friday favourites 15.07.11

well, after my week off, i'm back to fill you in on the little things that made my time better in the last little while. i have an abiding fury with canada post, owing to the fact that i'm stuck depending on them, which has tainted much of my week, but given that i got to celebrate dom's b-day [see my earlier post], which involved getting together with friends at cagibi [which is remarkably similar to what we do almost every wednesday, but involved more drinking this time] and listening to the electro stylings of dj tyg, it's certainly a week that had its high points. several of them, in fact...

1. a cosmetic find :: i wasn't even looking, because i assumed i'd missed the boat long ago, but i managed to score a tube of nars' much-coveted, no-longer-available "strawberry fields" lip gloss. as far as glosses go, i'm a sucker for cheery, saturated magentas, so it does seem like fate that this gloss and i eventually found each other. it's a perfect summery shade, the kind of thing that sort of yells at the sun "hey! i can be all bright and stuff too!" and in fact, that's what i did. you can see the results here. if you're in the montreal area and think this looks appealing, you should consider checking the nars counter at the bay downtown. no one said i got the last one.

MUCH MORE AFTER THE BREAK AND YOUR CAT OF THE WEEK...

i think you're awesome, too

2. my love, justified :: i was kind of horrified this week that i felt compelled to write a letter to fluevog telling them i was unhappy about something. long story short, i've basically lost two heel caps off very lightly-worn shoes in the last couple of weeks. i didn't want to be nasty, and i wasn't, but i sort of felt rattled that after a very long time of being a dedicated e-vog-gelist was i was suddenly feeling a bit shaken.

the response, as i gleefully pointed out to dom, is the kind of thing that should be shown to people in business school. it was prompt, but at the same time, it showed that the person who received it had followed up to get me answers. and those answers make good sense, which is really all i wanted. there was a solution offered and the entire tone was gracious without seeming obsequious or phony. well done!

and fyi, they're having their annual summer sale right now, so it is a great time to check out what they have available. 

3. schadenfreude :: if there is a better feeling for a thinking observer of media than watching rupert murdoch twist in the wind, i can't think of it. oh, wait. but this is really so much bigger.

further proof that gingers have no souls

don't get me wrong. i'm so disgusted by everything i hear about this scandal that i'm finding it difficult to eat while watching the news. i mean, i knew that murdoch's empire was rotten, but this is bad even by the standards of a corporation that allows something it calls a news agency to knowingly propagate lies in the name of inflaming popular rhetoric, so that meaningful issues cannot be discussed in a rational, comprehensive way [assuming they can be discussed at all]. ahem. i'm getting carried away.

it's just that all of the disgust i can muster isn't going to change what's happened. so you'll forgive me if i just sit back and hope that the rot is profound enough to bring down the whole castle. this morning's news that executive rebekah brooks- who was the head of "news of the world" when it was engaged in the worst of its phone hacking and who was subsequently promoted [let's all think about that for a second]- has fallen on her sword is just the latest thing that makes me hope that, just maybe, there is some justice in the world.

4. a job well done :: those of you who follow me on twitter saw this picture, which is what happened when my superintendent came in to paint the recently rebuilt ceiling in my bathroom. apparently, he decided to test the wall to see if it needed some grouting and accidentally ended up pulling most of the wall down. well, to be honest, it was kind of an accident waiting to happen.

but now look at my bathroom.

not only is it freshly painted, but it's freshly tiled and grouted and it's cleaner than it has been ever in this century, thanks to the use of a lot of elbow grease [by the superintendent] and a cleaner that i was told not breathe too close to. [strangely, my asthma has been better the last couple of days.]

i think i'm a little intimidated by it. i feel like i might not be clean enough to bathe there, which is kind of a difficult problem to solve. but damn, it's sparkly and white and large parts of it are newer than the hair that probably still inhabits the drain. not too shabby. not shabby at all.

those are a few of my bright spots this week. feel free to share yours. this week, of course, i'll be reserving time in my schedule to sit down and watch as much coverage as i can possibly stand of mad murdoch's woes, but i promise not too get too smug. i have a feeling he'll weasel out one way or the other.

speaking of smug, i have to say that this is becoming a problem for me. i've recently started forcing myself to button down and keep detailed lists of things i need to do, so that i can track my own progress and not forget to do things for three months like i normally do. the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment this brings should, at best, qualify as "normal", but i've been kind of lax for the last little while, letting myself get intimidated by random things i haven't been getting done, so i feel like i've been oh so very productive lately. i've reached that stage where i can't help crowing about things i've gotten done, which is probably incredibly irritating for people who have to be around me [dom]. so i'll add a note to my list that i have to not be quite so proud of myself. after all, i've been quite productive, but i also accidentally used dish soap in my mopping water.


regular readers of the blog might recall that i have a real love for things purple, so this just seemed like the purrrrfect kitteh of the week photo...

thanks for reading and have a great week!