endicott, ny

over the weekend duke, petey, andre and i drove down to a small village in upstate new york: endicott. the reason? it was andre's first workshop for his course with the karen pryor academy.

while petey and andre attended the all day classroom session, duke and i wandered around the small city and visited parks. we stumbled upon a cute farmer's market and were stopped many times by old retirees telling me how they used beagles to hunt.

a big coup for us this weekend was when duke would stay howl free in the car waiting for us while we would dash into a super market.

the photos are from my excursions with duke.

black dice cafe

our little neighbourhood is gentrifying at an alarming rate.

since we moved in last august, 2 hip cafés, a weekend brunch/weekday bar, a custom cake shop, a cheese shop and a cute clothing store selling only works by toronto designers have opened up along dundas west. not to mention my favourite health food store where i get my good food box and several galleries including a queen west transplant - things are changing fast in little portugal.

my favourite addition to our burgeoning neighbourhood, however, just opened up a month ago. it's the black dice cafe!

run by japanese ex-pat hidé, black dice cafe is a 50s themed bar with a jukebox that plays 45s. they even have an original beatles 45 in there.

the best thing about black dice, well aside from the fact that i can walk there in 30 seconds, is their extensive sake martinis and plum wine. mmmm umeshu how i love you!

but it's not all japanese drinks there, they have lots of beers on tap (if that's your thing. personally i don't know how people drink pee water...) and a full bar of the hard stuff.

if you decide to check it out, call me and i'll have a plum wine soda with you.

photo notes: the cafe is decked out in halloween decorations!

we are a sad lot

duke broke a paw nail (again! argh) that had to be removed and i've come down with another stye (the 2nd in two years).

if misery loves company, i'm right where i belong!

i'm not sure how common styes are, but if you ever get one, apparently the best remedy is a hot compress applied several times a day since ointments and medicine don't work as well! for me, while working onsite, bringing a face cloth to the studio just didn't seem hygienic, so instead i just cupped my hands and repeatedly applied warm/hot water to the affected area.

please go away, please, please. i hate you, stye.

the little boots report

i forgot my camera for the little boots concert, so i decided to draw a little report instead.

sadly her très cool tenori-on instrument malfunctioned and we couldn't see her use it live, but none the less the show was super fun.

what totally bugged me, though, is the number of people who insist on taking sh*tty photos with their iphones or use their flash with their point and shoot cameras. do they think that if they keep on trying to take photos without changing the setting of their camera, they'll magically get a different result the next time? excuse me, but you are totally obscuring the view for the vertically challenged!

i tried taking one photo with my cellphone and realized the futility of it:



anyway, i consider little boots an electronica genius of sorts. here is she is covering hot chip's 'ready for the floor' and recreating every element of the song except the vocals on her tenori-on:



and then!! check her out on jools holland, where she manages to play the baseline and other song elements all the while singing the melody of her song 'meddle' and play the piano. it's pretty amazing:

a crisp autumn morning

despite temperatures being lower than seasonal, we are enjoying the onset of this new season.

this long weekend was the first weekend where i didn't have days of work to catch up on and so i spent a wonderful morning with duke at the park. thankfully the ticketers were also enjoying their weekend and so we hung out illegally off-leash at dufferin grove park.

so while i was off being a busy bee, i accumulated a backlog of things to blog about! please check back often for new posts about our home renos, little boots and fun links.

in the meantime, i wanted to share a new blog i've started. it's called thanks for your cooperation and requires reader participation. i want it to be a place where funny, weird, crazy, psycho office notes and memos are shared.

won't you submit something?

busy busy bee

i've been working like a busy bee these past few weeks - onsite at a client's during the day and then coming home and doing my own client work until the wee hours.

this is one of my favourite clients that call me in to work at their studio. since i've been helping them out for the past 2 years, it's always nice to see all the familiar faces when i return.

last week, though, the onsite work became more than full time. on average i was onsite for 10 hours a day. being sleep deprived, i made some flubs (one was a miss cropping a panel for a showroom booth and the other was not sending some mockups to a client on the promised day, even though i had them done!!!) and the stress is starting to creep in.

there is an end in sight, though. can't wait to be able to sleep a full 8 hours! ... soon.

photo: my sunflowers in my tiny garden. sadly the seeds never matured because this happened again.

i'm going to have to devise some sort of cover or case for the sunflowers next year. i want to be able to plant the seeds at the off-leash park!

shamrocks galore

a recent trip to ireland to visit the o'keefe's. photos courtesy dom.

dublin




kilkenny: kilkenny castle


the gardens behind the kilkenny arts centre -- a gorgeous complex of artists' studios, shops selling handcrafted goods designed and made in ireland, and galleries exhibiting local talent



galway: wind-swept and bohemian city, on the west coast of ireland








blarney castle in cork (i know it's incredibly unhygenic, but you can't go to ireland and not kiss the blarney stone!)



the young lad and the wee lass: our lovely hosts!