for the reds)




On Monday we went to the National Art Gallery and I must say the highlight was the Contemporary gallery. We saw a bunch of works by the Group of Seven and Tom Thompson, but I always seem to enjoy the contemporary works more.
Here's a picture of my favourite. A gigantic baby head. It was so realistic. The wrinkles in its forehead, the veins, even its hair. So crazy.



It was such a beautiful weekend of enjoying the outdoors and spending time with good friends. Much to be thankful for indeed.

Betty Grable.

Its decided, she's been named. Betty Grable, the popular pin-up girl, won!

I'm a sucker for the pinup what can I say. I can't wait to see the Notorious Bettie Page that just came out on DVD. I had a roommate who spent some time fishing in the Charlottes a few years ago. She had come across an old fisherman's cabin and inside were these old posters of pinup girls. She managed to salvage a few and framed them. Those were my favourite decorative items in our whole house.

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.