Posts tagged my photos
there's no place like home.
Well, I’ve been back in Toronto for approx 36 hours and I can tell you, there are no sunsets like these here. Feeling homesick for Metis is a major understatement.
Fiiiiinally, right?! It’s already been two weeks since I got back from a long weekend in New York (with my mum); but I have been so swamped with work and, I guess, life in general, that I’ve only now found a moment to upload and sort through all of my photos. It was an ambitiously tourist-y weekend, but fantastic all around. Lots of walking, many shoe purchases, two musicals (Mary Poppins & Anything Goes), being in the audience for SNL’s dress rehearsal (Lindsay Lohan really really struggled reading those cue cards), seeing old friends and meeting new ones, and really appreciating time spent with my mum (awwww).
The other leftover New York task I managed to accomplish this weekend was finishing Divergent (which I picked up at Barnes & Noble but then had to put aside while I read my slightly overdue library books). Obviously, my Hunger Games love is at an all-time high at the moment (how could it not be with the advanced screening and tomorrow’s Canadian premiere), so I can’t be easily wooed by another dystopian YA book series. That being said, I really got sucked into Divergent. (No really, I started reading today a mere 48 pages in, and I finished it before dinner, 440 pages later.) I can’t believe I got sucked into a series where I’ve got a 2 month wait till book two. I thought I wouldn’t be tormented like this again after Harry Potter finished its run. (Yes, I didn’t get into Hunger Games till Mockingjay was out in hard cover - it’s been about a year since I first read them, so I’m not a late adopter, but I’m not the earliest of adopters either.) And yet here I go again (on my ooooown - sorry I had to).
The point of all this: 1 - I’m addicted to NYC trips. 2 - Read Divergent. Seriously.
NYC-bound today! Officially excited for four and a half days in the city that never sleeps.
Plans include: Mary Poppins on Broadway (a Christmas present from my sister), Top of the Rock, the Museum of Natural History and meeting a Twitter friend for the first time! Fingers crossed that we get to Ellis Island as well (I’m such a history nerd).
Bonus possibility: Mr. Zac Efron’s in NYC (promoting the Lorax, I assume). Could this be my chance to catch a glimpse?! Fingers crossed!
Regardless of what comes, expect many many photos when I return next week.
I know I’m supposed to be happy that I got to spend 9 days in Metis and grateful for the holiday I got…etc, etc. blah blah blah. But right now I’m just NOT happy to be back in Toronto and getting ready to go to work.
I WANT TO GO BAAAAAACK NOW!
Dinner Dance. The epicentre of Metis nightlife. It happens once a month, every year. In recent years - when adulthood has demanded that we sacrifice our summers and choose the few days we make the trek up (down?) the river - it’s the August dinner dance my friends and I have chosen to attend.
Every year means a ridiculous theme (pirates, hats, Indian summer), a baked potato and an overabundance of dancing and liquor. And the memories we take away are forever water-coloured and provoke endless laughter.
This Saturday August 13th (ie. tomorrow) will be my 10th summer of dinner dances (as we’re only allowed to attend this club function when we’re the legal drinking age - 18, God bless Quebec). It’s Western themed and already I can’t wait to see what duds we’ll all turn out in. What’s most fun for me though, is to look back at how we’ve grown since those early drunken dinner dances and come to appreciate each other and this one night a year that we get to spend together in reckless abandon and celebration.
Forecast for Wednesday in Metis is rain, which means any combination of the following:
- reading by the fire in the living room
- hoodies
- trips to Wal-Mart/Matane/Mont-Joli/Rimouski for ridiculous attire
- naps
- cribbage or other board games
- hot chocolate
- baked goods and soup
- more naps
So you pretty much know what I’m up to today…
This morning I’m setting off to Metis Beach for ten days of pure bliss - aka vacation - where this is the view I’ll see from my grandmother’s back veranda when I drop in for a glass of wine before dinner.
If you know me, you know Metis is home. My 0,0. The place I go every year to once again remember my true self. The small town that’s been a fixture in my life every summer since 1983 - when I was born during a July heatwave and, two weeks later, whisked off to Metis by my parents who couldn’t sit in Montreal any longer.
And I’m lucky this year to get ten days, but anyone who knows Metis will tell you it’s not enough. Neither is two weeks. Nor a month. I miss the childhood freedom of summer that allowed for “the season” in Metis-sur-mer. Late June to almost September. When you went through four seasons of weather and were all the better for it. People return from Metis to their city lives on a huge high that usually plummets to the deepest low in under 24 hours. Because regardless of how blessed we were to be there for however amount of time we had this summer, we are desperate to return at once. It’s a truly awful feeling.
But I don’t have to worry about it for ten days.
Kirov ballerinas performing Swan Lake earlier this month in Toronto. Mesmerizing.
(One day I’m going to get in trouble for taking pictures where I ought not to. However, I didn’t use my flash, so I feel ok about this one.)
Occasionally Toronto gets a reminder that it’s a major Canadian city - emphasis on Canadian. The self-proclaimed NYC of the Great White North and centre of the universe (although neither title has ever been proved) found itself blanketed in snow as it woke up early on Saturday morning this weekend. It’s astounding how slowly the cars move - how slowly the city moves - when there’s a decent amount of snow on the ground. As I walked along Bloor towards Bathurst, at the completely respectable hour of 10:30am, store owners were working on shoveling their sidewalks while Bloor - a main artery of the city - remained unplowed. The occasional car cruised by, traffic clearly concerned about speed for once in its life. The city seemed to stand still, hushed by the centimetres of snow that had fallen over the night.
Walking back to my apartment an hour or so later (probably less as my workout at the gym was cut short by my desire to go back and hibernate in my basement apartment) not much had changed on Bloor. Some parts of the sidewalk remained unshoveled and unsalted; the street still unplowed though cars had turned the snow to a dirty slush; and my neighbours were just coming out of their homes to begin to shovel while their children eagerly broke out snowsuits and toboggans, which had gathered dust during their Christmas holidays.
It was almost as though Toronto had forgotten its ego and decided to go bounding through the snow like the 5 year-old that lives across the street.
Just a few preliminary pics from Metis this summer. I spent a cloudy afternoon out at the point taking pictures of the Metis Beach light house and its environs, namely the seemingly abandoned building beside it. It was a beautifully rundown little hangar. I don’t know what I’ll do with all the photos I took of it, other than stare at them and lament how I don’t have a proper place to display a photographic study of Hangar Octave.
i just realized i haven’t posted ANY of my pics from metis this summer. at least here. facebook doesn’t count. i have so many that i want to tweak and play with in photoshop and have had little time to do so!
as i have done 93% of my listed chores for the weekend, i think i’ll put aside a good hour or two to play with photoshop and metis photos. after quiche making and laundry folding, naturally. till then, my fav of the bunch this year: the gate.
heading here today and should be in metis in time to see this live. *sigh*
these two lovely people are in quebec city tonight. they’ll be picking my giddy self up from the mont-joli airport tomorrow. i’m beyond excitement. more metis pics to come. b/c i’m trying to stay up late enough that i actually sleep in a little tomorrow. i’m ridiculous.
a study of me
after a ridiculously turbulent week, today was my day to be pampered. haircut, mani, pedi, and then off to a movie that i want to see when i wanted to see it. slightly selfish but it was nice not to be racing about meeting up with people or fitting my life around others. and then home to enjoy the sun and a good book. anyway, the following are a few pics i took of the new do. slightly repetitive maybe, but i liked them.
doors open day 1 - got distracted at dundas sq by a myriad of volkswagons. this one brought out my inner gidget.
sing to me, moondoggie.
