what went wrong today?

Ummm a third of the new hardwood floor went down this morning when the installer realized none of the wood matched...some of it was shine-y, some of it was matte, some of it was satin finish--and some of it was a totally different colour. it all came out. we try again on friday. sigh.

Curious, non?

Today i saw a sign that said "goals are dreams with deadlines" - this sign was posted in a graveyard.

Kitty Tut

Found a mummified or should i say dessicated cat in the floor and vent of the new house. very disturbing, and yet more evidence suggesting the new place is cursed---i just never anticipated the curse being egyptian in nature.

a well oiled machine

Friday: Plumbers, foundation dude, and duct man finish up--i think. i hope.
Saturday: Electricians finish up. put up dry wall, screw down sub floor for new
hardwood
Sunday: Continue with floor and painting. thrown in cleaning for good measure.
Monday: As previous + packing and cleaning of old place. maybe new floor gets
installed by professionals so we dont' have to use one of those nail guns
you
trigger with a hammer. i'm so sure one of us would end up stuck to the
floor.
Tuesday: Begin taking over small boxes and packages that can't be sealed like art and
stuff
Wednesday: The big truck moving day. Drink beer. Eat pizza. Sleep.

Sometime later, install kitchen.

there is a turkey in my throat

there is a hard bump in my throat the size of a bird. it hurts to swallow. i want my mommy.

a-ha!

ha ha ha

okay, so i finally switched to firefox so i can get my blogger tools all funky...like bold and italic and if i had a photo on hand, i would insert it. oh yea...

ummm...trying to marry the blogger technology with the mac stuff and this is what i got...or the thing below. 

blanky stealer

how do you tell a 2-year old you want your blanky back? please post tips, suggestions and negotiating tactics.

what else did we do? paris

oh yes, paris. shine-y, sparkly land of the "formal shorts" paris.

eiffel tower - totally worth the absurdly long line to get to the elevators, and the even longer lines to go from level to level. i think we stood in line for at least two hours to get our tickets to go up the first elevator, but the line was friendly and chatty and there was a very tall lady wearing a dark brown fur leather bomber jacket with the word 'versace' bleached into the fur running up each arm - tres classy. there were two little boys in front of me debating whether the tower was as tall as whistler mountain (that's where they went last christmas holiday). there were a number of couples huddled up in line together - including us.

C and i had an ongoing Award system worked out in order to properly celebrate people, who in our minds, were the most French. For example, there was a man who walked by all of us in the line up, his dark french eyes filled with scorn, his eyebrows appropriately bushy, presumably made bushy by the scron emanating from the face. he sucked on his cigarette as he peered at me through his thick black-framed glasses (totally biting Sarte's style), his heavy dark hair, shine-y, and standing up in the wind. his deep grey belted trench nipping at his waist. he pulled his woman (with matching eyebrows) closer and snorted at the crowd. we thought he was very french. Please keep in mind that our ideas of 'most french' come from movies and literature and philosophy and all the stereotypes therein. Ohhhh another recipient of the most French award was the 'lady in grey'. A perfectly coiffed older woman with white-grey hair. Her make up minimal and flattering, except for the striking red lips. She wore a deep grey skirt below the knee, flat black boots and some sort of cape, scarf contraption draped across her shoulders and chest.

eiffel tower - the view of the city is stunning as it forms a circle around the great tower. i did have a wee freakout when the wind started hitting the enclosure up at the very top and rattling the windows. the display that runs the circumference of the top level interior are city names from around the world and their distance, in kilometeres, from the tower. most people look for their hometown.

louvre - holy christmas more lines but worth it. i suspect you could spend weeks, months and perhaps years to truly take this place in. it is intense and interesting and overwhelming. you must pace yourself. C and i, not knowing better, dove in whole hog and by the end of the day found ourselves deep into the renaissance making up our our titles for paintings like "ouch, christ that hurts". yes, after several hours things got very low-brow. but it was fun!

champs elysees - pretty and wide and too many people and the closer you get to the Arc de Triomphe the more insane the crowds become and the tacky yonge street lights. i'm sorry, but i am not a 'let's gather in mass quantities' kind of person. and the walk starts out very well (at the obelisk) and gets more and more mental as you progress towards the Arc. coo coo. lots of shops. the lights in the trees are very pretty. the lights from the shops are less so.

centre georges pompidou - so cool and the best street crepe man in all of paris is tucked up around the corner (not the mad little square directly opposite the pompidou, but head out to the quiet street - towards hotel de ville - in an alley. why were his crepes the best? because he would gently pat the little crepe with butter then sprinkle on the sugar and then squeeze an actual lemon on top (not the crappy 'real remon' from a bottle) the real deal. so he rules. i digress, the pompidou is a beautiful space and houses the room of rothko - a series of paintings m.r. did on commission for some nyc restaurant but upon completion thought better of it and donated the paintings on the condition that they would be displayed properly. they also have a media hall (more than a hall) of pieces done with colour, light, video, film etc.

also, there was a big pink room with gentle lighting AND a giant red patent-leather peep-toe heel. i mean giant, i could curl up in it comfortably and go to sleep in the toe while C stretched out in the heel area.

okay, more later...

london blogging - i stole that title from TB

What else did we do in london. we walked. we walked for days and miles to see the city. it's beautiful and grand and really frikkin' old. we walked so much that i still have blood blisters on the bottoms of my toes.

Things to know - the Thames is dirty. There is a floating monster in the Thames which has a sign that reads: I eat garbage. It's rigged with nets and sifts the garbage out of the water. And yet she is a grand and pretty twisty thing that moves through the city with a great deal of grace.

The Tower of London tour is totally worth every pound. The guides are hilarious, their knowledge of GBR's history is extensive and the tour around the palace, yes the Tower is an official castle/palace/royal residence--in addition to being the place where many a fine soul lost their head or just flat out disappeared. The ravens are fascinating and ungodly huge. There has to be, i think, 6 ravens in residence at the Tower at all times because there is an old prophecy that says when the ravens leave the Tower the royals will no longer rule Britain. Or something like that. The ravens are cared for, fed great chunks of meat and keep all the smaller birds away:)

The Big Bus Tour (the double decker red bus) is helpful, if you can pay attention to all the twists and turns. The ticket is good for 48 hours, and you can hop on and off and many stops all over the city. It also includes walking tours and free boat ride on the Thames. It's pretty cool and the bus dudes are chock full of information. I saw the Bank of England which is Gringott's bank in Harry Potter. That pleased me a great deal. Lame, i know, but there it is.

Things I might not do again
Piccadilly Circus is a special kind of hell--but iconic. As was Oxford Circus, but i think that was induced by the holiday shopping frenzy. Oxford was decked out in Christmas lights and it was a sea of humanity shopping for gifts and then shopping the boxind day sales. Pretty but koo koo.

Other good things
Leicester Square - great for theatre tickets and tonnes of book shops which i did not get enough time to root through. Also mental and bit like Yonge Street circa 1983 but the discount theatre tickets and the books are enough to bring me back.

With regret we did not go the British Museum (rosetta stone) or the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs) mostly because they were closed for many of the days of our trip. But these places are free (like most museums and galleries in London). But the Natural History was just down the street from our hotel and they had a big skating rink and christmas market out front - quite cute.

Blackfriars Pub - on the city side of the Blackfriars Bridge - YUM! Our first introduction to jacket potatoes. Basically a baked potato dressed in yummy things like baked beans and cheese served with a lovely salad. Much to our delight Blackfriars was a smoke-free pub. Which is a huge blessing if you don't smoke and if you are from a country where smoking in a bar is no longer permitted. The one thing that chased us out of more pubs and restaurants was smoking. It is so disgusting, perhaps more so when you are not used to it at all.

Waitrose - a grocery store chain - I could have moved in. The selection of cheese and meats and crunchy things blew my mind. Someone dropped a bottle of scotch on the floor while we were there so it also smelled pretty good.

High Tea at Fortnum & Mason is perhaps worth the very steep price tag just dine off their robin egg-shell blue china and to sit in the very comfy 4th floor tea room, complete with piano player. Tasty.

Both F&M and Harrods were mad full of people both before Christmas and after. The Christmas windows at Harrods featured James Bond and were kind of lame. I think F&M had an Alice in Wonderland theme which was very beautiful.

Something that disappointed me was the lack of obvious unique shopping. I mean, if you have loads of cash you can shop anywhere and go to all the really posh places - but that is not us. But even places like South Kensington, Sloane Square, Covent Garden, Carnaby Street etc were mostly filled with chain stores like H&M, Zara, Mango, Monsoon, Hobbs etc. As C reminded me, we weren't there to shop but i was a little crushed i didn't return with something uniquely london. Maybe next time.

I did buy a pair of fantastically ugly shoes that i love. i can't wait to wear them. they are all black spectators with a heel. if i knew how to post a photo, i would.

Question - on my mac my blogger doesn't let me add colour, links, photos etc like it does when i blog from my work PC. What's that about?

two tickets to paradise

C man and i went to London and Paris for a honeymoon type experience. Today I want to share with you some of the highlights from our trip - none of the dirty stuff, C would never approve.

London
okay, the underground is genius and easy to navigate and thanks to my friend E we knew enough to use osyter cards to pay for our transit. genius. the ride from the airport to gloucester road (location of hotel) was quick and easy. The first hotel was really an apartment hotel called Fraser Place Queens Gate Gardens. We had a huge room, bigger than many apartments, and it was clean and lovely.

Old Vic Theatre was host to the final days of Kevin Spacey's tour as artistic director and his production of "Moon for the Misbegotten". This is a hard play. Despite the excellent performance of Eve Best and Colm Meany--it is just a hard play. My thought was that the moral crisis of Spacey's character just doesn't translate today. What do i know.

Food near the Old Vic - there are many places to eat around the theatre but the tastiest and cheapest italian i've ever laid eyes on was at a place called Ray's. The staff don't speak much english but the pick and point menu is very helpful. Dinner for two, with wine and dessert and cappuccino cost a total of 20 pound. I can't find the "pound" symbol on my keyboard.

Spamalot is on at the Palace Theatre in London with Tim Curry (Arthur) and Christopher Seiber (Galahad) and Hannah Waddingham (Lady of the Lake) was fall out of your seat funny. Seriously, we got these super cheap tickets at Leicester Square which where row H seats 8 & 9 - a total score!!

Frost/Nixon was newly opened at the Gielgud Theatre (written by the same man who wrote The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl). Anyhoodle...fucking brilliant and excellent. Frank Langella plays Nixon and Michael Sheen plays Frost. I believe this will be on Broadway soon - if you are going to be in NYC - go see this play! It's tight. It's funny. It's dramatic, well written and intense.

At each play i thought of my friend TB and wondered what she would think.

the Tate Modern...we went twice...it bears repeating. Okay, so art and that is cool, hurray for art and Cameron and I will travel just about anywhere to visit Jackson Pollock. The collection is fantastic. Now, Cameron hates installation art, mostly, and i love it mostly - well specifically I like sound installations BUT the coolest installation ever is Carston Holler's Unilever series at the Tate Modern. A series of giant slides that run from each of the floors down to the bottom floor. If you've ever seen the Tate Modern it is a converted power plant of some sort--it's huge! The slide from the top floor was like riding a rocket. So fun!! As a sidebar...i begin to love the Marcel Duchamp. Also, the Tate cafeteria...super yummy.

The Globe theatre - well, so it's not the original site of the Globe, which is too bad. And they actually have the entire Rose theatre unearthed but opted to build the Globe instead. Oh well. The history lecture was very cool. The thatched roof is very cool. The cafeteria where they serve a yorkshire pudding the size of a hat filled with mashed potatoes, cumberland sausages and gravy rocked my world. If there was a church of sausage, I would go.

London churches - Westminister Abbey was, well, underwhelming. I don't know why but i didn't feel that crazy sense of awe that often scares me into thinking i should give up my pagan ways and pick a god. What can you do? St. Paul's, however, scared the bejesus into me. It's grand. It's beautiful. The Temple Church, very small compared to these others, but spectacularly beautiful--the windows are amazing. And the organist, perhaps annoyed by tourists, was rocking out on the organ when we were there--i think it was Iron Maiden.

Oh - and the Salsbury Cathedral also pretty swany. And the Abbey at Bath which was amazing from the outside but was locked up tight at 4:30 in the afternoon so i didn't get to go inside. Perhaps i tarried to long in the Baths.

The Roman Baths - very interesting. Bath itself, beautiful. i mean really beautiful. wow.

Okay, i have to get back to work but will post more soon. and will include Paris too.