NSFW. But Safe for Life.

This has been making me laugh all afternoon. Awesome in its simplicity. I'd buy that lady a beer for her sheer determination. You rule, Scotland.

Travellin' (Wo)Man

I've been on a short vacation recently and returned more exhausted than when I left, which, part of me firmly believes, is not how vacations are supposed to be, although the other part of me thinks that this is merely proof that you did it right.

At the end of the holiday I spent a few days just hanging out in Vancouver, walking my feet into bloody stumps, drinking too much wine/beer/cocktails, having food with friends, etc. Here are a couple of my friends here. Both are tasty. I favoured the brunette...

Other than that, I enjoyed being in the mountains, staring at glacial lakes and staying in a mountain cabin. I especially enjoyed the return journey into Vancouver in the pelting rain and fog and rush hour traffic. It's like it knew I was coming.

Here are a few photos, to bore you with.

Beautiful Lake Moraine on a cloudy early morning

Bridge in Golden, BC

Lake Louise in the morning - the water is actually that color

Some logs on the beach in Vancouver

Rainy night in downtown Vancouver

Part of the Vancouver Skyline

Lake Louise again

Canoes on Lake Moraine on a chilly, cloudy, early morning

I could go on, but I'll spare you. Hope you're all well?

Half Way To Comatose

When you work from home you have a lot of leeway with everyday stuff, you didn't use to have. Sure, it can be a gigantic recipe for laziness, but it can also be more productive and relaxed than sitting in an office, avoiding your boss and throwing pencils at the ceiling tiles.

You can make your own hours for one thing, which for me are afternoons and evenings, when I'm most productive. This leaves mornings for drinking coffee, treadmilling my face off, showering, and drinking coffee by the sea.

Plus, working from home means you can work in your pajamas if you feel like it (I do not, this is a lame activity). You can stream playlists all day long and play with your collection of Funko Pop toys. You can also have a nice, evening glass of wine on your desk if that floats your boat, although, sadly, I usually don't in case I have to drive somewhere, because I take sudden urges to just GO and everyone knows, sudden urges must be obeyed. The following photo is the result of a sudden urge the other night.

Then one day you wake up and start to realize that you haven't left the house in four days and even then it was only because you ran out of food and wine and had no other choice but go out or expire from lack of sustenance. Plus you look like a feral child and haven't had a haircut in eleven months and have worn nothing but jeans every day for the last half year, and almost no make up.

Then you realize, eff it, you're actually okay with that.

An Update: Nothing is Happening

This week's been sweaty. And showery. Because one, logically must follow the other or else you'll stank up the environment with your fumes. Allegedly.

I've been putting my new treadmill to work. Every day I've worked out and I'm feeling stronger already. The first day, my running shoes conspired to try and strip the skin off my heels, but I was ready for that shenanigans with double socks and band aids. You have to get up pretty early to get ME, shoes. So good to get back to it though. Now to get that old fitness level back!

Other than this I've been enjoying casually swearing at rampant tourists and people playing that infuriating pokemon game, who think it's perfectly reasonable to be wandering in front of my car like lobotomized turkeys. Alternately I am calming myself down by looking for whales at my favourite look out point while filling my innards with coffee. Whales and tourists. Two non-complementary opposites when relating to my psyche. Part of that sentence was redundant, but I think we'll all live.

When not indulging in the two above activities I've been not sleeping (I'm pretty much an Olympic grade champion at this) and working strange hours, wearing out my Wacom tablet (note: Need new nibs) on new designs.

To summarize: running, designing, coffee, tourists, whales. I really should have led with that.

Scattered

I live on an international border, so I usually have both American and Canadian cash on me at any given time, just because. In the immediate regions on both sides of the border you can generally spend either currency, and so sometimes it all becomes a big blur in my cluttered little brain. And my wallet.

Sometimes I'm paying for parking, and the machines in my city only take local currency. I'll stand cursing at the smug little metal jackwagon, which is insolently spitting coins right back at me, then realize I've tried to squeeze in one measly U.S. quarter instead of a Canadian one and it's having a bitchfit. They're barely indistinguishable in appearance and size but the machine? IT ALWAYS KNOWS. And it always happens when I only have the exact change, therefore, I wind up a quarter short and either have to move or use my credit card for a two dollar ticket. Gah. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, am I right?

I already feel better having ranted about this highly important event.

I just bought a new treadmill and I'm stoked. It's been two - almost three - years since I last ran and I miss it.

I should point out, I hate running. Let me put it into context for you. 

Take Tom Jones. Infamous for inducing people's moms everywhere, into a panty-soaking mass of hysteria. Tom's fans love Tom so much they will hurl said gross panties at him on stage, faint all over the place, and defend him to the death with their all-encompassing adoration. If you were to take all that mom-generated passion, put it in a cocktail shaker, shake it up violently, clone it seventeen times, and pour it into a giant cosmic container, you STILL would not have the amount of passion strong enough to equal my passionate hatred for running.

But I do like the way I feel after I run, so I am excited to get back into being a wobbly, shaky, sweaty, sweary mess - albeit one whose jeans fit better! - four times a week. If nothing else I'll get to listen to some new podcasts or music. And maybe it will render me too tired to yell at the assholic dickweeds in their gigantic, tiny-wanger-compensating, pick-up trucks, who keep trying to illegally park in our 'residential only' parking outside the house, and who keep backing into my tiny car like it's not there. 

MAYBE...

Hope you all had a good July 4th/Canada Day/weekendy summer thing!

Fuck Off Britain

I have only two things to say today.

1) Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, David Cameron, you giant bag of dicks.

and:

2) There must be some sort of brain disease spreading in the UK that has rendered so many people idiots. You people have no idea what you've done.

That's all. I am so fucking disappointed in my homeland. If I still lived there I'd move. Obviously not to mainland Europe though, so thanks for limiting the freedom we used to have, asshats.

Hair Raising

My hair just keeps getting longer and longer, which...well, I'm told that's what hair does, don't think I'm unaware, it's just that it seems to do it way more regularly than I'd like. Sometimes it's okay on the longer side and it feels good to swish around all free and easy, like a ginger hippy princess.

Some days I wake up having slept just right and I look like I have cool, effortless beach waves and hey, check me out, I just woke up looking this awesome. These days happen about as often as you catch a glimpse of a porcine figure with wings floating past your window.

On the other hand, most days I wake up looking like Janis Joplin on a bender, with a head full of bees.

But as discussed ad nauseum for years  now, I never seem able to get a good haircut anywhere. I've tried. So. Many. Times. And I should probably point out, it's not the haircut that's bad usually, so much as my ability to wear it or style it myself without looking like I did it with a snow blower and too much enthusiasm. That's good and well when you're twenty and everyone's like "Check out that chick with the crazy hair, she must be COOL!" Nowadays it's more, "Jesus, check out that obvious cat lady who got dressed in the dark and probably has a family consisting purely of mannequins that she keeps in her basement!"  That and frightening small children in the supermarket.

Which, when you think about it, is the one up side to all this.

However, it's not the look I'm going for. The trouble is I hate safe, boring soccer mom kind of hair cuts, that's not me. I want to walk in there and go, 'give me funky rock chick hair only a little more age appropriate so I don't look like a total asshole.' But somehow I never do as I'm pathetic and inarticulate.

I'm also trying to partially grow out my fringe  a bit (that's 'bangs' to you American folks) and I don't know about you ladies out there, if you've ever tried this, but I'd put it right up near the top of my "Sharp Things I'd Rather Impale Myself On Than Do" list, right after "Licking Donald Trump".

It's such an unfulfilling, labourious, esteem-sucking nightmare. In my opinion anyone attempting this should be allowed to just not leave the house for nine months till it's rectified itself or your head's imploded, and during that time people should bring you all the food/wine/chocolate/tequila you require until it's safe to go out in public once more.

At least I have coffee again.

I'm Decaffeinated

The last couple of days I've been a wholly un-caffeinated mess, since the coffee maker decided it no longer wished to provide me with my life-inducing morning coffee, for no reason other than it is an asshole. Thing isn't even a year old, it was just like, "Oh did you want coffee? Sucks to be you."

Eat a bag of dicks, Oster coffee maker.

So I'm sitting here cursing to myself and waiting for the nice courier man from Amazon to bring me a new one sometime today because Amazon Prime is awesome. And I'm un-caffeinated, I may have mentioned it. It's not pretty. I've been talking to inanimate objects and cursing at my plants.

I could drive the mile or so to Starbucks (let's face it, I could walk but hell, I'm too lazy today to even contemplate that, and my knee hurts probably because it requires caffeine to function) but the Purolator guy's sure to show up the second I leave the house and that would mean me being un-caffeinated for another day and it's for the absolute benefit of humankind that that does not happen.

It sort of takes the shine off of getting up in the morning when there's no delicious, fragrant cup of "awake juice" waiting for me and making the kitchen smell like heaven. Sigh.

I know, it's just hard to be me.

I also realized yesterday that I've lived 100 feet from the ocean for almost a year now and I've still yet to put my feet in it. What the hell? How are you guys today?

What I Did Last Summer

Last summer I moved half way across the country, from the flat, huge-skied, sun-baked prairies, to the more humid and manageable climate of the coast.

This was a pleasant and welcome event in my life, and my ancient Chevy, Victor (because yes he has a name, shut up) handled the 1500 mile trip over flat plains and sharp, steep mountains, with ease, probably thrilled at the dizzying prospect of no longer having to start when it's minus 30 something out, or broil in the hot, prairie, summer sun.

So one day in July I tossed some choice driving playlists on my old iPod, loaded up my car, and hit the road.

I discovered long ago that playlists are key, to making any long trip palatable, particularly if said playlists include endless opportunities to sing like your life depends on it, loudly and with gusto. And particularly if you're driving 1500 plus miles alone in the car, as I was - well alone except for my plants, all of whom, I have on trusted authority, appreciate my melodious screechings. And, let me tell you, there was one particularly enthusiastic rendering of "I Will Survive" that will keep them happy for a long, long time.

Moving to our current city was like being picked up and plopped down on another planet.  After the flat, apocalyptic winter that characterized our last home - the five months every year of icy blanched landscapes and wearing all the sweaters in my drawer simultaneously, had rendered me almost completely devoid of visual stimulation. Finding myself here, near the ocean, surrounded by mild winters and sunny summers, outdoor cafes and markets, beautiful landscapes and blue skies, was a bit like I imagined a totally color blind person might feel if suddenly presented with the ability to see full spectrum color.

Or a Donald Trump supporter if he suddenly tripped and hit his head on a rock and woke up seeing sense.

What's The Point?

This morning, while deciding I couldn't ignore the urge anymore to make a vegetarian Shepherd's Pie for dinner, I dispatched myself to the supermarket for ingredients, then decided I'd earned a Starbuck's coffee and a seat by the ocean because, oh my, what a strenuous activity it is buying carrots and potatoes and limes.

I should probably point out that I don't actually put limes in my Shepherd's Pie, but after all that cooking I will want a goddamn cocktail (that's where the limes come in).

On a nice morning I usually head to a place we call "The Point", where there's a glorious view of the ocean and the still snow-capped mountains, where I sit in my ancient car and contemplate life while spilling coffee down the front of my t-shirt, because I haven't mastered how to put a Starbucks lid on properly yet.

[I tried to insert a photo of The Point here for your visual entertainment, but Blogger won't let me]

This morning, while sitting peacefully, drinking in the view and the remains of my dripping Americano, before heading home to work, I witnessed a man in cycling shorts jump out of a Mazda holding a cup of coffee, fart uproariously, stretch, get back in his car and drive off.

Guy, that's not what serene, beautiful places are for, you dirty skank. And just because I laughed for like...fifteen minutes, doesn't mean I condone such blatant exhibitionism. I didn't know whether he was honest and confident and secure in his public flatulence, or just a douchebag with no manners. Then I noticed he was wearing those stupid ass running shoes shaped like feet, with toes and such and I had my answer.

After he drove off, I noticed the three separate seagull shits on my windshield and realized that I really have no right to judge anyone's public appropriateness.

Blast From The Past

Some days you just have nostalgia in your bones and I'm a firm believer that it has to come out.

To get it out of me, I created a rocking nineties playlist and I've been playing it in the car all week while bopping my head around like an idiot, while young people I passed probably thought "what IS that shit?".

Every single song seems to take me back to a time and a place or a person or a memory of being young and free, of meeting odd people, of travelling, and playing in a band, late night recordings and staying up all night dancing and drinking.

To be honest I'm tired just thinking about it.

There's even a U2 song on the list and well...don't tell anyone. I am so ashamed.

Me in the '90s. Man, I loved that 1960s' suede jacket.

Have a fun weekend. :)

I'm A Travelling Man

Summer makes me start to dwell on the things I haven't done  yet, like get a damn Airstream and at least camp in it, if not dwell in it. I live in a mild climate where I could technically do it. Maybe I will, then you can all come round for drinks in my parlour - just so you know, my parlour will be the area outside the Airstream, sort of an outdoor living room full of delicious cocktails, camp fires, sunshine, chips, dips, and joy. Don't I live in a nice world? I believe I do.

For now though, I'm just happy to be here, working on my design stuff and enjoying the shit out of living by the sea. Who doesn't love the smell of the ocean? A moron that's who.

Talking of morons, this was on Martin's site the other day and it made me almost choke to death on my coffee. Understand, I am not calling Martin a moron here... I suspect you knew that.

Recently, I took a trip to the U.S. and in an unprecedented act of unusualness (NOT!), I took some photos. Here are a few of them for your disinterest/enjoyment. Because why not? Please note, these are in no particular order as that would be sensible.

I posted a photo from Joshua Tree a couple of weeks ago. This is another as it's such a stunning place it would just be cruel not to. The little meander around that path there was one of the most pleasant walks ever. So beautiful. Man, I love the desert.

This photo is from a little place called Amboy, in California. It's pretty remote and lies on the old Route 66 on a derelict stretch pretty much neglected when the interstate appeared years ago. Roy's is a famous stop there and has been used for many Hollywood location shoots, including "The Hitcher" in 1986. It's a favourite for horror shoots due to its remoteness. I loved it. The photo is of the Roy's sign and the old, original motel which currently is just a shell.

This is an awesome little sunset in San Francisco, as seen from my hotel room. That's the Golden Gate Bridge silhouetted in the background. I just loved the colours. Apologies to those of you who look at my Instagram feed as you've seen most of this nonsense before only in crappier phone pic form. These are from my camera.

Another of the Golden Gate Bridge, this time from Baker Beach in San Francisco.

Another sunset, this time on the California coast, in Cayucous, near Pismo Beach. Pretty nice drinking an alcoholic beverage and looking at this, on the balcony!

You so purty, California!

In Death Valley there was an almighty sandstorm. This dude, seemed to be celebrating it though... Put your shirt on, guy!

Death Valley still looks like another planet. It's awesome. And this time, it wasn't 130 degrees for a change, just about 96. Pffft! For the record, every time I've been in Death Valley (Three times!) I have taken this exact picture in this exact spot. Why? Who knows?

I went to see (and drive through!) the tunnel from my favourite movie, "Duel" by Steven Spielberg. I was THIS excited! If you've seen the movie, it's the tunnel with the broken down school bus. Gave me the chills.

Death Valley's Ubehebe Crater. Or as I kept calling it, "Heebie Jeebie".

I photographed this old girl last time I was out in Nevada, but she's rusted a lot more since then. Pretty cool.

Here's the inside of that rusty old bucket.

I can't resist the rust!

The large alien outside the "Alien Research Center" near Rachel.

Early morning in Arches National Park in Utah. 

Another from Arches. Thelma and Louise country!

Some ex-nuclear bunkers in Atomic City, Idaho. Now used as barns it seems.

Love some old motels! This sign was in Wallace, Idaho.

Another of Atomic City's old, mostly derelict buildings. They used to house workers from the Nuclear Plant.

If you remember "Northern Exposure" from the 1990s, you'll recall this mural from the opening credits. In Roslyn, Washington.

Another serene day by the ocean in Washington State.

Hope you enjoyed my small, erratic selections. I like to bore people with pictures now and then. You just deal with it! 

Okay, I'm getting back to work now.

Tuesday

This week I finally bit the bullet and bought a new phone. I'd had my trusty old one for four years and loved it to bits. Everyone I know seems to have had about three phones in that period, but not me. I loved my old lady and she was all I needed. However, lately, in her senility, like some sort of rogue robot, she decided to develop a personality.

It was little things at first, things like connecting to WiFi only when she felt like it, refusing to let me talk to The Google, and taking pictures that looked like someone had dropped a camera in a vat of porridge. Gradually, she started to move things around in my cupboards and drink all the wine in the fridge while propositioning all my friends, so I figured maybe it was time to just let her do her thing and retire to some mobile island some place tropical where she could relax on a beach oogling all the hot, naked, little Samsungs and Sonys, while I got myself a new mobile servant.

I forgot what a bitch setting up a new gadget can be. Logging into accounts and authenticating things and re-downloading apps and getting a different sized SIM card and blah di blah. But at least it works on my terms and doesn't turn itself off for no reason when I'm in the middle of something. It also refuses to fit in the pockets in most of my bags because it's the approximate size of an apartment block. It's nice to talk to The Google again too, even if it's just to say, "Okay Google, tell me how much Apple products suck!" Because I'm an Android girl forever, in case that isn't already clear.

In other news, the tree from the restaurant next door keeps leaking all over my car. It looks like it has the measles. Little specks of rusty-coloured, sticky crap everywhere that I cannot shift with any cleaner, even a scouring sponge like you use on the dishes. Every time I go to the supermarket, all the cars in the lot are shiny and clean, and my car looks like it just ran some obstacle course through an apocalypse. Gah. I'm getting there slowly with a slightly winning combination of "Goo Gone", WD-40, car cleaner, a pot scourer, and a pressure washer. Need to get either a car cover or a canopy in the driveway or lose my sanity all together.

This makes a good case, I believe, for wine.

The Returned

I've just returned from a sixteen day vacation to everywhere. I'm pretty sure vacations aren't supposed to be about returning more exhausted than when you left, but somehow I managed. It was worth it, however, due to the amount of stuff I got to see and the surface area covered.

During that time I enjoyed mountains, desert, ocean coastline, forest, cities, desolate highways and a whole lot of roads. A lot. Some of the time I wore sandals and sweated in 100 degree temperatures, others I wore a winter coat and boots.

That's how much distance was covered!

From northern Washington state and Oregon, to Northern California, to Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Montana. Crazy!

Now I'm home and a little brain dead trying to get back into the scheme of things. It's like my creative brain took a vacation with me. Need to oil those cogs! For now, until I recover sufficiently to post something that isn't mind numbingly boring, here's my favourite photo from the trip because it makes me so warm and happy on this cloudy day! From Joshua Tree National Park.

See you all later.

Progress

Today I managed two marvellous things. 1) I got a semi decent night's sleep for once, and 2) I made a Tres Leches Cake.

Tres leches might be my favourite cake in the history of cake, but I never attempted my own till now so yippee for me I guess! Haven't tasted it yet, it's in the fridge, but all my extremities are happy knowing it's there waiting... If you've never had tres leches cake and you see it someplace, seriously - try it. Unless you're lactose intolerant or something in which case, it'll probably kill you.

The morning today started off really nicely. I was up early, it was sunny out, I had a drive by the ocean then picked up my cake ingredients on the way home. I grabbed a coffee as well from the evil S. and the second I got home, it rained! Well. I guess it's a four seasons in a day type of day. Now I'm hard at work (well, clearly NOT) so I guess rain's ok. It's so nice to see the million blossom trees everywhere at the moment. Lovely that is, unless you're my poor car which is covered in sticky crap ALL the time. It looks like I just drove through a hedge. Ugh.

What's up for the rest of the day? Work, eating cake and listening to Tom Waits singing his pretty little songs about messed up shit. It's all good.

Insom-maniac

I'm an insomniac by trade.

Well not by trade, although, if I could make money out of it, sure, why not? I'm pretty good at it. Experienced. I could probably get a fancy-assed degree in it. With honours!

Being an insomniac much of the time means I often end up getting up in the night and sitting in the living room staring out at the water or watching the quiet street till I start to feel tired enough that I might actually sleep. Sometimes you get the odd person out wandering or riding a bike at 3 am and you can watch them, sneakily, without their knowledge, as they slink on by the front gate, scratching their butt or picking their nose, happily figuring no one knows. Well I know, fella! But it'll be our little secret.

Last night I winded up watching a creepy old episode of "Supernatural" on Netflix when I couldn't sleep, as TV makes me sleepy. It worked, but ironically, when I climbed back into bed, I still couldn't sleep because every little creak or bump made me sit upright, listening for serial killers or demons to burst through the basement door. Thank goodness I have one of those crappy little chains on there like the ones you slide onto the front door before you open it to a stranger.

Because, yeah, I'm pretty sure those are demon proof...

Thought for a Tuesday

Today I paid almost five bucks for a cabbage, how is this possible?  You used to get fourteen cabbages to a dollar surely? Good God. I was, however, able to get a large chocolate fudge doughnut for 99c so you know...balance.

This makes it more efficient for me to eat doughnuts than cabbage.

And they go better with my coffee.

Mi Car Es Su Car

I quite enjoy breathing, so yesterday I had to go pick up an allergy prescription from the pharmacy, so I could continue to do it for the foreseeable future.

While waiting for the pharmacy to fill the prescription, because it apparently takes 35 minutes to lift a bottle of nasal spray off a shelf and put it in a bag, I sit in my car, nursing a Starbucks Americano and an almond tart because why not? The sun is shining, the car is warm, I'm sleepy as all hell, sitting back, relaxing, looking uber-cool in my high class sunglasses with the rhinestone bling, when I hear this noise. It's a familiar sound but I can't quite place it right away. 

In a couple of seconds it hits me like the stench from whatever mutated plankton lives inside Kanye West's decaying brain. That's exactly how my keys sound when I'm trying to get into the trunk of my car. I swing around puzzled, squinting through the rear windshield, and I see this man, about 65, sort of cheery, rotund like Santa but less elf-rapey looking, trying to open my trunk. With a key, no less. The trunk, unsurprisingly, is not cooperating.

He keeps taking out the key and looking at it astounded, like it's turned into a giant finger or something, then he tries to open it again.

What the eff, non-bearded-Santa?

Around about this time he looks up and catches my eye. His expression is not dissimilar to someone who's just opened his bathroom door to find Hitler taking a shit in his sink. What in the hell is some kind of reddish-blonde headed chick doing, brazenly sitting in his goddamn car drinking coffee, is he going to have to administer an ass whoopin'? 

He looks away from me, looks back at the car, then looks at me again making this face:

Then he steps back and glances at my license plate and well...you know in "Futurama" when Fry wakes up and finds himself in the 31st century? His face looked sort of like that.

Because, no, that is not his license plate.

He proceeds to turn a shade of crimson not generally found in nature and he mouths the words "I am so sorry..." and does that creepy cartoon burglar walk of shame back to his own car which was happily sitting two spots down from mine, laughing its ass off, and identical to mine down to the strategic bird crap on the windshield. 

I very kindly let him go on thinking he was a giant confused dufus however, and I definitely didn't tell him that ten minutes earlier, when I entered the parking lot from the pharmacy, I had nonchalantly approached his car, thinking it was mine and rested my coffee cup on its roof while fumbling for my keys, before realizing my mistake and strolling off nonchalantly like I'd known all along. 

The moral of the story is, he didn't see me being a giant clown's ass, so I win.

Yeah...

What the hey, old blog world, are you still there?

Man, I've been busy. And lazy. And non-involved in stuff. And I got a new computer and once again, lost all my blog subscriptions and am now scratching my head in confusion as to how to find everyone again. Hi, I haven't changed AT ALL!

I'm considering doing this again here and there. I miss it. Sometimes. I don't know if anyone's still out there though and well. It's never going to be the heyday of the early thousands right? Everyone's Facebooking their asses off nowadays and I'm still NOT doing that, and only embracing the continuing joy that is Instagram while trying avidly to avoid their constant insistence that I might like to check out Kim Kardashian's latest nude celebration of self (um...no?) or other some other vapid fame whores I care nothing about.

Wasn't there a cyber Monday recently? Did anyone blog? Am I delirious? Don't even answer that.

If you're there, say hello. If you're not there, I'll just send you vibes.

Good?