Chinese Trains-lation

Life has been busy!

Last week, my sister and I spent the day with my cousin Aaron, who was here from Toronto for my Granny's funeral. Kaeli, Joel and I took him on the LRT with us to go vote for Natasha's Vue Box at the art gallery. We talked a lot about the train systems in Edmonton and Toronto (and San Francisco!) as we rode the friendly rails of Edmonton's Transit System.

When I got home, I had an email from my long lost friend Abby with a link to a video of a train in China. It is insane. When I was in grade 7 social studies, I remember learning about the special "pushers" on the trains who wear white gloves, but I never could quite imagine it. Until I saw this. Incredible.

On another only marginally-related note, the song "Chinese Translation" by M. Ward is pretty much awesome and you should listen to it. In fact, I really like the whole album. I put it on while I was hanging out at Joel's house last week while Kevin D. was giving him landscape architecture insights (very helpful and impressive insights, I might add). Since then I have been itching to buy it for myself.

In retrospect, this post didn't really address the fact that life has been busy, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it.

Love Much.

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"You two just keep celebratin' your friendship"

For most of the past week, I was in San Francisco with Joel.


On the way there, I read "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd on the plane, and on the way home I read "Grace (Eventually)" by Anne Lamott. It felt great to just sit and read for hours on end. Both books were lovely by the way. Perfect for travel reading. It takes a certain kind of book I think to be a good travel companion. There has to be a certain lightness about it that can keep you interested and distracted even while you have to pee and the old lady next to you is sleeping and won't let you out. Both of these books had that without being flaky. And yes, I did have to pee and the old lady next to me was sleeping.

Other than the flights there and back being literarily satisfying, the city itself was also pretty great. Cable cars, seafood, oceans, bridges, croissants, museums, and shopping make San Francisco a very fun city to hang out in. We had some great seafood at Fisherman's Wharf and wicked sushi, and they had a sourdough bread bakery that would blow your mind even if you didn't like sourdough. We bought cable car / bus / train passes to get around with and walked a ton every day, which was extremely satisfying. It felt so good to be outside in the sunshine walking around instead of sitting on my ass. We tired ourselves out so much walking around the first day that we accidentally fell asleep at 9 p.m. and slept through to the next day. I think we made up for it by packing our days full though.

For all you who are wondering: I did not visit the Full House house. Although apparently it actually is in San Francisco. We did watch the Full House opening credits on youtube.com though. And Uncle Jesse's music video "Forever", which was not as good as I remembered. Wait a minute, I just watched it again when I inserted the link, and I take that back. It's incredible.

It was really windy almost the whole time we were there, especially when we went to the Golden Gate Bridge. As a great American city, I would rate San Francisco as a winner.

Along with all of the cool stuff in the city, we visited some sweet stores and eating establishments including:

• Tartine
• The Curiosity Shoppe
• Anthropologie
• Chez Panisse

Sweet Moon Language In Her Eyes

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry."
- E.B. White

I spent today in an absolute frenzy of cleaning and organizing and project-ing. I have become a bit of a busy-body when I am at home these days. I haven't thought about it too much, but I think it's safe to say that my subconcious unanimously agrees that it is because I spend most of my day doing things that certainly do not bring me joy. So when I get home I go into a frenzy of doing things that I like to do: painting stuff, dreaming up projects, calling my sister, doing laundry and other HOME things, and reading.

I like my weekends and weeknights, and I love my friends at work, but hating my 9 to 5 tasks really blows, and is slowly chipping away at my sense of well-being. I think I need to find a better way to spend my weekdays.

Anyways, when I sat down at 2:45 to eat some soup and biscuits for lunch on this ridiculous day (it's April 19th and is snowing like crazy. Last weekend I was reading a book on the back porch with a t-shirt on) I picked up a book of poetry by Hafiz that my roommate had left open on the kitchen table. The poem it was open to was fantastic. Hafiz has a way of writing with a mystical touch and yet also making you feel like he is giving some directed, wise, brilliant advice and insight to you after you spent the afternoon together working in your garden and talking about life.

As I decided that this poem was worthy of being blogged about and shared I realized that Bri had probably already blogged it since she was blogging while she was at the kitchen table last night. So I checked her blog and there it was, but I figured she wouldn't mind.

With That Moon Language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though,
think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world
is dying to hear?

- Hafiz

Having sweet moon language in your eyes would be such a lovely way to feel.

Tacos...in a bag

Exceeded our wildest expectations...need I say more?

I didn't think so.

Happy Belated Earth Hour!

I bought a jar of assorted buttons at the thrift store last weekend. As you may or may not have heard, Earth Hour was observed between 8 and 9:00 pm on Saturday, March 29, 2008, by people around the world. I heard about it a few days before and decided to observe my own little earth hour at home. My friend Rebecca and I had made plans to hang out that night, and she arrived at my house just before 8:00. I had boiled water for tea, and we sat down at the table to decide what to do for our hour of lights off. I had purchased a jar full of buttons at a thrift store earlier that day, and had dumped them on the table just before she got there to check out if I scored any cute ones. We started pawing through them, switched the lights off and lit some candles at 8:00 sharp, and sorted buttons by candlelight.

1) Red Buttons
2) Grey and black buttons
3) White buttons
4) Sheesh, I ended up with a lot of white buttons
5) Big buttons
6) Yet-to-be-sorted buttons
7) Buttons we liked
8) White buttons that Rebecca liked.

Above: White buttons with no holes visible

Above: Buttons we hated

Above: Buttons we liked

Above: Buttons with apparent disabilities

We ended up sorting buttons for all of earth hour, and then for another hour afterwards. It was a good night.

accidental addiction

The pictoral evidence below will, I realize, put me in a vulnerable position. I have an addiction to cream cable-knit sweaters that had gone unnamed for years until this weekend, when I showed Joel the new cream cable-knit delight that I found on sale and he looked at it with a sort of stunned, confused expression. It was that look that made me think about the other cream sweaters that I have acquired/bought/borrowed, so I decided to lay them all out and see just how many I really have. Here is the result. Don't be too harsh, please.

Sweater: Bought on sale (the one that started it all)

Sweater: Acquired in Swap-O-Rama

Bought for full price

Bought for $7

On loan from sister

Christmas from Mom

Bought in a shoe store (also pictured above)