pretty things – Page 6 – my personal timeline

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, whoâ€™s not a creep,
One whoâ€™s handsome, smart and strong
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One whoâ€™ll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray heâ€™s gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, wonâ€™t be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man whoâ€™ll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to â€œhow big is my behind?â€
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.

MANâ€™S LOVE POEM

I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with
huge boobs who owns a bar on a golf course,
and loves to send me fishing and hunting. This
doesnâ€™t rhyme and I donâ€™t give a shit.

by, via

there goes my money

oh damn.

flowers make me happy

realization of the day: i am very happy when i have fresh flowers that i can cut and arrange. i had my G test this morning (passed, from the first time! wooo!), and then worked until 7, so i was pretty stressed out and tired. upon coming home to a clean apartment i decided that instead of vegetating in front of the computer/the tv/the book i should do something that would take my stress away.

turns out pruning flowers is one of the many things that work very well to make me feel calmer, happier and relieve my stress. after spending around an hour cutting and trying to arrange all the various flowers that my mom gave me (it was her birthday, and she basically gave me some she didn’t really care for, plus some pretty ones – like the sunflowers) into the vases that i had on hand. after that i decided to take photographs, and turns out that i took like 38 photographs that i liked. so, there you go! diny, enjoy the chairs.

here are my favourite ones, you can see all of them here. (i culled the vignettes into this set)

now about my g test.

well, let me tell you, i was worried. most people (as in 20 except for 2) that i asked didn’t pass it from the first time. i don’t take failure well, despite knowing that its stupid to stress out about a test that DOESNT EVEN AFFECT YOUR GPA OMG. (and you can retake endlessly for just some small amounts of money). and yet, there was, sitting in the parking lot and trying really hard to calm down. i borrowed the russian translation of dale carnegie’s book (compilation of all 3 of his most famous ones) from my parents, so i tried to read it.

the guy who was testing me (i think his name is randy – thank you, randy!) was a friendly looking young guy, unlike the person who did my g2 test. he asked me how i am, and i honestly replied “nervous as usual”. i think this confused him, as he asked “this IS the first time you’re taking this test, right?” (it already said this on my form). i replied in the affirmative.

the test itself went nicely, with some awesome happenings. i pulled out of the parking lot with no problems (went really slow as there was a young kid who i saw running around before, so i informed the guy that the reason i’m going this slowly is because there’s a kid behind us, and i’m worried about him). fast forward to driving on the highway, and no problems. (i did apparently make some errors on the way there, but all minor things). so we’re going on the highway, and he says “please change lanes left and then right whenever its safe to do so”. i check stuff, see that its safe, and change lanes. obviously i’m going 100km/hr on the dot, so is the person in front of me. and then i see in my rear view mirror a pick up truck with a flat bed trailer (like the small one) speeding toward me. my first though – “ok, change lanes to the right so that you get out of his way”. except, the crazy pick up truck swerves to the lane to the right of me, without dropping speed. at this point i’m thinking “shit, he’s gonna pass me on the right and i’m very screwed, especially if he honks or breaks badly”. what he did was worse (or better? since i passed?). he passed on me on the right alright, but he did it without dropping speed, signaling lane change, and with his flat bed trailer SWINGING WILDLY, missing my car by maybe a meter. i actually said “holy shit” outloud, because that was some horrible driving there. randy didn’t say anything, so we continued on our merry way, while i’m kinda going “oh shit did i just fail?” inside.

what was remarkable is that he didn’t ask me to do any kind of parking. at least now i’m a pro at this parallel stuff, thanks to our wonderful street. anyway, we park and right away he goes “congratulations, you’ve passed!” (let me remark, this is BAJILLIONS YEARS OF LIGHT BETTER than my g2 test, where the guy just sat there for like a minute silent and writing stuff on his paper, until i couldn’t stand the pressure and asked with a shaking voice “so did i fail?” and he was like “oh no”. turns out i had 2 mistakes out of 15. but that was g2). i’m not sure how many “points” i lost on this test – i still have the paper, but it doesn’t say which errors are more crucial.

anyway, randy, wherever he is, i’m hoping he’s having a good one, because turns out that exams/tests still make me crazy. great! :P

coconut chair and italy

when we were in italy, one of my most favourite moments was toward the end of our trip. we were in the italian rivierra, in an area called cinque terre. tim was napping, it was sunset time and happy hour on beach. a wonderful small place where we got coffees and drinks previously was serving free snacks on the bar (which i didn’t realize until i asked how much was it to try). i got a glass of prosecco, and they were so kind as to give me a small bowl of coconut. i have never thought coconut is tasty. apparently, that’s cause i never considered trying it.

i’m been jonesing for some fresh coconut since we came back. “strangely” enough its hard to find in canada, so i’m not sure when i’ll get this one sated. at least is pomegranate season…

this chair, called the coconut chair, brought the memory back. in case you’re curious, the chair costs an insane $3,700 or so. i think i’ll find my coconut faster than i’ll even get to see this one in real life.

chair poster

thanks to my loving friends and coworkers my chair addiction is steadily being fed.

first, work allowed me to take an eames chair home. they didn’t need it.

then, scarf gave me a book of modern chairs.

(while meanwhile ~~everyone else~~ maha patiently listened after i called say “OMG OMG I SCORED A BERTOIA FOR $20!!)

(and my dear ~~boyfriend~~ ~~fiance~~ husband tolerated my putting said bertoias in our living room – and actually thought its a good idea!)

anyway.

third, work gave me another 70s chair, and now i hooked at least 4 more people into discussing the history of chairs with me.

aside: the building i work in was built in the 50s-60s-70s. the aesthetic is late mid-century-modern. there is a lot of side eames shell chairs floating around, teak furniture, old school chairs with great lines and awesome casters. whats hilarious, is that while i’m just happy to see this design gorgeousness, the rest look at it as “old furniture”. i have never realized more clearly how big of a gap there is between what is happening in the “design world” (not the high end; but the more common ikea-target-west elm-craigslist shopping people who like to discuss design on many various blogs) and what is happening in the “real world” (the people who buy furniture without having a “visual” of what they are looking for. or alternatively, people who don’t agree with me ;p ). regardless of this gap, the fact that i own an eames chair (broken-ish and old, but totally repairable) makes me eternally grateful to our building manager.

so, one of the chairs i had in my cubicle (i had 3 which almost became 4, but they forced me to give up one. which is probably for the best.) had to be moved out to another guy’s cubicle until they throw it out (oh the pain, please let me not imagine how the machine will crush it!). out of curiousity we flipped it upside down to check year made. made in burlingont, brought to mississauga from the toronto office. and a cleaning tag. “shampooed and vacuumed in 1973”. 34 years at least. and its more solid than some of the 5-10 year old office chairs we have. that is why i love old chairs so much.

anyway, so this is to explain how interested i have become in design, and chairs in particular lately. so this is so awesome that i have no words.

the coolest illusion i have ever seen

which way is the dancer spinning?

i saw it clockwise right away and couldn’t switch for like 10 minutes. tim saw it counter clockwise and had a moderately easy time switching.

so then i switched.

now i can’t switch back.

this is fun and infuriating at the same time. which way do you see first?

man etsy is too cool

so after many months of planning to do it i finally went on etsy to check it out.

current finds, in order from really most wanted to really wanted:
Set of 4 Napkins in Tuquoise Linen with Brown Branches Print

Set of Four Turquoise Cereal Bowls

too lazy to save/upload for these. they are cute necklaces.
silver hedgehog necklace
tiny charm (necklace)
wish bone (necklace)

damn. etsy is neat. (it takes a lot of time to find what you want though; there is almost too much variety).

the internet mocks me

about a month ago i spied a garage sale on the street parallel to my parents’ house. my mom, my dog and i stopped by to see whats what. among the hockey memorabilia there was a table.

it looked like this one:

and cost $100. (and he said he’s willing to bargain).

i had no space for it; mom didn’t like it. we left, me with a pained heart.

in that month, after never having seen that table before, i started seeing it everywhere. (and it is unlikely a selective attention as i really do obsess over the wire-frame designed furniture more than i should.)

first there was this.

after about 20 other occurrences, i research our new chairs (tempted to ebay more… sidenote: i can possibly ebay some chairs for around $250 that would cost $1.5-$700 new. i am sad.)