Where exactly does the weekend go??

Geeeeeez, the weekends fly by way to fast for my liking. Every Monday morning I wake up and I feel like poking my eye out.

Anyway, this weekend was pretty super! It involved playing in an arcade, dance dance revolution, caesars, gossip girl, musicals and lots and lots of baking.

First off, has anybody seen this movie?



I had never even heard of it before, but it caught my eye at the video store, and I'm so glad I rented it, because it was so cute. Seriously, see this movie. I now have the hugest crush on John Krasinski ever. Plus, the soundtrack is so good. Must get.

My friend K and I went to hang out on Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls on Friday. Living so close to Niagara Falls for most of my life, I have to say that Clifton Hill is a place I avoid entirely in the summer. Well, I try to, inevitably, I find myself there at least once. But it is so much more pleasant and less "get the hell out of my way" in the winter. For those of you who have never been to Niagara Falls, Clifton Hill is quite possibly the tackiest place on earth. Its juxtaposition right next to the actual Falls always struck me as rather poor planning, but I suppose I have grown to love it. I mean, here is this street filled to the very brim with haunted houses, fun houses, mazes, arcades, souvenir shops, candy shops, restaurants, rides, a total sensory overload, and then just down the street is one of the "wonders of the world", a sensory overload of a different kind. It's two completely different worlds. It's just so odd. Kind of great, but odd.

Oh, and this year they have built this new attraction called "Rink at the Brink", and it is an ice skating rink right next to the Falls. I cannot even wait to try it out. We were laughing because when you walk anywhere near the Falls, you get soaked by a very fine mist, so we were wondering how this might work in the winter whilst skating. We decided that it would be fecking freezing, but worth it. Niagara Falls in wintertime is one of the most beautiful things you ever will see. Everything freezes because of the mist, so benches, trees, lamp posts, etc are all covered in a layer of ice that is pretty damn magical, I must say. I've seen Niagara Falls approximately 1 billion times in my life, but it never gets less awe inspiring.

Anyhoo, that went completely off track. We hung out in the arcade for a while, playing guitar hero, dance dance revolution, skee ball and all those other wonderful arcade games. I believe I collected about 90 tickets, and for this I got a sticky hand, trick gum and some fake tattoos. Win! Afterwards we decided to go in the Funhouse, because as I remembered it from when I was 8, it was the coolest thing ever.

As we were entering, the lady at the entrance was like, "the exit is broken, so you can play your way back up to the entrance to get out". Blokay!

I have no idea if it has changed since I was eight, or my eight year old self was just impressed really easily, but the Funhouse is, well, it's shit. Don't get me wrong, we had fun, but it was just not worth the $10 it cost to get in.

Let's go on a little tour...you enter through a large spinning tube, step on a spinning disk (which stopped spinning when we stepped on it...guess we were too heavy), go over a moving bridge, then head downstairs. The first room you get to is a mirror room. I can tell you that this is the highlight of the entire Funhouse. Seeing yourself as a midget, extremely tall, fat, skinny, it never gets old. We stayed here until the girl brought the vacuum down and started cleaning. The universal signal for "we are closing now".

You then head down a hallway which is lined with doors, none of which actually open. Then you cross a rope bridge, and get to a room with 3 giant blow up balls in it. The floor is hard as rock, so you can't even jump on them without risk of injuring yourself. Then you crawl through a tunnel and come to a crooked room, then a black light room, then a room with a rope net. People, I could have built this thing in my basement, and it would be ten times better. Even children would go in here and be like "who came up with this crap???". I'm hoping it has changed drastically since I last went there, or else my 8 year old self was way to easily amused!

Anyway, I just wanted to warn ya'll in case you were in the vicinity of Niagara Falls and were enticed by the seemingly fun looking "Fun House". Don't do it.

Yesterday, I went to Toronto to see a musical called My Mother's Jewish Lesbian Wiccan Wedding. It was so good! The songs were catchy, the story was well told, and it was just one of those plays that make you happy. Well, all musicals make me happy, but this one did in particular.

I baked up a storm on Saturday for the bake sale coming up next weekend. All I need to do is make some more brownies tonight, make some cupcakes on Thursday and I'll be done.

I need to start writing more seriously. I'm thinking of signing up for some travel writing classes. They are pricey, but I think it might be worth it. I'm feeling massively stressy about money right now, so I keep flip flopping.

Anyway, this week is a leetle intense, but I will do my best to post a couple of times. (Travel Tuesday and Furry Friday for sure). I'm going to start working on my Travel Tuesday right now. Tune in tomorrow for a story about taking public transportation in Ireland!!

Happy Monday!

On Concerts

So I went last night to see Pink, or is it P!nk? I never know. In any event, it was grrrreat show! I always forget how many catchy songs she has, and then one comes on, and I'm like, "oh yeah!", and then rock out. It was a very colourful show and was circus themed: there were acrobatics, giant slides, and at one point she got lowered beneath the stage and came back up soaking wet, and then dripped all over the audience. I found that kind of...icky, buuuut whatever, I'm sure if I was a hardcore Pink fan, I would be like, "yes, please drip your sweat/water on me". She did several covers, one of which was Queen. You can't ever go wrong with Queen can you? She also sang "I Touch Myself" while writhing around on a couch with all these arms coming out of nowhere rubbing all over her. That part was a little too Madonna/Like a Virgin esque for me.

The Ting Tings opened up for her. For some reason I thought this band consisted of two girls, but it is in fact a guy and a girl. I *think* I like them. I found the girl to be extremely screechy in some songs, to the point where I thought I was going to freak out because it just wouldn't stop, but then other songs made me want to buy the cd. So we'll see. "That's not my name, that's not my name, that'snot my...name". That's one of those songs that is extremely irritating, yet somehow it is still on my IPOD. Anyway, they are British, and I generally enjoy all things British.

We had pretty good seats, but as you can see from my pictures below, we weren't overly close. Also, my camera doesn't do well with the whole "zoom" thing. I have to be incredibly still to get a non blurry picture. Someone can exhale loudly beside me and it will pretty much ruin things.

There was this couple in front of us that were drunk out of their faces. The guy had his hat on sideways and his pants basically around his ankles, and he kept yelling out "PINK ROCKS!", which made my brain go: does not compute. It was kind of hilarious. He kept turning around and saying stuff, and everyone had the same look of, I have no idea what you just said, on their face. It may as well have been Finnish it sounded so foreign. There were actually three people in the drunken group, but one of them was a blond girl/third wheel who was not nearly as drunk. She probably wanted to be though. At one point, Pink was singing a slow song, with a really lovely piano melody to go along with it, and the blond girl was making a video. Then in the middle of her video, her drunken friend randomly sticks her face in front of the camera and just yells, "bajdklfjjkjkjjjdfakdjfdjfkdjf". hahaha, way to ruin the video! It was probably her friends favourite song, which she was clearly trying to preserve the memory of, and it is now tainted by a drunken close up shot of her friend screaming. Video bomb! It was funny because it wasn't my video.

I am getting wayyyy to elderly to be going to concerts on weeknights. How sad is that? I didn't get home until 2am, and now I am basically useless. Need.more.coffee. The train ride home was unpleasant as I had to stand the entire time, and try not to awkwardly stare at people. You know when a train is so full, and you are just kind of like, where exactly do I look? I opted for the ground. Ugh, crowded trains.

All in all, it was fun night! I need more concerts in my life.

Crappy concert photos (in some you can actually make out that it's Pink):

Updates

My poor little neglected blog...I haven't posted in a while! At least it feels like it's been quite some time.

The month of September has been a leeeetle insane. Like, stuff going on every night insane. Which, on the one hand, I don't mind, because it's usually all fun stuff, but on the other hand, some nights I would rather just sit home and watch My So Called Life.

These are the things that have been taking over my life:



I'm helping organize this, and who knew organizing such an event would be so time consuming? I like doing it, I like organizing, and lord knows I love my shelter friends, but it is very time consuming. I think it's going to end up being great though! So much fun.



It makes me really sad that hardly anyone knows who Regina Spektor is. She's so good! I love her voice, I love her songs. I went to see her show last week. I seriously asked so many people to come to this concert with me, and they were all like "who???". I dragged my friend S with me, and I'm pretty sure she is a R.S. fan now! I was really not crazy about the venue (The Sound Academy), but the concert itself was good.



Ziplining! I came across this new Eco Adventure place that is about an hour and a half away from St. Catharines...it's in Turkey Point area. So I basically signed myself and my parents up for a ziplining tour, and also convinced my aunt to go with us. My aunt was looking rather ill beforehand, but it ended up being so entirely fun! Even my mother who is afraid of heights enjoyed herself. She only had one moment, okay two, moments of sheer terror, one being when we were on the tallest platform in the forest, which wasn't very wide, and there was 8 of us of huddled on it. She was actually hugging the tree for dear life. There was also a point at the end of the tour where you have to rappel down from the platform, which was very cool, but a little frightening to start off. The first thing you have to do is step off the platform and swing your right foot around so you can steady yourself, then you can begin lowering yourself to the ground. I tell ya, that initial step off the platform almost made me shriek in terror. It's all good once you are actually rappelling, but that first bit...gah.

Last night we went to a Blue Jays game, which even though they lose all the time, is still fun. Except last night they friggin won! But we didn't get to see it because we left early to catch the train. We thought all hope was lost, but when I got home I found out they had actually managed to pull out the win. In extra innings too! As if! Baseball is pretty much the only sport I enjoy watching. This could be because I actually know what is going on.

And coming up this weekend in St. Kitties, is an event my friends and I hold very dear to our hearts. GRAPE AND WINE. Regardless of what the organizers of this event want you to think, this entire thing is a big drunk fest. It's like St. Catharines version of Oktoberfest. Let's call a spade a spade here...Grape and Wine is usually a shit show for everybody involved, and we wouldn't have it any other way. It is SO FUN. You start drinking at the parade at approx. 11am, then you continue doing so for the rest of the day. The whole day is spent drinking and dancing, and really, there's not much better than that!! Also, you can wear ridiculous necklaces and tams, and nobody says anything because it's Grape and Wine time ya'll! Bring on the steel drum bands. Grape and Wine could totally be St. Catharines' biggest tourist attraction if they just marketed it for what it actually is-an excuse to get drunk and dance and have a ton of fun. For serious. Also, the mascot for this event is a giant grape, and his name is MR. GRAPE. 3 points for originality! My Grape and Wine goal this year will be to get a picture of myself with Mr. Grape.

Needless to say, September has been quite the busy month, and it is flying right on by. I'm having a great time though!

The weather has been perfect and the other day I saw a hummingbird. It hovered one foot in front of my face for like 30 seconds. That moment has been making me happy for a week now. Over'n'out.

On Concerts

So my little cousins recently went to go see the Jonas Brothers, OH MY GOD THE JONAS BROTHERS!!!! Cue screaming!!! I know I'm getting old when I look at those boys and I just think, "why?". First concerts are always so amazing. Mine was.

My first concert was...dum dum dum...Hanson. And aren't the Jonas Brothers just like a less good version of Hanson? Seriously now. Anyway, it was me and four of my friends at the concert. We waited in line at Ticketmaster, strategically getting our wristbands to ensure that we got closest to the front. We bought an extra ticket for my cousin so she could drive us there (and I didn't even ask her until later...and the conversation went like this: me- "soooo I hope you are free on this day because you are driving me and my friends to go see Hanson! We bought you a ticket! her-"Oh god. Well, okay I guess.". She was thrilled people, thrilled. My friends and I made a huge sign, like so huge, I'm talking a good twenty feet long, and I believe it said something like, "We love you Hanson" and it had all of our names on it. It was ridiculous, not only because of it's length, but who the shit wants to hold that up during a concert? We needed like an entire row of people to be holding it at all times. It quickly went in the garbage.

Anyway, we were in the very last row before the lawn seats began and holy lord we were excited. We loved Hanson so much. All of our rooms were covered with Hanson pullouts from Big Bop and Bopper or whatever the hell those magazines were called. You know the ones. There was no need for wallpaper, or paint really, because we had Taylor Hanson's face covering ENTIRE walls of our bedrooms.

Anyway, we drove up to the venue and as soon as we all saw it we started shrieking. My cousin was like, "ummm girls, could you not do that while I'm driving?". So we quietly shrieked until we parked. It was madness I tell you, madness. Screaming teenage girls everywhere! As soon as the first song started, me and one of my friends booted it down as close to the stage as we could get. We rocked out to "Where's the Love" in the 100 section before we were chased away by security guards. Back in our seats, my cousin had a look on her face that suggested this would never be happening again. Ever.

We stayed in our seats for the remainder of the concert, screaming like banshees whenever Taylor's face came up on the screen. At one point the mom in front us turned around and was like, "Ummm, can you not scream so loud, you are hurting my daughter's ears!". Being the considerate teenagers that we were, we continued to scream. It was Hanson ya'll.

At one point, a girl passed out from too much excitement or something, and my cousin, who is a nurse had to rush to her aid. It was exciting times, let me tell ya.

Oh our walk back to the car, Hanson came out on their balcony, and started waving to the fans. We were on top of a bridge at the time, and I'm honestly surprised one of us didn't jump off the bridge and swim towards the hotel room. It wouldn't have been shocking. We drove away from the venue blaring Hanson's christmas album, and I swear to God that was one of the best days of my life. I still break out the Hanson album every now and them, because you know, memories. That and their later music is kind of catchy. Seriously.



Ummm how cute were they? Ermm, I mean, how cute were two of them? Mmmmmmbop.

On Music

So I was going through a drawer the other day and I found an old cd that I used to be obsessed with. Well, it's not that old, but I felt like I hadn't listened to it in forever. It's The Feeling! I'm pretty sure I saw this band on some kind of Tribute to Princess Diana concert, and I was so excited to find the CD, because it's great and it makes me happy. And so does the video. Puppets!:



Speaking of bands that make me happy:



How I love Joel Plaskett Emergency. For sure one of my favourite bands! And they are Canadian to boot! So many catchy songs.

And I can't talk about Canadian bands without mentioning Sam Roberts Band, because they are amazing and I don't think I'll ever get tired of their cds for my entire life. Ever.

Broadway Baby

I've been a big fan of musicals ever since I can remember...a big fan. I know the words to a disturbing number of showtunes and I have been lucky enough to see my fair share of musical productions. I think perhaps I love them so much is because really, what's not to love about a world where people sing all the time? I wish!

Growing up, various musical soundtracks were on constant rotation in my house. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Greatest Hits, Les Mis, Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat...basically, the soundtrack of my youth is the soundtracks of these musicals (with a little Elton John, Bette Midler, Jive Bunny and Celine Dion thrown in). My love of musicals basically started in womb and just grew from there.

The very first real musical I remember seeing was Phantom of the Opera when it was playing in Toronto. Talk about magical! I'm pretty sure I was frightening during the whole thing, but still, magical. And oh, the first time I got to go to New York City (a place that continues to hold my heart), and go see a musical on Broadway? Complete dream come true. And not only was it a Broadway play, but it was this Broadway play:



New York City + Broadway + actually getting to meet Bernadette Peters? I could have died right then and there. I bought the Annie Get Your Gun soundtrack, and I tortured my parents with it for months afterwards. "I wanna wedding in a big church, with bridesmaids and flower girls...". LOVE.

Since that initial trip, I've been back to New York a couple of times, and seen several more Broadway plays. It never gets less exciting, and I don't think it ever will. Toronto also has tons of good musicals, and I go whenever I possibly can. Something about seeing a musical in New York though, it just makes it that much more special. It's New York! It's where it all started!

I've seen so many musicals in my life now, that I seriously probably could not even remember them all if I tried. Favourites include: Wicked, Rent, Les Mis, The Colour Purple and Annie Get Your Gun. We are going back to NYC in December and I am already ridiculously excited. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE New York? I want to marry New York City.

The other day, the fam and I went to see:



It was really good. Funnily enough, I had no idea what any of the characters were saying throughout the entire play, but I still really enjoyed it. They all had really thick Caribbean accents and there was lots of Jamaican slang happening. I spent a lot of time being confused. Entertained, but confused.

I know a lot of people think musicals are cheesy, and I wouldn't disagree with that. A lot of them are pure cheese, but that what makes them so great. It's a happy, singing world, and I like to live there sometimes. Okay, I wouldn't want to live in Les Mis cause I would probably get shot, but I would love to live in a world where people sing what they are feeling, because not only would it be hilarious, it would be amazing. Let's face it, the world would be a MUCH happier place if people randomly sang and danced in unison more often.

See exhibits
a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k
b: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM
c: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je1KOcBYGjM&feature=related

Summa Time!

Yesterday was the perfect summer day...the one I was waiting for. Summer has begun. The weather says otherwise, but that feeling is there. We spent all day yesterday at:


It was so relaxing. The weather was perfect, the vibe was right, and we spent much of the day laughing which is always needed. The festival is held right in a huge park by the beach, and it is just non stop music all day. Everybody is really welcoming and nice to each other, and it is a really great community event. The music is a little twangy, as a lot of the musicians are from Texas, but we all need a little twang in our lives every so often.

I came across this website recently called Help Others, and it is all about random acts of kindness. Basically you sign up, and they then send you these free "smile cards" that say something like "Smile, You've Just Been Tagged". For example, you are going through a drive thru, and you decide to pay for the car behind you. You then hand the cashier one of these cards, and then ask him/her to give it to the person, so that they can then "pay it forward". The website is run by anonymous people, and I think it's pretty effin great. I mean, especially in the kind of world we live in, where people are always rush rush rush, and barely take the time to smile at each other, I imagine it would improve your mood considerably to get one of those cards. It's almost a little bit silly, and I can imagine that some people would scoff at the idea, but below the surface of 1990s esque smiley faces on cards, it is just a really nice idea.
They list some random acts of kindness ideas on their website, and I thought these were pretty cool, and might brighter some one's day quite a lot. I mean, most times, it doesn't take much.

-tape the exact change needed to a vending machine
-pay for some one's order behind you in the driv thru line
-pay for some one's toll fee on the highway
-leave flowers in front of some one's house (although this might immediately be met with suspicion, and a continuing obsession about who the flowers were from, which might not be so much of a gift after all)
-leave a cd with some of your favourite songs in a random place (on a bus...on a bench). Leave a favourite book with a note!

...and the list goes on

The website just makes me happy. And yes I ordered some cards. As dumb as the cards themselves may be, I can't imagine anyone getting one and not smiling.

I don't have my cards yet, but last night at the Cicada Fest, I thought I would try out my first (well, not my first in my life, but my first since reading this website), random act of kindness. It seemed like an appropriate setting. Anyway, we had left over food/drink tickets, so on the way out I told the lady at the ticket desk to just give those tickets to whoever came up to buy them next. The lady was like "that's so nice!", and then was just all smiley. So not only was she happy, the person who got free tickets was probably also happy. Not the hugest or most exciting random act, but it shows just how easy it is to spread a little happy around.

I can't wait to get the cards, I"m gonna pass them out allll over town.

Privileged with a capital P

So sometime during my big move the last couple of weeks, I misplaced something that was very dear to me, so dear to me in fact that it was practically a part of my body. An extra limb if you will.

I have no idea where it went, if I lost it, dropped it, or if someone just swiped it out of my car. Either way, all I know is that it is gone gone gone. I have been lamenting this for a couple of weeks now.

Goodbye dear friend:

I do heart you. Hopefully you are loved in your new home!

I was feeling very lost without old silver there, so today I broke down and bought a new one. I am quite cheap, and the new IPOD quite expensive. This doesn't make for the greatest combo, but I think in time I will come to love my new ipod as much as I loved my old one.

Meet pinky:

The whole situation of the lost ipod is kind of funny to me, because I am aware that it is just an ipod. A portable music player. It's just a thing, and not even THAT expensive of a thing, but I really really missed it when I didn't have it.

This got me thinking about how completely privileged I am. There I was complaining about the loss of this accessory, an unnecessary one at that, as if it was the most horrible thing. As if "oh, woe is me" is a reasonable response to a lost IPOD. I know it's not, it seems silly, almost selfish to be upset and complain about something that the majority of the people in the world have never seen or even know exists. I'm aware of that. Every time I told the story of my lost ipod, I annoyed myself even more. Why do I keep telling this story? I would think. Do I want people to feel bad that I lost it? Really, why should they even care? It's just a stinky IPOD. Truth is though, most people I told were like, yeah man, that sucks! That sucks so bad! Well, they probably didn't respond in that 12 year old boy voice I just typed in, but they sympathized just the same. And they felt it. I guess we are all just privileged in ways we most of the times don't even think about.

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying it's good, I"m just saying that it is something that occured to me during my ipodlessness. And I met that thought with a kinda "hmmmmm".

Mamma Mia!

I LOVED this movie. It was so ridiculous, that it made me laugh. I think the whole thing was meant to be a big joke. It got horrible reviews, but honestly, I thought it was brilliant! All the actors were pretty good singers (Meryl Streep...who knew? Go girl!), with the except of James Bond. He was unfortunate. But everyone else? Loved. Christine Baranski...I've loved you since the days of Cybil. Julie Walters/Mrs. Weasley, I want you to be my grandma just like Betty White. ABBA, I"m going to officially adopt your music as the soundtrack to my life.

I got home from the movie, and I was like must...listen...TO ABBA. So it went on my IPOD, and then I danced to ABBA for a long time. Then I got up this morning, danced to ABBA some more, and was then running late for work. More ABBA or shower? That was the question. I chose more ABBA.

I really hope from the bottom of my heart that there is a place, somewhere in the world, where people just sing their lives away. Instead of talking. Please lord, let somebody find this place and tell me about it, so I can move there. No, it would never get tiring. It would be all singing and dancing and skipping, and general happiness. I also really hope this place is on a beautiful island in Greece. That is randomly filled with an overpopulation of cute 20something boys who enjoy dancing and singing while wearing snorkeling equipment.

I love musicals. Always have. It started with Annie when I was younger and it has just snowballed from there. I know the words to an alarming number of show tunes. One day, my goal is to try out for a musical, and be cast as one of the chorus people. Not a main role, but one of those people that doesn't really get noticed, yet still gets to wear a cute costume and sing all the best songs.

I had to refrain myself from dancing down the street to work this morning (while listening to ABBA). I should have just done it. Maybe on my way home.