Summer! Furniture!

Thanks to Wanderluster's tip, I hurried on over to the Ikea website and stumbled upon their outdoor furniture line - it's filed under Summer if you click on the link for All Departments! And HELLO, jackpot!

I had in mind a modular set similar to Nuevo Living's Cubit line which, guess what, Ikea has too! It's called Arholma!!

Here're some of my favs:


Ikea outdoor favs - by phoenixc on Polyvore.com

New pricing at Ikea?

I'm on the hunt for balcony furniture and it ain't cheap. What I need is for Ikea to come out with an outdoor furniture line. Their Urban chair came immediately to mind but there are no options table-wise for outdoors. And then I noticed the odd pricing:


Their pricing is typically round dollars - is there a web monkey behind the scenes having fun? I mean, what's with the Docksta for $228.65? You telling me I could have saved $40.35 if I'd waited a few more months?

P.S. I finally figured out how to print screen in Mac OS! Yay!!! :)

Weekend!

photo via

It's finally Spring and the sun is peeking through the clouds. I have plans for an anti-social day today and I quite like it. I slept in until just before 10am and have been vegging in front of the TV watching a Megastructures episode on the Water Cube that I'd PVR'd earlier while eating wonton noodles.

I'm now dillydallying because I have a list of things I'd like to see to today - including the purchase of a cap for running. I'm convinced I look like a complete dork in a cap but I've decided this is something I need to overcome. After trying a few caps yesterday during my lunch hour, I'm sure my head is bigger than the average woman - or at least the average that's been decided by the designers at Nike and Adidas because they're too small for me. So looks like I'm going to have to get a man-sized cap.

My fridge also needs re-stocking and having read a few of the essays in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, I've decided to make use of my kitchen this weekend...perhaps pull out my food processor for something complicated...or not, but fantastic nonetheless.

So off I go to get dressed...the day waits for no one!

I was wrong

I ordered this top from J. Crew a couple weekends ago and it arrived today at work via UPS after being re-directed from my home address because there obviously isn't anyone there to sign for it while I'm at work.

My first reaction when I pulled it out of the box was that it was too close in tone to my skin colour and the last thing I want is to wear something that makes me look washed out so I was all set to return it in exchange for a different colour. But I tried it when I got home and I've since changed my mind. The cut is super-flattering - the v-neck is just right and the gathered neckline and loose fit skims the body just-so so that on days when you feel bloated and ick, no one else will know. :)

All I need to make this colour good on me is a tan, and to that end, I've decided it's time to begin using my must-have moisturizer for the lead-up to summer - Jergen's Natural Glow. It has the same distinct smell as other self-tanners I've tried that I find mildly unpleasant, but I like that the price is reasonable and it works fairly quickly. I wonder if there will be a noticeable difference tomorrow....

Sky Burial

I just finished reading Xinran's Sky Burial and it truly is as its' subtitle suggests - an epic love story of Tibet.

Xinran recounts the true story of Shu Wen, a Chinese women she interviewed in Suzhou in 1994. Wen ventured into Tibet in the 1950s in search of her husband, a Chinese doctor and soldier who was missing in action.

She wandered for over 30 years in the mountains of north Tibet with a nomadic family who saved her with the unwavering belief that she would find her husband someway, somehow.

This is a fantastic study of Tibetan religious beliefs and the descriptions of the nomadic way of life and their instinctual movements as the seasons changed was eye-opening and beyond my imagining as a modern-day city girl.

While the fate of Wen's husband is revealed in the end, we're left wanting as to what becomes of Wen, who disappeared without a trace 2 days after her first meeting with Xinran.

First run out

It's a gorgeous spring day and I went for my first run outside this year. I headed west along Lake Shore through Coronation Park all the way to the Molson Ampitheatre and then doubled back along Queens Quay. I kept an easy pace and it felt awesome. So I treated myself to a grande-non-fat-no-foam-extra-hot tazo chai from Starbucks on my way home. :)

Hope you're out enjoying the great weather!

One Week

I spent the rainy afternoon in a theatre with wL watching One Week and thoroughly enjoyed this unabashedly Canadian road trip movie.

Joshua Jackson is Ben Tyler, a grade school English teacher who's been diagnosed with terminal cancer who's not ready to be a patient, so he buys a motorcycle on the way home from hearing the news and sets off across country for one last grand adventure.

If it's playing in a theatre near you, go see it. It inspired wL and I to plan our hypothetical trip from coast to coast...something I'd love to do one day. We decided that we'd fly east to St. John's Newfoundland and rent a car to drive west. The one rule is that we'd stick to the Trans Canada Highway and only deviate within 100km from it...one day...

Spring!

Ellen Page via

I didn't want to be sitting at my desk this afternoon. The sun was flirting with me and while I'm not much of a cyclist, heading out for a spin would have been a lovely way to spend this Spring-like day.

Have a great weekend. :)

Flight's booked!

I've booked my free flight to Europe! Well, it wasn't actually free because I had to pay the taxes which were still about $370(!!!) but I've booked my flight for April 8! I'm flying into London to meet one of my best girls, my cousin A. I'll spend a week there before we fly together for a long weekend in Amsterdam for another cousin's wedding. We then head off for a week in Spain together, splitting our time between Barcelona and Madrid. My return flight is booked from Amsterdam so I still have to book the flights in between but I can't wait!

I haven't seen A and most of my other Dutch cousins since I was over there in 2006 so it'll be fantastic to be amongst so much family again. So excited!!! :)

BUT! It means my training for the 10K will be interrupted...well...let's be honest, it hasn't really started, which means I either have to get my ass in gear this month or forget about it. What to do?

China Witness

I just got back from attending an interview of Xinran by John Fraser at U of T's Hart House. If you're not familiar with who Xinran is, she is the author of The Good Women of China, a collection of real life stories of Chinese women. It was, at times, a heartbreaking read for me because it made me wonder at the resilience and strength of Chinese women to persevere through the hardships and injustices of simply being born a woman in a culture that generally does not value them. And it made me grateful that I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the West.

She was here to promote her latest effort, China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation.

Fraser asked her about her childhood and her experience growing up in the Cultural Revolution. Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958. Her parents were both well-educated and from a wealthy background. She was seperated from her parents at an early age and was raised by her grandparents. She recounted the clear memory of meeting her mother for 10 minutes at the train station when she was 5, and the light purple clothing she wore. When she was 6 and a half, she was reunited with her parents only to be seperated again about 6 months later when the Cultural Revolution swept the nation and resulted in her parents imprisonment.

She spent the better part of her childhood living with other children in some sort of compound where she wasn't allowed to play let alone speak. And to this day, she still has nightmares that the Red Guards will darken her door in the middle of the night to take her away for a beating.

She spoke too, about her reasons for writing this book - Part of it is because Chinese youth today are completely ignorant of this period in China's modern history, and part of it is because if she doesn't do it now, it may be too late as most of the oral histories she collected were from interviewees in their 70s, 80s and 90s.

She shared with us a meeting she had with 22 young students outside a Beijing shopping district who were on break from their jobs. She asked them if any of them knew what the Cultural Revolution was and only 1 of them could answer correctly. She then asked them all to go home and call their parents for an answer, and in return, she would give them a gift the next day. When the next day came, all but 1 student came back. It's her belief that one can't move forward in the future without understanding one's past and what a disservice it is that so many of the young Chinese today have no idea.

When asked about her education, she said that she has 4(?) degrees the first being English and she wasn't able to communicate to the cab driver on her first trip to London; and while she has a computer science degree, she studied computers when the hardware took up an entire room. Despite being so well-educated, she got the most value from the stories she's been able to gather in talking to different people.

Anyway, it was rather a thrill to hear her speak of her first-hand experiences. I think I was third in line after Fraser to have her sign my book and I was rather dumbstruck. She asked me softly in mandarin if I was Chinese and I answered yes....and I can't recall now what her next question was, but I answered: "Wo shi Jianada waqiao", which means I am Canadian born Chinese...that was just about the only useful phrase I could recall at the moment after studying mandarin for 2 years. Lame. Then she said to me, in mandarin, "Please ask after your father and mother." Then I said "xiexie," thank you, and then I gathered up my things and left. Double lame.

In hindsight, I wish I could have told her that I really enjoyed reading The Good Women of China because it made me at times happy and sad and angry and hopeful. I wish I could have told her how much I am looking forward to reading China Witness for all that I will learn about my Chinese cultural heritage, but most of all, I wish I could have told her how thankful I am that she feels compelled to document so much Chinese history that would otherwise be lost.

I didn't then, so I'll do it now: "Xinran, xiexie ni."

Happy Weekend

via

It's Friday and I'm off to the gala tonight!

Two words: open bar.

'Nuff said.

Stretching

I had a coffee date first thing this morning with my manager-twice-removed to talk about my career development. What was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation stretched into almost an hour and I'm thrilled but terrified at the same time at the opportunity I've been given.

This project is another high profile one, so high in fact that our head honcho called it out recently as one of the big drivers for our company's growth in the next couple years - absolutely no pressure, right? And I've been given the lead to develop the strategy! Talk about stretching my skills and growing in my role!

After reviewing the opportunity, we talked about coaching and how she sees me growing into a more senior position in the next 18-24 mos...so there's some plan in mind for me...which is gratifying because my effort has been recognized. I worked for my previous SVP for 3.5 years and we only ever talked once about my career, and that was in reaction to someone else leaving the company and their direct manager asking for me to step into the role, so he wasn't necessarily interested in my development...my new SVP has been with us for 6 mos and already she's articulated a career path for me.

We also talked about how I can improve my performance in certain situations...be more assertive and less deferential, particularly around male superiors and take note of people I can model myself after, i.e. study senior leaders as I interact with them and consider what I like or don't like about their leadership style and why that is and begin building a tool kit to reference. All very useful advice.

I was rather intimidated by her and still am to a certain extent...but I'm also a bit more comfortable around her too because she really does care and really is supportive. So the hard work begins! I just have to remind myself not to think about the profile of the project too much...if I did, I just might freak myself out.

Lesson to Learn

I'm a sucker for all the pre-Oscar stuff because I like to see all the pretty dresses so I've been parked off and on for the last few hours flipping through all the pre-Oscar coverage and happened upon the segment on Barbara Walters' annual special and her interview with Anne Hathaway.

When asked to describe the last year, Hathaway said she learned that vulnerability is not the same as weakness. Vulnerability is not the same as weakness. This is something I definitely need to learn.

Lady in the Red Dress

I caught David Yee's Lady in the Red Dress today and it was really good. The play, produced by Fu-Gen, a local theatre company dedicated to developing Asian Canadian playwrights, centres around the issue of redress for the Chinese Head Tax by the Chinese Canadian community.

Thousands of Chinese came to Canada between 1881 to 1885 as labour to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, but as soon as the railway was completed, the Canadian government moved to restrict Chinese immigration by imposing a $50 head tax on every Chinese that came to Canada. By 1903, the head tax was $500, which was worth about 2 years wages at the time, and to add insult to injury, Chinese were denied citizenship. Despite this, Chinese immigrants continued to arrive and in 1923, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act excluding all but a few Chinese immigrants from entering Canada. Until the act was repealed in 1947, less than 50 Chinese were allowed to come to Canada. And for those that were here, they were faced with endless discrimination. I wrote a paper about this for my Canadian history class in university and remember images in the reference books of signs posted in storefronts that said "No Dogs or Chinese Allowed."

I must admit that parts of the play were difficult to watch because I found the racist depictions of some of the characters offensive...but there were also parts which were hysterically funny...like Ins Choi as Happy Chan, the one-man radio show and his brother Biff, who was equally skilled with the direction of his own one-man TV show.

David Yee was present for the performance and I would have loved to tell him how much I enjoyed it as I saw him outside the theatre, possibly having a smoke, but I've never had it in me to approach someone I've admired for their work like that. Oh well.

Candice on Oprah!

I caught the tail end of Oprah after work today and noticed that the fantastic Candice Olsen was on in today's episode kick-starting the Mighty Ope's "Clean Up Your Messy House Tour."

I remember Candice back when she used to be a guest on Cityline's Home Day. She, along with Steven Sabados and Brian Gluckstein first turned me onto interior design and I've been hooked ever since.

Grrr.

I went out for a Winterlicious dinner last night before the Raptors game at a (supposedly) finer restaurant that shall remain unnamed and was quite annoyed by the condescension and chauvinism of our server.

I happened to be dining with a guy friend and while I was clearly in the driver's seat in choosing the wine he offered it to my friend to taste. And later, our server tried to clear the table, ignoring the fact that I wasn't finished my meal, apparently because my friend was. Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, or my expectations are too high, but I'd expect that at a restaurant where they charge a fair price for dinner they train their servers to observe silent signals...my flatware was placed at 4 and 8 o'clock on my plate, meaning I'm still working on it so leave me be until they're both placed at 4. If he hadn't irked me with the wine tasting earlier, I probably wouldn't have been so annoyed...but his immediate deferrence to the guy just soured the experience for me.

Family Day!

WIP: My Bedroom

In my bid to procrastinate the real work of organizing my study which is seemingly overwhelming because I have so much stuff - I decided to take some pictures of my bedroom, which is mostly finished. The 4 Muchas posters I'd dropped off to get plaqued are waiting to be picked up and will be hung over my bed.


The colour on the walls is CIL's Lilac Duvet, appropriate for the bedroom, wouldn't you say? It's pretty bright in these photos because the sun was shining but at night, it's super cozy...actually, it verges on too dark because I find it difficult to read. Anyway, I'm looking for the perfect floor lamp to place on the right of my bed for reading...and I've got an armchair left still to be re-upholstered...


Remember these vintage dressers I picked up last spring? Here's one of them painted crisp and white with its hardware made new again with nickel-plating:

Because I like fungis

I stopped at the supermarket near my gym after my run and picked up groceries to make myself Valentine's meals...a mushroom soup for lunch because I love fungi and a crusty mini loaf:

The finished product, after a couple mis-starts with my food processor, which I'm still getting the hang of:

I also picked up a couple steaks - 2 because I didn't want anyone to think me a loser for picking up one lonely steak on Valentine's Day of all days. Here's the first one, which I had for dinner Saturday along with green beans tossed in olive oil and sea salt, and garlic-chives mash:

And the second one, which I had for lunch the next day:

V Day

via

I recently heard of today being referred to as Stupid Cupid's Day on the radio - I wouldn't go that far...I guess I'm on the verge of being indifferent since I don't have a sweetheart to celebrate the day with.

So what's on tap for today? I'm heading out to the gym for a run since it's too cold out, off to Ikea for a few things, and spending the rest of the day *finally* getting started on really getting my study in order before making myself a yummy dinner. I made dinner for a friend's bday last night and it was a lot of fun despite the clean-up afterwards. So I'm going to make a real effort to actually use my kitchen and put my food porn cookbooks to good use!