circuses and face paint

I'm not that into Hallowe'en... ever since the candy part vanished when I was a teenager, it's just that annoying holiday that always requires you to have a costume when you can't be bothered. Although looking at these pictures from a circus party night I went to, I'm not sure what my problem is with costumes exactly... Face paint forever! There was a woman moving through the crowd and I think I was the last one she did... clearly she was saving the best for last!


jugglers and dancers


I want to be a trapeze artist now


Amandine has her arm painted... maybe a wiser move for taking the metro home at the end of the night!

Anyway, Hallowe'en or not, tonight is the first day of a four day weekend round these parts, so I'm off to let the celebration find me. Trick or Treat to the rest of you!

my birthday and thanksgiving

My cake said "Age is only a number" and had little animals, a reference to my new favourite TV show...


Albert


Allison (an old, close friend from elementary school) and Eva.

Last of the Canada posts. But I couldn't leave without showing a bit of my 29th birthday, aka, the first one I've spent at home in four years. Not that I'm complaining. For my 26th I had a party in Mexico that included a Lucha Libre piñata, my 27th was spent climbing trees in Greenwich, 28 was a bit lame since I only really knew one person in Barcelona at the time... This year was awesome! Albert was visiting from England, and my friend Eva from Germany, so I felt extra-special! After being fussed over at home by my family, I went to The Railway Club in downtown Vancouver, which is one of my favourite venues. They have live music, a comfy space with louder and quieter areas, and warm colourful lighting... which is, however, kind of a nightmare for taking pictures.




Middle sister Morna, who was nice enough to flirt with the barman to get me a free shot I really didn't need. ;)


Youngest sister Shona (frequent photographer for this blog)


Sean, who I basically had to be friends with after we were in four out of five classes together at university one year. Obviously we had something in common, but he resisted friendship for a while thinking I was a "goody-goody." He's taken it back. Behind is Boris from Germany, who I don't know at all, but you gave me a $15 gift card to Tim Hortons, so is clearly an awesome human being.


Yassi and I met in high school and she tells everyone that I was her "first friend in Canada." I think we actually get closer the older we get, even though we hardly ever see each other...

The next day was Thanksgiving, which I was even more excited about than my birthday, and meant to take three million pictures of, but then got über-sick, took every kind of cold medicine known to mankind and drank half a bottle of red wine (my dad says it has "anti-drip" properties) so yeah... kind of dropped the ball on that one.

But it was Eva's first Canadian Thanksgiving:

festivities

I kind of wanted to call this post "debauchery," but people always get the wrong idea when I use that word. To me it just means being raucous and happy and optionally a bit tipsy...

It seems on my blog like I'm having a quiet, demure, family-oriented time in Vancouver, no? That's one of the reasons my blog was driving me nuts; it seemed to only record the photogenic but let's face it, often insipid details of life (maybe not a fair statement considering my travels, but that's how it felt).


Sister nights at the pub with Mo and Shona.


This is what happens when you forget you have the manual focus on on your camera...


We had a dance party with family friends, a variation of our yearly cocktail parties, which always had a performance requirement (my sisters and I once brought the house down singing "Triplets").


"The equalizer." Everyone must get, to the drop, the same amount of sparkling wine as everyone else.




Our friend Florence's art-gallery-esque apartment (I could never be tidy enough to live in a place like this) always inspires monochromatic dressing...

Then I did AIDS-walk around Stanley Park with some of my oldest friends and realized at the end that two of them had just gotten engaged. Congratulations Molly and Corey! We had a celebratory breakfast...



Mallory, Molly's sister, she of the curious mind and instinctive understanding of most people. The kind of girl who decides to read Dante's Inferno at age 15, just because.

imaginary costume party

Art print, available here.

So it seems I am invited to a Halloween party, which, damn it, means finding a costume. I'm thinking of wearing this gingham dress and going as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Although I still don't have any ruby slippers!

Meanwhile, I'm entertaining myself by planning an imaginary Day of the Dead themed party, and the outfit for it...


Silk satin and silk organza sugar skull dress, available here.


Calavera mary janes or a Til Death do us Part ring, anyone?


I think this elegantly ghoulish carry-bag should keep my vanity in check for the evening. Available here.

And you better believe I would decorate with these guys!