If you are, then in my humble opinion there’s only one store for you. Forget Gok Wan,  if you really want to know what’s in this season pop in here and ask Ron.

Cheshire St (just off Brick Lane) London, E2

Sony Ericsson, C902

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Next year can someone please remind me how much work making salsa is? Ugh. I am exhausted. However! This post is most definitely not a whining, boohooing post. It is not even a farmer’s wife post. It is a farm girl in the city post!

Last week I went to one of the fashion shows for Edmonton Fashion Week. It was so much fun, I loved every minute of it. To give some background, I do not drive in the city. I’m not scared to, it’s not like I don’t know how, I am just that dumb directionally challenged that I just don’t. However, last Thursday, I did! And I made it to my friend Nikki’s house in one try, and more importantly, in one piece. I AM SO PROUD. (Sorry about the caps, but if you were standing in front of me, I would have yelled that, so… yeah…)

I also found out that there are people who have absolutely no shame and think that they are hilarious. And I also found out that sometimes… they are. So once upon a time, in the city of Edmonton I was sitting at a red light. A van pulls up beside me and a guy in the passenger seat, probably in his mid-twenties, leans out his window and says, “Hiiiiiiii.” I, not knowing proper city etiquette, keep a polite smile on my face but avoid his gaze and ignore him. I’m slightly terrified. He leans out a little farther and continues to wave and say “Hiiiiiiiiii.” In a voice that can only be described as creepy. Not wanting to get shot for not replying to be rude, I nod and smile in his direction. He then disappears back into his van and then reappears wielding…

… an oar. Oh yes. An oar. Like, I see you have a canoe, where’s your oar, oar. And then he proceeds to hold on to the oar outside his window and pretend to paddle. Oh yes he did. I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. When was the last time you saw someone paddling outside the window of their van? Hmm? Thankfully, the light turned green and he turned off. Thank goodness.

But on to the fashion show! Nikki and I went and picked up her friend Lisa, and my SIL Chelsey, and we stopped and ate at Chili’s (YUM), and then went to the fashion show. I felt so posh going to a fashion show, I’m not going to lie. I also personally knew one of the designers so it was amazing to see her stuff strutting the catwalk. (Her line is Serendipity, btw. I’m sure it will be famous one day)

There were definitely some scary designers though, holy man. Dresses up to there, and down to there, and furs and animal prints, and blech! But most of the stuff was beautiful and amazing and intricate and one of a kind. I loved it! I am so excited to go again. I didn’t take any pictures of the actual fashion show, but I did take some of the people I was with and of the fabulous purse Chelsey bought and I now have.

And no I didn’t steal it. She couldn’t decide between two purses, so she bought them both and when we’re sick of the one we have, we shall switch! It’s genius, pure genius!

And no I didn’t steal it. She couldn’t decide between two purses, so she bought them both and when we’re sick of the one we have, we shall switch! It’s genius, pure genius!

Below is my SIL Chelsey (left) and yours truly at the fashion show

And here I am with Nikki, expressing our excitement for being at the fashion show

And of course, the fabulous purse!

And Nikki and I attempting to look normal. I hate pictures when I have to lean back to be in the picture. Very unflattering.

So, only the second post, and already a theme seems to be emerging: disappointment. This time around, the expectations were that bit higher, which makes the eventual slump that bit more galling.

So, what am I moaning about this time? Critical darlings TV on the Radio, who, as part of  what seems to be a very festival-heavy tour, last night stopped off at Brixton Academy. This is a band I first heard some years ago, thanks to Tom, who acquired the vinyl of first album proper, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. Not having a record player himself, he kindly sent it spinning in my direction. What lay within wass a collection of tunes of various influences, and varying quality, elevated by the presence of one truly stand-out track, the frankly excellent ‘Staring at the Sun’. Starting with some fragile a capella harmonies, it quickly locks into a bass-heavy groove that constantly threatens to get your ass shaking. Unlike many a lesser band, however, TVotR refuse the temptation to let the track kick in: a measure of permanently delayed gratification that always leaves the listener wanting more. Return to Cookie Mountain returned to type, being another mixed set that never quite delivers on the frequent hints of greatness.

So, it was with a degree of scepticism that I greeted the arrival of Dear Science in the upper echelons of countless ‘Albums of 2008′ polls. This cynicism was swiftly dispelled when I eventually put my fears and actually listened to it, only to discover that, by God, it’s good! Four albums in, and they finally offer up the great album they’d always promised. My hopes were high, then, for the Brixton gig (despite the band attaining a form of ubiquity – relatively speaking – by being featured on an Channel 4 ad for the third series of Skins. We all know what happened to the Gossip after they received that particular accolade…). Unsurprisingly, the set drew heavily from Dear Science, and featured little of the more esoteric material from albums past. The band, whose ranks were swelled by a couple of chaps on sax/percussion and bass/guitar, played a blinder. Or rather, they seemed to, as the whole was cursed with a sound mix muddier than the Somme after a particularly drizzly morning. It was as if the sound man had simply exported the desk settings from his usual ‘playing in a festival tent’ rig, making no allowance for the fact that they were now indoors, filling a venue which, on the whole, has decent acoustics.

In fairness, the night finished on a high point, in the form of a three-track encore of ‘Family Tree’, ‘A Method’ and ‘Staring at the Sun’. It’s tricky to pinpoint why these succeeded where the rest fell down in the mud. Doubtless matters were helped by the arrival of support act the Noisettes on stage for ‘A Method’; considering how percussion-heavy the sound had been, throwing a few additional bells and whistles (well, tambourines and cymbals) into the mix did no harm whatsoever. ‘Family Tree’ is one of the more stripped-back songs from Dear Science and, given the lack of strings on stage, this sparseness was both preserved, and a welcome respite. ‘Staring at the Sun’, by contrast, turned out to be quite the belter, finally consummating the desire to put a beat to the blessed thing. It could have gone on far longer. (I know, I’m impossible to please.)

All being well, the next thing I decide to write about will take a more positive slant. I’m starting to depress myself here, so why anyone else should want to bother with such maunderings is beyond me.

So Nic Harry from SA Rocks came up with this cool idea to post a whole lot of pics of South Africans and their inky thumbs today. The ink shows that you have voted in the national elections today, 22 April 2009.

I’ll link to his post as soon as it is up, as it will be fascinating to see. UPDATE: here it is! In the meantime, here’s my inky voter’s thumb, clutching a celebratory glass of South African vino – of course.

For the record, it’s Cloof’s very delicious Happy Dragon 2006 I am drinking. This is a Pinotage-Shiraz blend, with a cute SA-variation of the St George and the dragon story on the label. It’s newly released and apparently should be hitting the shelves any day now.

Speaking of Darling, with some phenomenal timing that I can’t take credit for at all, I am now off to see Pieter-Dirk Uys, in his new show Elections and Erections, at the Baxter in Cape Town.

So much for all the nay-sayers who threw up their arms in despair when the plans for the Green Point stadium were announced. Now although you can’t see the stadium itself in these pics from Signal Hill, you can see the extent of the development reaching to Bay Road in Mouille Point. (The stadium is just off the the right). As I understand it, most of this is a golf course to replace the one that got dug up for the stadium. Nice. Lots of green. I may have to take up golf again.

A confession: I only realised that the name Nigiro, was Origin spelt backwards, about two days after I went to the Nigiro launch earlier this month. Blush. Nonetheless, the opening of Dave and Joel’s new tea room in their Cape Town coffee shop was fab – here’s the article I wrote for SA Rocks.

Direct, unambigious and beautifully analogue.
I’m going to use this as my auto responder next time i take a vacation.
Sorry, it’s a poor photograph [note to self: remember to use flash in sunlight you twit]

Location : restaurant, Shoreditch, London, E2

I am going out for dinner this evening for the first Philly Mom Bloggers meet-up. I’m definitely excited! Problem is — it’s in Exton. As in: I have to drive the car. By myself. To someplace I’ve never been. On a Friday. During rush hour.

You’re probably thinking: yeah, so what?

Well, let me tell you: Katia doesn’t like to drive in the Philadelphia area. I grew up and learned to drive in a small town in Northern Ontario where “heavy traffic” consisted of 5 cars on the same street. I never had to parallel park. Our major highway was 2 lanes — one lane going in one direction, the other lane going in the other direction; occassionally there was third lane which alternated between the two sides and functioned as a passing lane. It was uncomplicated. There is one highway — it takes you east or north. If you went south you ended up in a river on your way to Michigan, if you went west you ended up in Lake Superior. Doesn’t leave you with a lot of options.

Anyway, back to today’s challenge: getting to Exton. I looked at the map and all I see are big roads with #s like 202, 476, 76, 100… I only recognize these #s because those are the streets that are always listed during the traffic reports as being clogged with cars. BREATHE. I think I’ve mapped it out: rt 3, rt 202, rt 100… and I’m there. BREATHE.

Well, once I’m there I get to chat with some super moms, including:

• Classy Mommy
• Genesis moments
• Gunning It
• Total Mom Haircut
• Occupation Mommy
• Stinky John Jones
• Musings of a Housewife
• Girly Mama
• Mommy Sparklykatt
• A box of chocolates
• These are the days
• Situationally Single Mom

Wish me luck! Have a great weekend.

On Sunday I took on the task of walking to the zoo. It took me 50 minutes from my house to the front gates of the zoo — it was about 2 miles. And I pushed the Phil & Ted’s stroller with the two kids and our gear (diapers, wipes, water, snacks…) all the way there. I survived.

Madeleine snoozed:

After my initial incident with Maja on my bike a few months ago I was reluctant to put Madeleine on the bike. We bought a carrier for her about 6 weeks ago, but didn’t have a helmet until this past Sunday. Once we had the helmet there were no more excuses… so Richard spent some time on Monday afternoon putting the new carrier on his bike… and off they went! Madeleine LOVED it; Richard didn’t crash. All was good. Tell me if she isn’t the cutest thing EVER on the back of a bike?!?

For our first bike outing as a family we headed off to the pool for our first dip of the season. The water was a little cold, but both girls thoroughly enjoyed it. And Mads fell asleep on the way home:

It’s good that we now have our bikes set up for kid transportation. With the rising cost of gas we’re trying to limit our use of the car for little jaunts around the neighbourhood. Really, we’re all set for a variety of things: double stroller for longer walks; red wagon for trips to the farmer’s market and for picnics; bicycles for activities around the neighbourhood. It’s good for our health, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for our wallets.

I have been trying to think of ways to get some biking with Maja in during the week. Since yesterday was a nice day I decided that I would meet the crew over at the library in the evening, get some books out with Maja and then ride home with Maja in her bike seat.

I have to admit, after our crash on our maiden voyage, I was nervous. However I didn’t want to have this rule my life! I plotted out a route that was direct and only involved 2 streets with minimal appearance of trolley tracks.  While we were waiting at a traffic light I checked-in with Maja to see if she was having fun and her answer was: “Yes, because we’re not crashing.” Fair enough.

Clearly, I’m smitten by spring this year.

 It was a dark and stormy night… the rains came. The wind blew. And, once again, a tree fell in the ‘hood. These are the perils of living in an urban forest. And, once again, I’m glad it wasn’t my car…

March 5, 2008

April 17, 2007

October 18, 2006

We had a BEAUTIFUL day yesterday and we went on a wonderful morning out’n'about trip… and would you believe it the battery on my camera was dead?!? I’m still miffed about it, because there were some lovely moments I would have liked to capture.

The sun was shining and the weather was relatively warm for the beginning of February. Maja was in a good mood… So, we packed up the kids and the dog and headed up to where the Valley Green Inn is in Fairmount Park. The park is filled with trails for biking, hiking, and horseback riding and, right where the Inn is, there are a lot of ducks and geese who wait for kids (and adults!) to feed them stale bread. And maybe some leftover blueberry pancakes. These are happy ducks. They did not, however, get any of our bacon because bacon is sacred.
Maja has never fed wild ducks before (the ones at the zoo don’t count)! Can you believe it? We’ve clearly missed a gap in her toddlerhood education. Turns out she loved it (duh). After all our stale bread, pancakes, and the bread another family gave Maja to throw (again, we’ve clearly failed as parents when other people give us their stale bread…) was all gone, we all took a short jaunt on one of the hiking trails where Maja got to explore moss on the rocks, see different rocks and big huge fallen logs. I think she really enjoyed it, as did the rest of us. We’ll be back to do that again!

I suspect after the parade was over this happy fellow found himself belly-ed up to a bar in South Philly.

Today Maja not only saw Santa, but managed to sit on the same bench with the jolly man in the red suit and not have a complete meltdown. It was actually really nice because all the commercialism normally surrounding a visit with Santa (like at a shopping mall) was not there. This year our visit with Santa took place outdoors at Franklin Square.

Maja told Santa that she wanted an orange guitar — so I’m really hoping that he comes through for her.

We had spied Santa at the park when he disappeared for a while — apparently so he could make his big entrance via fire engine, because that’s how urban Santas arrive. In order to explain his disappearance Richard and I told Maja that Santa was a “sneaky guy.” This phrase was repeated by Maja the rest of the day, just so we wouldn’t forget.

And, luckily this time our visit to Franklin Square included two rides on the carousel. Once with dad on an eagle and then a second time with mom on a zebra.

Today was a busy busy day.

It started with our first (annual?) trip to Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This parade is the oldest Thanksgiving Day Parade in the United States, beginning in 1920. We didn’t make it for the 8:30am start time, but managed to catch most of the parade when we got there around 9am. We took the trolley to 21st and Market and positioned ourselves at 20th and Market, where the parade began.

Besides seeing lots of floats and balloons, we saw some celebrities.

This float had Miss America Lauren Nelson, ABC Weatherman Sam Champion, and (I think) Miss USA Rachel Smith.  What had me laughing was that the second part of their float was soooo overpacked with people that the axel broke, the float collapsed, and it had to be evacuated. The celebrities managaed to keep smiling… they’re well trained (and well paid).

Maja enjoyed the parade. Madeleine slept.

After the parade we went home and then to the park, as it was such a beautiful day.

Madeleine enjoyed her time in the wagon, and then we had a historic moment. Madeleine had her maiden voyage on the swings:

Before I had children I frequented a lot of coffee shops. Inevitably there would be some parents in there with their kids, having a bagel/pastry and a latte or something. I don’t know why, but I always assumed I would never be one of those parents because bringing your child in to a coffee shop was just too, well, yuppie. Why on earth would you pay $3 for a cup of steamed milk at a coffee shop when you can do it at home for $0.15?

I’ve gone over to the dark side. The past two Sunday mornings I’ve brought Maja and Madeleine with me to the Green Line Cafe, about 2 blocks from my house. Maja gets a blueberry muffin and a steamed milk (just half a cup, please, and not too hot); I get a bagel with cream cheese (sesame, toasted) and a hot chocolate. Madeleine sleeps.

I justify this outing by saying I’m not really a yuppie because I’m:

a) not going to a big chain, but an independent coffee shop

b) the coffee shop is in West Philly, for pete’s sake, not Manayunk or Chestnut Hill

c) I don’t attach 5 adjectives to my coffee order

d) I’m no yuppie

Why do I bring her? Because

a) I’m hungry.

b) I want to get out of the house

c) it’s too cold to hang outside

d) Maja likes it. She thinks having her “coffee” at the coffee shop is the coolest thing ever. And, she’s entertained!

On our latest excursion there were no seats available in the coffee shop, so we had to get our treats to go. Maja wanted to go to the turtle in the park, so we wandered over there, spread out a blanket on the grass and had a cold picnic.

And Madeleine slept:

Yesterday was my day home with the girls, and since the weather promised to be nice I took them to Franklin Square where we met up with Vladimir and his mom. Unfortunately the only thing available for the kids to do was play at the playground, as the carousel and the mini-golf were closed.

The playground is really nice — it’s spread out and fenced in (this is important because the square is between some very busy streets). Maja’s biggest complaint of the outing was that there were too many kids. Some daycare classes were there and it was pretty busy and I think Maja got overwhelmed.

I think we will go back, but on a weekend when the carousel is open and the food vendors are there (I really wanted a soft pretzel!). I’m hoping, too, that then there won’t be so many kids as the daycares won’t be coming by to romp.

On Saturday afternoon the family headed out to Springdale Farms in New Jersey for our (almost) annual trip to the pumpkin patch with the Kipnis family. We started this tradition in 2004 with just the four adults, now we’re four adults and three kids…

The whole pumpkin patch thing is a bit staged, really. You climb onto a hay-filled wagon being pulled by a tractor and are chauffered into a field with pumpkins. The pumpkins have all already been cut off the vine, so you kinda just wander around in the field looking for a pumpkin that fits your needs.

Maja wanders:

Family on the hayride:

And here’s a little video of Maja in the pumpkin patch: