My life is a scene from American Pie.

In unrelated news, today I am removing hair from a variety of places in preparation for our trip. I have heard that it is easier to be in Europe with less hair, so I will test this theory with perfectly groomed eyebrows and bangs that aren’t hanging in my eyes obscuring my vision and giving me headaches. Afterward, I shall celebrate my reduced hair by filling the many prescriptions I received from my 30-second doctor yesterday. In addition to my standard refill of the crazy, I also asked for assistance on my ears and face: my ears are apparently impeccably clean but scaly like lizards, so I get to put ear drops in and try to take it like a man instead of the inevitable squealing I foresee in my future. My face shall be dealt with via a medicated cream in which I am to slather upon myself once daily in the hopes that my very, very delayed teenage acne fucks off already. It would be nice to be able to stop referring to myself as “Grievous Ruin” when I look in the mirror.

I wore pants to work today, because I woke up freezing my ass off and figured the day was going to be chilly. I had to ride in today because of the aforementioned hair removal and drug collecting, and I was in such a bad mood* when I got up that I wore some hate pants. Three people have commented on my pants today, which makes me laugh. I am not the only one who notices these things.

*: The bad mood was caused by some formative relationship trauma gushing out in an unexpected manner, and the wholly unanticipated return of the Spine Snipper. SS has made his home under my office window, and he was screaming at nothing all fucking night long. I do not like the Spine Snipper, and I enjoyed it when he was someone else’s problem. Normally I am not very guilty of the raging NIMBY, but in this case he really really needs to be locked away somewhere because he is clearly mentally ill and a danger to himself and others, and maybe not outside my window like a fucking deranged Lloyd Dobler.

like this, only holding an axe and screaming that he’s going to cut your balls off

I was crazy productive on Thursday – had a fantastic day at work, then came home and successfully completed a project. I was mighty proud of myself, but my enthusiasm for getting All the Things done on Thursday led to a Zombie Friday: I was so tired and out of it that I drooled/slept through most of the day (except for a brief period of lucidity in the afternoon in which I got a lot of work done). I tried to nap after work, but there was an Incident with Processed Cheese that turned my Friday evening into an uncomfortable exercise in crankiness with a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, the only high point of Friday evening was my long-overdue wedding to Optimus Prime:

i am ridiculously proud of the boutineers on the wedding party

Saturday was full of random and dinner at the Tacofino Commissary (verdict: I still don’t like their fish tacos, but everything else we had was fantastic) with friends, plus another extended bout of standing at my kitchen counter, sewing up a new skirt.

One of the reasons I’ve never really been a consistent crafter is because I have trouble following rules (which is highly ironic, given my job). I like taking shortcuts, and I love experimenting even though I almost always get disastrous results. I failed miserably as a knitter because I hated following recipes, but I didn’t know enough about knitting to start going off on my own. Also, doing a gauge swatch is for suckers, and I don’t want to have to count things. I just want pretty things to happen out of my own hands like magic. That isn’t so much to ask, is it?

That being said, I’m really enjoying this whole sewing thing. The classes I’ve taken at Spool of Thread have been invaluable, because after I made a bunch of bags earlier this year I started to get cocky and tried to go off on a sewing tangent (with disastrous results). Ever since taking the skirt class a couple weeks ago, things make more sense. I’m cautiously starting to apply logic to my own ideas, and .. it’s not terrible.

The skirt I made on Saturday is not reversible and is therefore only one layer, and took me all of an hour to put together from start to finish – I cut the pattern, sewed it together, pinked the seams, edged it in my beloved bias tape and slapped in an elastic waistband; all while Ed napped. I wanted to make a slightly fuller skirt, so I made some random adjustments while cutting (measuring is for jerks) and accidentally ended up with a really frickin’ cute skirt with a wacky little tulip flip at the knees. The skirt is made out of this dark black and white tiny plaid I picked up at a 70% discount last week, and edged in black. It’s .. very normal looking, actually. So, I fixed it:

turns out i had the button all along

I sewed – painfully, by hand – a bunch of coloured buttons in a cluster on the left side of the skirt for fun and good times. I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out (so look for every project I complete from here on in to be covered in buttons) and it was (with the exception of the button application) incredibly fast to do.

Then, because I needed something to do while sitting around the house with henna on my head for 8 hours today, I made a necklace:

the beads came in a kid’s craft kit to make a bracelet. i thought they deserved a better form.

Now my hands are REALLY sore, but my hair is a glossy dark red and I have fall-coloured things to wear and I am quite pleased with how my rainy Sunday played out. I did put all my sewing stuff away for now, though. I need to start packing for our trip, which is less than two weeks away (eeeeeeeeeeee) and really, I have enough skirts for now: it’s time to tentatively look into sleeves. Plus. the house is clean for the first time in weeks and I’d kind of like to keep it that way (sewing is messy).

Pleased!

After learning that my sewing machine was clearly broken and made of suck, I decided to sleep on it (not literally, that would hurt). The next day I took another crack at it, because I was determined to finish my skirts and I am stubborn like fuck. Sleep must have helped (or I swore the magic amount), because I got the zigzag stitch to work without destroying the world: skirt game on, bitches.

official skirt #2: joker edition

Did you know that Ikea sells fabric? Sure, it’s meant for upholstering furniture .. but you could also WEAR it. On your bum. In skirt form! It’s fun for everyone!

I wanted to trim the skirt in a matching purple, but I couldn’t find the what I needed .. so clearly the only thing to do is go in the complete opposite direction:

why so serious

Green is for all reasons!

Like the first skirt I made, this one is also reversible:

i’m a disco duck

Last week when Heather and I went fabric shopping, I stumbled upon a shiny shiny treasure: METALLIC DENIM ON SALE. I made the other side of the skirt a ridiculous bright silver with a plum trim:

ridiculous makes me happy!

This whole “make my own skirts” thing is going to be a great deal of fun, and just in time: one of the new coops at work dresses odder than I do, and I must destroy her. With shiny fabric, and things made of upholstery. Also, I’m going to make a rainbow skirt out of glitter mesh. Don’t look at me like that – I wasn’t hugged enough as a child, okay?

:D

There’s nothing I love more than a mystery!

Last Friday night at the PNE, I found a camera under a table – a small point n’ shoot in a camera bag with an extra SD card. I held onto it as we sat, hoping the owner would come rushing back as they realized their camera had been left behind (losing things is made of suck). By the time Ed finished his plate of perogies the camera was still unclaimed, so I started digging through the case in the hopes I’d find a name or phone number on it. Finding nothing on the bag, I turned the camera on to look at the last couple of photos; thinking that maybe I’d find a face we could then search the crowd for. There were a few portraits, so Ed and I set about to look for people in some specific clothes. We wandered around (we had nothing else to do; we were waiting for friends to arrive), but didn’t see anyone resembling the people in the picture (which was to be expected given that we were at the PNE and it was full of people who all looked alike when you stare at them for long enough). I took another look at the camera data to refresh my memory, which is when I realized that the people we were looking for were standing in front of a water slide .. and there were no water slides at the PNE. We were looking for people in clothing they were probably not wearing in a place that was at some point in the past. Also, by this time more than an hour had passed since I found the camera. I thought about turning it into the Lost n’ Found, as it was the sensical thing to do .. but that was no guarantee that the camera would reach home, and common sense has never really been my thing.

So, I brought the camera home so I could do some more research. I felt pretty creepy as I was going through the photos, but I really wanted to find the camera’s owner – especially after I realized the SD card contained almost 1100 photos; most of them of family vacations. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any identifying information: all I learned was that the family had been to some really cool places, and that it’s really fucking weird to see someone else’s vacation photos of a place you’ve also been to (in this instance, San Francisco).

I was about to give up – looking through 1100 photos belonging to someone else on a tiny LCD is not an officially sanctioned Good Time – when I stumbled upon something that could be useful: graduation photos, taken this year. Aha! I From those pictures and some fast Google work, I found three things:

• An acronym
• A tribe name
• A picture of a presentation with a name on it

The acronym turned out to be the name of a high school in northern BC, and the tribe brought back two hits: a small town in Alaska, and a tribal community in BC relatively close to the school. These things turned out to be more helpful than the name, which was the equivalent of  “David Wilson” – it was very common, and impossible to wade through the thousands of results a search returned.

I did try, though. I looked through all the David Wilsons on Facebook, which was when I discovered that there are people out there who totally don’t use the internet – nothing I searched for was of any help. No Facebook, no Twitter, no blog, no public profile that I could sniff out anywhere at all. During all this, I also checked Craigslist multiple times a day to see if anyone had posted about losing a camera at the PNE; all to no avail. I don’t know how people live like this, but the proof was on my living room table: a camera with two years of family memories, and no way to give it back.

However, I am nothing if not persistent when something is bugging me. With nowhere else to turn, I located a website associated with the tribe and sent an email off to info@ explaining who I was looking for and why. I didn’t really expect a response – some random girl in Vancouver asking if you know someone who knows this person who might live near you maybe – but my wild stab in the dark was good. The person who answered my email knew of whom I was looking for, and gave me his grandmother’s phone number. SUCCESS!

This meant I was going to have to pick up the phone, but my need to see this through overrode my loathing of the phone and strangers. I called the number and left a rambling message explaining myself and asked that someone call me back. Last night, an elderly lady called me and confirmed that her son had been at the PNE on Friday and lost his camera filled with family vacation and graduation photos. She gave me his address, and today I will be shipping the camera off to the man who lost it. HOORAY! I SOLVED A MYSTERY!

Seriously, HOW do people live their lives not at all on the internet for all to find? I don’t get it, but I am pleased that my persistence and general nosiness paid off for the greater good.

I’m like a slutty Nancy Drew!

squiggly, like a boss

.. because there is a picture of a tiny kitten wearing a tiny cowboy hat on my blog:

that sound you hear is the hive mind of the internet going “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” in high-pitched unison

This is Moxie. No other words need be said, but here they are anyway: Moxie is a 3-month old kitten. She is adventurous, playful, affectionate, and is ready to be adopted into a loving home of any configuration (only cat, additional cat, full of small children, etc). Also – and this is the truly important point here – SHE IS WEARING A TINY HAT. LOOK! LOOK HOW CUTE! Oh my god!

If you are the kind of person who does not like hats (wtf get out), here is another picture of Moxie proving she can be adorable with or without things on her head:

pretty kitty!

Moxie is currently being fostered through the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA), about whom enough good things cannot be said. Please contact them if you wish to meet and perhaps adopt this adorable and awesome hat-wearing kitten!

If you have enough room in your heart for a pair of gorgeous cats and a strong appreciation of puns and chocolate, perhaps you would be interested in adopting this brother and sister pair:

meet furrero

and his twin sister, roche

Furrero and Roche (get it?) are twin tuxedo kittens that need to be adopted together. They are both playful and loving, alternating between naps in the sun and chasing toys around the house. Both of these kittens would be a fantastic addition to your home and fill your days with their adorable antics; antics that will inevitably drive you to take and post picture after picture on Instagram. Are you awesome enough to love Furrero and Roche as much as they need?

If you’d like to meet Moxie or Ferrero and Roche, please contact VOKRA to arrange your destiny!

All the above pictures were taken by Jackie Dives – more of her awesome animal pictures can be seen on Orphan Animal Pics!

Dear Innernet:

I owe you a minimum of one (1) blog post about the following topics:

• The PNE Mystery
• Redemption
• Kittens you should adopt
• London countdown
• Boots!

Unfortunately, I am too busy at work to write about these things at this moment, so here is a pretty picture I took this weekend JUST FOR YOU:

macro curly flower thing on top of burnaby mountain

With the exception of Friday night’s fun, I had no plans for this long weekend – but I did have a goal; one I have now failed spectacularly thanks to some faulty machinery and a universe that totally hates me.

After I discovered last Saturday that making skirts is both fun and easy, I set a goal to make at least one new ridiculous skirt for myself over Labour Day. I was all set: I found some thoroughly ridiculous fabric on Thursday night (the one bright spot in an evening that also featured abject failure and no meatballs); actually followed sewing protocol by pre-washing and drying the fabric to get shrinking out of the way, then spent an entire evening on my hands and knees; pinning patterns and cutting out skirt pieces to the totally awesome sounds of Robert Downey Jr. being Iron Man 1 and 2. Productive, and I was all set for a laid-back Sunday of sewing to loud music while Ed was out with his boyfriend.

BUT NO.

I sewed together the three skirts I had cut out, and things were going well. I had finally decided how some of the fabric was going to go together (metallics are hard to pair for some reason), and while waiting for Ed to return with pinking shears, I started the annoying process of binding the waistbands together with elastic.

Then everything started to SUCK.

My machine, as it turns out, is not capable of doing zig-zag stitches without royally fucking everything up. I fixed jam after jam and had to unclog the machine of threadballs that formed instead of a neat row of stitches. I rethreaded everything seven or eight times, because the cryhole would get all knotted up and the thread would break. I fiddled with tension and stitch styles and even tried to use a regular stitch on elastic (helpful tip: don’t ever do that), which lead to an extended bout of swearing and stitch ripping. I even took things a step backwards, and went super slowly on a piece of scrap fabric to see if I was the one causing the thread jams, all to no avail: my machine will not do anything other than a simple straight stitch without catastrophic results.

Instead of throwing things across the room like I wanted, I calmly packed up my sewing supplies and went into another room to play TWETY on my iPad until I fell asleep. Now I am awake (someone was cooking bacon) and researching new sewing machines, and sad because I both wasted a Sunday and failed my Labour Day goal. Tomorrow I will have to spend the day outside to make up for it, and have some extra fun because today was a total bust. I hate failing at things, and I want fun new skirts. BOO.

Yesterday was awesome for many reasons, but the very best part of all had to be our bus ride home. Did you know:

• Poligrip isn’t just used to secure dentures, it can also be used to apply fangs
• Werewolves have fangs on the top AND bottom, but wearing all four would make it difficult to speak
• A forward-facing camera on a Blackberry makes an excellent reflective surface in which to apply your fangs on the bus
• It is difficult to find a werewolf-worthy jacket
• An updated version of Teen Wolf is a thing
• New Teen Wolf plays lacrosse (?!) instead of basketball
• Putting together a Teen Wolf lacrosse outfit would be so rad
• Because apparently people cosplay as Teen Wolf
• .. in public

Two young guys (whom I have dubbed Teen Wolf and Lil’ Duke Nukem, respectively) on our bus ride home yesterday were textbook Loud Bus Nerds, and they were awesome. Loud Bus Nerds are one of my favourite things ever – they are almost always guys, they are very proud and eerily knowledgable about whatever they’re into, and EVERYONE AROUND THEM MUST KNOW IT. This is what differs Loud Bus Nerds from, say, me – I am a nerd who knows more about Gen1 Transformers trivia circa 1986 than I do my own family medical history, but I’m not loud about it in public on the bus. I spent the entire ride listening to their very loud conversation, and I learned all the things outlined above including that the shirt Teen Wolf was wearing was an homage to Season 2 Episode 1 but the buttons weren’t quite right so he had to alter it a little, and that he is very much in high demand this Halloween for .. well, he didn’t say WHY he was in high demand, but I have to assume it had something to do with his detailed New Teen Wolf knowledge and ability to wear light blue contact lenses.

this jacket: hard to find

I spent much of the bus ride trying very hard not to laugh while tweeting choice bits of the conversation it was impossible not to hear. Lil’ Duke Nukem was the quieter of the two, but he was equally enthusiastic about the whole notion of Teen Wolf cosplay (and, I can only assume, was in costume as well: Duke Nukem imagined as the protagonist of a Charles Atlas fitness ad). The two waxed poetry on a whole bunch of topics, even getting philosophical about life and the hardships facing a guy pretending to be a TV werewolf in this day and age. Basically, the entire 30 minute ride can be summed up thusly:

So. Awesome.

The rest of the evening was less hilarious but a great deal of fun: I managed to drag out a whole gaggle of friends to the PNE, where we walked forever, ate a surprisingly minimal amount of terrible fair food, purchased items As Seen on TV, and did the Star Trek Exhibit. We caved and purchased a set of pictures taken on various Star Trek props, because it’s incredibly rare to get a photo of most of the people I love in one place – and if that place just happens to be the bridge of the NCC-1701, it’s just fucking delicious icing on a cake made of unicorn wishes.

The night ended with Heather, Shan and I on the Tilt-a-Whirl, where our whirls were throughly tilted. I think the ride operator may have been messing with us, because that ride lasted FOREVER and it was so much fun – Shan and I have a long-standing Whirl tradition, and it was a fine continuation of our pact. All in all, a very enjoyable evening spent with very enjoyable company: A++++, would buy again.

ed is attempting to psyche out the competition (it didn’t work)

love this ride, but no one will go on with me (and more importantly I didn’t want to stand in line or pay $11 to go on)