My Best Friend

This is K. She has been my friend ever since we moved to the Arctic, and even though she drives me INSANE sometimes, she is still going to be one of my bridesmaids, if i ever change my mind and settle down with some billionaire 78 year old gentleman (titled is preferred, but not necessary.) who has a villa in the south of France, an apartment in Paris and London, summer cottage in Greece, and a studio in Tokyo. Anyways, i digress. She broke her hand playing volleyball (eeww, sports) and went in for surgery today to get some metal pins put in. Even though i am still angry and upset, i brought her flowers. Sometimes events occur that transcend the boundaries of petty arguments. And when she is feeling better, i will yell at her then. Because i love her.

The Eighth

I am cold. the heat has gone off for the night, and even though i am wearing my (super secret) fleece pants and (gasp!) a hoody, i am still chilled to the bone. This is what doing homework and living in the Far North does to you! I am one of many who prefer to be too warm then too cold. And since there is little meat on my bones, i am cold most of the time.
Also, still fighting with my best friend K. Why friendships cant be easier is beyond me. Plus, i am terrible at confrontation, so when i am mad and need to say something, i dont. i just let it slide, or sweep it under the rug. I think some Dutch courage might be in order to get through this one...how easy is it to tell someone that while you love them, you cant stand them?

Once again, here is some more photo's from one of our photoshoots. It was very cold that day, and though we brought reinforcements, we still ended up at Credo Cafe across the block, chatting with the owner's son (an old friend) and sipping hot lattes. Mucho bueno!

Flavour of the Moment

Ever since this summer, my love affair with the herb "mint" has been building, and in the past few weeks it has exploded. I love it in everything: tea, soup, pasta, samosa's, salad, ice-cream...it is clean, subtle, and totally unexpected. When i was a little girl living by the sea, we had a huge backyard with a wild corner where mint, chives, parsley, basil grew in abundance. My siblings and i would orchestrate day-long "games" that would involve basically living outside pretending to be orphans from the late 19th century, and the only food we could eat was what we could scrounge...raspberries, peas, mouldy fallen apples, and herbs. (We had wild imaginations...and i was fascinated with play-acting.) But to this day, mint has remained one of my favourite flavours, especially when you arent expecting it.
Mein Fuhrer is in Germany for a while for work, with his friend O'Henry. It is quite funny- my father is very self-aware, sarcastic, cosmopolitan, and an extremely experienced traveller- Henry, while very very nice, and sometimes very funny, is...well...not. He not only brought a pair of sneakers for his only pair of shoes, he also decided to wear sweatpants on the plane. My father, in a laughing manner, said that everyone will think they are a gay couple, and i can see it. I would laugh and laugh and laugh if only there was someone filming them on this trip, as im sure it would be the most hilarious trip two friends have ever embarked on.
Also, i woke up this morning to snow on the ground. Being from the coast, the sight still fills my heart with wonder and joy every winter (at least for the first month), and i decided to play charlie brown christmas music all day in celebration. But i need to write two essays for school...one history (a book review, emile zola's A Ladies Paradise") and one english, on Spenser's Faerie Queene. Better get back to work, but not before i post some more photo's for lookbook...A and i are going to do one more photoshoot, and then try and get on! Aaaaahhh!

the Seventh

I have been staying with these two boys this week, as a favour to their mother while she and her husband are in Mexico. I babysat alot of kids when i was young(er), and these two are from hell. Well, at least one is. His name is D****, and his older brother's name is D*****. Lets call them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, respectively. T-Dee is 13, and T-Dum is 15, which in my opinion is old enough to be left on your own for a week. Surely, the most they need is supper in the evenings, and someone to make sure the doors are locked at night...but not these two. Not only do they require one fried egg each morning (made by moi), but T-Dee will also complain to his mother (within earshot of me) when one morning i decide to let them try for themselves. After all, my father's favourite saying is: Give a man a fish, and he eats for a meal. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. While this is not perfect (eww, fish forever? No thanks) there is much to be said for the general gist of it all. They have other awful meal habits that must be indulged, (like plastic plates and cups every time, and peculiarly sliced fruit for one and a precisely numbered about of cherry tomatoes for the other), and have the

(photo's courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/31174045@N07/) independence of an 8 year old, but it's the silence that bothers me the most.

Yes, i said it, it's the silence. The house is like a frozen tomb. The boys will not talk! I try my best to drag conversation out of them, and usually i am very good at that, but these two answer in single word sentences, and then fall silent again. When they talk to themselves (very, very rarely) it is in whispers, in another room from me. In fact, last night i decided to see if we could go an entire meal without a word, and we did. That was the last straw. Even before washing the dishes, i called my sister D, my brother J, and A (the beautiful girl in the checked dress above) who happened to be at our house too. All 3 of them came marching over armed with guitars and sheet music, and we proceeded to fill every cold and empty nook and cranny of that house with noise, laughter, music, and singing. The boys cowered in their bedroom. For at least an evening, that house turned into a proper home, with real children making real noise. I think thats what bothers me the most about T-Dee and T-Dum...they arent real. They seem lacking in some vital, human element, and are almost 2-D, like book characters cut out and pasted on a scene.

Ahhh, i am so glad that tonight is my last night there. Here is A's blog. She is my fellow lookbook member wannabe.

The Sixth

An old ghost from my past has been poking around lately, and i suppose its partly my fault for encouraging him even in the slightest. I was in luuuurve with him for a year, and only really stopped because he was so unsuitable, and there was someone else. Hmm, i hate being cruel but it's as if being destructive helps me feel better. Oerg. Song of the day: A Million Ways, by OkGo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGYH2SLMwoo

The Fifth

(photographs courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/31174045@N07/)

Fall has definitely arrived. A few weeks ago we had snow, and below zero temperatures, but thankgoodness it then proceeded to warm up to normal autumnal highs of 10. School has been keeping me extremely occupied. I don't know why i sound so excited, and i am very sad, etc., but i feel like a great weight thats been hanging over me the past few months is gone. Yay for being free! It's so less complicated, and so much more dramatic. Anyways, my sister D and her friend A and i have decided to try and get on the tres chic website LookBook (www.lookbook.nu) which is summarized as "the internet's largest source of fashion inspiration from real people around the world." and the thing i love the most about it is the fact that most of the members are NOT from North America. Halleleighua! Finally a sphere where They (our neighbours south of the border) do not dominate.

So last weekend, we got my favourite photographer to take pictures of us. Over the next few days/weeks, I will be posting more, since the lookbook people require a link to a website that has photos of us on it, and i have decided to use this one.