trick or treat

It's amazing how a scent can take you right back. And not just to where you were but how you felt. Last night as I carved the top off of the first of these pumpkins I took a deep breath of childhood. One sniff of fresh, raw, pumpkin and I was back with my brothers at a kitchen table covered with newspapers. Pumpkin carvers in hand we were all set to go. (To this day I don't understand how they cut pumpkin but not skin.)

There were years when we had a pumpkin each and years when we had one huge pumpkin between us. Either way what I remember along with that scent of pumpkin was the anticipation. Something wonderful was about to happen. It happened about the same way every year. I loved the feel of "pumpkin guts", Dave didn't like it as much. Mark tried to smear it in my face. I squealed. Our designs stayed on a theme. We were mostly a traditional "faces" bunch. This was long before we'd learned the finer points of pumpkin carving, the importance of carving the tiniest details first and largest details last. But it was something we did together. And it was wonderful.

Tonight as I've been on the other side of the trick-or-treat door I was thinking about the costumes I can still remember. I was a clown several times, an Indian squaw (complete with brown woolen braids). There was the year I was Wee Willy Winkle and learned why Hallowe'en costumes should have as few props as possible. One year I went as a high society lady swanning around the neighborhood in my Grandma's real fur coat. She would have had a FIT if she'd known. I remember Mark as the blue ghost from PacMan one year and a gangster another. Later on Dave would prove to be the best at costuming. He has an imagination that dreams entire worlds.

I remember the trial of eating dinner Hallowe'en night. (It took so long.) We had endless existential discussions of what constitutes "dark". "Is it dark now Mom? Can we go?" After the frenzy of the night was over my brothers and I would meet in the front room. I don't know why we always met in there, it was one of those rooms that you weren't really supposed to use. But each year we met there dumping out our bags so the yearly sort could begin. Anticipation gave way to excitement and then in the manner of children, bargaining. It seemed that we went out that night in the fullness of Fall but found winter waiting for us in the morning.

All these years later it's all still there. Just waiting in the scent of fresh pumpkin.

only that which can be fixed is broken

The good news is that I'm fine. Bruised, but fine. My car is not looking so pretty. Coming home from work last night I was in my first car accident ever. I would be quite happy for it to be the last.

Everyone is fine, thank God Himself. Only that which can be fixed is broken. As the doctor told me the car did its job and "sacrificed itself to take the brunt of the force". Poor little car. I feel very fortunate. It could have been so much worse. I was looking at the accident report the police officier gave me. There are two tiny little boxes labelled "Number of Injured" and "Number of Dead". Mercifully both boxes on my form are empty.

I've spent today resting. Driving is a little painful -- seatbelt buckle resting on top of a seatbelt buckle bruise. I went to the local pool to sit in the hottub for a while. I think it helped. Public hot tubs are a strange concept but we haven't quite gotten one installed at the House of Mirth just yet. Needs must.

There were four of us in the spa and I was the only one without tattoos. How strange. One guys had two half sleeves and it was hard not to notice them. No one looks anyone else in a public hot tub. Sleeve guy and I made eye contact only once, brief and awkward, shattering the lie that each of us was here alone.

For the next couple of days I'll be bumming around in a rented Chevy Aveo. As the commercials promise it does have a "neat-o sound system" but I'm not convinced that it's "fun to drive". Here's hoping I'll be back in my little, black Civic before long.

got moo?

This has to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Everytime I look at it I get a head full of a thousand ways to play with it. It's like a really big box of crayons for grown-ups only so much cooler.
Moo.com is a company out of London that is offering custom printing of minicards from your Flickr photos. Cool right? But here's the best part: they're $20/100 and you get to choose up to 100 different images per pack! There's also space for up to 5 lines of text, full colour, on the back along with your Flickr buddy icon (optional). No additional charge.

Imagine the possibilities. . .

A contact of mine who is a professional make-up artist has started using them in place of traditional business cards. I'm imaging art projects and think that I might just have found the ultimate cure to grey cubicle walls. There is already a gallery of what people are doing with these on Flickr. Just looking at the promo photo inspires me. So much colour, so many choices. So much fun! And at this price, I can afford to play.

I'm placing my order this week-end.

amazing indeed

Over the week-end I finished reading Michael Chabon's Pulitzer prize-winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Wow. Wow. Wow. If you're looking for a feast, this is your book. It's taken me a couple of weeks to finish, not because it was slow or uninteresting but rather because the story, the language, is so delightfully dense. It's like my Mom's British Christmas cake -- so rich and full of flavour that it would be a sin to rush through it.

This is a book that begs you take your time and well rewards those willing to linger. I found myself reading sentences over again. I caught myself reading aloud in places because the music of the text was too good to waste in silence. I savoured this book over breakfast and at the beach and in bed and in stolen moments waiting for the office microwave to warm-up my lunch. It was so worth the savoring.

Chabon made me reach for a dictionary more than once, so he'd have my gratitude if had he written a story only half as satisfying. This is a truly epic tale. On the surface it's about a pair of cousins who stumble into the comic book business in New York just as the jaws of the second world war are opening to devour Europe. But just past the cover of what they are supposed to be doing lies a world of real heroes: a boy trying to save the family he left behind, a girl reaching out to an unreachable boy, a man stepping into another's responsibilities, a child speaking the words the grown-ups have forgotten how to say. It is a story of family, of struggle, of loss, of the great surprise of coming home and the paradox that sometimes the only way to truly get home is walk out of your own front door.

I had to delay the book that was next on my list and sub-in something lighter. My brain isn't ready for another serving of solid food quite yet. I'm still digesting this one. I picked up a short novel, something to cleanse the pallet. It would be disrespectful to go back to the table so soon after being so well satisfied.

visitors and photos

Guess what I'm thankful for this year. . . . I'll give you a hint, it starts with "F" and it rhymes with "tamily". I know I'm a few days late for a Thanksgiving post, but hey aren't we supposed to be thankful all year? I guess I'm starting early for next year.

It's crazy to think that Thanksgiving has come and gone already but there are pumpkins on my mantel so it must be true. I had a great time setting out leaves and gourds again this year. I never used to decorate for Thanksgiving but there's something about this house, this neighborhood, that just makes it make sense.

Janie and Corrina spent the day after Thanksgiving here and we had a great time. It was such a beautiful day we HAD to go to the water -- afterall these ladies live in a landlocked province, horrors! We bundled up the baby and headed down for a good, long walk. What a great way to spend an afternoon. Dave, we took the next two pictures for you, one of the kite surfers who were really, REALLY enjoying the day, and one of your girls walking the boardwalk (and missing you I'm sure).
There are, of course, more photos of the Little Bean so for Grandparents, Parents and any other interested parties, you can see more of Corrina and the lady responsible for at least half of her cuteness on Flickr. But because it can be such a long way all the way over to Flickr, here are a few more gratis.

Enjoy! (I know I did.)

indulgent

Time is one of the great luxuries in life and today has been a very indulgent day. It didn't get quite as far as the "complacencies of the peignoir and late coffee and oranges" that Wallace Stevens wrote of but it came close. I realized this morning that I couldn't remember the last time I had taken my lunch down to the beach. Clearly today was a day to take to the sea.

There are many great sandwich shops in White Rock and after doing my civic duty and supporting local business I made a beeline for the water. I had almost forgotten that it is October -- I swear it still feels like it should be late August at best -- but down at the water's edge the Fall in inescapable. I breathed it in.

I still miss my favorite reading spot that got blown away in the storm last winter. It was a HUGE piece of driftwood that must have been part of a barge at some point. I remember trying to imagine its slow progress up the beach. One day it was there, immovable. It was a perfect spot to stretch out, level enough to set a cup of coffee on. The next day it was gone. I haven't found a good replacement yet, but I came a little closer today. There's a new configuration of driftwood that acts almost like a recliner just with a little less padding. All in all, not a bad place to read.

All day today I've moved at my own pace, doing only exactly what I feel like doing. I bought pumpkins to decorate the fireplace and strung leaves into a garland. I learned today that you can bake cookies in a toaster oven if you're really determined to do so and willing to wait out baking two dozen four cookies at a time. You have to double the cooking time which seems strange to me but there you go. I've kept the TV off and the radio on. It's been a good day.

Sidenote: anyone have any ideas on fixing an oven that spontaneously stops working? It's not the power supply because the range top still works. I've replaced the fuses in the stove and also checked the main kitchen fuses. It shouldn't be the element itself because that was replaced last year. Very strange. Good thing I'm not the one cooking the turkey tomorrow!

Speaking of turkey, Happy Thanksgiving one and all! May your table be full and your heart satisfied.

not exactly high speed

Well that was weird. The YouTube video I tried to load over a week ago magically appeared on my blog today. I'm pretty sure it would have arrived faster if I had put the video in an envelope and mailed it to myself -- and that's using Canada Post. Wow.

Consider this a public service announcement:

If you're planning to embed a YouTube video in your blog skip the easy looking "add this video to your blog" link and just grab the code. Turns out it's much faster.

Long live the code monkeys (just because Blogger made everything push button doesn't mean we can't still come out to play).

this one's for Dave

Hey little brother, I enjoyed the Animaniacs vid so much I deided to see if I could dig up a copy of Conversational Norewegian with Freakazoid. And sure enough here it is. Do you remember way back when. . . you drew me a poster of this? It hung on many of my dorm room walls and always made me smile. Even when Calculus was doing a serious number on my head I can't help but smile at the "happy little narwhale" (although personally, I'm still waiting for that to come up conversationally). Here's to blue heros you can't fly but still fight crime, sortof.

Enjoy!

shiny, pretty things

Scott Adams has outdone himself once again. Take a look at the center panel from one of last week's strips --->

Brilliant. It reminds me of one of the quotes I have pinned up at my desk at work "The world is still deceived with ornament." (from The Merchant of Venice) It never ceases to amaze me that we are so consumed with how things look and so willing to turn a blind eye to how things are. I remember a couple of years ago I was asked to write an article on the perception of beauty around the globe. In my research I came across a quote from a plastic surgeon in Brazil. He said "Half my patients don't want to feel better, they just want to look better." How scary is that? We're so convinced that how we look is the only thing that matters that we're willing to endure painful and often risky surgery, not to correct a medical condition, but solely so that once the bandages come off we can look a little more, or a little less.

In July of 2003 James Poniewozik wrote an incredible article for Time entitled "Trading Faces". The version online is not the full article so I can't find the exact quote, but he was writing about the phalanx of make-over shows on TV (even in 2003) and the desire for someone to be able to see past our bland exterior and catch a glimpse of the real us. "We used to call that the look of love, " he wrote. "Now we just call it television." If you can get your hands on the full article, I highly recommend it.

We are like little children, reaching out for the shiny, pretty things, making no distinction between a diamond a piece of tinfoil. I think in a lot of ways, Adams is right. Hotness is like a superpower. It can blind otherwise functioning human beings into making decisions based on the most fallible of factors. I took a sociology course years ago on marriage and the family. One of the things I still remember the professor saying is that so many marriage fail today because we often choose a partner based on the one thing about them that is guaranteed to change -- they way they look.

Why are we so obsessed with what we can see? Seeing is not the same as knowing. It's easier. Is there more to it than that?

Chapters marketing strategy: shop elsewhere?

For the first time ever, Chapters disappointed me today. And that's hard to say. I'm a huge fan of Chapters and a very good customer. I know that my liberal heart should beat for the independent bookseller, but Chapters just has sooo many books. Resistance is futile. Except, it would seem, today.

Last night I was watching CNN and the anchor recommended Lawrence Wright's new book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Of more than 3500 books and articles written about the topic this one is, in his opinion, the best. Recently I have been making little forays into the world of non-fiction and thought this could be my next adventure. I went online to Chapters.ca and sure enough they carried the book. It was listed as a bestseller, 34% off for iRewards members. Sweet. Chapters.ca has a great little feature that lets you know whether a title is in stock at a particular location. My favorite Chapters had 6 copies. Perfect I thought, I can swing by after work and pick one up.

I went to Chapters, grabbed the book and as I was headed for the check-out noticed that there was no mention of the bestseller discount. I got up to the counter and asked the salesgirl "I went online and this was listed as 34% off, but I noticed there's no sticker. Is it still on sale?" "Oh", she said. "That was probably just online." What the? She checked the computer and sure enough IN STORE the book was $12 more expensive than online. "I think I'll just order this online then" I said. "Oh but then you'll have to pay shipping, $5.90." came the reply. True, but that's still less than $12 she wanted to charge me.

When I asked about the discrepancy another salesgirl told me that "the online Chapters is a totally different company, they often have better prices." So now you're telling me that I shouldn't shop here at all? On what planet does it make sense for a business to undercut itself? To compete with its own brand?

I left the book on the counter and walked out of the store empty-handed. I'll order The Looming Tower online. Of course now I'm going to check Amazon.ca and see if they're cheaper.

tech question re: You Tube

Stymied for several days now I have decided to appeal to the collective consciousness. I am trying to embed a video from You Tube into this blog and I can't get it to work. Specifically I am trying to snag the "Conversational Norwegian with Freakazoid" video (yes Dave, this one was for you). I created a log in for myself on You Tube, I've gone through the steps to connect my blog with the You Tube account. I clicked on "blog video" and filed in a title, post etc. I get the little message that says "this video will appear on your blog shortly" but it's been 24 hours now and nothing has shown up. I went into blog settings to see if perhaps there was some kind of moderation that needed to take place but it's not in the queue either.

I know several of you have successfully added You Tube vids to your blogs. Any ideas on what the hang-up is?

huggle and squee

It's been a great week for words. I'm reading Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and he's had me reaching for the dictionary more than once. I love that. It's like discovering a new colour or a new way to eat chocolate. Amid the more scholarly four and five syllable treats from Chabon I've also come across a few new words on blogs, among them "huggle" and "squee" words so perfectly suited to their task they're almost onomatopoeic. Nice. (I know, I know, once a word nerd always. . . although "logophile" has a sweeter cadence.)

These just might be my words of the week:

huggle: [verb] a brilliant hybrid of hug and snuggle. Clearly a word the world needed. I'm not entirely sure how huggling would play out but I'm game. Next time my niece is in town I'll conduct some research.

squee: [noun, also a verb] As a noun the sound that comes out of one's mouth, unbidden, at the sight of extreme animal cuteness or in some cases the hottie of choice. As a verb, the act of sustaining said noise.

I think the world just got a little prettier. It's certainly more fun.

shadows that never did offend

Once again in honour of Kendra's natal day we headed down to Bard on the Beach. For seventeen years Christopher Gaze and company have trod the boards under the tents in Vanier Park and somehow they just keep getting better. Monica, Kendra and I managed to get some of the last tickets to A Midsummer Night's Dream and once again I was impressed. I don't remember the last I laughed that hard during Shakespeare. Kudos to Kyle Rideout for a Billy Idol-inspired Puck and for truly working the striped tights, high tops and a leather vest get up. Very nicely done. I am still applauding.

One of my favourite parts of Bard is always the set design. Kevin McAllister has the impossible task of setting two well known and much loved shoes on a single stage with minimal ornament. Year after year he does an amazing job. This year the two mainstage productions, Midsummer and Measure for Measure were set in Swinging London. I don't know who decided that you could create a fairy forest and almost every prop required from a few white umbrellas but somehow it worked. A single mod lounging chair and a few feet of aluminum pipe and there it was, conjured from imagination itself. A fairy forest, a queen's bower, a lover's lament, a triumphant wedding all summond from wherever creativity lays its head to sleep.

The only part I didn't like was when Puck took center stage to begin his "If we shadows have offended" speech. Surely it couldn't be time to go home yet.

remembering

They lit the torches in New York tonight, two blazing beams of rememberance. I pinned small ribbons to my shirt and went to work. It seems strange that we're back here again and suddenly it's five years later.

I've been asked to write articles about September 11th a few times and today I took some time to go back and read them. The first was written a few days after the attack and it's so raw. I quoted Emily Dickinson's line about grieving “first – Chill– then Stupor – then the letting go–.” I remember struggling to decide if I should go to work that day, and then once I got there spending most of the day glued to CNN.

September 12th I went to worked dressed entirely in black, head to toe, which I never do. I tied a black ribbon in my hair. Since then, one of the things I've learned about myself if that I find symbols soothing. I think in part it's because a symbol is a way of making the intangible, tangible. In the days following 9/11 many people starting wearing red, white & blue ribbons and I have worn them almost every year on that day. It's a small way to count myself among the mourners, to say without saying it, "I am sad today too." I think for me, symbols act as a lightening rod for my thoughts, they help me to gather them in one place.

Today I've been thinking of the people I usually think of on this day. I think of that haunting image of a man falling from the tower. I think of the school children who saw grown-ups leaping from windows holding hands and what manner of terror could have been behind them that the window was their only hope. I think of three thousand families mourning. I think of my friend's sister-in-law who was supposed to be in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices that day but decided not to go. I think of the people who lined up to give blood and the realization that no one was alive to need it. I think and I remember.

much and little

I've almost finished reading Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and it's got me thinking about the ideas of much and little, plenty and poor. Set in Brooklyn in the early 1900s the book is the story of a family trying to get by and trying to get better. Katie firmly believes that education will be the salvation of her children but at the critical moment you can't eat books and school has to wait, children have to go to work. It's an interesting discussion of the idea of much. Francie, the heroine, talks of "the luxury of being rich enough to waste" and I couldn't help but see the modern parallel in that. It's so easy to see someone who has more and think that I have little, why it is harder to see those who have less and realize that I have so much?

There's a Duke Ellington classic that sings about "Ain't got the change of a nickel . . . I ain't got nothing but the blues." I've known days when money is tight but I've never gone to bed hungry. If all my life I've known a full stomach, surely that's proof of much. It should be enough proof and proof of enough. There's been a lot of coverage of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast this week and how they are faring a year after Katrina. Vivid images of little and much. There has been so much money promised, but it seems so little delivered into the hands that need it. I was reading on a New Orleans news site yesterday that FEMA is getting ready to cut off rent assistance. People's homes are still unlivable, where are they expected to go? Everything they owned is gone and now the corner they've huddled in for a year is threatened. How little can little get?

I was also thinking this week of a photograph I saw in May 2002 of babies who had been born in the months since their fathers were killed on September 11th. It struck me that all of those kids will be starting school in the next few days. They have homes and schools and hospitals but no fathers. I'm not sure if that's little or much. I suppose it's both.

I think that I tend to think of "much" as a relative term, more adjective than noun, useful only in comparison. But in reality, much is more of a certainty, more solid. Much is much. It's what's in my kitchen cupboards, even if I don't feel that it's what's in my bank account. Much is what's worth celebrating, it's what I have to share, it is the reality of what I have received. I hope the much, and not little, will prove to be the better description of what I've given away.

sunday afternoon salsa

Why is that you always find the coolest thing to do right at the end of summer? I remember growing up it seemed to happen every year. Just a day or two before school started and inspiration would hit for this amazing thing we could have been doing all summer. Maybe it was the proximity of school that sharpened our minds, or maybe that just made whatever it was taste better. It hasn't happened to me in years, but it happened again this past week-end.

Sunday afternoon RuthAnn and I headed down to Robson Square for Sunday Afternoon Salsa and it was amazing! For four hours salsa music blares through this crazy venue and couples dance like it's the world, not just the summer, that's ending. There was every age, every race and every skill level on display. So many difference faces and every single one of them was smiling. This was of course, the very last session of the summer. I hear plans are underway to do it again next year. I'll have to see if I can get me some moves by then.

contemplations in the moonlight

I found myself thinking about the moon the other day. The moon always gets a bad rap for having no light of its own. A celestial second-class citizen, standing by just reflecting. I remember a science teacher somewhere back in my school days scoffing that men of old thought the moon was a light source when really it's all second hand illumination. But I was wondering the other day if reflected light is really so bad?

Sure the sun is fantastic and powerful and creates its own light, but it occurred to me that you can't look at the sun. It's there and you feel its influence but you can only glimpse it from the corner of your eye. It's so bright, but you can't really see if for yourself. The moon is reflected light. It doesn't control the seasons but controls the tides and you can actually look at the moon. You can sit there gazing at it, contemplating it. It's not enough light to get a sunburn, but it's enough light on a clear night to find your way.

And I wonder if we're a little bit like that with God. God is huge and awesome and knowable but incomprehensible. He's too much for finite minds. Maybe we're a little bit like the moon -- reflections of a light that's not our own. I wonder if that was part of God's intent in making man in His own image, giving us a version of Himself that we could stand to look at, something we could begin to comprehend? I'm reminded of the story in the Old Testament when Moses is on the mountain and wants to see God and God basically tells him "if you saw me, you'd die". And so God hides Moses in a space in the rocks, and covers him as He walks by and even that barest brushing past is almost more than Moses can stand. Like staring right at the sun only so much worse.

I know that I am not God, I cannot manifest light of my own. But I can reflect it, on a clear night.

happy thoughts and other thoughts

First the happy thoughts -- look at that face! I am seriously in love with his kid. Everyone should get to be an Auntie. The happy thought is that I got to spend the week-end with my whole family in Ontario. The other thoughts revolve around the reason for the trip. We went to Ontario to bury my Grandpa. Funerals always suck but you go through the motions. Stand, sit, shake hands, bow your head, pass the Kleenex. Try to combat the mind games in your head "there will never be another...." Time folds in strange places. As we stood to walk out of the memorial service Janie turned to me and said "You look like you could use this" and handed Corrina to me. She was right. Corrie was just the happy thought I needed.

I took about a bagillion pics of Corrina over the week-end. Turns out she likes my camera and in addition to the one above we got some great shots. You can see the short version on Flickr or if you're my Mom, or Corrina's Mom you can see all 71 shots (fair warning I haven't had a chance to edit these so they're raw).

hello dear, how was your day?

Today was a very strange day. From unexpected packages to Indonesian poetry written in my honor (no I'm serious) it's been a very strange day indeed.

First the package. I'm an editor so people send me stuff from time to time. Most of it is books (whoo hoo!) Now if I could just convince that powers that be that we should run a book club on the site so publishers would start sending me fiction... I also receive samples. Sometimes it's really useful stuff like shampoo or band aids, other times CDs from lounge singers (yes really) or the most memorable of all -- a lightbulb filled with paper clips (I have no idea). Today I got in to work and there sitting right in the middle of my desk was a huge box containing . . . . . . home pregnancy tests.

Um, thanks. The box's contents were emblazoned across the package. I've been at a conference for a week so who knows how long this thing has been sitting on my desk. Let the rumours fly. Not exactly what I anticipatedsetting my latte down beside this morning. I currently have no need for such tests, even if this particular variety is digital and lights up in different colours. (Again I have no idea.) If it could be of use to you, let me know, I've got the hook-up.

Then a Dilbert from a few days ago got me thinking:

He uses schadenfreude in a cartoon, just one more reason to love Scott Adams. (PS, if it helps, schadenfreude is defined as " a malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortune of others.) The reason the cartoon got me thinking however was that there is another German word that refers to a general sadness over the state of the world. I couldn't remember what it was and it was driving me crazy. It sat there, niggling away at the back of my brain. Several attempts to Google it were unsuccessful (it does happen to me some times). We have dictionaries where you look up words to find definitions, why don't we have reverse dictionaries where you can search by definition to find a word? Fortunately, finally I hit upon an better phrasing of the question (editing is everything) and found the word:

Weltschmerz.

How could I forget such a delicious word? I breathed a deep sigh of relief. And then the thing with the poetry happened.

Towards the end of the day, Leah, my co-worker (and friend) called over the cube wall, "hey Claire, there's an email you need to take a look at and I want to see your reaction when you do." Oh great, I thought. Usually I handle all of the upset reader email and things get handed over to me for bulldogging. If someone's waiting for a reaction it often means a particularly colourful wacko, I mean, valued reader, has decided to drop us a line. In a thousand years I could not have guessed at what this email held.

It turns out that one of our readers in Indonesia was doing some research and came across one of my articles and was inspired to write me a poem. It's an acrostic of my whole name and according to the email that came with it, it is supposed to be sung to the tune of Josh Groban's "You lift me up". Wow. And very cool.

I don't think anyone has ever written me a poem before. Years ago a friend of mine wrote me a song which was pretty amazing. If you ever gets your hands on a copy of Achilles' Lament, it's track 6 "I'll fly Away". I'm in the liner notes and everything. Sweet. But for Indonesian poetry, this was definitely a first. I have to admit I tried singing it in my head and I can't quite get the lyrics to scan. Maybe that part is getting lost in translation somewhat.

Like I said, it was a very strange day at the office. I think I'll work from home tomorrow.

i do not have two left feet

Photographic evidence to the contrary, I do not have two left feet. However, both Kendra and I are now sporting our traditional summer henna/mehndi body art. We had gone down to the Spirit of the Sea festival on Sunday and as hoped there were several artists on site. We were pretty happy with our results. As a side note, I learned that henna is the Arabic term and mehndi is the Hindi term. So there's your useful tidbit for the day :)


White Rock, as always, was gorgeous. This time they had festooned the pier with flags. All this time I thought the brackets were only used for the lights at Christmas but apparently not. If it were up to me I'd keep these flags up all year. I think they're lovely. Anyone know what the final three flags are? You'll probably have to click on the image to be able to see them clearly. They're blue and white patterns and maybe they're just there to be pretty but I wondered if there was something more to it.

After giving the henna some time to set we headed off to Dolce Gelato. Of course. The store was recently written up as the best gelato in Vancouver. Finally someone with a newspaper has spent some ink on what we've known for years. I tried to find the link to the article but it hasn't found its way into Google yet. Congrats to Davide and Elizabeth on a FANTASTIC job well done. I for one plan to continue doing all I can to keep you guys in business for many years to come.