domicile

Best Deal in Town

Ok so maybe not the ultra-best, get free stuff kind of deal, but one I'm most pleased with: the Vancouver Art Gallery Family Membership. For $80 you get a year long membership for mom & dad (or you know, dad and his girlfriend) and two kids (in our case one 9 year old girl). And sure $80 isn't pocket change, but admission for a family of our size would normally cost $40 for one go, and as a family with one of us having the attention span of a 9 year old, you aren't really going to get hours upon hours of gallery viewing in. You're looking at about an hour of solid happy gallery time before things become a chore. With the membership, you don't feel guilty going in for an hour and coming back next month when you have more steam. Plus there are those great  Super Sunday's geared at kids.  And, for those times when we don't have Martin's daughter we can go in and take as much time as we like.  You also get passes to all the opening parties which can be fun.

We spent an hour or so at the gallery on Sunday to take in the Brian Jungen exhibit, which was clever and good and a great show for kid accessibility, being not exclusively about stodgy oil paintings etc. and instead crafted largely out of materials kids see everyday (soccerballs, running shoes, couches etc). I think her favorite was the bird house (with live finchs!).

Laying Plans

  New Garden Journal 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

After dropping Martin off at work this morning, I've spent a few hours online starting to map out a plan for what will hopefully be a bountiful garden here at our domicile. Martin took the day off yesterday and did a stellar job of cleaning out the detrius and debris from fall and winter projects that was piling up in corners of the backyard (old wood etc) and with the end of February drawing near, I'm realizing it is time to get moving on garden plans.

There is much to do:

- Decide on size of garden plot (big enough to accommodate a decent veggie garden with some companion and decorative flowers as well, but not so big that it swallows up my summer).
- Decide where to situation said plot of dirt. As I've mentioned before, we have some drainage problems in the yard, and we're hesitant to build up those pieces of the yard too much for fear of bringing the water in the house. For this reason, I'm favoring the old carport area, which is slightly higher and seems to drain fine, as a spot to put either one large raised bed, or a few raised beds. This spot  may be a bit toxic (car port?) but all signs point to the fact that is likely hasn't really been used for car parking for a while (99 year old lady, not so much on the driving).
- Construct said raised bed. Soon. There are seeds (like peas!) to be planted in the coming weeks...
- Rebuild the sagging fence in backyard.
- Decide what to plant.
- Make schedule for planting.

With all this to do, and so much to keep track of it was high time I started a garden journal. And so I have put into use one of the lovely wee books that friends gave me back in November for my birthday as I start planning. So far I've spent a few hours over at You Grow Girl, I've put some books on hold at the library, and I've started making a list of plants to make room for (to be finalized with Martin, as he'll be eating this stuff too). I'm hoping to plant most everything from seed if I can swing the timing, and have found the West Coast Seed website most helpful (and of course relevant to our locale). Like I say, we'll need to get moving if I want all (or some) of my wildest gardening dreams to come true, and this  may be a challenge because there are all kinds of other inside-the-house projects brewing right now. I guess that lazy days of winter hibernating are officially over.

So for those of you actually living here in Vancouver, if you've got a hankering to get your hands dirty (literally) let me know. I'll probably need to start arranging work parties rather than trying to do this all on my own, and I'll be getting started soon. I'm happy to reward you with bounties in the summer (and no I will not be planting zucchini), or if you've already got a more established garden to help you out once I've got the basics set up for our newbie.

My goal, and it is lofty, is to largely remove my need to visit the Farmer's Market every week in high summer. While I certainly won't abandon the place altogether, as well bread doesn't grow on trees, and I'll definitely go for some plants that I won't start from seed, I realized last year that many weeks I was going just to get staples that I could easily be supplying myself with: fresh lettuces, beans, kales, herbs etc. and I'd rather spend that time on weekends puttering in my garden and popping by the market once a month or so for extras and things I won't be planting myself (this year anyway).

Familiar Soundtrack

Christmas seems ages away now, but among the many treats and joys of the season this year for me (and I did feel well spoiled all around) was a chance to see my dear friend Kate and her family (partner Adrian and daughter Djuna) while they were out visiting from Montreal. We had a chance to visit with them on the Island when we took a visit over there to see my family, which was awesome. In addition to being my inseperable best friend from age 2 and half through most of my formative years, Kate was also my neighbour and our parents still live in the houses we grew up in, though neither house really looks much like it did through the late 70s and 80s when they formed the backdrop to our friendship, though that's likely a good thing for the folks still living there. Anyway.

In addition to seeing them in the old stomping grounds as it were (a totally inappropriate metaphor as neither of us was really into stomping) they also came over the Vancouver for a night before they flew back to Montreal and stayed with us. It was a short visit, but a nice chance to show them our little corner of town and to have people so precious to me stay in our home. And if all that visiting wasn't just super swell on its own, they also left us a wee gifty of a copy of a CD they're currently working on. And it is that music that has prompted me to think back to those final days of 2005 when we had our visit, because I recently took the time to move the tracks onto my iPod, which has in turn found me listening to them regularly and thinking of them just as often.

You see, not only is Kate the friend I've known the longest, she and Adrian are jazz muscians of such notable talent that I fear trying to describe them with my utter lack of jazz critique vocabulary. Suffice it to say that they are great. Super great. And listening to their latest quartet project, which is I believe comprised entirely (almost totally?) of compositions of Adrian's writing (is that right? I think so), while I'm in my own little world between my headphones is just divine. Wonderful enough that it can actually bring me peace, joy, and inspiration while riding one some less than pleasant bus rides home. And while that may not be the stellar and nuanced musical review they are hoping for, let me tell you: that is singing some serious praise.

Shopping At Grandma's House

  new/old bedside lamps to be 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Seems fitting to follow up a post about thrifting finds with a post about a visit to my Grandma's house. Which is not to say that my Grandma's house is in anyway resembles a junk shop, or that it is in fact particularly full of secondhand items, simply that if there is something I've been thinking I've got a hankering for my Grandma has an uncanny way of unearthing it. This can be quite literal in the form of delicious sugar beets grown in her sizeable garden, or snap peas if you come at just the right time of year. I no longer buy bay leaves at the store, and instead rely on brown paper bags full collected a few times a year on visits. And the last time I visited her we were sitting in the livingroom in the evening when she asked me if I happened to need new bedside lamps. And what do you know, but I did.

We do currently have bedside lamps. Perfectly working lamps that Martin has constructed out of bits and piece of other lamps, including some great old 50s shades, but they aren't exactly the world's most aesthetically pleasing lamps. Or at least the one on my side of the bed isn't, though to be fair he could easily win some kind of speed-McGyver competition for its construction as he made it out of spare lamp parts and a coat hanger one evening shortly after we moved in when I wasn't feeling well and wanted to read in bed. (How hot is that?) Anyway, we've dabbled in discussions about new lamps. Even going so far as to purchase some lampy bits at Ikea from a discount bin thinking we'd do something with those. But they weren't quite right (large bases, and we have small bedside tables with little room to expand). And so it was that I was quite intrigued by my grandma's offer.

So down we went to the basement where she dug around in the boxes stored under the furnace and voila! Perfect lucite lamp bases that are kind of femmey (made to look more so by being against a pink wall) but also fairly classic and sleek, a decent size and really just the thing. the shades were kind of beat up, so we've got some $5 Ikea versions to tide us over until something a bit more creative comes along (or we may just deconstruct those and use the frames to do something else). And Martin needs to rewire them as they're not exactly reliable, nor likely particularly safe in their current state. But once those details are taken care of they are just perfect. (I think, and as the sole author of this here blog, what I say goes). So thanks grandma! As you know, you're the greatest.

Do You Think There Would be T-Shirts?

I fear that any day know I may get called out for being a Readymade Blog whore/fangirl. Maybe they'll let me be president of the fan club? Maybe there will be t-shirts?

Regardless, just this morning I am placing far too much importance/meaning on pseudo-psychic connection between myself and Megan (aka Not Martha, and one of the authors at the Readymade Blog). For while I rode the buzz of a coffee, consumed a bit too late in the day, last night and spent my evening waxing poetic about my thrifted acquisition of a blue flower pot, I see this morning that Megan has linked to a spanky little site all about using vintage/recycled materials to make new things: Thriftcraft.

Thrifty Goodness

  lovely 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Martin is a thrifter. Whether by nature or convenience I couldn't truly say, though I'd be inclined to say a healthy dose of each. You see in addition to being resourceful and having a creative/imaginative eye for things (qualities very much required for successful thrifting) he also finds himself in the burbs one day a week with time to kill while his daughter is in school. And while he gets up to all kinds of things to pass the hours -- visiting his folks, bank deposits, video game purchasing, etc -- he also puts in a good hour or two at various thrift stores.

For the most part this arrangement works out quite well for me. I've got a growing collection of $4 and $6 jeans that he has acquired on my behalf having developed a keen eye for cuts/sizes that will fit me. He has managed to really round out my vintage slip collection to a bounty of bright polyester goodness. And he does quite well on finding bits and bobs that get repurposed into useful items for the house. And of course all this at relatively low cost. The only real complaint I have is that I almost never get to join him as I'm always at work. Tough life, I know.

Anyway, a few weekends ago we happened to find ourselves taking a Sunday trip out to the township of Langley to taxi his daughter to a birthday party. And, while she hung out with friends getting all sugared up, we spent some time in the Langley Value Village, and boy howdy was I excited.

When I was growing up in Victoria I was much more of a regular thrifter, thrift stores being in no shortage over there and generally all quite accessible. But here in Vancouver I find the really thrifty stores -- Value Villages, Sally-Annes, Mennonite Thrift Shops etc -- to all be pretty picked over and generally unfruitful inside the city limits. The big scores are always in the burbs and smaller towns. So while I'm a regular at the consigment clothing stores and still check in on the various thrift stores in our neighbourhood, I've gotten a bit out of habit with my thrifting. Which is probably part of what made this last trip of a bit of a disappointment, you see: I had a list. Things I wanted. Things I was sure I would find. And as any seasoned thrift shopper knows, it almost never works that way.

And so, I did not find a great vintage summer dress. I did not acquire any black wool cardigans. Nor did I come across a great pair of polyester old man's shorts that would sit nicely on my hips and go down to my knees for summer cycling. But I did get that loverly blue tulip plant pot there. It was the first thing I saw upon entering the Value Village and I was instantly sold. It is handmade, and quite skillfully I should add. And it is absolutely perfect for things like potted spring bulbs. And once these die I have some other bulbs waiting in the garage to be forced to tide us over until the garden actually starts to bloom. So while my wardrobe didn't reap the glories I was hoping for, I am so very pleased with this little number. And the added bonus is that I get to enjoy it daily from its place of pride on the kitchen table.

Recycled Glassware

Lauren and I had a lovely sushi dinner with the oh-so-talented and smart Gayla last night, which was swell and got me thinking (again) about garden plans. Must find more time. In the meantime, seeing Gayla last night prompted me to  check in on the ReadyMade Blog today, where I was alerted to these  nifty Tord Boontje & Emma Wooffenden glasses n' things. (That Tord just seems to be popping up everywhere lately doesn't he?) Made from recylced bottles, I have to say I'm rather enamoured of them. Though one e-bay shipping experience of some Fiestaware a few years ago (that arrived in two evenly broken pieces) has kept me cautious about buying fragile items online...

National Flag Day

  East Vancouver Italian Pride 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

It's National Flag Day! Who knew? If like me you don't know what National Flag Day is, it is a kind of funny day marking the anniversary of the day the flag was first raised over Parlaiment Hill in 1965.

I'm not really a big rah, rah flag person and in fact I'd say I'm kind of typically Canadian in my nationalism, which is to say not very, except when forced to define myself as "not like our neighbours to the South."

In the neighbourhood that houses our wee domicile there are actually a number of Canadian flags which isn't exactly bizarre, nor is it all that usual. In major urban centres like Vancouver you just don't see that many Canadian flags outside of institutional/consular type situations. (Case in point to prop up my identification as being "not like those other guys down there," I am always struck by how prevalent the flag is in the States when I visit there). The thing about the flags in my neighbourhood is that they almost always appear in tandem with the symbol of a "mother country" and  more often than not that country is Italy.

The Italian culture and pride of our neighbourhood is one of the things that draws me to it and helps to make it feel so familiar and comfortable to me. I love walking home evenings and catching unmistakable wafts from vats of tomatoes stewing with onions and garlic. This was a particularly regular occurence in the Fall as the harvest of the summers backyard tomato factories was reaped and canned for winter. We possibly have more fig trees per capita than any other neighbourhood in Vancouver (I'm sure Capitol Hill in Burnaby could give us a run for that prize) and on Sunday mornings the neighbourhood is actually filled with the sound of church bells from the Catholic church on the hill. And I adore the Italian widow who lives behind us and comes out every morning to her tomato field (she like many around us has turned her entire garden into a tomato plantation) to scare off the birds, talk to her plants and check on their progress. By about the first week of August, the plants are taller than she is.

But it also strikes me as I walk around our neighbourhood just how much the identity of the neighbourhood is built on the foundation of symbols from elsewhere. I am inclined to recognize the ones with Italian origins -- lots of pine-cone shaped concrete decorations in reference to papal symbolism, plenty of red/white/green flags, the good fortune of lots of excellent delis only blocks away, at Christmas there was actually a number of elaborate garden nativity scenes, and the house with the flag pictured there actually has a statue garden behind its handlayed brick walls -- but there are others that repeat and become familiar. Asian heritage is strong. There is a solid Greek contingent mixed in there.

On the CBC morning show today, their conversation about National Flag Day immediately took a turn towards talking about other flags that Canadians were proud to fly. Everything from Pride Flags to symbols of another home. And the words of one woman interviewed really resonated for me, she said that she was proud to recognize her heritage and has a flag for her native homeland, but that she also flys a Canadian flag to recognize her "chosen home."

Over Eager?

  Narcissis 
  Originally uploaded by MMena.

Now that we've had almost a whole week of respite from the endless rain (yippee!) I spent some time this weekend taking stock of the garden. This will be our first Spring in the house, so I'm excited to see what will come up as it were. I planted a good 5 or 6 dozen bulbs myself, mostly tulips and a few fun miniature bulbs that were freebies with my Botanus order, but I'm excited to see what else is coming.

By the looks of things there are oodles of daffodils/narcissis on their way, a few ready to bloom anyday by the looks of things. And I suspect I'll have crocus fever in less than a week, if all goes well. Only problem: frost. The weather reports this morning were saying that by the end of this week temperatures may drop as low as -7 (Celsius) which I imagine will do no good for all the blooms already poking out of the ground.

If everything survives, I'll start to document with photos of the garden (this one is stolen from Melanie). This is going to be a big year as we've also got plans (and by we I mean me) to put in a serious veggie garden in the backyard. And we might try to do something about our wee lake back there too....

Tagged

Mia got me. And so:

Four jobs I’ve had:
Busgirl at a Steak and Rib House with velvet wallpaper and a sing-a-long piano night. My regular duties included: bringing the "condiment caddy" to those who ordered baked potatoes; putting flannel bibs on the folks who ordered ribs; and trying not to lose it on the 107th person who proclaimed "but I didn't order the lemon soup!" as I put down their finger bowl. Required Uniform: A red polyester dress with black lace, kind of a riff on the classic french maid outfit.

Waitress at a sports bar, a job which I got through a dear friend who was working in the kitchen. I like to refer to this job as being from "my former life," as really I truly am not the sports bar type. At. All. I have many sordid tales from these days, primarily about hockey players and I can't say the job did much to improve the standing of professional sports in my mind. That said, it was a job that worked well with my school schedule and I stayed there for a while. My fast rising seniority soon meant that I could refuse to work the nights that there was a Monster-Truck Pull at the Stadium. Never before had seniority been so valuable to me. Required Uniform: Typical black casual waitress-wear, though one Indy weekend this involved a Molson Canadian black lycra haltertop.

"Water Girl" selling bottled water at a big'ol rave-dance-party thang back in the day. I think this was circa 97. I wish I could remember the name of the party itself. Something tells me this one might have been Magic Mountain 2 or some such ridiculous thing. Though it may have been Spooky 3 or something? Required Outfit: There certainly wasn't a required uniform, but we can assume it was something inspired by Lady Miss Kier. And I will have to admit that I may have almost certainly been wearing some form of sparkles....

Partner in a website design company for going on 6 years now. (Six years!) Having worked for myself/with my  partner for this many years I now can not imagine ever writing a resume, or working for someone else ever again. Required Outfit: Totally of my choosing, and another reason why I loathe the idea of working for someone else. If I never wear nylons again in this lifetime I will be most pleased with my career choice.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
Strictly Ballroom. This was proven to me recently while struck with the flu. I love that film.
La Dolce Vita. Of course.
A Question of Silence. I have yet to really prove that, as I've only ever managed to see it twice, but it remains one of the films that I most often and vividly recall at random times, and I do so adore Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line was a strong runner up here).
Ups & Downs. Ok not really. This movie is almost totally unwatchable, except that my dad and his band were in it and in fact filming the day my sister was born. I recently tracked down a copy of it for my sister for Christmas and tried to watch the film to get to the goods, ie/ the scenes with my dad and his band. I ended up fast forwarding through most of it. However, seeing my dad as he was circa '81 with his band members who I so adored as 6 year old me and two of whom I haven't seen in literally decades now, was pretty awesome. Bobbi and Jimbat if you're out there, do say hello.

 
Four places I’ve lived:
Victoria, BC
Vancouver, BC (all around the east side)
Florence, IT (too briefly)
and... once for about 8 months 4 blocks into the westside of Vancouver

Four TV shows I love:
For me to love a show it typically has to be available on DVD or be from the past (when I lived in house with cable), and so,
Buffy
Sex and the City
Firefly
Twin Peaks

Four places I’ve vacationed:
Around the many spledours of Tuscany, Italy
Santa Theresa, Costa Rica
Trevigniano, Italy
Utrecht, Amsterdam

Four of my favorite dishes:
Penne Arriabiata
Deep-fried artichoke hearts with rock salt... oh so good
Nicely done breaded tempeh cutlets (the Millenium does a fine job)
Dishes with lentils or chickpeas provide instant comfort

Four sites I visit (semi) daily:
Lori
Steve
the adventures of Lindsay
Chocolate & Zucchini

Four Places I’d rather be right now:
Eating chocolate pudding cake with Inga in Portland.
On a beach chair in San Raphael with a glass of white wine, olives and a really good book.
Seeing La La La Human Steps. Maybe in Venice, if I can pick?
Playing with Djuna.

In turn, I'll tag: Steve, Leah, Djuna (really her mom) and to celebrate his new blogginess Matt.