The revolution wasn't bad; we hit the streets with all we had.

Weekend rundown:

1) Stars was fan-fucking-tastic! What a great concert to end this year which has been a year of concerts for sure. In 2008, I've been to at least 17 shows + SXSW, so yah, it's been the year of the concert for me. And Stars was a great show to end this year with.

The opening band, Gentlemen Reg, was great. I'd heard *of* them, and maybe have a song or two of theirs, but not overly familiar with them. They were really fun to see live. They have a new album coming out in February, so I'm interested in that.

Stars were phenomenal. They played pretty much every song that I wanted to hear, and it was just an incredibly high energy show in a great venue. I had fourth row seats, which were wicked, and ah, what can I say. It's hard to describe such a show. I have a huge crush on Amy Milan, by the way. Oh, and the lights were way cool. And, Torq shouted out the mall across the street from my school. Neat-o.

2) I slept on Saturday. Pretty much all day Saturday. I believe that I dragged myself to Shopper's at some point to get OJ. I technically think I should have stayed at home Friday, but I wasn't prepared to take a second day off, *and* I would have felt guilty going out on the eve of a second sick day. Damned in-grained guilt complex that I possess. Anyway, so, as a result, Saturday was a complete day of rest.

3) Today I managed to get out and get my Christmas shopping almost finished. I also got distracted by cute clothing on sale and a total splurge on boots I've been coveting. No one's going to be buying those for me, and they're never going on sale, and they match my splurge coat perfectly. I could still take them back, but I'm growing too attached to them.

4) Tonight I avoided responsibility (i.e. marking) by cooking dinner for myself, then inviting my pal Mathew over to help me eat said dinner, and going for coffee with him and dropping by Walmart for heavy stuff (i.e. cat litter). Walmart is so unpleasant, but when someone's going to drive you there to get heavy things, and they are the only place you know that stocks a particular brand of delicious baked dill pickle chip, what do you do?

5) I think my voice is okay because it just survived a long phone conversation with Becca T.

6) And oh, guess who's got her first concert tickets of 2009? And guess who they are for? Fave band = Weakerthans! Woot!

So five more days of this whole working thing, and then it's vacay. Can I survive? I think so.

I lace my Chucks, I walk the aisle.

Can I just say I hate how early it gets dark??? And it's still only November! I honestly feel like it's getting darker earlier this year than I've ever noticed before. I probably feel like this every year, and then forget about it during the long days of summer, only to be shocked by the fact by the time winter (well, it's actually still fall) rolls around.

I had a fairly low key weekend. On Friday, I got a little Christmas tree for myself and plus far too many ornaments (some of which I returned). When I first got the tree, Rilo seemed hell bent on knocking it over, but I think she's habituated to its presence, and it's no longer at risk (knock on wood).

I splurged on a bunch of ornaments from Pier 1 (man, how I love Pier 1). My second favourite (my favourite being a red bird; a Christmas tree isn't proper without a bird, I believe), is the dill pickle ornament. I've seen these before in Christmas stores, and always thought they were hilariously random. Anyway, I bought one just to make myself laugh, and researched the significance of the pickle ornament. Turns out there is some sort of tradition where you hide the pickle ornament on the tree, and the first kid to find it gets an extra present.

Here's a picture of Rilo looking saintly in front of my tree. Can you find the pickle ornament?



On Saturday, as I was on my way to return some superfluous ornaments, my beloved iPod died. It was three years old, and got a lot of use, and I think I had been anticipating its death. It's been replaced with a super-cute purple nano that has *almost* enough space for my music library. This has caused me to do a little bit of house-cleaning so that the songs I don't love are not on my iPod. As a result, I'm finding shuffling much more fun.

Speaking of music, I think I'm in the dreaded musical rut. I've just been listening to old stuff, and haven't come across anything new in like, oh I dunno, a month. I want to stumble across a new amazing band or album or something dammit! A little help?

In love with love and lousy poetry.

Quick two-to-three-sentence updates on what's been going on. I'm trying to temporarily reduce my verbosity.

1) Jack's Mannequin was oh-so-fabulous. They put on a high energy show, and the highlight song for me was "Caves" which has two movements. The transition between the two movements was incredible.

2) Had an enjoyable visit with one of my pals from high school on Saturday and Sunday. The weather was so gross on Saturday night that we just ended up staying in and drinking wine and being silly.

3) I had a baby shower for a co-worker on Sunday. Santa Claus almost ruined the shower because the guest of honour was 1.5 hours late because of Santa Claus Parade traffic.

4) Tonight I'm cooking dinner for my dear pals Becca T and Eric. Yes, you read that correctly. Luckily, they are good enough friends that they will still love me even if I poison them.

5) Remember that online course I took in the summer? Well, finally the paperwork is in, and I am going to get my raise for taking it (after I send it to HR). Woo-hoo! (I've spent that raise already.)

6) It was cold today. I wore my new coat which made the cold weather slightly more tolerable in that I like wearing new stuff. And the coat itself is super warm.

7) Starbucks' Peppermint Mocha Twist. OMFG.

8) I'm in the Christmas spirit. I broke out the Christmas songs this weekend. I'm going to decorate next weekend.

9) Rilo is running around like a cat possessed.

10) Time to get this dinner party started. Later!

It's Saturday night on Utopia Parkway.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you are asked to bring a scary dessert to a Halloween party and you have absolutely no culinary skills?

You end up with my patented Bloody Tarantula Cookies. (Directions: 1) Bake Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. 2) Add red icing. 3) Place gummy tarantula upon red icing. 4) Don't go into sugar shock.)



Now what if another person (my pal Mathew), who has a friend who dabbles in the pastry arts, is asked to bring a dessert to the very same party. You get these:



Anyway, I had a pretty good Halloween that involved me burning my fingers on a test tube while doing flashy demos for the kids, and going to Becca T's Halloween party in a recycled witch costume from last year. At said party I only had a couple of scary desserts, ran into some old friends, maybe had a bit too much punch, lost my shoes, and then found them. Good times.

Today I sweat out the toxins that I accumulated last night at yoga, and got my hair cut. I have bangs! I haven't had those since high school.

Hope your Halloweens were happy.

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this.

Early weekend update:

Today was a PD Day. Hence, a few of us decided that we would take advantage of the slower pace of a PD Day by going out on Thursday night. We started out by having dinner and some drinks at the Drake (hipster central), and then made our way around the city to various places. It was good times, and I got home after 2 am, which made me feel young and cool again.

I probably didn't fall asleep until 3 am, and had to wake up pretty early for the PD because we science teachers were sent all the way out to Scarborough to do some safety training. The training was actually at the school that I did my first bout of practice teaching at exactly 6 years ago. So it was weird to be back there, and I couldn't remember my way around the school.

Due to lack of sleep I kept falling asleep during the safety training much to the amusement of my coworkers. I guess my head kept bobbing up and down. I still got perfect on the test I had to write.

Since the training was far far away from our school, there was no time to make it back for the remainder of the PD boredom. Shucks. We went for sushi instead.

I just came back from the movie "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" which I've been wanting to see forever. It was cute. I'd give it three stars out of five.

Tomorrrow: yoga, perhaps a little bit of shopping, birthday party, and a midnight Great Lake Swimmers show.

Sunday: Day of rest which means I will not touch the stack of marking that I dragged home.

p.s. Rilo's is doing very well at earning the title of best. cat. ever. She went to the vet yesterday and got a clean bill of health. She's got to put on some weight though. She only weighs 5.8 lbs. Also, I bought her a really punk-ass plaid collar with a bell on it (guess the bell isn't so punk-ass) but she managed to take it off at some point today. I've been hunting around for it, but no idea of where or when it will show up.

How I'd knead into your chest while you were sleeping, shallow breathing made me purr.

Weekend update:

Well, I'll actually start with Thursday. On Thursday night, I went to see the Pan-Canadian Folk Ensemble with Christine Fellows (one of my faves), Kim Barlow, and Old Man Luedecke at the Music Gallery. It was such an amazing show. The Music Gallery is in an old church that's hidden away downtown, and is a great venue. All of the musicians involved in the show were outstanding, and I hadn't heard of the latter two, but they had some great songs that I'll have to definitely add to my library.

On Friday, I came home from work feeling like death. I had a really bad headache and passed out on my bed as soon as I walked in the door. I slept and woke up long enough to change into my pjs, have a hot chocolate, change my facebook status, brush my teeth and go back to be.

On Saturday, I started my new yoga class. It was really good, and I'm still sore from it. I like being sore from exercise, because I figure if you feel it, it must have done something. And, I spent the rest of Saturday running errands because...

Today... I brought this lovely creature home!!!




Her name is Rilo Kitty (after Rilo Kiley... kind of corny, but I like it). I got her at the Humane Society. They found her as a stray about 1 month ago somewhere out in the West End. They estimate her to be between 3-5 years old. (So I'm going to say she's 4.) On her cage it said she was a little nervous, which actually drew me to her since I figure my home is a good choice for a slightly nervous cat since it's pretty quiet. However, when they opened her cage you could see that she was very affectionate and not nervous at all. That's when I decided I loved her. And when my friends Mathew and Becca T were also taken with her, especially since she has such pretty green eyes (see above photos).

She's had a great time in her new home. She's been very brave exploring everything and not just hiding under the couch like they told me she might. She hid under the couch once when I had to tell her no when she tried to climb my bookshelf. I think that's 'cuz she's like me and doesn't like getting into trouble. Anyway, she came out once people stopped paying attention to her and was happy again.

She is a very personable cat. My friends hung around for dinner and stuff, and she was very happy with lots of people around. In fact, I think she's sad that they're not permanent residents.

She's also very very tiny. She's napping on the couch while I blog. She's had such an eventful day since she got a needle, got microchipped, had a confusing car ride home in a box, and then got to explore a new home and got lots of attention. Unfortunately for her, she's got a bit of a cold and had to take some nasty-tasting medicine, but she didn't hold it against me.

All in all, I'm so glad that I *finally* made the decision to get a cat. I loved my cats so much when I was a kid, and it's good to have a feline buddy again. Although, according to Homer Simpson, feline means elephant and I'm not sure why I just brought that up, but I did. Sweet Jebus, I think it's time for bed.

It started feeling like October.

Happy World Teachers' Day! Go hug yourself a teacher, or jet yourself over here, give me a hug and then proceed to mark some quizzes and lab reports for me. Thanks.

So it's Sunday evening, and I've had a great weekend. Sunday nights are always kind of yucky, because I suffer from the Sunday night blues, but they are always make worse when I have a stack of work awaiting me... Right now I'm working on procrastinating using as many methods as possible. I've had dinner, chatted with my mom on the phone, tried on my new winter coat (more on that later), and now I'm blogging.

On Friday night, I did some laundry and had coffee with a friend. As you can see, during laundry time, I gave myself a blog makeover and I quite like it.

I had a very productive Saturday. I went to the gym and did some shopping (I realized that I am very low on socks). While shopping, I tried on the brown 2008 version of Becca T's winter coat and I really really liked it. I was very tempted to buy it, but I felt like I'd have to get her permission first. She was away for a work conference for the day so I'd have to wait for Sunday for the go-ahead.

In the evening I had a little nap until some friends called to go to Nuit Blanche. Nuit Blanche is all-night art project with instillations all over the city. It was pretty busy. Apparently 1 million people came out for it. I think my fave part was the light instillation that transformed city hall. Anyway, it was a pretty fun night wandering around with friends, seeing the city streets packed with people, and being confused some of the time. One of the pieces was music being played out of a garbage bin, and I was very confused as to what was the piece at the designated site. Again, thank goodness for friends to explain such things to me.

This morning I was pretty exhausted after wandering around the city the previous night, so I slept in. After discussing the coat issue with Becca T, I headed back to the mall to get the coat. It was sold! However, they had one at a different location, so I ran there, and then ran to meet up with Becca for coffee. I felt like I was on some shopping/socializing version of the Amazing Race. On my way home from coffee, I ran into my San Fran pal who was marking at a coffee shop. We chatted and both lamented that we were spending World Teachers' Day marking (or in my case procrastinating from it).

Right now there are a billion things I'd rather be doing: knitting, having a warm bath, watching a movie. But, unfortch, I really should do my job. :( Boo-urns.