Monday, August 25, 2014

'Somebody Like You'

Listening to 'Somebody Like You' by Keith Urban... makes me think of my very best, best friend. And 'Something More' by Sugarland.... "I get home, 7:30, the house is dirty.. but it can wait!" heh.

Been thinking about this girl a lot for the last couple of days. Coming across things she's given me or being reminded of moments we've shared.

Coke and Mattresses.

Forgetting to take long pants and sweaters to camp.

About a million mix cd's from ages past to almost present day, one of which I found under a seat in the car when I was cleaning it out the other day (love little surprises like that!)

For some reason we both liked country music. Not ALL country songs, but random ones. And Linkin Park. Our list of favourite songs include everything from hymns to rock and pop and even songs in languages we don't understand... pretty much, if you can move to it, we like it. HAHA.

Miss your face girl.

Come back from the best vacation ever and chill with me on a beach (I'll buy you ALL the suntan lotion that you need.. and we both know that is an investment!)

Monday, July 14, 2014

That Day in Paris

I have realized that I have never actually written about the day I spent in Paris. I should be writing this on my other blog, Bethalona, but I suppose I will just copy it there and get on with life.

I spent my day in Paris with Esther and Victoria- fitting that both of them have royal names and so do I, and we spent the day wandering around a city that has a way of making one feel like a royal. When we arrived, it was late. So dark we could not tell where we were or what direction we wanted to go in. Other tourists helped point us towards the metro line where we could at least find a map of the city and figure out where our hostel was. Somehow I became the tour guide (I was the only one of the three of us who actually wanted to spend time in Paris and the only one with a little bit of French to rely on).

After safely navigating Paris at night and getting us from Metro to bus to the hostel, we ventured out for pizza. A small place, tucked away in what felt like a slightly unsafe neighbourhood, but the pizza was good and we were all too tired to care if it wasn't. Back to the hostel for sleep in our cramped three-person room where Victoria and I shared a bed and Esther was on the bunk up top.

Morning showers in a cold hostel, bundled up and hungry we left the hostel ready for a day of adventure. We found a bakery (one of many, and not-so-few-and-far-between) and bought some pastries for breakfast, and the much needed coffee. We bought some apples from a local vendor and carried on our way. Me, being the tour guide again, had asked in very broken French (after reciting in French that I don't speak the language) had asked for directions from a very large man at the reception desk in the hostel. He had told me in simple terms to walk down to the main road, turn left and walk to the MacDonalds. We would find it from there.

We did, thank goodness. And still having my map, I found our way through the spiders web to a metro stop close to the Louvre. (I should mention that on the Metro the three of us saw the most attractive, well-dressed man we could ever agree on as being the most attractive man we've ever seen. He looked as though he stepped out from between the pages of a magazine cologne ad and onto the Metro. None of us were close enough to smell him, but I assume he smells like something that would have most women losing themselves in and falling victim to his European allure. From head to toe: perfection. And I said "bonjour" to him on the way out of the Metro car and giggled like a school girl with my friends all the way to the top of the stairs!)

Out on the street, we met some Australians who gave us a tip about travelling in Europe, and most importantly in Paris: keep your purse under your coat and your valuables where you can feel them on your person. Past a church and down the street, we got out first glimpses of the magnificent museum. Truthfully, I thought it would look different, and once inside the confines of the buildings it did. The old style architecture and sculptures were beautiful and as many have said, I found the glass structure in the middle to be starkly out of place, despite how beautiful it can be in photos (something not unlike the structure built onto the ROM in Toronto- completely unnecessary and mostly out of place, but trying to tie in old world with new and modern). We of course took pictures, and once inside, wandered our way around the Greek sculptures, Egyptian antiquities and still life paintings. We found the Mona Lisa which is actually a lot smaller than I had imagined it to be, and the Venus de Milo. We left around noon as we were all beginning to get rather hungry, and found a little shop to buy sandwiches in.

After our snack, we wandered in a tourist fashion all the way up the Champs Elysees, going into shops along the way. We went into Yves Roche, a store I happen to quite like, and purchased a few small things and while the store clerk was quite pleasant to me, she was quite rude to my friends, who again, do not speak any French.

We found the Arc de Triomphe and took a siesta on a park bench nearby. Another lovely tourist took our photo because the occasion was simply entertaining.

From there we took a bicycle taxi to an attractive photo-perfect spot close to the Eiffel Tower. It was 15 euro but well worth the money for the somewhat romantic ride and the laughs along the way.

Photos, photos, photos and lots of posing. Another walk had us standing right under the tower, looking straight up. We didn't take the opportunity to walk up the tower because it was already getting late in the day and the wait was 2 hours. If we had another day we would have planned to be there early and go up, but alas, maybe next time.

We had been recommended a place to eat for dinner by a friend of ours, so we decided to try to find it. It was across the city: another Metro ride and a walk through the narrow streets to find it. Once there, we tried to get in. We were declined. The man at the door said it was because we didn't have reservations and they were quite busy. The place was empty from what I saw. I think it was because we didn't speak French.

Another place around the corner was quite a bit more hospitable. I tried escargot! It has much the same texture as mushroom, surprisingly, and I found it to actually be agreeable. Though, the amount of garlic and the overpowering taste of salt prevented me from wanting more than a few bites.

Dinner was delicious and fanciful as any dinner in Paris should be. Afterwards, we decided to take a stroll and find a store for some sweet treats. We purchased a box of cookies and some bottles of water and kept on walking. I had spoken to a friend of mine from Canada who said he would be in Paris the same weekend, but we hadn't been able to get ahold of him all weekend. That was perfectly fine with all of us. We ended up sitting on a park bench on a small street, looking at an old building and just talking into the night. We didn't have energy after our long day of walking to go out partying, and we didn't care to go back and change and go out again. We were perfectly content to eat our cookies on the park bench.

We got back to our room late that night again, and went to bed. That night I dreamt in three languages and woke up feeling rather confused.

After a quick breakfast and purchasing a few items to take on our train ride, we headed to the train station to continue our trip around Europe. Baguettes, apples and coffee. The perfect end to our short stay in the city of love.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

The "More Is MORE" of Cake Decorating

If you think you know something about icing cakes, you are probably wrong. It's no simple thing. I mean, sure, anybody can slap a little icing on a cake and maybe you mostly won't see the cake through the icing, or have gobs sliding down the sides or somehow manage to make it lop-sided. And even if you manage to cover the cake half-decently, who is to say that the decorating will go over well? The Cake Boss may make it look easy, but that doesn't mean it is easy.

I'm sure we've all had a family gathering of sorts that you're expected to go to and someone comes up with the brilliant idea that because you're "artistic" that must mean that you can bake a cake! (Shakira's artistic, she sings, so she must be a whiz in the kitchen! Right??*) So here you are, saddled with the chore of trying to come up with something family-fun related and not at all mangled. You decide to bake the cake yourself and maybe have some design or flowers or something on it, and a cute little saying like "Happy Mother's Day" or "Happy Easter" or "Congrats on your Little Angel".

So first you bake a cake, and let's be honest, you got some help from Betty Crocker and Walmart's baking isle. Don't be too ashamed, ingredients and measuring aren't for everybody and for most of us "winging-it" doesn't turn out well. So you have a cake now, hopefully not too burnt, and most of it came out of the pan okay. Toss that baby on the cooling rack and then when its mostly cooled, throw it in a bag and put it in the freezer**. Don't think that freezer burn cancels out the other burn- seal the bag! Freezing your cake helps lock in the moisture, so you probably wanted to bake your cake yesterday. Oh well.

Take it back out of the freezer. If you are like half of North American women, you probably don't have a turntable. If you have one, get a dj, stick him in the corner and have him remix you some tunes while you decorate. But seriously, a cake turntable is actually very useful when decorating. If you're the other half of North American women and you have one, you probably got it with your wedding registry items and it's still in the box in the basement under your crockpot and fancy towels. Dig it out, you'll need it.

Centre your cake on the turntable and cut it in half. Top and bottom halves, not the other way. Put the top half to the side and get out the Betty Crocker icing you bought. Give it a good stir and gob some icing on the bottom half. Smooth it out. There is a trick to this but I'm not gonna give it up. If you don't know how to properly do it then just get crumbs in it like everyone else and get on with it, or watch a youtube instructional video.

Once that's done (consider it your practice round because the top is next and people will see that part), put the top back on and repeat: gob, then smooth.

Once you've done the top, do the sides. If your cake is round this shouldn't be too much trouble. If its square or rectangle, good luck on those corners.

Now your cake is iced. Wherever you see cake showing through or some crumbs is where you're gonna want to decorate a little more, but lets start with a border: something around the bottom and around the top. If you're sneaky, you will have bought pre-coloured icing in the tubes that fit the shaped tips that just screw onto the tubes. Fine, use the star, it's the most interesting. With a steady hand- I said steady, put the wine down and focus- position your tip almost against the part of the cake you're starting at, and squeeze. You'll want to keep even pressure while you turn the cake on the turntable. Well it's mostly even and somewhat straight and if you'd have stayed away from the wine until after you were done it might have looked better, but hopefully everyone will be trashed at your niece's christening so no one will notice... right? Have another sip so it looks straight and do the border on the top, same idea: position, even pressure (mostly), and turn. If one spot looks sparse, just add some more on top: more is more.

Now you've got a cake with icing and a border. Now what? Well, if you Google "cakes" you'll probably see mostly things that are WAY out of your ability and creative reaches. But that one has some flowers, so maybe try a few of those. Since you don't know what you're doing, maybe do a few practice ones on the counter to see if you're doing it right. Or maybe not, and just go for it.

Okay that one didn't turn out so well. Maybe you can fix it. But probably not. And now its a gob. So put a few sprinkles on it and maybe no one will notice. Try another one. Maybe it will look better than the first. Nope. Maybe if you just poke that one spot, it will turn into a star. Or maybe not. Have another sip, and sprinkle. Hey, maybe you can make a theme of sprinkles! Like "Sprinklings of Joy on Your Happy Day, Grandpa!" So then maybe you take the idea a little too far. But wait, More is More, right? Never too many sprinkles!! Load up your cake with icing gobs and sprinkles, because clearly no one would believe that's a flower or a star or anything else you could've tried to pass it off as.

Now you have a space left, mostly centred in the middle of your gobs. Now to write your message. You could write it out on paper and see how it turns out, or again, take a practice round on the counter or other surface, but what the heck, you're great at writing birthday cards and this can't be very different, so just go ahead and start right on your cake.

It's not very centred and Timmy's name is squished on and halfway down the side... maybe people will think you did that on purpose. It's kind of "artistic" right?

So if you're thinking now that you maybe should have just gone to the grocery store and gotten one of those pre-made cakes that are ready for you to request a saying and take it away, you're probably right.

OR, you could take a cake decorating class.

The first option is definitely easier, and cheaper in the short term. But if you ever want to show up at your family gathering with a little bit of pride and something to show for your creative talent besides that single that never got played on the radio or the paintings that keep piling up, half-finished in the spare bedroom, the second option is definitely worth while. Introductory cake decorating classes range in price and time, but a few hours with a professional will at least give you some confidence in making a cake for your best friend's bachelorette (because not everyone wants a penis cake anymore) or some cupcakes for Aunt Sue's "Newly Single" party.

And even if you have no reason to decorate a cake, at least now you'll know how to make Butter Cream icing (cause if you're gonna eat it out of the tub by yourself on a Thursday night, it might as well be homemade!)

Happy Decorating!

 


*probably not, the girl looks like she's never seen butter, let alone butter cream icing!
** be gentle, it's a cake not a Frisbee

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Hope for a Houseplant

You can't die. If you die, I'll lose all hope. I used to think I could do anything, but if you die, I'll know I can fail at something. The veil I've laid over my own eyes will be removed and I'll see myself for what I really am. If I can't even keep you alive, what am I worth?
 
When I got you, you were strong and beautiful. You only need a few things to keep you going. Have I failed you in your smallest and greatest needs all together? Did the cat attack you one too many times? I should have put you higher up.
 
Let me feed you again. Water. Sunlight- everyone needs sunlight, especially you. Please come back to me. Flower and bloom. Bring back the deep, vibrant colours of the days when we first met.

 
Let's stay alive together. One bad month or two can't keep us down, right? There is hope for revival. I'll help you, and you help me. "Keep a plant alive for more than one bloom" is on my list of things to do before I die.. we're in this one together and I won't let you go just yet.  

Monday, June 16, 2014

How Will You Use Your Seconds?

Anything.

Everything.

Something.

Nothing.

Seconds tick by so quickly that rarely do we notice individual moments coming and going. We sleep, we eat, we go about our lives. The normal is perpendicular to the abnormal; where the normal keeps going straight and the abnormal disrupts the natural rhythm of our lives, and we stop to take notice.

A birth.

A death.

An accident.

A miracle.

Life changing events happen in a second. They sneak up on us in our most unsuspecting moments, and tear through our habitual, methodical lives to take us by surprise.

A bad decision.

A negative response.

A gunshot.

Just like that you life will change, never to be the same as the moment before.

A sound.

A noise.

A crash.

Words on average are typed at .5 per second, spoken at 1.5 per second and read at 4-5 per second. Incredible how information can be shared so quickly.

An announcement.

A proclamation.

A victory.

We never know when our seconds will end, or how many we will have to keep using. To keep wasting. On eating alone, or watching t.v. Video games and mocking people in the street or on the bus. Shameful things are done in seconds. And blessings are given in seconds. I don't know the weight of a wasted moment or the density of a well-used second, but I sure hope that the latter outweighs the former in the end.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

How Will I "Wear a Tiara in Public" Without You?

Remember the list we started making together? The list of "Things to do before we die"? ... I'm gonna keep going. You're not here to go with me, and I can't call you and share my adventures, but I checked a few things off my list last year and I intend to check a few more off this year.

Miss your sweet soul, your beautiful smile and your always joyful laughter.

2014: Things are Gonna Happen!