This might just become a thing.
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A friendly little tutorial for shooting “Through The Viewfinder”
Which is a method of getting really neat, old-fashioned, artfully flawed images using a digital camera - along with a old twin lens reflex cameras’ viewfinder. I’ve always loved the way these shots looked, I had no idea producing them was so easy. If this works with my little Canon point and shoot (which it should - it has a pretty awesome macro setting), I’m totally gonna start searching for an old twin lens camera when I thrift.
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Booty Juggler
I may or may not have wasted a good half an hour on this cute little game.
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Black Eiffel
Just a new blog find filled with pretty-pretty things of all varieties. The kind of pretty that inspires rampant and uncontrollable urges to be materialist. But so do many of the pretty-pretty blogs I read. Sigh. It might be time take a break from reading those for a little while. Just until I stop hemorrhaging money.
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Carnivale Lune Bleue
A retro-revival nineteen-thirties-style carnival - complete with concessions, candy apples, carousel, ferris wheel, and circus show. I was very sad when I found out I missed this entirely this summer. There’s always next summer though.
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Buddha Dogs
We had some on the weekend. They were delicious - totally the best hot-dogs I’ve ever had (although, it should be said that they don’t really resemble traditional hot dogs all that closely, so consider yourself forewarned). They are little artisinal sausages (that taste a bit like teensy fresh salamis) accompanied by one of four (locally sourced) cheeses and a one of a dozen sauces (cooked up individually by the best chefs in the city using fresh, local ingredients). A lot of internet types seem to be upset that portions are small, and the concept pretentious. I would tell them that if they want street meat, it’s readily available. This is not street meat, it’s a culinary novelty (and a cheap one at that - certainly the cheapest way to have lunch made by Jamie Kennedy - via his 25 cent sauce offering). If you’re a foodie, you’ll love it. If you’re more of a steak and potatoes kinda person, feel free to steer clear. I, for one, found it delicious and delightful.
I haven’t posted a picture of the cuties in a while.
Having a Christmas tree is a bit of a challenge with three young cats around.
Ornaments are batted at, jingle bells are jingled at inappropriate times (like while sleeping) and trees are invariably climbed and subsequently toppled.
Last week we had to run out and switch our lights from gorgeous, over-sized, specialty orbs (not so environmentally friendly, but Christmas is a time of indulgence) to boring, old, white LEDs (environmentally friendly, but kinda hurt my eyes to look directly at).
We also picked up some more plastic ornaments. I love glass ones to bits, and I covet my mothers collection of antique ornaments (passed on from her grandmother and mother), and I’m sure they’re about a zillion times better for the environment, but they are just so impractical.
Finding plastic ornaments that aren’t tacky (in other words: look like glass) is strangely difficult, requiring an across town search for them. All because I can’t have glass ornaments around the house until my kitties get old enough to know better than to break open a glass ornament and eat it.
For future reference to me: having three kittens in one apartment is not the best idea ever. Try to pace yourself next time. Maybe adopt one cat at a time, next time?
Sometimes I feel weird that all I post is cat pictures anymore (crazy cat lady=me).
But I think my kitties have more fans than I do - it seems even our Vet’s office checks up on them via the web.
Plus this is the internet. I think it would be inappropriate if I didn’t post pictures of my cats.
Well, the kitties are still quite happy. When it snowed last week (which was super-pretty, and I’m very sad I didn’t get pictures of it, but I was in a lot of toothy pain) they were in love with the little flakes, watching them fall.
It’s definitely a four seasons kind of house. The ginormous maples scattered throughout the neighbourhood had just dropped their leaves a couple weeks ago - all at once. Everything on the street was covered in a good foot of orange leaves overnight.
Living in the old apartment was kind of isolating from nature. You couldn’t hear the rain fall, or sleet hit the windows like you can here. You couldn’t even just step outside to check the weather, because the windows didn’t open very well and you had to go out into the hall, down the stairs, through another hall, through the lobby, and out the front entrance. If we were parked in the parking garage, you didn’t know what it was like outside at all.
Here, I’m wondering if we keep the windows open in the spring, whether we’ll be able to hear birds singing in the mornings. It’s been a long time since I’ve been awoken by that.
Being stuck inside with gaping wounds in your mouth makes you notice these things I guess.
But being stuck in, means I’ve been cooking up a storm. Liam made me pancakes on Sunday morning, yum, and in the past week, I’ve made bacon and potato soup, re-fried beans and Spanish rice, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti carbonara and futomaki roll sushi (with egg, pickled turnip, japanese cucumber, and crab sticks).
We took advantage of the amazing, carnival like, local, Asian grocery store for the sushi. If you live in Toronto, and you’ve never been, you need to go. We also found shelled edamame, pickled ginger, and chocolate mochi there to go with our meal (along with a pink bottle of sake I had bought, well, for it’s bottle).
We’re going to make sushi more often now, I think. It gets easier the more you do it, and then Liam can take leftovers for lunch and stop buying questionable mall sushi.
So, yeah, things are pretty good,
And my head is almost healed,
And we’re almost unpacked,
And there are little kitties in the windows,
And they’re watching the last leaves blow out of the eaves.
I promised photographic proof of happy kitties, and here it is:
Three cats sleeping on one (unmade) bed. This occurred last Sunday - on our first morning waking up here. We had to capture it quick before they noticed us noticing them, so sorry about the messy bed.
This is also get a sneak peak of the bedroom. It’s not quite finished, but you get the idea. Cosy, bright, light, cheery. I’m calling the look: ‘Scandinavian Country Cottage’. I’ve still got furniture to re-finish and I’m not sure about that quilt (I love it, but I’m not sure it’s working in this particular spot - possibly hanging too high?). I’m also probably going to do something with that headboard so it isn’t so obviously ‘the-cheapest-bed-they-had-at-ikea’.
And, of course, it would help if the bed was actually made…
They like to clean Liam on Weekend mornings. It is both adorable and disgusting
So, in all my garden planning and moving preperation and decorating fervor and well, cat related sadness… I have been neglecting to update the internet on the state of my multi-kittened household.
I mean, you guys don’t even know how they got here, do you?
We were spending a lot of time at the vet with Kaylee, and our amazing, wonderful Queen West Animal Clinic had started putting out little, teensy, adorable kitties with little, teensy, adorable sob-stories.
These particular kittens had been found playing all by themselves on a country road. They were very closely bonded and played together all day (I’ve seen them pass a ball back and forth between them like little kids) and slept huddled together in one little ball of fluff at night.
So, the vet did not want them to be separated.
They had almost been adopted - and even spent the day with a young family - but had been sadly sent back to their cage at the vets office.
So we took them home.
I mean, how can you say no to a story like that?
This one with little spots on her nose is Piglet. We were going to call her Dorothy (after Dorothy Parker), but they had already named her Piglet at the vet’s office, and it stuck as she’s clingy, and sweet, and just a little bit chubby, and… piggy.
She’s got short, little legs, and sometimes when she’s been running around like crazy (which happens quite a lot, actually) and it’s hot out, she pants and snorffles exactly like a little puppy. She’s built like a little puppy too.
She loves to cuddle as much as she likes to run, and she growls at you if you come near her when she’s got her favourite toy (a little squishy pink ball she’s nearly destroyed).
Actually I think she might be a puppy in disguise.
She has a crush on Maeby and follows her around (which Maeby is totally not into).
This one’s Flora. She’s quieter and gentler and prefers things that make noise to things that move.
I think she might be slightly older than Piglet because she often takes care of her. Flora makes sure Piglet cleans her box properly, and eats first and always knows where she is, and if she’s sleeping lies down next to her and snuggles.
Flora demands more attention from us than Piglet, meowing for us to wake up in the morning, greeting us cheerfully, rubbing on our legs and hopping into our laps. This sorta confirms my theory about her being older and having to take care of her sister, because I think she’s really happy to have someone to take care of the both of them, and that they’re not alone and locked in a cage or out in the wilderness anymore.
Our cat has been cheezburgered!
…
Without our permission…
Or credit…
Which is kinda less cool…
Still pretty cool though!
Meet Flora (foreground) and Dorothy (background).
There are more (squirming, wriggling, blurry) photos on flickr.
