Paris 2054. Live forever or die trying.

cool flick: renaissance. black and white animation but very a scanner darkly, this is a definate one-to-watch.

artifact found: campaign sign

an extremely large candidate's sign appeared on our front lawn this morning. without warning. i always thought they had to ask your permission first, but apparently not. perhaps we were on a list from the previous owners of our house, but still. it's funny because there were smaller signs they could have chosen, but no we got the BIG one. so now i guess we are keeping our neighbours wondering, as i am sure they noticed the huge sign and now we've removed. now even if i was considering voting for that party, i might not based on the sheer rudeness of unauthorized lawn domination. has this happened to anyone else?

look up

i can hear the roar of plane engines above and can only assume the blue angels are back. may they do an extra twirl for lady di today. i can't believe it has been ten years. watched a documentary on the unravelling news surrounding her death last night on cbc. shocking really. such a waste. she always seemed like the royal with the heart. enjoy the last long weekend folks, the weather is supposed to be nice here.

just another manic monday

wish it was sunday. isn't that how the song goes? i can not believe that next weekend is labour day. i may just wear white every day this week in homage to summer. can't wait for laughter meditation class tomorrow night, it will have been almost a month since my last. i am listening to gospel music at the moment, looking to the heavens for inspiration...

the secret sauce

en route to my grandma's funeral i sat next to a fabulous spirit. i asked for aisle but ended up getting a middle seat and the funny thing is that she had just said to the guy on the end, maybe we'll be lucky and the seat will stay open the whole trip. then i arrived. i forget how we got to talking about happiness but i remember her saying - I could go today...meaning she was happy with the life she's lived and lives and doesn't need an ounce more if it's not meant to be.

so i asked her, what's the secret sauce?

she laughed.

and then she said, after some thought...

"I want what I have."

and...

"surround yourself with quality people."

what's a quality person? i asked. "well, it's different for everyone but you need to figure out what your definition of quality is and then surround yourself with it."

i really felt so lucky to sit beside her, it was like one of my deluxe cabbie encounters. philosphy is everywhere if you just take the time to look.

back in a jiffy

there will likely be a pause in posts over the next few weeks. don't worry, i'm fine. it's summer -- go have yourself a popsicle or take in a neighbourhood wander. will blog as i get the chance. thank you for stopping by. love and peace to all my faithful readers. all 5 of you.

gone but not forgotten

sadly she passed away last night. i fly out tomorrow night to be with family and friends for a celebration of her life. the stories will come pouring out i am sure, over martinis i hope. just wanted to say thanks for all the well wishes, it was muchly appreciated. i am sure she is grinning up a storm over it in a cyber cafe in a corner of heaven. you wouldn't believe the high speed access there! incidentally it is also my blog bday today.

finder of four leaf clovers

my grandma could use a bit of good karma, prayer, and well wishes right about now. she's sick in hospital in critical care. here's a pic of her just last summer when she visited. it's at the drake. she hates photos of herself but i love this one of her. she is a definate free spirit, always finds four leaf clovers, and celebrates her birthday with a martini every year. she is the kind of person who likes to seek out wild flowers and make bouquets, totally has a creative, artistic streak. back in the day, she had a flair for wild hats and leather pants. there are just so many great things about her. she is sweet and a total original. thinking of you grandma and wishing you the inner strength to get thru this tough time, i know you have it in you.

road trip'in

sometimes you just have to get out of dodge, you know? take the road less travelled, amble further than you would on any other saturday. audrey and i did just that this past weekend. we went across the border to a place with trees like cathedrals, pathways dotted with fairies and angels, and welcoming porches with a beckoning lake just beyond. of course, no road trip would be complete without the roadside diner experience -- in our case, dinner at bob evan's. it's like denny's only slightly more upscale, lots o'meat and freshly baked country biscuits with a pat o butta. we played this game on the way home where we pointed at stuff out the window and yelled out random words, so instead of house it was freckle, or instead of street lamp it was chia pet.
the exercise was supposed to free you from your dull, predictable state of being, make everything seem brighter and crisper. try it. i didn't think it would work but it did! totally frees up your mind to make new associations. i think this would be a good exercise to get someone out of writer's block. anyhow, the weekend was a lark. definately glad i went.

once

see.this.movie. if it is possible for a musical movie not to seem cheezy, here's the proof. here's one movie where it make sense for the songs to be there and it really shows the collaboration and creative process for song writing in a convincing manner. it is quirky, feels authentic. a beautiful unconventional story that doesn't cave to convention. the lead is an irish musician and the music -- great. itunes was sold out of soundtracks when we checked out the site after the movie.

lucky seven

07.07.07 Can you just feel the luck oozing from today? i'm hoping i am the 7 millionth person to write this on a blog in cyber space. bring it on baby! bonus points for 7 comments, i know you can do it. even if holding expectations on numbers seems kinda silly it sure can be fun. welcoming all lucky or unlucky seven stories...

on fire

lean too close to the flames and you will get burned. this week, at laughing meditation i scalded my hands on spilt tea, also burned my tongue and my lip on the calm cool sounding white cloud tea.then wednesday i left a hand towel on a still warm burner (for thirty seconds) as i was making some ancient grains on another burner...what's that smell? smoldering, smoking, burning hand towel. totally smoked the place out. had to throw the burning towel outside douse with water, turn on all the fans and open all windows and the door. i even ran the shower for a bit hoping the moisture would remove the cloud of smoke lingering near the ceiling throughout the place. a day later, it still smells like smoke in here faintly. yeesh. whatta week. thankfully these were just small misfortunes, really it could have been worse so i thank my lucky stars. still, seems kinda funny these two burning moments so close together...maybe the universe it trying to tell me something.

brush with schmarminess: sarah polley

drake patio today around 5pm: we spotted sarah polley kicking back with pals in a great pair of sweet retro shoes i might add. she was wearing this bold print dress and had her hair pulled back for any fashionistas who might care about details of this sort. it's funny because i feel this kinship with her because we both tried on wedding dresses together at the same shop on queen back in the day. of course, i am sure she doesn't remember but it's a nice memory and it's the dress i ended up getting married in so it stuck in my mind. maybe she was a good luck charm? happy canada day folks.

fortune teller instincts strike again

had another hunch about a good friend with child! it actually almost got me in trouble because i mentioned the hunch to another friend who took my hunch as fact. sorta pre-leaked the news in a way. thankfully it didn't get too out of hand. but it was wierd because i had no idea, but really felt sure of my hunch. i will try to conjure up a notion of the sex of the baby and see if i'm right. i'll have to keep that part a secret until the arrival.

hot unda collar

temperatures soared, tempers flared. i felt zen most of the weekend but witnessed some firecrackers around town. at my laughter yoga class this fiestly 83 year old cranked out so much that my teacher up and left class and decided to take a few months sabbatical. i ended up racing after her and we did some tai chi on the grass together and then had a nice chat. she totally didn't deserve the lack of respect but she felt good for not taking it and i was glad i could cheer her up a little. it will all work out in the end. thank goodness our laughter meditation class is drama free, it's just the saturday laughing yoga class that is kicking up a fuss. how ridiculous is that? it's about laughing for goodness sake! then today, we went to the beach and in the very full parking lot this guy was standing and holding a parking space for a friend when this other car proceeded to drive into him, yes drive into a person. parking rage! it all happened in slow motion but the standing guy got so mad he kicked the car and started yelling. not sure how it all went down with the cops. we were lucky because in all the fuss we ended up getting this good parking spot as another car was leaving and there was no competition for the spot. hard to feel glad for too long because of all the drama. geez louise, why can't we all just get along?

little old ladies

went for a walk today and had to laugh at the little old ladies hosing leaves etc off the side walk, it's like a rite of passage for that demographic. brooms outlawed! another thing that made me chuckle was the crazy lady from next door. there's another pyramid of salt on the walk out front of her place, this one strategically placed at the far corner, almost at the doorstep of our house. warding off some kind of vermon i am sure. maybe she knows who took the boots?

a mile in your boots

dN had a pair of old stinky construction boots outside our crash pad's door. upon returning from our father's day visits we came home to find that someone had taken the boots and replaced them with a black pair of imitation crocks. such a funny thing, especially with tales of urban robin hood in the hood. who takes stinky boots and leaves a pair of replacements behind? in the same position by the door, no less. how bizarre. we imagined a world where his boots had a tracking device and we can see who decided to walk a mile in his boots. did they actually expect him to wear the crocks instead? the considerate thief. ridiculous thief because the reason the boots were outside to begin with is the stench factor. stench-ola. festerville. what do you make of this?

late night film shoot

on the doorstep of our crash pad, there was a huddle of a film crew saturday night. it will be an independent film about an urban robin hood. we got the heads up from the continuity girl who was perched on our neighbours steps before the shoot began. they also shot in the alleyway between this house and next door, as well as some of the lane ways in the hood.

heaven meets earth

this week my laughing yoga teacher taught us this breathing exercise called heaven meets earth. sounds like pure poetry, doesn't it? well imagine it to the scent of steamed peonies...dreamy. we breathed and hummed in unison. we capped things off with a cup of white cloud tea of course. this week was surprizingly calm (despite a heavy work load) with the exception of hellish friday. my tuesday laughing meditation class lingered 2 days afterwards. friday, however, the xl gods were against us and a 25 minute quick fix ended up corrupting a file, the previous version i had saved did not include 8 hours of work. what a reminder to always save back ups! anyhow, the rework is thru, so the storm has passed. i met yet another one of my philosopher cabbies today -- his message today: always be happy. health is the most important thing. i left him a good tip for reminding me. ;)

mango + raspberry

it's officially popsicle season. my favourite flavours are mango and raspberry, they come individually wrapped and they are the definition of bliss. now all i need is a pair of flip flops and i'm set for summer.