Dress-Like-Your-House... again!

Happy Hudson-Bay-Day!


Yeah...I made that up... Just another excuse to do another "dress-like-your-house" photo because I acquired another Hudson Bay coat today ($15 at a local thrift store!!) and it happens to match another Hud-Bay blanket I have.


Admittedly, it's starting to look like The Bay circa 1964 up in here.
But it's winter and it's cozy and it's part of our (canadian) heritage so I'm going with it.


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sans chats:

avec chats:

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For context, here's the first time I did this with my other coat and another blanket (my friend gave me this coat because it was too big for her):

Here's the stylist-shot of the new/old coat:

(I got the thrift store lady to throw in the cool hanger!)

(For the record, until I took this picture I had totally been reading it as "Unicorn Record" - which is why I wanted it... but "Union Record" is also neat. (I am maybe slightly dyslexic?))

And lastly, some outtakes from the photo shoot starring Pinkerton-The-Ever-Present:

G'night!

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Stay Inside, The Weather Sucks

There's freezing rain and general grossness in the out-of-doors so I stayed cozy in my nest all day (which, honestly, isn't very different from most days, but today I had a good excuse).

I think I'm having some post-holidays/wintertime blues or something. All I really want to do is nap, eat cookies, and read books... and then nap again.

Here are a few shots of the in-of-doors that I took today while battling the blahs:

1. Cat facing off with the Bold-Ass-Starlings that have recently joined forces with the Party-Pigeons on my ledge,

2. The current state of the sideboard: deChristmasified but still winterized,

3. Oh. And another cat shot (they never cease to amuse me and this is my blog sooooo...)

This is a new spot for Pearl. I guess she wanted to curl up and sleep in the company of a lot of other black, circular things...

Gawd, I hope the weather and my mood improve soon... 

I guess I can sort of control one of those things eh?

3 very short non-fiction stories

A girl went to a clothing swap where she knew almost no one. She has been wearing a local stranger's former shirt ever since.

Two black cats have taken a comfortable beige chair hostage in Central Ottawa. They should be considered clawed and potentially dangerous.


After a long and fulfilling career in a government laboratory, some scientific equipment retired to a nearby neighbourhood apartment and took up bamboo as a hobby.

russian cat in a hat - visual telephone game

Today I drew this cat from the front cover of Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia II.

I don't own the books but I'd like to - they are mesmerizing.

I'll get them someday when I'm feeling rich...

A word about the progression: I printed out a small thumbnail from the internet, then drew from that into my sketchbook, then drew the larger version on brown paper from the sketch book drawing, then painted over that loosely with a small brush without referring to the previous drawings.

It was really interesting after I had done all those stages to look back at the original source picture and see how much it had morphed!! Like a visual version of the "telephone game" but with only one player. See for yourself...

I really liked the "grittiness/toughness" of the original so I went back into mine with a Sharpie to toughen it up a bit (I also messed with the contrast in photoshop on this one).

It would be interesting to keep going with this telephone game, trying all sorts of media and always working from the most recent drawing... but as with all things, my attention span is limited...

Right now it's time for bed... maybe tomorrow I'll draw it in crayons or something... we'll see.

sweet but not innocent

I shouldn't have encouraged his poor behavior by taking pictures.

(The third and forth pictures were taken just moments after the first two, after I left the room for a bit... sigh... "this is why we can't have nice things"...)

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Dress 9 - The Dress Quest is Dead

Well, I made it to Dress Day #9 (which was actually Thursday past but I've been too otherwise-occupied to write here since then).

I started a temporary job (I'm a "casual" Fed for the next couple weeks) that involves being in a Scientific Laboratory. It requires biking to work and having to wear pants and shoes in the lab - so the dress-up is dead. I was growing a little bored with it anyway, truth be told.

The job is a fun one: cleaning up Husbo's new lab space which was previously occupied by another scientist for 30-odd years... and he was a bit of a pack rat!

This might not seem fun to very many people but it is almost heaven for me: old government furniture and surplus, old science manuals/gadgets, and the paraphernalia of a stranger's working life just sitting there to sift through - and getting paid for it!

I enjoy cleaning up and organizing really messy spaces. I find it very satisfying and it's something I'm good at.

So, that's the update on that.

This last dress wasn't even a dress but a skirt and long shirt. I'm mostly posting it because I took some adorable/stupid pictures of my stupid/adorable cat at the same time.

He and this rug really tie the room together. He loves that rug.

gratuitous cat pics

Disclaimer: I don't consider myself a crazy-cat-lady or a cat-loving-hipster. I happen to work at home, enjoy taking pictures, and don't/can't have kids. My furry companions keep me entertained during the day because I don't have workmates... so it's only natural that there ends up being a lot of cat pictures on this, my blog, all about me.

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* Yesterday I could not, for the life of me, find one of my cats. Just as I was getting worried she had fallen off the balcony, she woke up from her nap and I found her by the reflection of her eyes.

Can you spot her?

She's doing her best Pink Panther:

* Some favourite things: Cat, Coffee, Computer, Ukulele.

My other cat, the attention-whore. He needs to be near me most of the time, usually on my lap, draped over my hands - which makes drawing and typing difficult.

* Cat-pose.

catastrophic chain of events

Look at these darlings, Pink and Pearl. Cute no?

They've been at odds all day and are driving me up the wall.

Pearl (the one in the back of the bottommost pic), is making a creepy, low, growling noise every time Pink comes near her. Normally they're friends and they cuddle and spread cuteness and joy (and hairballs) all over the house.

But not today.

It all started last night in a bizarre episode that lasted only about 15 seconds.

I went into the bedroom where Husband has a desk. I leaned on the back of his chair to chat but then he pushed his chair out and ran over some of my toes. I roared, pushed the chair off my toes, and fell backward on the bed into a fetal position, grasping my foot.

No sooner did I land then something strikes the back of my head from above - really hard. My first thought was that somehow the commotion had caused the light fixture to fall off the ceiling but I rolled over and saw Pink rearing up and hissing. I got my arm up in time for his second swipe (better an arm than my face). I guess he must have been sleeping on the bed before I landed there. I think the very sudden action around him excited his "flight or fight" instincts and he opted to fight.

Meanwhile Pearl had come into the room to investigate and after the second swipe at me Pink turned his attention to the newcomer - someone more his size. So they literally had a "cat fight" while Husband chased them around the apartment trying to separate them.

I'm still on the bed and the shock of receiving three minor but TOTALLY unexpected injuries in the space of maybe 5-10 seconds has caused me to burst into tears... however, I'm also processing the craziness of the events and that is causing me to laugh hysterically at the same time.

So about 15 seconds into all this I'm having the strangest, most spontaneous, intense laughing/crying jag I've ever had... It was like going from 0 to 100 in 10 seconds... and THEN I feel warm liquid dripping on me and realize I must be bleeding pretty good.

Sure enough my arm was spurting blood.

Then I felt my head... I had NO IDEA how strong a medium-sized house cat was. They are strong! He seriously punched me in the head and I got a huge bump, blood, and a headache to prove it!

By this point the initial toe injury seems insignificant but when I finally catch enough breath to go to the bathroom to clean up I realize that walking is tricky.

Anyway, I'm fine now but the normally affectionate cats are still upset with each other more than 12 hours later - all because of 15 seconds of chaos.

What a clustercuss.

Must remember to cut the cats' nails.