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I so totally rock. Really. I do.
I decided on a whim to take Charlotte up to Toronto to see a concert. Beachfest, a huge free concert event that happens every Labor Day, sponsored by a local Toronto radio station. It's fun, but it's a little inaccessible because they hold it at a city waterfront beach park that's on the Metro line and really doesn't have any parking. So, I went online and found us a hotel room for the night that was within walking distance of Sunnyside Park. It was a little pricey (because it was a Sheraton right on the waterfront) but I figured it'd be a fun treat.
So, now Charlotte's home and today was her first day back at school. The real world closes back in. Soon she'll be sick of me asking her if her homework is done, and is she ready for that test, and clean your room already. But for now I'm the best mom in the world. ;-) That's good enough for me.
Oh! And! My mom gave me an early birthday present...a Dyson vacuum cleaner! OMG I've always wanted one...my Kirby is an antique and I vacuum every day, sometimes twice, because of the dog and the cat. Anyway I've been sucking hair up all over my house all day and playing with the attachments and it is SO NEAT. It doesn't smell like dust at all when I use it and it's so easy to empty...no more bags! And the hepa filter totally does the job. Usually I sneeze my ass off when I vacuum but not with the Dyson! That thing is made of awesome. Am I getting old because I plotz over vacuums? Ah heck, I don't care. It's very very cool. :-)
And the Chinese Lantern Festival has completely tweaked my dragon plaque idea muse yet again...sketches are happening at an incredible rate! I'll share soon.
I decided on a whim to take Charlotte up to Toronto to see a concert. Beachfest, a huge free concert event that happens every Labor Day, sponsored by a local Toronto radio station. It's fun, but it's a little inaccessible because they hold it at a city waterfront beach park that's on the Metro line and really doesn't have any parking. So, I went online and found us a hotel room for the night that was within walking distance of Sunnyside Park. It was a little pricey (because it was a Sheraton right on the waterfront) but I figured it'd be a fun treat.
So, after getting there and checking into our room (which was very nice with down comforters on the beds and a balcony overlooking Lake Ontario) we decided to head out for the evening and see the city. Toronto is a wonderful, big, clean city with a diverse population and a really awesome China Town and I knew Char would get a big kick out of it. However, we'd only gone a couple of miles along Lakeshore Blvd when we saw a giant display of Chinese lanterns which stopped us dead in our tracks. Unbeknownst to me, the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) and Ontario Place were doing a limited exhibit called The Chinese Lantern Festival.
So we pulled into the parking lot (20 bucks) and bought tickets to the show (25 bucks each)...hooray for mom and the magic credit card! Oh well, you only live once. ;-) We were squealing like a couple of goofy otaku all the way to the front gate.
I took some pictures in the waning daylight, but unfortunately my battery died before it got dark...which is a shame because the colors at night when everything was lit up was incredible. Still , you can get an idea of how cool it was from these images below. All these structures were made of silk stretched over wooden frames and lit from the inside...some of these sculptures were hundreds of feet long! Most of them moved too.
This is what we saw from the road! Behind is the entrance to the ticket office.
Visions of "Twelve Kingdoms" were dancing in my head.
This was near the parking lot. It gives you an idea of scale (notice the cars in the foreground).
This bridge goes to the island that the lanterns were on. Ontario Place is a series of islands with an Imax cinema and amusement rides and nature trails and such. The dragons here are over a hundred feet long.
Here's Char just before we crossed the bridge. There were thousands of people there and when we were all tromping over that bridge you could feel it sort of...bouncing. It was a little disconcerting but she thought it was neat.
The island had marked "walking paths" all lit up with strings of lanterns like these...thousands of them. There were over 25 big displays with lit paths connecting everything and each lantern was a different shape and color. I have to say at this point that the ratio of Asian to Caucasian was like 100 to 1, which pleased Char immensely as she has a squealy fangirly thing for "Asian Kung Fu Boys". It was amusing.
Cute stuff everywhere!
Pandas too!
The pandas at night were a little freaky 'cause with their black eyes and white faces they glowed like death-skulls...but in the daylight they were SO cute.
All the displays had signs explaining what they were. It was very informative and quite neat!
...and here are a few of those 100 birds (yes, we counted).
This was my favorite...the Porcelain Dragon. It's made of porecelain plates, tea cups, and spoons! The whole thing just glowed at night, plus the head moved, and it was covered in hundreds of tiny white lights. It was all along the waterfront on one side of the island and was over two hundred feet long!
Here's the head. If you look closely you can see the handles of the teacups and the spoons on the sides of the head. Those long drapes of dangly beard are made of tiny teacups wired together, and they all chimed and jangled as the head turned back and forth slowly...it was cool.
Another favorite! This wall was huge and at night the dragons all wagged their heads and tails and flailed their arms. The colors were intense!
There was traditional Chinese music piped in all over the place too, it really added to the atmosphere.
This one was truly awesome. Dragons Fighting Over Pearls. We counted over fourteen dragons. They all moved and at night the reflection in the water was breathtaking. This sculpture was huge, bigger than my house.
Char, in front of her Chinese zodiac sign. She was born in the year of the Rooster. I'm Snake, by the way. Which is wild because the description of the Snake is almost exactly like the description for Scorpio...my other sign. And they're both dead on! Not that I believe in that stuff...but it's fun anyway. :-)
And this is the last pic I took before the battery died. Crap! At least it shows how pretty and glowy the path lanterns were.
So! We walked around eating fried dumplings and Char thought every other guy looked like Hyde or Gackt and we bought tons of cute Chinese bling and generally had an awesome time. The Chinese Lantern Festival runs in Toronto at Ontario Place until October 1st, and if you have the time and the money I'd reccommend going to see it before it ends. We have every intention of going back there sometime this month.
So we pulled into the parking lot (20 bucks) and bought tickets to the show (25 bucks each)...hooray for mom and the magic credit card! Oh well, you only live once. ;-) We were squealing like a couple of goofy otaku all the way to the front gate.
I took some pictures in the waning daylight, but unfortunately my battery died before it got dark...which is a shame because the colors at night when everything was lit up was incredible. Still , you can get an idea of how cool it was from these images below. All these structures were made of silk stretched over wooden frames and lit from the inside...some of these sculptures were hundreds of feet long! Most of them moved too.
This is what we saw from the road! Behind is the entrance to the ticket office.
Visions of "Twelve Kingdoms" were dancing in my head.
This was near the parking lot. It gives you an idea of scale (notice the cars in the foreground).
This bridge goes to the island that the lanterns were on. Ontario Place is a series of islands with an Imax cinema and amusement rides and nature trails and such. The dragons here are over a hundred feet long.
Here's Char just before we crossed the bridge. There were thousands of people there and when we were all tromping over that bridge you could feel it sort of...bouncing. It was a little disconcerting but she thought it was neat.
The island had marked "walking paths" all lit up with strings of lanterns like these...thousands of them. There were over 25 big displays with lit paths connecting everything and each lantern was a different shape and color. I have to say at this point that the ratio of Asian to Caucasian was like 100 to 1, which pleased Char immensely as she has a squealy fangirly thing for "Asian Kung Fu Boys". It was amusing.
Cute stuff everywhere!
Pandas too!
The pandas at night were a little freaky 'cause with their black eyes and white faces they glowed like death-skulls...but in the daylight they were SO cute.
All the displays had signs explaining what they were. It was very informative and quite neat!
...and here are a few of those 100 birds (yes, we counted).
This was my favorite...the Porcelain Dragon. It's made of porecelain plates, tea cups, and spoons! The whole thing just glowed at night, plus the head moved, and it was covered in hundreds of tiny white lights. It was all along the waterfront on one side of the island and was over two hundred feet long!
Here's the head. If you look closely you can see the handles of the teacups and the spoons on the sides of the head. Those long drapes of dangly beard are made of tiny teacups wired together, and they all chimed and jangled as the head turned back and forth slowly...it was cool.
Another favorite! This wall was huge and at night the dragons all wagged their heads and tails and flailed their arms. The colors were intense!
There was traditional Chinese music piped in all over the place too, it really added to the atmosphere.
This one was truly awesome. Dragons Fighting Over Pearls. We counted over fourteen dragons. They all moved and at night the reflection in the water was breathtaking. This sculpture was huge, bigger than my house.
Char, in front of her Chinese zodiac sign. She was born in the year of the Rooster. I'm Snake, by the way. Which is wild because the description of the Snake is almost exactly like the description for Scorpio...my other sign. And they're both dead on! Not that I believe in that stuff...but it's fun anyway. :-)
And this is the last pic I took before the battery died. Crap! At least it shows how pretty and glowy the path lanterns were.
So! We walked around eating fried dumplings and Char thought every other guy looked like Hyde or Gackt and we bought tons of cute Chinese bling and generally had an awesome time. The Chinese Lantern Festival runs in Toronto at Ontario Place until October 1st, and if you have the time and the money I'd reccommend going to see it before it ends. We have every intention of going back there sometime this month.
The next day we were footsore but chipper ('cause we slept like rocks on those pillowtop beds!), and packed our picnic blanket and sweatshirts for the day at the concert. The walk was pleasant; Sunnyside Park is charming and Lake Ontario was just lovely, with swans everywhere and OMG BIKE PATHS!! Just incredible bike paths...multiple paths that lead every which way... I SO have to go back there with my bike.
Anyway the concert was a blast. We had a lovely time...it was cloudy but not rainy and as an added bonus there was an airshow going on at the same time so we were constantly entertained.
Char and I are crazy for a band from Nova Scotia called "The Trews" and they did the third set. They really rock, we just love them. Afterwards, before Stabilo came out, I noticed people milling about with posters that said "Beachfest" and had all the bands listed. I was curious so I left Char at the blanket to go wandering in search of a poster for her. I found them being passed out for free...right next to the autograph tent!! And who was there but Jack I-Forget-His-Last-Name who is the cute young bass player for The Trews, signing autographs! He's Char's favorite guy...she always goes all goofy when she sees him (he is kinda cute). So of course I grab a poster and have him sign it "To Charlotte with love...Jack".
I walked back to Char grinning like a loon. "How hard does your mom rock?"
"Uh oh, what did you do??" She said. So when she saw the poster she flipped and headed back to the autograph tent! I didn't think she'd be brave enough to do it, but she asked Jack to sign her book (I bought her a pretty journal at the festival the night before and she'd been writing in it about our crazy trip to Toronto). She also geeked out and told him "Umm...I love you!" which he found flattering. I told her it was okay. I once completely geeked out when I met Trace Beaulieu (who was Crow and Dr Forrester on Mystery Science Theater 3000) so, you know...we've all been there.
Coming home we had dinner at the nicest restaurant near St Catherines, a place called The Lake House. Right on...guess what...the lake! Lovely place with awesome gourmet food. I had a warm portobello mushroom salad with baby spinach that was out of this world, and Char had the vegetable risotto, and we BOTH ate all the bread 'cause it was fresh-baked and incredible. Mmm.
Anyway the concert was a blast. We had a lovely time...it was cloudy but not rainy and as an added bonus there was an airshow going on at the same time so we were constantly entertained.
Char and I are crazy for a band from Nova Scotia called "The Trews" and they did the third set. They really rock, we just love them. Afterwards, before Stabilo came out, I noticed people milling about with posters that said "Beachfest" and had all the bands listed. I was curious so I left Char at the blanket to go wandering in search of a poster for her. I found them being passed out for free...right next to the autograph tent!! And who was there but Jack I-Forget-His-Last-Name who is the cute young bass player for The Trews, signing autographs! He's Char's favorite guy...she always goes all goofy when she sees him (he is kinda cute). So of course I grab a poster and have him sign it "To Charlotte with love...Jack".
I walked back to Char grinning like a loon. "How hard does your mom rock?"
"Uh oh, what did you do??" She said. So when she saw the poster she flipped and headed back to the autograph tent! I didn't think she'd be brave enough to do it, but she asked Jack to sign her book (I bought her a pretty journal at the festival the night before and she'd been writing in it about our crazy trip to Toronto). She also geeked out and told him "Umm...I love you!" which he found flattering. I told her it was okay. I once completely geeked out when I met Trace Beaulieu (who was Crow and Dr Forrester on Mystery Science Theater 3000) so, you know...we've all been there.
Coming home we had dinner at the nicest restaurant near St Catherines, a place called The Lake House. Right on...guess what...the lake! Lovely place with awesome gourmet food. I had a warm portobello mushroom salad with baby spinach that was out of this world, and Char had the vegetable risotto, and we BOTH ate all the bread 'cause it was fresh-baked and incredible. Mmm.
So, now Charlotte's home and today was her first day back at school. The real world closes back in. Soon she'll be sick of me asking her if her homework is done, and is she ready for that test, and clean your room already. But for now I'm the best mom in the world. ;-) That's good enough for me.
Oh! And! My mom gave me an early birthday present...a Dyson vacuum cleaner! OMG I've always wanted one...my Kirby is an antique and I vacuum every day, sometimes twice, because of the dog and the cat. Anyway I've been sucking hair up all over my house all day and playing with the attachments and it is SO NEAT. It doesn't smell like dust at all when I use it and it's so easy to empty...no more bags! And the hepa filter totally does the job. Usually I sneeze my ass off when I vacuum but not with the Dyson! That thing is made of awesome. Am I getting old because I plotz over vacuums? Ah heck, I don't care. It's very very cool. :-)
And the Chinese Lantern Festival has completely tweaked my dragon plaque idea muse yet again...sketches are happening at an incredible rate! I'll share soon.
From: (Anonymous)
Fun with Paint
Wednesday we closed on the house at 4:00, and then drove up to survey our new debt. That didn't *quite* end with me in tears in the middle of the dining room floor, but close. Just completely overwhelmed with everything that needed to be done.
Thursday we went out and bought paint and painting tools. $585.18 later we walked out of Home Depot. Can you say bleedin' ouch?! But we bought the good stuff, so I shouldn't have been surprised. On the bright side, I'll be getting back a rebate for almost $100, so I can't complain too much.
Friday Bob left me alone in perhaps the most depressing kitchen on the face of the planet, and I started scrubbing and taping the walls for painting. The radio was doing the '80's A-Z all weekend, so at least I had cheery music, but other than that the room made me want to shoot myself. I also kept getting interrupted - my parents showed up (yay!), and liked the place (woo hoo!). Then one of my co-workers stopped by, then Bob got there from work, then Erica and her boyfriend showed up. It was fun to show the place off, but the work ground to a halt. I got everything prepped except for the library, which turned out to need a lot more than I had expected. AND the place was *filthy*. I was expecting to wash down the walls for paint prep, not to have to decontaminate. Oy.
Saturday was the painting party. I'd asked a bunch of friends, and had four confirms. I got ten people. That's about five more than I knew what to do with. So I just handed everyone rollers or brushes and told them "if it isn't brick or wood - prime it!" Bob went out to Subway for lunch for everyone, and we put burgers and dogs on the grill for dinner. The score was: kitchen/dining room (30'x14') - ceiling primed, two coats of primer on the walls, one coat of color; living room - ceiling and walls primed, two top coats on the ceiling, one coat of color on the walls; library - ceiling primed. Not too shabby.
Sunday Bob and I went back and put a second coat on the living room and kitchen/dining room. Then we went to a party and went home.
Monday we primed the ceilings of the two upstairs bedrooms and the hallway/stair/entry. Then we sanded the walls in the library and washed them down.
Tuesday I was by myself again. The library got two coats of Kilz and a coat of primer. The stencils and the lovely teal green on the wainscotting are STILL showing through. One more coat of primer should do it, and then probably two coats of color.
Today I'm back in my cube, and fairly happy to be here. The house is kicking my butt. I have blisters, bruises that I don't remember, and paint in places that I'm not sure how it got there. We still need to paint the ceilings upstairs, and do the entirety of my sewing room. It's pink right now. That won't do. I haven't even thought about the wallpaper that has to be stripped yet...
Did I mention that the kitchen appliances need to be replaced? But my father, bless him, is running a 240 line into the kitchen for us, and mom is cleaning up her old stove for me to have. So I can put that off for a while. It's just money - they make more every day, right?
Once I have a few pennies to rub together, I may commission another dragon from you - I still need to complete my four seasons set. I have the autumn dragon and the ivy dragon. I'll need to think about what I want next!
Soon I need to think about moving. That means boxing up close to 4,000 books... God help me.
From:
Re: Fun with Paint
We did the new appliance thing last year. Every year I try to do something grand with my Pennsic earnings and last year it was a stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator. This year was the guest room futon/sofa and...well, escrow really. Not as flashy but still important.