Pictures, My Boy and La Roux

These are a couple pictures from Amanda and Brendan's wedding! They were taken by our friend, Elmira, who brought a pretty nice camera with her. I didn't really take that many, because I am, in fact, a moron. But that's okay, because there are other people out there who aren't morons, and they can always be relied upon for nice wedding pictures. I don't think I look very good in any of these pictures, but Amanda looks great, and that's what really counts.

Yesterday I got to see Max for the first time in a week, and I know a week isn't really that long, but boy, it felt like a million years. We didn't do anything special yesterday. Just met up, had lunch at Whitespot, walked to his house, watched Community (which is my new favourite show) and then walked to Hastings so I could catch the bus home. But it doesn't need to be more exciting than that, because I can be pretty much anywhere and do pretty much anything with Max and have a good time.

Mostly we just talk, which is great for me because I love talking. I remember when we first started dating, he didn't really do much of the talking. This bothered me at first, because I come from a family of talkers, and when someone isn't talking that means that something is wrong. So I asked him about it one day, and he said "Oh, no, I'm just not a big talker. I like listening to you talk, though." I always hear about couples where the girl is greatly bothered by the boy's lack of communication, but hey, is Max says that he just isn't into talking as much as I am, that's good enough for me. I still do most of the talking, I think, but Max talks much more than he used to.

I think it's the mark of a great relationship that you never, ever run out of things to talk about. And hey, if you do, you don't feel the pressings of an awkward silence. You can sit, or walk, in silence with each other and that's okay.

I'm not very good at communicating my feelings to people, and I even struggle with it around Max sometimes. As sure as I come from a family of talkers, I also come from a family of emotionally uptight people. We're not huggers, we're not affectionate, but that's okay because I think we know each other well enough to know how we feel about each other without saying it. I hope my friends realize that I'm like this. I'm just more comfortable using the word "like" instead of "love", again, even around Max. But I know that he knows, so we don't need the words.

There are all these things I want to say, in regards to the way Max makes me feel, but I'm finding that I can't even say them here. I want to type them out, but saying things like this makes me feel stupid. Oh well, maybe one day I'll have the balls.

On a final note, I want you all the listen to La Roux. She is, to put it plainly, amazing. My current favourite of hers is called I'm Not Your Toy, and if you haven't already heard music by her, I encourage you to click on that link. I find that I'm not defined by genre the way most people seem to be. There are people out there who are refusing to even give good music a listen because it's not what they normally listen to. Me, I'll listen to anything that's good, genre be damned, and I hope that everyone else can do that too.

Of Weddings

Now, before I start talking about the wedding and how nice it was, let me tell you something that's equally, if not more, important. I have found the perfect shade of lipstick. I know. You're jealous. Who wouldn't be? But the good news is that this perfection is available to you! The colour is called Siren, and it's made by Revlon. It's just a crème one. None of those fancy pearl styles ones for me. I like 'em plain. To be honest, I would have preferred something matte, but you can't win them all.

So, this is the point in the blog where it autosaved, and then I fucked up and navigated away from the other two prefect paragraphs that I had written, and proceeded screaming curse words at my computer screen. Fuck. Shit. Tits. Et cetera. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to recreate them.

Okay. The wedding.

This was possibly the nicest wedding that I have ever been too, and I know a few other people, my mother included, said the same thing. It was just so simple, and included all the elements that every good wedding should have: the glowing fathers, the teary mothers,one nervous groom and one bride with trembling lips. I couldn't keep my giant smile from creeping onto my face, and hadto blink away happy tears more than once. Actually, I'm quite proud that I didn't cry all over myself like I thought I would.

I hear a lot about the drama that comes along with all weddings, but I am pleased to say that we had none of that going on at this wedding. We left Amanda's house at about 8:30 am, and arrived at the salon for her hair appointment at 9:00. Exactly one hour later she was finished, and by 10:30 we were at her grandmother's house. Her dress laced up perfectly, and I wrestled into my own dress with considerably ease. The makeup went on, and we left the house around noon, and got to the chapel at noonish. At this point there had been only one teensy hitch. Amanda's mum, Candy, had left Amanda's dad's, Jason, boutonnière at their house, and he had to drive back real quick to get it. After that though, it was smooth sailing.

We (Amanda, Candy, Jason, me, Kevin (Brendan's brother and best man) and Fern (Brendan's mother) all waited in the brides room at the chapel, and promptly at 1:00 pm, Hugo the pastor came to tell us that we were going to get things started. Brendan's aunt played beautifully on the piano as Candy and Fern walked in with lit candles to place at the table where the marriage certificate would be signed. Kevin and I followed, grinning ear to ear. Brendan was standing up on the church stage, nervously clasping his hands and smiling. The Vancouver crew (Elmira, Carla, Alma, Cerina and Dru) were sitting in a pew together, smiling. We took our positions, and then Amanda and Jason came in together.

I'm going to admit, it was kind of weird seeing Amanda all dressed up as a bride. Earlier that day, as I was doing our makeup, I said to her "I'm confused. Aren't we still 17 and having lunch in D-Wing?" (That was our old highschool haunt.) We laughed, but it was still strange to think that we were growing up to the point where we and our friends were going to start getting married and living our adult lives. I still feel like a little kid most of the time, so while things like this are definitely fun, they get mixed with this sense of melancholy.

So, as Amanda was walking down the aisle, I could see her lip starting to quiver and her eyes tearing up. It was so, so, SO cute. I looked and Brendan, and he was blinking away tears too. The icing on the cake, my friends. After this, the rest of the ceremony went along faster than I thought it would. Hugo told a couple of jokes, and then before we knew it, their vows were being sealed with a kiss. I got to sign some official looking paperwork, and then everything was over.

There were a couple of reception parties to go to after the ceremony, which were all very nice, but I was just so wiped out by the point that I was daydreaming about naps. As fun as the whole day had been, and the months leading up to it, I was drained. My maid of honour duties were over, and I was more than a little relieved. I ate some at the parties, met some nice people (and dogs! At Josh's house, a friend of the newlyweds, he had a dog that's part wolf! He was so big, and his name was Koda!), and finally left for home at 9:30 pm in Dru's car. We made it home from Chilliwack in an hour, no joke, mostly thanks to Dru's speed of 160 kmph on the highway. I have never gone that fast in a car before in my life, and to be honest, I don't think I ever want to again. I came home, and passed out.

Alright, now that I've finally written that all down, I've got to go out the door now. I'm sure I'll add more details in a later post, but I need to go and be reunited with my Max, who I haven't seen for a little while, and I'm starting to get this pang right where my heart should be.

Wedding Cake, Why?

Well, it's finally upon us. The wedding is tomorrow. The cake is made, the rehearsal was mastered, and my fake nails are freshly glued on. They're actually kind of uncomfortable, and I'm not in love with them as I thought I was. That's okay though, after tomorrow I can take them off... with great difficulty...

There is nothing sadder than seeing a grown woman reduced to near tears by a failed cake. That was me earlier today. Well, the cake itself was perfect. It was exactly the way it was supposed to be. Light, fluffy and delicious. It was the stupid buttercream that failed me.

I don't understand what I did wrong. I made it exactly the same as the first time, albeit the doubled recipe. It was too runny and the colour was wrong, and it made the cake all soggy. So I threw out the soggy bit and walked to the grocery store to buy more eggs, trying to walk off my rage at the same time. So, I got the eggs and made the cake again. It was nowhere near the perfection that was the first cake, but I was beyond caring at that point, so I iced it up and stuck it full of raspberries, et voila. One wedding cake for tomorrow.

I'm actually going to go to sleep right now. Or rather, try to. I'm going to get up at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning and begin my maid of honour duties. Let's all hope that tomorrow happens without a hitch. Well, there will be one hitch. Haha, wedding puns.

You Only Live Once

At work the other day, I was talking to my friend, Zaffy, and she mentioned that she wanted a tattoo in memory of her grandmother who passed away recently. I waited until all the customers at my till were gone, and then I asked her "So... how are you doing with that?" I used to really shy away from talking about this sort of stuff with people, because it was bound to make all parties involved overly emotional, but ever since Yasaman died, I feel more comfortable talking about this sort of thing. Anyway, she sighed, and said "Yeah, it's getting better. It's still hard, but..." She said she couldn't talk to her sister, Shaarah, about it because they would both just start crying. We both agreed that since these people we knew had died (her grandmother and Yasaman), time has started to feel really weird. I don't know how to properly explain it, since it's such a bizarre phenomenon, but it's like things that happened just before Yasaman died and just after... Augh, see, it's hard to explain.

For example, I went to the Waldorf Hotel with Chiara about a week and a half after the funeral. But it feels like it happened months before Yasaman even died, even though I know it didn't because while we were there, I talked about Yasaman and she talked about a friend of her's who had committed suicide a couple months prior. And on February 2nd, I went to Langara for an info session about the Fine Arts program I would later be accepted to, a month before the accident. But now it feels like it happened last year or something. I don't know why, but everything's been thrown out of wack. Zaffy agreed, saying that she had been feeling the same thing.

Hahaha, another silly thing. We'd both already seen the final Harry Potter, and there's this one part in it towards the end where Harry is talking to the ghosts of the people he's cared most about (Lily, James, Sirius and Lupin), and he asks them if it hurts to die, and Sirius replies "Dying? Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep." Now, I'm not going to lie, as soon as I heard this I really had to blink away the cascade of tears that was about to fall. When I told Zaffy about this, who'd also seen the movie, she said that she immediately thought about her grandmother too. We then agreed that while it was nice to be able to talk about these sorts of things to people, we'd better stop because we were both getting misty-eyed.

Ah, life is sad sometimes, but there are such good things in it too. Amanda's wedding is in 5 days, and I'm shipping out to Chilliwack in 2 hours. Expect an earful on the subject when I come back, folks.

Framboisier and Alison Sudol

EDIT: I don't know why this post looks retarded. No matter what I do, the font stays small and the spaces are too big. Like I say in here, Internet Explorer is awful.

I tried to reply to the 2 comments that were left on my last entry, but Blogspot seems determined not to let me. So, thanks you guys. You're the best :)

My darling laptop has been out of commission for the last two days, because it's power cable started to not work, and beep like it was a bomb everytime I plug it in. Yes, it beeps. I looked it up, and apparently that's just a thing that happens to those specific ones. Also, the battery on my laptop is so craptacular that it won't last for an hour without dying. Don't you just love being surrounded by useless junk? So I'm stuck using our old computer, and it won't let me use Firefox, so I'm being forced to use... ugh... Internet Explorer. I kind of feel sorry for ol' Internet Explorer. It's like the ugly girl at the dance that no one wants to dance with. But that's only because it's just so terrible.

So, one more week until the wedding. I'm not even the one getting married and I'm super excited! I'm going out to Chilliwack for a couple days prior to the wedding, just to help get everything in order. Also, I'm going to be making the wedding cake! And oh, what a cake it's going to be. I'm going to be making what's called a Framboisier. It looks a little something like this:

Glorious, isn't it? It's basically a white chocolate buttercream raspberry cake, and the batter is predominantly eggs so it's incredibly fluffy. That pink layer on the top is rolled out almond paste, dyed pink with food colouring. Would you like the recipe? Of course you would. It's a little fiddley to prepare, but so, so worth it.

For the Genoise (that's the batter)
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and partially cooled

For the White Chocolate Buttercream
2 eggs
1/2 cupsugar
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp honey
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
4 oz white chocolate, melted and partially cooled

For the Almond Paste
200 grams almond paste
Red food colouring

For Assembly
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

Directions:

For the Genoise
1. With the rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Butter a 20-cm (8-inch) square Pyrex cake pan. Line with parchment paper, letting the paper hang over 2 opposite sides.
2. In a bowl, beat the eggs, the sugar and the vanilla with an electric mixer until the mixture turns pale and triples in volume, about 8 minutes.
3. Gently fold in the flour with a spatula. Gently stir in the butter.
4. Pour the batter into the cake pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
5. Let cool for 10 minutes. Run the tip of a thin-bladed knife around the inside of the dish. 6. Unmould onto a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

For the White Chocolate Buttercream
1. Break the eggs into a large bowl. Set aside.
2. In a saucepan, bring the sugar,water and honey to a boil. Simmer until a candy thermometer reads 117°C (242°F), about 5 minutes.
3. With an electric mixer running at medium speed, beat the eggs until frothy. While beating, add the hot syrup in a thin stream, being careful not to pour it on the beaters. 4.Beat until the mixture has completely cooled, about 10 minutes.
5. Add the butter, 1 or 2 pieces at a time, beating until the buttercream is very thick. Add the tempered chocolate, beating until combined.

For the Almond Paste
1. Mix the almond paste and a few drops of food colouring by hand until the paste is uniformly pink. If desired, wear disposable latex gloves.
2. On a clean countertop dusted with icing sugar, roll the almond paste into a 20-cm (8-inch) square.

For Assembly
1. Slice the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Place the bottom half on a cake stand. Ice with 1/3 of the buttercream. Cover with raspberries. Ice with 1/3 of the buttercream. Place on the raspberries, icing side down. Ice with the remaining buttercream and top with the almond paste.
2. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Trim the sides of the cake so they are straight and even.

I know, it looks a little daunting. But after it's all said and done, you will have this delicate looking, delicious little cake to share with friends, or hell, eat by yourself. Now, since Amanda's wedding colours are blue and gold, I'm going to be dying the almond paste blue, and getting little gold balls to decorate the top. I think they're called carnivalettes? Not too sure, but it's going to look great. I'm also double the recipe, which might be a little hard since I'm not even sure I have a bowl big enough to mix the genoise in. See, when you beat those 4 eggs with the sugar, the end up quadrupling in size. I'm going to be doubling the recipe so the cake will be for more people, so I'm going to be using 8 eggs, you can see what my problem is going to be. No matter though, I'm sure everything will just be fine and dandy. I'm going to pack all my cake making supplies in a my big suitcase and tow it out to Chilliwack with me.

I've started drawing a lot more, and it feels good. Instead of sitting and playing Fallout for hours on end, I put on some music and just draw my little heart out. Of course, I still find time to play Fallout for hours on end, but the important thing is that I'm drawing more. I'll tell you what my big project is. There's this woman named Alison Sudol, who is the singer for one of my favourite bands, A Fine Frenzy. She's also really, really pretty. I was bored the other day, so I was looking for an image of a person that I'd like to draw. I looked Sudol up, and then I found that she'd been in some kind of adorable photoshoot. All portraits, and they each feautre a different hairstyle and come kind of headband. So, I decided that I'm going to draw all of them.

Yeah, I can't make them any bigger than that. But if you really have this burning desire to get a closer look, you can find them by googling "Alison Sudol". You've to go back a couple pages, though. Anyway, I'm excited to do this. I've already completed two, and it's going to take a looong time to finish the other ones. But that's okay, I've got plenty of time.

Well, talk about making up for missed blog posts. I think this is plenty for now. I'vegot to go get ready for hanging out with my friend, Rum, today. We're going to Saffron's and then going to see Harry Potter at the little movie theatre near my house. It's pouring rain, but you know what, I like the rain.

I'll Be Back

I know, I know, I'm a blogging failure. But I've just been busy and such, and I do miss writing blogs. It jut got disheartening after awhile, with no readers and no comments, I started to think "Why am I doing this?" Sure, I'm doing it partly because I enjoy writing, but I was also doing it because I wanted to hear back from people.

Give me a little while longer, until after Amanda's wedding, and then I'll be back.

The Dog Days Are Over

I keep putting off my updates, because I tell myself that I have nothing to talk about. But there are always things to talk about.

For one thing, I've fallen in love with Florence + The Machine. The link is to one of her songs, Rabbit Heart, which I've been listening to over and over again for the past half hour now. Her voice is just so full and in your face. I read about her in my most favourite of magazines, Nylon, and she sounds like a really cool person. However, I mostly think that because from her interview it sounds like her room is as crowded with treasures as mine is. I know that Max criticizes me for having way too much stuff, but I just can't help it. My things make me happy. I like to think that collectors like me are just people who are capable of seeing the inherent value in everything. As a kid, I had really strong ties with my belongings, and inanimate objects in general. I always gave them personalities and feelings, thanks too a very overactive imagination, so throwing away things was hard because I would just imagine how sad they must be. I know, it sounds totally crazy. I was kind of a crazy kid.

So, the secret's out. I was planning a surprise bridal shower for Miss Amanda, but it was just becoming to stressful to keep a secret from her, so I spilled the beans. I know, it would have been fun if it had been a surprise, but I was thinking about it, and Amanda's not really the type of person to put much stock in such things. She's a very practical person. After I told her, I just felt so relieved. It's just going to be so much easier to plan now that she knows about it. And I can double check with her which foods she does and doesn't like, so that she can enjoy everything that I'll be serving. Speaking of which, would you like to hear what the menu is looking like so far? Of course you would.

-my mum's patented mini quiche
-mini sandwiches. Three different types (cucumber, ham and dijon, smoked salmon and cream cheese)
-melon ball salad
-mini bundt cakes
-sangria, punch, teas and coffee

It's going to be in the early afternoon, so I wanted to have cute little finger foods for everybody. Now that I've got all that stress out of the way, I can get properly excited about this. I love proper parties like this! You can all keep your drunken, Saturday night house parties. Give me afternoon tea on a clear summer Sunday. I was supposed to go to a bbq party that Chiara and her boyfriend, Dan, were hosting today, but I'm honestly not comfortable at parties. Chiara and her friends are all great people, but I'm just not so good at talking to people. Everyone was going to be drunk except for me, and it was going to be really far away from my house, and I would have to go there and back alone. And, okay, I'll tell you the honest reason I was not so keen on going. Since I'm missing a tooth, and my retainer is the only thing keeping up the illusion that I don't have a gap right in the front of my smile AND I have to take said retainer out when I eat, I was just too embarrassed. I know that nobody cares once I tell them, but I just hate hate hate it so much. It's so ugly, and yes, as nuts as this sounds, I do avoid going places with people that involves eating because taking my retainer out is ugly and it makes me feel ugly. One day, I'll have the money to fix it.

In happier news, I finally got around to trying on the dress I'm going to be wearing to Amanda's wedding. It's a dress that I already had, which is pretty swell since I won't have to spend money on a new one, and it's practically the perfect colour. I did have to squeeze myself into it, but there was only a little bit of squeezing involved. And once it's all zipped up, it looks pretty great. I am going to shorten it a bit, because it goes all the way down to my knees and honestly, what century is this? Dresses that are too long make me look all dowdy and blerg. Now I just have to get around to my shoes, jewelry and hairstyle and I'll be golden.

Also, Tanis is gone. I knew, even before she got here, that she wouldn't be here forever, but what can you do? I have decided, however, that I will go and visit her in December. I'm totally excited about this! The last time I went to Florida, I was 7 years old, and I can't remember much aside from a zoo, an old folk's home, lizards and mini golf, so it'll be nice to have some new memories of the place. I picked December because 1) school will be out by then, and 2) it won't be so hellishly hot. Actually, it'll probably still be too hot for me, haha. But I'm looking forward to meeting all the people and places that Tanis has told me about, and seeing Christina again. Also, I'm going to swim in the Atlantic Ocean! Tanis said the water is warm down there. Such a foreign thought. Everybody knows that oceans are supposed to be black and freezing cold! I'm thinking I'll go for like, a week and a half, maybe. Two weeks would be cool, but that seems like an awful long time to be away from home, and I don't want to impose on Tanis for two whole weeks. This trip is still in it's daydreaming stage, but I hope it happens!

I watched the clouds roll in over my fair city on this night, and sat with my eyes closed, listening to the late night rain and Florence Welch telling me that "the dog days are over."