Hair where there should be none

What's that, you ask? How many curly little black hairs did I find in my thai takeout from last night? Three. Three curly little black hairs.

I found the first last night and decided to play it cool and keep eating, hair happens. At least it never made it into my mouth.

While putting my leftovers onto a plate this afternoon I found number two. I told myself to relax, it was probably just the other half of the first one.

And then, dangling precariously from a noodle on my fork, just seconds from entering my mouth, I spotted number three. And that, my friends, is when I threw away my thai takeout.

Everyone has a breaking point, mine used to be hair number one, and I think this experience has just set me back to that good old standard. One hair is one too many.

Thoughts

The guys on the reality TV show Big Brother must have some sort of "no shirt" clause in their contract.

Listening to

"Midnight Room" – Blaudzun

Decadent Summer Salad for Two

This recipe is a mixture of a few favourite salads of mine. I made it for my girlfriends last weekend and again tonight for Luc. Since Luc isn't much of a salad guy, I know I've done well when he eats the whole thing and doesn't end up rummaging through the kitchen cupboards afterwards.

2 handfuls of strawberries
1 mandarin orange
1 avocado
1 large handful of pecans (candied, if you like them sweet and crunchy like me)
1/4 red onion
1/2 tube goat cheese
1 small head of butter lettuce
Raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing (I use Kraft Raspberry Vinaigrette)

-Rinse butter lettuce and tear into bite size pieces
-Slice strawberries length wise
-Peel mandarin and cut slices in halves
-Cut avocado into slices or chunks (whichever you prefer)
-Dice red onion
-Arrange butter lettuce on two plate and toss with red onion
-Top with the cut up fruit and avocado
-Sprinkle on pecans
-Break up goat cheese into small pieces and top salad
-Add as much salad dressing as you like and enjoy!

Celebration of Light: Spain's Finale Fireworks

For any non-Vancouverites, the Celebration of Light is an annual fireworks show that happens on various nights throughout a few weeks in the summer. Different countries compete to put on the best fireworks display set to music. And let me tell you, people LOVE it. On Saturday night I had front row seats watching from my cousin's balcony.

We watched the masses of people flooding into English Bay to watch the fireworks.

At one point we saw a sea of foam floating down the curb's edge and followed its origins to a kid getting his beer dumped by the cops. We had a few more drinks on the balcony and waited for the sun to set.

The darker it got, the more people crowded onto the beach and the grassy areas below. We were feeling pretty good about our spacious spot on the 23rd floor.

With the throngs of people came boat after boat...after boat. The waters surrounding English Bay and Stanley Park were packed with party boats, yachts and tipsy sailors. 

After a few pre-show teasers, the fireworks began, the music blared, and we watched from our perch. 

I caught the finale on video. I like to think of firework finales as the time when the designers look at the giant pile they have left after planning the bulk of the show, then blow everything they have left at once. 

The Social Network: aka the Facebook movie

Watching movie trailers is like a drug for me, so when I took a few minutes in the midst of a particularly drab workday to check out this one, it was well worth it. "The Social Network" is about the creation of Facebook and the scandals surrounding it, and if the eerie trailer featuring a children's choir rendition of Radiohead is any indication of what's to come, the movie is going to be powerful, revealing and all-round fantastic. I'm a lover of social media and I'm fascinated with the way it's shaped an entire generation of people and changed the way we live, love, build relationships, do business, communicate, and project ourselves on others. And so many other things. It would be cool to see a movie—maybe a documentary, for that matter—with a larger scope, covering more than just one social media outlet and how it shapes the lives of people from different generations. It may already exist, I just haven't heard of it yet.


The Social Network trailer

Engagement Photo Fun

This evening we did our engagement photoshoot with lovely husband-wife team at Blu Studio Photography. And despite the first 15 minutes of gut-wrenching awkwardness, the rest was a blast. It turns out looking cute on camera isn't as easy as it seems. There was a lot of "uhhh...should I look at the camera? Look away? At the camera? Away?" And plenty of "smile? Should we smile? Serious? Too serious? Smile again?" And then the inevitable bouts of uncontrollable laughter from both Luc and me.

I'm glad that we did the engagement photos, it's definitely going on my list of advice for brides-to-be. Lots of friends will surely be getting engaged in the next few years and I'm slowly compiling tidbits of advice based on our own wedding-planning follies. Here are a few pieces of annotated advice from the journey thus far.

Test out DIY wedding invitation designs

When we did our DIY wedding invitations, I knew it would be a lot of work, but we faced problems I definitely hadn't anticipated. Did you know that printers won't print a full bleed if you have custom-sized paper? Neither did we. In the end, we worked it out, but there was probably a better way of doing things than buying and returning 4 printers just to make the design work.

Do engagement photos with your photographer

Posing for "candid" photos—an oxymoron, I know—is awkward enough. But pile on a couple of strangers and wedding day nerves, and it's probably going to be a lot more uncomfortable. So if you have the chance to do a photoshoot and get to know your photographer pre-wedding day, do it! It's actually pretty fun!

Plan ahead for your engagement photo shoot

We played it pretty casual when choosing the location: the train tracks by our house, which didn't turn out terrible, but probably wasn't an ideal location in the photographer's eyes. We also picked our outfits the night before. And as it so happened, the dress I was supposed to wear was very wrinkly from a trip to Saskatchewan in April, and our steamer...broken. I took the dress to the dry cleaners this morning at 7am, went to pick it up after work and they were already closed. Luc pulled off a total knight in shining armour move when I showed up at home in tears, 45 mins before the photoshoot. He wandered over to the dry cleaners, worked some magic, and voila, arrived home 5 mins later, dress in hand. Moral of the story: get organized more than 24 hours in advance.

Don't pay for wedding hair prices

This nugget of wisdom hasn't been fully tested yet, but you'll know where I'm going with this when you see how much salons charge for a "bridal updo." My friend Liz is doing my wedding hair, so all that will cost me is a nice bottle of wine. And when my friend Kate gets married, she's telling the salon she's a bridesmaid, not a bride. Not a bad way to avoid the inevitable "because you're a bride" markup.

And unfortunately there's nothing you can do from preventing your reception location from burning down.

Thoughts

This can't be comfortable.

Chapel: Vancouver hat store to save the day

Because of construction in East Vancouver, my bus home from work in Burnaby has been 40 mins late every day, which led me to take an alternative route, which consists of a skytrain and two bus transfers. The second bus on my new route was also late, and the bus stop that I was forced to kill time at was located in front of a new store I'd never seen before. It's a hat store called Chapel and it's on Broadway and Granville (for my Vancouver readers!) — the selection is wide and the guy who works there is a helpful, charming aussie. I've always hated wearing sunglasses, so finding a good hat is a much preferred alternative for avoiding the sun squint. I think the two of us will be very happy together this summer.

It's not all about me, I swear

It's been a hectic week here in the city, so Luc and I have planned another weekend escape to the mountains. These mountains, however, are significantly more populated than the ones we trekked into last weekend. Not so much mountains, per se, as an overly developed town.

We're going to relax and read and pretty much just hang around. After all, I need my beauty rest, we have our engagement photos next week. In preparation I got my hair dyed, just a touch-up to add a little excitement to my otherwise mousy look. According to people at work though, my darker hair makes me look like an evil-twin version of myself.

After all of that self-indulgent "me" talk, I feel I owe you, my lovely readers, a story:
Last week a woman on the bus had her cat with her in a carrier. When she noticed me staring at her kitty she began talking to me, telling me how much the cat loved buses. I asked if she was just taking the cat for a ride, she replied that the cat was sick and she was taking her to get help. Then she got off. At the hospital. The human hospital. I wonder how that went?

Do people actually do this?

At Tim Horton's last week I asked for a large coffee with two milks. Same as usual. I stood to the side, waiting for my order. A couple minutes later the woman behind the counter shot a panicked look in my direction and cautiously held out the coffee cup in front of me. "Ma'am, are you sure you want twenty milks in your coffee? Seems more like a latte." The cup was literally filled to the brim with cold milk.

Officially in my "late" twenties

Today is my 26th birthday, or as my mom described it, "being closer to 30 than to being 20." The day got off to a less-than-stellar start as I walked from the bus station to the Tim Horton's in a swirling cloud of skunk spray. A giant skunk had been squished on the highway, and the weather on this particular morning was nothing short of a howling gale, sending the potent stink in a far-reaching radius that included the bus station where I get off, the Tim Horton's that I patronize and the front door to my office building.

As I walked to get my morning coffee, the smell seemed to be following me, so much so that I thought I may have been sprayed by a skunk and not noticed it in my Monday daze. I started to panic, wondering how long it would take to get the smell out of my hair and clothing. Would I need some sort of skunk bath?  Should I cancel my Tuesday night hair appointment? Would dyeing my hair help with the smell? Should I still go into the office? Will Tim Horton's serve me smelling like this? Will the skunk bath fade my tan from the weekend? Amid the ridiculous questions I was asking myself, I saw the black, white and red smearing of skunk on the road. It was really, really gross. I was sad to see the dead skunk, yet relieved to see the root of the evil smell.

The rest of the day was great; I got cake at work, cake at my parents' house, lots of love and messages from friends and family, and at the end of the day I didn't smell like skunk. What more could a girl ask for?

Success!

After months of endless searching, trying on way-too-sky-high heels that make me a giant, lamenting over the hideously trampy shoes some designers try to pass off as "bridal"...I finally found white wedding shoes with a low heel. Halle-freakin-lujah!

Obsessed with

Ugly Betty.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to start watching this show. I've been an assistant before and I work in publishing. I've buttered toast, picked up dry cleaning, made reservations, driven cars to the shop, tracked down impossible items, planned parties....I've been an under-appreciated Betty, so watching this show is especially fun. As for the publishing aspect, the magazine office that I'm currently interning in is nothing like Mode's hyper-dysfunctional, high-class office of chaos, fashion and scandal...but after all, it is just a show.

Wedding photos in the wild

Luc and I managed to get out of the house on this particularly lazy Sunday and find the good weather that was hiding in the city next door. We drove to Steveston for frozen yogurt and to scout out our location for the post-ceremony photo shoot. We chose the Britannia Shipyard in Steveston because of the beautiful, natural surroundings and the great, beat-up old buildings. The way I described it to Luc was, "you know, the contrast of our fancy clothes and the shitty old buildings. It'll look kinda cool and vintagey and all that crap." Luc said that was "very elegantly put." I agreed. And if we have time after photos here, we're planning on heading down the boardwalk for ice cream before we arrive at the ceremony. Here's hoping that I don't get chocolate hedgehog on my white satin.

Monthly Photo - July 2010

Luc faces a formidable opponent atop the Chief.

July 2010 Banner