There are some definite pluses to being a public servant-Dental and medical coverage, nice pension, job security and we get Remembrance Day off. I spent part of that day ruminating on the courage of former and current soldiers and feeling very grateful for their sacrifices.  Yay! for freedom and democracy! While the rest of the day was spent in a rush of creative productivity and I finished this painting:..

…and got started on another one. Since it was a nice sunny day and those are becoming few and far between, I took my materials outside and painted en plein air. I also watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and quite liked it. There were some genuinely beautiful scenes in that movie. (And not just the ones of Brad Pitt swimming naked. Although those were nice too! LOL)

Tonight, I’ll be going to French which will be weird since it feels like forever since I’ve gone. My instructor was sick, then I was sick, so it will probably be awkward. Ah well, I’m considering taking a French painting class in the winter, so that way I can improve both my painting and French language skills. Two birds, one stone, non?

It was a nice weekend-Full of yummy food and socializing. Saturday morning was the Ottawa Blogger’s breakfast and the Fox and Feather was packed to the gills with bloggers. I met Capital City Chris and a few others, as well as caught up with some familiar people. We sat with Raino and her two daughters, but this time, the hot sauce stayed put in the container and didn’t wind up again in her hair again. LOL

After we left I took a picture of the outside building, which caused hubby to roll his eyes and say “Do you have to take a picture of everything?”

Yes, yes I do.

Then we rushed home so hubby could get started on his school projects. Later that night, we went to Mayo, Québec to my bellydance instructor’s house for a pasta dinner potluck.  She lives WAY out in the boonies and there weren’t a lot of signs or illumination in that area, so driving around there at night was frustrating.  Anyway, because I like to document everything, here is a picture of the ferry across the Ottawa River.

My instructor, in addition to teaching dance, also makes pottery and small ceramics, like this lady:

and these very cool mugs:

They also had this deer head on the wall, which I’m guessing they inherited from some great-grandpa, because neither of them strike me as hunters. (I honestly do not understand why people put dead carcases on their walls.)

Anyways, we had some nice homemade and store bought pasta and engaged some of her friends in coversation. I chatted with this guy and his wife and probably overshared a bit on my creative endeavors. 

Interesting story-A couple of years ago, when I was pursuing photography more seriously, I took some slightly more risqué photos and used them to pad my portfolio. One of my models was quite the character. I like to photograph people as they are most comfortable and his “thing” was leather, chains and S&M stuff. He was a big gay bear and a very nice guy and I think we created some fantastic yet tasteful photos, but it wasn’t stuff that you would find on postcards or anything.

Anyway, I was sitting there, wine in hand yammering away about my early photo adventures, while this couple looked at me horrified! LOL. Which kinda surprised me because I’m fairly reserved and maintain a strictly professional relationship with my subjects.  Personally, I think some of the best photos can come from going outside your own comfort zone and engaging different kinds of people and cultures.

Yesterday I started working on this penguin and after some quick colouring, decided to post it, since its been awhile. The picture didn’t scan very well, but it can be difficult to get clear, bright colours using pencil crayons. Perhaps I should start using markers and pens..hmm.

Are there any artists out there that use these mediums in their drawings?

“You look weird”

This phrase came out of my husband’s mouth recently as we departed to do our grocery shopping. Apparently he didn’t want to be seen with his wife in public if she was wearing her fabulous cat hat. My response was: “Well I happen to like my cat hat and am proud of my cat lady craziness, so shaddap!”

He was probably teasing and he does love (or well tolerates) my ‘weird’ accessories and purchases, but his remark along with XUP recent post on adulthood got me thinking. Perhaps I am too old for such frivolities.  My current employment existential crisis has prompted me to become more serious about my career and make some changes. But should moving up the corporate food chain require forfeiting all character and personality, in order to become a bland drone?

Do we all have to become the same kind of stereotypical adult? Wearing the same “grownup” clothes, eating the same food, watching the same shows and discussing inane topics around the water coler?

Yech! No thanks! Perhaps the trick to real happiness is to ‘play’ pretend adult Monday-Friday, 9-5pm and let your silly child side shine in your off-time. Cat hat or no cat hat.

This week has been crazy busy, and rather than bore you all with a giant paragraph, I figured I would describe it succintly in point form instead.

Monday

-On the way home from work on the bus. I spot a seat at the far back, but its a tight squeeze in-between two guys.  I look at the seat hesitatingly until one of the men says to me: “Sit down. You are the highlight of my day anyways.” Um..thanks?

-Went to bellydance class with my jazzy new scarf. Turns out the rest of the class bought new hip scarves too and we make a lot of noise jingling around. My instructor is trying to recruit dancers for the beginner’s class performance. I raise my hand to join, then she tells the class we’ll be dancing in front of 350 people! Yikes!

Tuesday

-My neighbours are making all sorts of noise, like their moving furniture or installing shelves, at 7am. It sounds like there are raccoons  in the pipes.

-Finally got around to seeing a physiotherapist who advised me to see the sports doctor on site who can refer me to get an x-ray. The physio also provides me with exercises to strengthen my “core”. Unfortunately for most people, the sports doctor only works Mon-Friday, 9-5, so its gonna take some manoevering to see her.

Wednesday

-Went to my second “Comic Jam” at Shanghai restaurant. On my way there, I spotted this licence plate. It says “Cup4Sens”. Gotta love a man with optimism eh?

The Jam was great-the food was yummy and the “Halloween-themed” drawings were hilarious and very cool. There weren’t as many artists this time around, but there were some journalism students who came to report on the event. I got interviewed by a girl from CKCU and tried my best not to appear too nervous. She also tried to capture the sound of a pencil drawing on paper with her microphone, so I was sitting there attempting to draw and kept accidently tapping her mic with my pencil. Oops! Anyways, here is a photos of the event:

Here is a sample of the drawings, to see them all go to the site. I drew the first square and the silliness grew from there.

Thursday

-My software at work is driving me bonkers and I wonder why the financial system we use at work can’t be easier and more user friendly? Why does it take ten people to fix one little issue?

-Fully intended to go and see Stella perform that night but with a sore throat, I decided not to risk infecting her and the rest of the patrons at the tavern.

Friday

-After work, I felt bummed about my stagnant daytime career and how alienated I feel from my work group. Wine helped me forget about it a bit.

Saturday

-Took the cats and dog to the vet. $400 later, their butts may not smell pinesol fresh, but they are healthier

-Got my hair done and fooled around with my camera

-That night, stayed home, ate candy and watched Trick ‘r Treat while kids showed up demanding that I share my ’stash’

Sunday

-Went out and bought hubby a videogame for his birthday, which he spent all day playing. I think he likes it.

-Did some painting and promised to myself that I would start cleaning next weekend.

Is it wrong that I find certain ’evil’ movie characters seriously hot? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m just nuts.  Since it’s almost Halloween, I thought it would be fun to disturb you all with my list of the “sexiest bastards” to ever grace the big screen. 

 1. Cillian Murphy-”Scarecrow” in Batman Begins

Personally, I prefer him without the cloth sac over his head. LOL.  Something about mad genuises always gets me!

2. Ralph Fiennes-Red Dragon/Francis Dolarhyde from movie “Red Dragon”

Maybe it’s because I love the novel so much or maybe its due to my appreciation for his sinewy back muscles accented by that beautiful Blake tattoo, but damn is he fine! Sure he murders families and has a split personality, but nobody’s perfect right?

3. Tadanobu Asano as Kakihara in “Ichi the Killer”

I’ve seen a few Japanese “yakuza/action” flicks and while many of them are beyond ridiculous, this one is a little less so with interesting characters and visuals. Kakihara is a crime boss who is also a twisted pervert and loves giving and receiving pain.  (So much so that he slashes the corners of his mouth and staples the cuts together. Ow!) Which I guess makes him a good antagonist. I don’t appreciate or respect sick scumbags like this in real life, but as a strictly fictional character, for some crazy reason I find him attractive. Go figure! (Now if only he could improve his wardrobe)

4. Billy Zane-The Collector in ”Demon Knight”

Speaking of gory flicks,  Zane provides a nice distraction as a demon who is searching for a key that will plunge the Earth into the Devil’s playground. He’s not only hot, but also very funny in this movie!

5. Gerard Butler “Dracula 2000″

So this pick is kinda obvious-Most women find Gerard attractive and probably doubly so as the die-hard romantic Dracula. Personally, I just like seeing him with his shirt open.

6. Malcolm McDowell-Alex deLarge in “Clockwork Orange”

Yet another ‘gang’ leader and all round evil bastard who gets neutered in a experiment to reduce violent tendencies in criminals. But you gotta love a guy who appreciates Beethoven though.

What about you? Any favorite male or female villains?

Pictures:

Scarecrow-http://screenrant.com/chris-nolan-reteams-scarecrow-niall-6514/

Red Dragon-http://www.aveleyman.com/FilmCredit.aspx?FilmID=25837

Kakihara-http://www.robink.ca/movies/ichi-the-killer-2001/

The Collector-http://www.best-horror-movies.com/demon-knight.html

Dracula-http://mereshorrorscifireviews.blogspot.com/2009/02/dracula-2000.html

Alex-http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2007/11/a_life_spent_chafing_moguls_an.html

On Saturday morning, my mom and I went to a bellydancer’s bazaar. After the doors opened, we went in and I followed the signs to the nearest ATM machine. The machine was located in a bar next door and as I approached the door, this jerk of a vendor sitting on the sidelines looked at me and said:”Can I have your card”
Me *thinking he meant my admission ticket, gave him said ticket*

Him: “What is this? No, I want your bank card. I want your money”

Me: *Glared at him like “wtf?” *

Him: “That was a joke.”

Me: “Fun-nny”

Because nothing is more hilarious than pretending to stick someone up. Moron! Anyways, I got my money from next door and after ignoring his next comment “Where’s my money”, we were all set to browse.

I wish that I had taken some pictures of the individual merchandise, but I wasn’t sure if that would be o.k.  My multi-talented bellydance instructor was there giving tarot card readings and invited my mom into her “tent” for a reading. I tend to be a little bit skeptical of tarot card/palm readers, but apparently she gave my mom a very accurate reading. While she was in there, I managed to buy a very nice Turkish coin belt, since my last one got misplaced during our last move.

Saturday morning was also when hubby took Marcus to the vet since our cat has been smelling pretty nasty this past while. Turns out he had infected anal glands and the vet took him downstairs to have them “expressed” and got a shot for the infection at the same time. Needless to say, Marcus was not impressed! LOL. I never heard about this issue before, but these glands need to be expressed regularly or else your pet can run into major problems. But I read recently that putting more fibre in your cat or dog’s diet can help.  We’ll be taking our whole ménagerie to the vet’s this weekend to get all their butts checked. And if you own a dog or cat and haven’t done this yet already, I recommend you do the same thing!

             Sorry, I had to post this video, because its so silly!

Tonight would’ve been my French class but the instructor is sick, so its been cancelled. This suits me fine because Aunt Flo came to town and I’m just not feeling up to yakking it up with strangers in an overlit room. How is the French going you ask? Well, knock on wood, its been going well. I’ve been chatting with French/Belgian/Québecois penpals, studying various language books, listening to French music, watching French TV (the cheesy soaps are entertaining) and reading French books. (Like this weird one) Now I just have to keep it up and hopefully my confidence in that language will be much better!

Anyways, the rest of my time has been divided up between dance class, painting, drawing and cleaning.  Hubby also wants us to go to Toronto again for a communal birthday party between him and his friends who live there.  I must be getting old/lazy, because I don’t really want to go that far again for a shindig. I mean we just got back! Ah well, we’ll see how it goes!

We left on Thursday afternoon hoping to beat the Toronto rush hour. Unfortunately, Toronto’s traffic is bad all the time. As much as I enjoy visiting this metropolis, I honestly, have no idea how people can drive there and stay sane.  Anyways, we arrived later than expected so we didn’t do much that day. On Friday, however, we decided to head out to the Ontario Science Centre.

I was VERY excited to visit this place because “Body Worlds” is currently having an exhibition there. Hubby wasn’t much interested in seeing filayed corpses on display (What’s wrong with him? LOL), but he agreed to go with me anyway. Unfortunately, they didn’t let us take any photos. (To see some pictures, go here) It pisses me off when venues have that policy and the only reason I can see behind it is so they can make more money with the exhibits merchandise. ie:

But Body Worlds is really cool and a great educational tool for learning first hand all ab0ut the inner workings of the human body. The rest of the Science Centre had lots of interactive games like this:

So naturally we spent some time screwing around with the various perception and logic games. After awhile my back started to ache (tailbone issues again), so we headed back to the hotel, but not before snapping some pictures of more crazy licence plates.  It turns out, Toronto is a regular cornocopia of funny and ridiculous plates:

This one says-T UP FOR FUN. (Oh golfers!)

I saw two others but didn’t have my camera on hand at the time. One had a plate that read “Mumzi” (gag!), while the other was this huge, obnoxious truck that said “Truck” (Lest there be any confusion)

The next day-Saturday-was the day of the wedding, but it wasn’t until later, so we went shopping. If you want to be really specific, we were actually staying in the town of Markham and Markham is about 70% Chinese. We went into one such Asian malls and were pretty much the only non-Asians around. It kinda felt like walking around in public naked. But I had a craving for Hong Kong buns, so we went to a bakery, where no one spoke a lick of English and were stared at like we were some lost tourists. LOL.  The woman behind the counter was really rude, but ah well, I got the buns, so that’s all that mattered at that point.  I didn’t want to draw any more attention, so I waited until we were outside and took a picture of the mall.

There are a number of Chinese malls in Markham and while they can make you feel self conscious if you’re non-Asian, they are great for finding authentic restaurants, desserts (as mentioned) mini Buddhas and Chinese pop music and movies.  Next up came the wedding and here is a nice blurry one.

It was a nice reception and the food was not very vegetarian, but there was an open bar which everybody took full advantage of. One of hubby’s childhood friends was pretty in the bag most of the night and when we were in the ladies together, was feeling insecure and complained about her looks. ie:

Her: “I hate my (insert any random body feature)

Me: “You’re crazy! You are beautiful.”

Her: “I don’t believe you!”

Seriously? Now I know what men have to go through in vainly trying convince their girlfriends that they are attractive women! Sheesh! But in her defense, weddings do have a way of bringing out your insecurities if you’re single, which she is. But and this is no lie, I’m sure she won’t be single for long, since she is a sweet gal. Anyways, after more drinking and silly dancing, the venue apparently was done for the night and turned on all the lights, telling all the guests to go home.  It was only midnight, but I was relieved, because by the second rotation of ‘Uptown Girl’, I was ready to hit the hay.  On Sunday, we woke up early, met my brother and his girlfriend for an awesome breakfast at “Fox and Fiddle” (I forgot to include the photos) and left for Ottawa.

Along the way we stopped for the tourist trap known as the ‘Big Apple’.

Here you can go on kiddie rides, feed llamas and eat apple desserts.

It smelled like heaven in that place! But I didn’t want to bring something home that would’ve gotten wrecked anyways, so we just watched the apple pie making in process but didn’t sample.

When we got back home, I thought I could finally sleep the hangover (I mean, fatigue) away, but last night, I only slept for about four hours. The electricity in our house kept going on and off  and by the fourth time, I said “screw it” and went downstairs to watch ‘Hannibal Rising’ on TV.

So that’s our last big trip for awhile and its back to normal. I’m hoping I can make it through work today and bellydance class. Then again, the buns I bought will probably help.

Hubby and I are leaving for Toronto later today. This Saturday is our last wedding and I’m still sick! But I guess timing isn’t everything! (Or at least not with me. LOL)

Anyways, I’ll post some pictures when I return, but in the meantime have a great weekend!

Picture from-http://www.ostlerpetloverinfo.com/category/dog-health/