Americanuck

I have always envied those people who, even though they have to wear glasses, can wear them so stylishly that it makes people who don’t have to wear them almost wish they had to. I’m not one of them. I’m a walking advertisement for contact lenses.

Every so often I get the urge to try on new frames to see if magically someone somewhere has designed a pair that doesn’t make me look like a complete dork, and not like Lisa Loeb cutesy dork, I’m talking dork dork.

This weekend was one of those times.

I had tried on some frames a couple of weeks ago that kinda sorta didn’t look half bad so I decided to head on over alone this time so I could wallow in the whole process without making anyone wait, that and the fact I got a coupon for half price lenses burning a whole in my pocket, cha-ching!

Tom and I had slept in that morning and then lazed around until it was time for him to leave for work. By the time he left there wasn’t a whole lotta mall time left so I did a quick perfunctory scrub and headed for the mall. Yeah I know I looked like crap with my quickly slapped on make-up and greasy hair. Grade me on a curve k? Be kind.
I took the digi cam with me too so I could take pictures of myself so I could see how I looked from the other side of the glasses if you know what I mean. The very patient lady suggested/helped me pick out a bunch of frames for the sit down trial and we threw in a few sunglasses styles to boot as they had an awesome deal on those going on as well.

The resulting pictures are not pretty… and the expression on my face pretty much said how I was feeling at the time. These were the BETTER ones folks, just keep that in mind. Just image how bad I looked in the ones that didn’t make the short list *shudder*

The sunglasses weren’t any better.. Here we have a pair of Roy Orbison’s cast offs…

And something that makes me look like a cross between an insect and an alien..

After all the pain of trying I did manage to find a pair that I actually kind of like. I mean I still look like a dork but they are a slightly more flattering brand of dork that I can live with…

To top it off, I also picked up some ’scription sunglasses which are nice and dark and comfortable and yanno what? I can live with them too.

Tako on TacoCat

Originally uploaded by Corx.

You know it’s going to be one of those days when you end up with an octopus on your head.

Over the years there have been a handful of TV comedies that I have been a rabid fan of. You know what I mean? One of those shows where you would practically drive over your Mother to get home on time to watch. Just me? OK.

Many of those comedies appealed more to who *I* was at the time and more often than not if I were to watch them now either the humour would seem ‘dated’ to me or maybe it’s just harder to make me laugh. Call me jaded.

From time to time I’ve been waaaay late to the party on a show and one of those shows is Arrested Development.

Tom was an A.D. fan right from the get-go and I used to listen to him go on about it and think “Meh.. whatever”. I used to think that the ads looked lame (they so didn’t know how to sell that show) and the mere seconds I would see before channel surfing my way to some other probably less worthy program didn’t impress me. I though the choppy almost homemade style camera shots looked amateurish, not realizing that in fact, was part of it’s charm and quirkiness. I’ve since discovered that it’s not a show to judge in 3.2 seconds, it’s one you need to let simmer a while.

I remember watching the Emmys and seeing the show win for best comedy. They practically begged people to watch the show. In fact I don’t believe it was practically, I think they actually did beg. The critics got it and loved it. The audience at large stayed away in droves. Sometimes the general populous just gets it wrong and I was right there along with them. Shame on me.

I, like probably a whole lot of others out there, discovered this show on DVD not all that long before it was cancelled for good. I bought season one for Tom for his Birthday and he watched it when I wasn’t home. One day I decided to give it a shot and there was no turning back. If there is a day that I’m feeling stressed out or a little blue that freak-show of a family can make me literally cry with laughter. It is one of those shows where you have to watch again and again, because along with the more broad obvious humour, if you pay attention, there are hidden gems that make it the Kindersurprise of TV.

They wuz robbed I tell ya.

So I leave you with a little treat I found on You Tube, a compilation of the family ‘chicken dances’. If you are a fan of the show you will know what I’m talking about. If you’ve never seen A.D. this little clip may not make you want to watch the show but if it makes you in the least bit curious to see what you’ve missed, take my advice and pick up Season one. You won’t be sorry.

Along with some well deserved time off together, Tom and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. We did the whole birthday/anniversary switch with the dinners but we kept the days when it came to yanno, the whole card giving thing.

The funniest part was Tom and I picked out the exact same card for each other.

I didn’t get a shot of the inside, but the gist of the card was saying we should ‘kick up our heels’ for our anniversary and inside was a couple who were ‘kicking up their heels’ on footstools trying to decide what to watch on tv. In other words so us. We are so lame but happy, comfy and lame so it works for us.

We did do dinner at the Red Robin. Nice and casual and again totally us. It was nice to have the four of us out together as that happens less and less these days.

We had a no gift rule as both our birthdays and Christmas run into each other and our anniversary is a week after my birthday there is some gift picking fatigue but Tom broke it..

He couldn’t resist the solar powered pig doing the Night at the Roxbury head bob.

Of course come a major anniversary all present buying embargoes go out the window. I’ve already dragged Tom into dozens of jewelry stores and pressed his face up against the glass showing him exactly the ‘past, present and future’ type diamond ring that I’m salivating over.

Yesterday in fact during our trips to Ikea and the Langley mall to once AGAIN get my damn Dolce and Gabanna glasses fixed (the lens popped out at work again) he pointed out some ring styles that were bang on exactly the stuff I like. I’m all about clean lines and not too much frou-frou and I love angles. He got it so right with my engagement ring and of the necklace (below) he gave me for my birthday last year. He done good. I got a new chain for it at Xmas so now I never take it off. Yay diamonds!

The weather took a turn for the nice yesterday (gasp!) so we decided to head over to one of our city parks and do a photo walk. It was a good chance for Tom to take some outdoor pictures with his new camera and experiment with the various settings that this one allows compared to the more ‘point and shoot and damn well like what you get’ feature of his last camera. I’m always up for taking pictures. In fact I should be a member of PASA (point and shoot anonymous) because I’m always sticking my camera in somebody’s face.

The rains the last few days managed to clear the snow off of the roads but the park was another story. It made for some dodgy trails but if you were paying attention it was all good.

We came across some of the tamer wildlife in the park (squirrels and ducks) instead of hungry coyotes and manged to get them to cooperate by posing, at least for a split second. This guy was giving me the hairy eyeball..

After we snapped some pictures we ran into a very talkative lady who gave us a lecture on the hibernating habits of squirrels and bears. We politely smiled and said ‘Mmmhmmm’ a couple of times until she moved on.

When we were snapping pictures in some of the more hidden grotto gardens I heard a flock of ducks land in the stream behind us. We JUST missed the opportunity to capture this which sucks as they looked amazing all landing at once with their wings flapping away. When we walked towards them they came over like lemmings following the more braver souls. I was crouching taking their picture and their approach reminded me of the zombies in dawn of the dead.

Here’s a video that Tom shot:

Once they figured out we weren’t packing anything edible they lost interest and crossed the water to the other bank to hunt for vittles.

It will be nice to go back when the snow is gone and flowers are blooming again. I mean the starkness of winter can be quite beautiful in it’s own way, but I’m all about spring personally.

Above is a lonely winter pansy (photo by Tom)

Sun and snow (photo by Tom)

Us (Photo by Tom) who has the long arms and can take pictures that aren’t just of our heads or part of our heads like me.

A bridge over frozen waters (Photo by Tom)

We had a great time getting to spend the day together for a change and to be able to get out of the house for a change without freezing to death.

To see the rest of our photos click the names below.

Tom’s photo walk set on Flickr

Belinda’s photo walk set on Flickr