muffin stuffin'

i just found this picture that was on sister's camera.

as you can see below we're proud of our genetics, and not ashamed by the muffin that encompasses us. haha!

yuck

ive head the worst sinus infection since sunday morning and it just doesnt seem to wanna go anywhere. its strange because its only on the entire left side of my face. i thought i had cavities because my top molars all hurt, and then it spread like mad right up to my forehead. every time i speak it feels like my eye is going to pop right out. strangely enough my nose is clear. ive been on advil cold and sinus *plus* constantly, without the slightest bit of improvement. its frustrating and painful, and the Niagara Wine Festival next door has had a Tragically Hip cover band playing for 2 1/2 hours. the walls of my bedroom are rattling, and nux's guitarist has been playing the same guitar riff over and over for just as long through the other wall, while they write new material.

on the plus side (provided my skull eases up by then) im going to the Velvet Underground tomorrow to see Spoons. to be completely honest im not all that familiar with them, but i promised a friend i would go, and im pretty much up for anything that gets me the hell outta st. catharines for a night.

the unconventional wedding

the wedding trip was a success. we made it to see the Spirit Catcher in Barrie (in fact, we took my sister on the way back as well). its creepy, kinda gave me goosebumps, because its so big and, well, pointy looking? i dont know, but it was really neat. 

nux and i walked up to the market to buy some stuff for our tofurky sandwichs, and then stopped at a really nice cafe where i had a pumpkin patch latte (they had soy milk, woohoo!) and nux had a matcha green tea latte. the market wasnt really a big deal, but this year has been a bad crop year for everyone, so it wasnt surprising.  we DID however find some homemade vegan brownies that were made with ground up flax seed. it gave it a sort of walnut taste, instead of being super sweet. i'd post a picture, but we devoured them on the way home :/

we arrived at the resort near Dorset half an hour before the wedding, so we flew up to our room, jumped into our clothes. actually it was more like i squeezed into, and yanked on the zipper of my dress until it pinched all the skin up the side of my ribcage, and tory re-tucked his underwear in his "skinny-boy jeans" 15 times (maybe its time we cut down on beer?). we were left just enough time to shove a bun in our face, find my dad, and run down to the wedding. it was outdoor, and right along the lake, so the scenery was perfect. there was no god crap, it was short, and at the end the bride and groom (without anyones knowledge) ran down to the lake and jumped in a boat that whisked them off across the lake. luckily they came back.

my sister was the maid of honour, and the dude in the middle is my dad, complete with cigarette ashes all over his suit, and a haircut that his girlfriend/friend, the bride's mom gave him, resembling one of the stooges.*sigh*

i think this picture pretty much sums up their seriousness about life. the entire wedding was the most laid back and fun wedding ive ever been to. everyone there was only concerned about having a good time and laughing their asses off, which is pretty much all anyone who is close with the bride and groom does any other day.

after the ceremony, while the wedding party was having pictures taken, nux and i headed back to our room to have a drink on the balcony in our room. as i was talking about how great it is to see people who are less uptight about things having everything go smoothly (kinda like deciding your own "ripple effect", and how you can choose how greatly things going wrong affect everything), we heared a loud tear and crackle in the trees. suddenly one of the trees abit of distance in front of us fell into the woods, and was followed by screams. cursed!

we threw our beers into cups, and ran down throught he path to see if anyone got hurt. no one did. the wedding party was much further ahead, and i never did find out who was standing close to it screaming, but we found the birch laying on top of a hydro line beside my dad's cabin. of course he had no idea, and didnt even hear it from his porch. *sigh*.

when i got back to the cabin, i noticed this on the back of the washroom door, and found it odd. 

we hope you enjoy your stay, good luck with the 2nd degree burns?

the food was awesome, even our vegan meal, but we sat way far in the back  and they didnt have the speakers on, so we didnt hear a damn thing during the speeches. i got up and walked to the little room outside the door where the stairs led to the washroom a couple times so i could hear better. that is, until i (and nux shortly after) caught some scuzzy perv staring at my boobs through the window while sitting beside his wife at a table.  

by the time the dance started my sister was absolutely trashed after downing glass after glass of wine nervously awaiting her turn to say her speech.
this later led to a moment of panic when she had disappeared after making it very obvious that she was almost completely incapable of even sitting up, and some slimy bachelors had mumbled their lack of charm, and distasteful mannerisms to each other while they drunkenly thought i wasnt listening. after asking around to see if anyone had seen her, it became quickly obvious that i wasnt the only one who didnt trust these bastards.

and so nux and i proceeded to bust open the door of every room in the bridesmaids cabins, the washrooms, and all sorts of other places while my heart raced and nux was getting ready to bash someone's face against a wall while trying to make it not-so-dramatic. until finally i found her sitting on the grass by herself beside the lake texting her boyfriend. *sigh*

she proceeded to tell me that those boys were gross, and she would never go near them.  i thought about trying to explain how it wasnt really up to her at this point, but instead shrugged and put her to bed, where she locked her bedroom door.

we lit off fireworks on the beach, though this method of handling, i dont recommend.

and then the bride jumped into the lake, dragged her poor husband in as well, they froze their asses off and lived happily ever after.

except when mike threw the wrong bride over his shoulder. im not sure how a blow up doll got to muskoka, but she didnt look much haggard than the rest of us by the end of the night.

nux, doing what i can only guess is a moose call, the bride, and her mom.

we were still all drunk at breakfast.

-the end.

kumbaya and a big creepy metal-bladed bird.

nux and i have been teetering around the idea of spending some extra time in strange northern places on the way to a wedding near huntsville this weekend. we originally wanted to check out some different clubs with different people, and different atmospheres. different stages and different bands on them. just to sort of see the small places all around us, i suppose, and get an idea of some unheard of venues for MDM to potentially play, that maybe dont get a lot of bands coming through. that said, with a lack of cash lately, nux's inability to get friday off of work, and 2 "bigger" clubs in Barrie shutting own recently, we opted to just go up the morning of the wedding.

the ol' jetta is having a bit of a hard time getting its old bones working for longer than a couple hours of straight driving, so we're stopping in barrie in the morning to hit up the market, a museum, and just venture downtown for a bit. i also want to check out this creepy looking "spirit catcher" thing. a giant permanent exhibit apparently influenced by "thunderbird". nux has never been to barrie, and i havent been in years, so im looking forward to it.

after that we're off to a wedding in cabins near "dwight" in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of friends who are always a blast. my sister is the maid of honour, and the bride's mom has been a very close friend of my father's as well, so he'll be there in all his mustard-stained glory trying to trade me my beer for some clonazepam.
i love them all, but...
...gawd help us.

this was too funny not to share

incase you havent seen it, someone made a lovely video to go along with a 911 phonecall from a police officer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHTzpXyXO-4

haha!

also, if you havent checked out these website comics, you definitely should!
just click on the main picture to get a scroll down menu of previous ones, and be sure to check out their other sites on the top right of the page. some are bizarre and seem like an inside joke, but i find them hilarious, and addictive.

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/


that is all for now, i just needed some comic relief.

g'night

ahhhh. FINALLY, a day off to do nothing to do but put my apartment back together. its had a nice "here's where you go to find heroin" feel to it for awhile. nux and i have just been far too busy.

and so i managed to make 48 cabbage rolls ( with brown and wild rice, lentils, yves ground round, and mushrooms instead of beef) today. i cleaned the entire apartment, with some help from nux, brushed the damn feral beast-of-a-cat (aka the albino squirrel) who is the opposite colour of EVERYTHING in our house   - white.

 listened to the entire Bad Brains discography. finished a book of comfy short stories, called Loose End, that i bought off of a spoken word artist/author, Ivan E. Coyote a couple months ago at a performance. it was really good, but still, nothing will compare to the Taste This compilation book written with her and 3 others. at least not for me, anyway. it was worth it, and im ready to trade for one of the other ones (mail swap jaime??).

took a really long bath, stuck to an ongoing attempt not to eat after 10pm (with the exception of raw veggies) by cutting up a carrot, and laughed at nux trying to spontaneously bust out moves while listening to Ice T for 2 hours.  

tomorrow, back to work so that the cat can shed on my shit, my leg hair can start growing out to unacceptable lengths again, there isnt anything good premade in the freezer, i start accumulating a collection of half finished books in my backpack, and nux forgets his fine hoodrat moves.

-c

Farm Sanctuary

this post is a bit lengthy, because there were just way too many good photos to weed through. that and the entire 3 day experience was just too incredible not to document well.

last month nux, my friends Jaime and Ashley, and i headed down to Watkins Glen, NY for the Farm Sanctuary's annual Hoedown. any other week throughout the season people can go down and stay in one of the few cabins on the property (which is what jaime and i and some other folks did last year), explore the giant farm, keep all their stuff in the community kitchen, and have access to all kinds of really amazing information about the lives of  animals in less than wonderful surroundings (ya know, the ones that arent cats and dogs...). its a great environment, the only rules are not drinking in the animals areas (obviously), and that you bring only vegan friendly items for the weekend (beef jerky's not a great snack idea).

the Hoedown is a bit different in that its a fully regimented weekend with seminars, guided edible nature walks, speakers who are animal rights activists of all sorts, fully catered meals, a barn dance, campfires, and everyone just puts up tents in the yard to stay in. 

it was fucking incredible.

this guy is Brooklyn. he escaped from a live market in, yep you guessed it, Brooklyn, and ran the streets. he enjoys long walks, hitting things with his head, and not being halal meat.

im not sure what this ones name is, but i remember him from last year when jaime and i nicknamed him the satanic vagina goat (or something close to that). he's absolutely gorgeous, but his horns come out and up so that their tips touch,making what stupid freud would consider an abstract vagina. the unfortunate part for him, is that without the space and means to file them, they grow against each other and cause massive pressure on his skull.

needless to say, he's very happy now.

ever pet a turkey? no? well i have.

 he is white because of the bleaching process which takes away that "undesirable speckling" on their skin. apparently no one likes to eat things with spots. he also has a hard time walking, because growth hormones have made him too big for his legs to carry well, and his snood was ripped off shortly after he was born because they would fight with each other and grab on to them while confined in tiny cages. he was super excited to have all the attention, and kept puffing up while making this bizarre sound. kinda like when you shut off a subwoofer.

his head looks slimy and gross, but it actually feels really neat, i swear.

fois gras ducks who somehow made it out. if you dont know what fois gras is, look it up. canada's factories have been in a lot of shit recently over shady stuff. not that having it "controlled" is practicing anything even remotely humane anyhow.

these pigs sort of communicate with each other by nibbling each other's lips. sorta like morse code i guess, haha. its cute none the less, all their grunting and stuff.

the giant bum with and "X" on it was quite grumpy. some of them were on restricted diets after being overfed for so long, so they were marked for people to steer clear of, as they were mighty pissed.

it was hard to spend time with some of the animals because there were so many people at once. they got cranky, but they didnt mind the belly rubs. last year i could actually "dead beaver" them, and they'd just make room for me.

this was the bonfire on the second night, during/ after the dance. i wish i had a better picture of the guy with the guitar, because he looked like a perfect cross between Perry Ferrell and Dave Rave from the Talking Heads.

bustin' up the dance floor, with FREE kegs, and wine.

Jaime lulling the female turkeys to sleep.

Success!

Ashley and Carson

This guy, Norman was nux's and my favorite cow. he escaped/was rescued from a veal crate, but im not sure exactly what his story is. either way, he is the world's most perfect cow, and friendly as well.

i found his good scratchin' spot under his chin.

the view at this place is phenomenal. there is nothing around, except the racetrack, and a tiny downtown, with a liquor/wine cellar, a handful of vegan friendly restaurants, and a couple convenience stores, a state park, and a market. tons of baby deer (though i fuckng HATE when they run on the road in front of our car) and while i was peeing in a bush away from the campfire, i looked over to find a deer poking its head between the bushes, eating right beside me. it scared the shit out of me, and i peed on my shoe, because i didnt want to move :/

every single one  of the speakers were brilliant, and the four of us seemed to take turns tearing up, with a couple moments of full out bawling. nux and i both fell in love with the world's new age version of "pirate", Capt. Paul Watson. everyone should check out some of his speeches online, its truly moving.

i could go on forever, but i always end it in "you should just go next year, just do it, vegetarian or not", because i just cant explain it.