I love the 3 F's - Food, Family and Friends. Not in that particular order.
This last trip was a combination of all three. We ate at Republic (my NY staple for noodle soup), Nyonya and Dervish. I got to see - Boutsy and Murat from Vancouver, Carmen, who recently moved back to North America from a five year stint in Switzerland and my big brother, Ken.
Stefan managed to rip the tendons off his fourth finger on his right hand at the last footy game. This condition is actually called jersey finger. I swear, I am not making it up as we googled it. So as Stefan's finger swells to a slight, purplish sized sausage and we find out that he needs to have surgery immediately as it's a time sensitive issue, the first thing out of his mouth was, "Man, how am I supposed to play squash?"
I really hope our children take up painting as a sport.
I have this thing with clearing customs. I tend to be very, very honest. I think part of this has to do with the fact that I travelled so much last year and I always seem to be the one getting pulled for searches. Never mind that there is some big, burly sketchy looking guy ahead of me, they just flag them through. Sure, just pull the innocent looking, often sleepy (darn those early morning flights) little Asian and go through her anally packed suitcase. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It drives me nuts because it takes so long for me to fit everything just so.
The worst part is when they look at my birth date and then my face, then my birth date again. Always the same type of statements about how young I look. Now, looking young is a great asset, I agree, but not when you travel for work and they think you're a teenager. I have a feeling they think I am either a mail order bride or something even more sinister.
Anyway, another reason for the honesty is a stylist friend of mine once lied about her purchases and now she gets flagged every time she crosses the border. I would rather pay the duties and customs fees than to be in the system as a troublemaker. I get rather nervous about this and so the complete honesty kicks in and this is usually what happens when they ask whether I have anything to declare.
"Errmmm...." (Big Breath and verbal diarrhea ensues)
"One skirt, polka dots, the black can almost be navy, it's really cute, kind of nautical.... Two necklaces but they were for a street vendor so it wasn't too expensive. Do I have to declare magazines because I bought at least 5 but I don't think they should count because everyone needs reading material, don't they? I got some presents and I don't really know how much those cost...but they were two of the cutest Paul Frank underwear, a sweater, a book, some great monogrammed stationary, a Jill Blissen journal that I've been eyeing for awhile...."
Usually when the customs officer is a man, I can see his eyes mentally roll back and there is a slight struck, glazed over look. They usually raise their hand, wearily stamp my form and wave me through. I think next time, I'll just write a list and hand it to them to save them the headache and my nervous stammering.
My mother likes to tell me that when I was about 2 years old, I was presented with a choice of shoes. One pair was a cheapie that was about $10 and the other was $50. According to her, they looked identical but when asked, I naturally gravitated to the more expensive pair. It's a pretty good start to the story of my life when it comes to shopping. It usually is when I don't know the label and I just love something because I do. Then I look at the price and I wonder how many good meals I can get out of it. I will take a good meal over mediocre shoes any day.
I was in New York this past week for the Spring 2007 fashion sales week. Twice a year, the city hosts major trade shows that showcase established and new designers. I have always had a soft spot for NY, every since my first trip when I was seventeen. My first trip is stuff of legends in my family. I wanted to check out Parsons and F.I.T. but my parents were adament that I should stay in Canada. Something about the "U.S and their lax gun laws."
I'm the type of person when you insist I go left, I'll definitely go right. I was on a Greyhound bus the week later and when I got there, I told them to send me money if I ran out. I think the only thing keeping them from sending the Canadian army after me was that my very conservative, straight as an arrow high school boyfriend decided to tag along. He was more effective than a parent, I must say, and only let me drink underage twice the entire 2 weeks I was there.
I have a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks (Woo Hoo! Christina and I will officially be the same age then). I have been thinking about my last entry. It's SO nice that so many people commented, via email and comments about how much they liked our space. It's always the same old story where you don't appreciate what you have. You know how when you have a space that you have had for awhile, you forget why you loved it in the first place? I've been feeling it lately when our place was the "One Big Pile." Even before I posted the last entry, some friends (as I had been contemplating moving) reminded me that they wanted to be the next one to take over our space.
Last year when I was travelling like a mad woman, I found that Stefan and I were snipping a lot. Many of the arguments had to do with the fact that the apartment was untidy when I got back. Marie thinks that I have OCD when it comes to cleaning and I think I may be a little OCD. Don't get me wrong, I am not the type of person who will follow you around my apartment and put back everything you misplace. I just find that I am so much calmer, especially during busy work periods, when the apartment is clean. This was especially so when I was on the road all the time. I would clean and even stay up if I had to, before leaving the next day. There's something about leaving and coming home to a clean apartment.
It's a funny industry that I work in. I am often torn by the superficiality of it all and yet I am still in it. I sincerely believe that many of us who are in it and are not "supermodels" (the tiny percentage that are in the world) are constantly grapling with the reality and non-reality of it. I remember living my teenage years here and flicking through magazines, thinking,"Wow! I cannot really relate with any of these rules by which people define beauty by."
And yet, during the times when my company had to hire models, (it was mainly I who was doing this part) that I could be so utterly critical of what I would consider beautiful. In my defense, I always liked to pick girls who people who would not conventionally be consider a "beauty", such as Alex Wek. Yet, I cannot deny that when it comes to someone where their trade is strictly their physical beauty that I am as critical as they come.
I've been meaning to post about this since it first happened. I was in the shower and Stef came and said,"Karen, Steve Irwin was killed by a sting ray. Total freak accident." My first reaction (and don't ask me why) whenever someone unexpected (when is it really expected) dies is to tell him to stop fooling around.
I went to Australia via Asia about 4 years ago and have very fond memories of it. Because of our affiliation with footy in Canada, most of our friends are Aussies. When Stef and I were travelling there, our regret was that we had not met earlier and gone to Australia while we were younger, as we would have loved to stay for a couple of years.
Recently Stefan installed Google Analytics on this site for me. It's because he's indulging my inner nerd. I just love looking at numbers and analyzing things. I have to say like all things Google related, it's pretty thorough. You can get all sorts of info such as percentage of unique visitors vs returning visitors, geo-locations of these visitors (hello reader from Chile!), most googled words used to find your site and visitors coming from site referrals.
For the most part, most of the people visiting seem to be people who already know the site or are referred to one of my other blog community's sites, which is so cool. However, my site being named what it is (Why o why couldn't I have picked something mundane like Karen's Thoughts?) I've noticed a couple of disturbing "googled" phrases over the time that leads them to this site. I am not going to repeat them here because that's just asking for the sickos to come in droves.
For those of you coming to this site looking for something else, (you know who you are) it's really too bad that you're not getting your kicks. I am flipping the bird at you and hoping that one day you will get your comeuppance. And I hope it's extremely excruciating, you fucking pervert.
Today, I went out in a skirt, tank top and a jean jacket. Bad idea. My brain can't reconcile with the fact that the seasons, they are a-changing.
Every year, the end of summer in Toronto is marked by the closing of the Canadian National Exhibition or better known as just, the Ex during Labour Day weekend. It's basically a hodge podge of dodgy food, money wasting games, questionable safety rides and SO MUCH FUN! It's not really something you do with just two people but in a big group. As usual the boys were all grumping about being forced to go with the girls but secretly, you know they love the idea of playing games and eating cotton candy.
We didn't win any hideous stuffed animals but we did go on rides. I felt so bad because there were a couple of rides where there were some little girls bawling their eyes out. Our wicked boys just howled with laughter and I told them that one day their little girls will go on those rides and cry too. I am sure they'll feel much more differently then. I swear the next time we go, I am going to go on the Crazy Mouse roller coaster and the giant slide. I don't care how "babyish" those things are. Everyone was making fun of me, saying how I might not be tall enough to go on rides. If I am small enough to pass as a child, I should be allowed to relive my childhood memories by going on all the silly rides too.
This Saturday, one of our favourite couples, Kevin and Adrienne got married at the family farm. The wedding planning over the summer had slowly become the stuff of legends. Kevin, who had spent most of his childhood at his family farm, had decided that he needed to "clean" up the woods. He practically spent all summer clearing felled trees (created by a very busy beaver that winter), making new nature trails, and building a gazebo near the pond where the ceremony would take place. Due to the heavy rains (damn you Ernesto) the ceremony was held under a big giant tent. Kev and Ad, who are naturally so laid back, never let this hindrance bother them and had a really great time.