Dear Diary - the Smitten Kitten Blog

8th March, 10

Happy Monday!  It’s a beeeeeautiful day here in Toronto!  Sunny and 11 degress!  I thought I’d the day off with sharing a couple of really awesome videos my friends told me about over the weekend.  The first is OK Go’s new video for their song “This too Shall Pass”.  If you haven’t seen it already, I promise you’ll be mesmerized!

In honor of the Oscars last night (did you watch?), here’s a mock “trailer for every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever”. It’s smart and funny!  Hope you like it.  Enjoy!

4th March, 2010

Another round of pretty Polyvore collages today.  Thoughtfully put together and soooooo beautiful!

3rd March, 10

Years ago, I talking waaaaaaaay before Smitten Kitten was born, I shared this house with 2 artists.  Love’em to death but they treated the space more like a gallery (with a revolving roster of art exhibitions) rather than a home.

Back then it was not unusual to find a TV playing cartoons in the shower (art installation), or a naked man running around with a canoe on his head (performance piece), our living room consisted of a lonely sombrero hanging on the wall and a couple of mismatched wooden chairs.  Home sweet home!

In those good ol’ days, internet surfing was not a big concern for us, so we signed up for a “ultra light” package with an internet service provider and forgot about it.

As the years rolled by, my fellow artist friends (and a few others) have come and gone and The Boy and two kitties moved in.  We took the Sombrero off the wall, painted, decorated and renovated.  This house will always be a little non-traditional but we’ve called it our home and treated it as such.

But for some reason thought, we never bothered to upgrade our internet package.

Can you believe it?  I mean we’re tech savvy people.  I’ve upgraded our system a few times and bought a new computer last year even, ‘cos I needed something with a bigger brain to keep up with me.  I just never bothered upgrading to a faster plan.

I know I should’ve done it a looooong time ago.  But stubborn ol’ me with the “I can handle this, I don’t need help” Type A mentality just kept putting it off.

I accepted the hours it takes to download a movie, I sat patiently while waiting for my favourite blog pages to download.   “I don’t need super fast internet” I tell The Boy, “It’s not that bad” as I go make myself a cuppa tea while waiting for yet another page to download.

Recently our service provider set up restrictions on usage allowance.  By day 8 of our monthly plan, we’ve already used up our limit.  So we had no choice but to upgrade to a faster plan (with bigger allowances).

It’s only been a day but wow what a difference!  I’m not going to tell you how fast this and that is ‘cos y’all have the super fast internet.  You’ve had it for years!  I bet you’re all rolling your eyes at me right now going “Duh Amy!  I could’ve told you that!”.

I feel like the last kid to join the club but I get it now.  Eureka I get it!

For the rest of you who hasn’t seen the light.  Let me just say that, when it comes to internet speeds, patience ISN’T a virtue!  Oh what I wouldn’t give to get back those many MANY hours spent waiting for things to download.

I could’ve spent the time taking a course in small engine repair… or built an Eiffel tower replica with 10 million Popsicle sticks… or raised a small family of armadillos!  Stupid yes, but still better than having spent it staring at a blank computer screen.

26th Feb, 10

A friend of mine came to visit last week.  A refugee from Vancouver who came all the way to Toronto to get away from the maddening Olympic crowd.  He been here a few times before and after about 5 days, we kinda ran out of things to do.  So for his last weekend I thought we’d skip town and go to Montreal for the weekend.  Yippee!

Montreal’s close enough that you’d think we go more often but we haven’t been there for like 2 years!  What’s really weird about this trip is that this is a “just because” trip, meaning we didn’t go because I had a show to do or The Boy didn’t have an horsie article to write.  Nope, we went just for fun!

I was going to blog about our adventures, the vintage shopping and the chicken Nazi (Montreal’s version of the Soup Nazi), but The Boy did such an excellent job covering the trip, I thought I’d just post some of what he had written.  I’m posting the part about the shopping ‘cos that was my favourite.  For the full article please go here.

Here he is ladies and gentlemen, in his own words for the first time on Dear Diary.  The Boy!

**********

…Saturday was all about shopping. This is Amy’s area of expertise. I’ve dedicated an entire portion of my TripleDeadHeat Features section to our shopping exploits as I tend to find a lot of cool racing stuff.

The first vintage store we walked into was a goldmine. This little place called Friperie St-Laurent was chock full of old tyme (pronounced Old-Timey) treasures. I heard a squeal from the corner of the store and turned around to see Amy laughing and waving this odd pastel dress.

It did not look like anything Amy would normally wear. But what do I know?

“Look! Just look,” she laughed.

And then I got it. The whole bloody dress was covered in jockeys on horseback.

The Lovely Amy…

I think Amy is likely taking one for the team here but she told me that she liked it and saved me the embarrassment of having to buy it myself and live with the shame of that.

The rich fabric of thoroughbred racing

Amazingly, the dress fit her like a glove and now she has an outfit to wear to the Queen’s Plate this year.

Elegantly Equine?

Directly next door to Friperie St. Laurent was yet another vintage store. We were in the place no more than a minute when Amy came over waving a hanger in front of my face.

It was by far the ugliest cardigan I have ever seen. A yellowy-cream coloured monstrosity with red trim around the cuffs. The sort of thing you buy to wrap around the bottom of your Christmas tree.

“Look! Just look,” she laughed.

Sure enough. All around the body of the cardigan were jockeys on horseback. Can you believe it?

This stylish sweater was fit to be worn by only the dandiest of the debauched denizens of the track and I breathed easier knowing there was no way the thing would ever fit me. The cardigan was a size small and I have arms longer than Zdeno Chara.

Though I’ve tried, I can’t seem to find a photo of this ugly gem on the Internet. The “designer” is Herman Geist - the tag said “1980s $45″. Search at your own risk.

At any rate, the odds of finding those two items doorways apart are longer than the chances of me cashing any of the four Derby future wagers I made this year.

**********

What a crazy dress right?!  The Boy’s right in that it’s not my usual cuppa tea but it’s so fugly/beautiful I could just frame it and hang it on my wall!  Maybe if I style it right and add a big hat, I can kick Kentucky Derby Barbie’s butt this year.

O.K. now you gotta read the whole thing, especially the part about the Chicken Nazi. Seriously that’s exactly how the restaurant is!  We finally got our chicken after waiting 2 years and 4 hours.  But boy was it worth it!

24th Feb, 10

Please say hello to our new Smitten Kitten retailers!

Tucked away in the heart of Kensington Market, on Nassau Street (between Bellevue and Augusta) is where you will find an AWESOME little shop called Kid Icarus.

Kid Icarus is your one stop shop for contemporary crafts, posters and art prints, handmade papers, cards, stationery, t-shirts and handmade toys.  They feature some of my favorites for sure!  Like Lee Meszaros’s Be Proud Merit Badges, and beautifully handcrafted journals from Paper+Cup.

At the back of the store, owners Michael and Bainca have set up their custom print shop Studio XIX where they print their own line of stationery, wrapping paper and limited run gig posters for bands like Metric and Apostle of hustle.  So cool!

Noinkees in Orangeville carry an exiting array of fashion, accessories and gifts for women, moms to be, kids and babies.  Wonderful also is that they highlight many earth friendly products available for kids and moms!

Owner Miyeko is such a sweetheart.  Make sure you check out her blog for new product launches, store happenings, sales and specials.  You can also shop on line as well.  There’s lots of great ideas for gifts and one of a kind items guaranteed to delight!

Last but not least is Hillberg and Berk.  We met lovely owner Rachel at the One Of A Kind Show last December.  She loved our Silk Scarf Kanzashi brooches so much she purchased two for herself on the spot and promised to place an order in the new year for her company.  And that she did!

Hillberg and Berk is a fine jewelry design company based in Regina Saskatchewan. Their storefront is by appointment only but they have a beautiful and convenient online shopping site.

Oh here’s something interesting!  Incase you’re wondering why the name “Hillberg and Berk” sound so familiar, Rachel appeared on “Dragon’s Den” last year.  I’m so impressed with her ballsiness to not only go on that show (those dragons can be fierce!) but she also landed the deal!  She impressed the hell out of dragon Bret Wilson. Things have been amazing for Hillberg and Berk since and her and Brett continue to be partners in business.

Well there you have it folks.  For contact into, maps, webbys and addys for these and other Smitten Kitten retailers, please visit our Where To Buy page.  Thanks!

Better get back to work now so I’ll have MORE new stores to feature next time…

22nd Feb, 10

Living in a busy city like Toronto, I often find my day interrupted by other people’s rudeness (jerk who cuts you off on the road, peeps that don’t hold doors open for other people). Offenders generally are the type who thinks that their time, and what they’re doing, is more important than your time, and what you’re doing.  Remember the post I wrote about being yelled at in a parking lot on boxing day?  Yeah those types of people!  Grrrrrrrr!

Nothing ruins a day faster than some jerk being rude for no reason.  I’ve been telling myself for years now that, because I live in a big city, rudeness is to be expected, that there’s nothing I can do but put up with it.

I try to pass it off like I don’t care but really, it bugs me a lot!  And then I get mad at myself for being wimpy and indie-sensitive to let other people’s rudeness bug me.  Then all of a sudden I’m in a bad mood and perhaps a little less friendly to the next person I meet.  God forbid I ruin their day too!  ARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!  Rudeness is a perpetual grumpy circle that just keeps going and going and going….

So what can you really do to offset rudeness in this world?  Surely not by hating and being rude yourself right?  I was wondering just the same thing until I came across these blogs…

Operation NICE was initiated to remind you that a little NICE goes a long way. “If everyone was a little bit nicer to the folks they encountered each day, perhaps the world would be a more pleasant place.”

Operation NICE encourages individuals to be proactively NICE. Random acts of kindness can be anything from smiling at a stranger, listening to someone, or giving a sincere compliment, to being a volunteer, making donations, or organizing events. Operation Nice has a great list of reader suggestions for kind acts we can perform on a daily basis. Being lovely doesn’t cost anything other than a little spare time, and if it’s doing something you enjoy then it’s time well spent.

Did you know this week is National Random Acts of Kindness week?  Yeah read all about it on the Undercover Kindness blog!  As part of the National Random Acts of Kindness Week, artist Heidi Burton teamed up with Undercover Kindness to celebrate this occasion.  Heidi especially designed cards you can download for free (isn’t THAT nice!).  She says, “These can be handed out to friends, strangers, left in public places, and hidden in secret places — in an attempt to spread happiness. Sharing is caring!”

Once you start looking for nice people, you realize that they are everywhere!  There are lots of peeps out there who are proactively bringing niceness into the world.  All these wonderful blogs remind us that being nice isn’t some hippy dippy thing but a WONDERFUL thing you can do on a daily basis!  I don’t know about you but I feel better already.

Screw you nasty rude people!  (Oh poop, I guess that’s not a very nice thing to say), but I’m going to be nicer from now on!