The hunt for Tim's and playing hooky

I went to the funeral of my best friend WL's grandmother this morning. I had made plans with our friend S to pick her up from Warden subway station about an hour earlier in order to stop for a bite to eat before going to the service at 11am.

I figured we'd stop at a Tim Horton's, which is pretty ubiquitous - who knew that we would drive by 3(!) that were drive-thru only before finally finding one that was sit-down? We were ready to settle for a McDonald's when we came across a billboard for the golden arches only to find that it was a phantom McD's because the actual restaurant was nowhere in sight.

We made it to the service with about 5 minutes to spare and slipped into the last row where our two friends were seated with the other pallbearers. It was a nice service done mostly in Cantonese. When the minister spoke about Grandma L at length, I tried to translate to S who isn't Chinese, but much of the religious symbolism got lost in translation since I'm not familiar with the vocabulary in Chinese. I cried during the eulogy, and I had never met Grandma L in life. I suppose it just reminded me of my own grandmother's death. The burial, thankfully, was short, since it was REALLY cold this morning.

The cemetery happened to be the same one in which my father is buried, so I stopped by for a visit with my dad. By this time it was 12:30. Too late for me to make it to my mandarin class on time, so I played hooky today and went for lunch with S&WC instead. Given the cold, we opted for the warm comfort of congee. I had never been to Congee Star at Don Mills/Eglinton, but it's funny how it looked and felt like Congee Wong. If it weren't for the sign outside, I wouldn't have known the difference.

Afterwards, I dropped S&WC off at the subway and went about my errands: I picked up a new beadmat at beadFX since I had spilt nail polish on my last one and stopped at FabricLand in the hopes of finding some nice fabric to line the display case with. I've settled on chocolate brown and pink for my colours and came across this great bolt of flocked taffeta. I also found some lovely pink satin for the DIY display mats for the trays I picked up at Lacy & Company.


Just as I was pulling out of the parking lot into traffic, it occurred to me that I needed some fabric to use as a backdrop for my photos...so silly me, I drove to another FabricLand about 20 minutes away. Why didn't I do the easier thing of turning back? Because it wasn't easier - there's only one entrance into the lot I had just exited and to turn back would require a couple illegal U-turns given the stupid island that separated traffic...and I couldn't be bothered.

I was glad I decided to go to the other FabricLand though because I found this great flocked fabric on sale for $5/metre:


I have no use for it right now, but I think they'd make great accent pillows. I love the bird motif - and the brilliant fuschia and turquoise colours. (The picture doesn't do it justice at all.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of my dummy - christened Sheila by WC - modelling my jewelry, but after downloading them to my laptop, it occurred to me that they're too dark. I'll have to try again tomorrow earlier in the day for better natural light. Here she is though, doing her thing: