Is Pink the new Black?

We just sold a pink leather recliner to someone through Craigslist. She loves all things pink and just had to have it.

We only had the pink chair because we needed a chair many years ago, and a friend had the chair and needed some cash... in the days before Craigslist, we bought it from her. We would never have bought a pink chair otherwise!

We have a friend who came to visit last year, with her teenaged daughter. I did some laundry for them while they were out doing a tourist thing that I did not want to join them for. The clothes were separated into the pink pile... and the other pink pile. It was somewhat confusing.

In high school there were girls who only had black clothes... well, some black, but lots of grey clothes, darn that whole washing thing. I did not have lots of black clothes because I looked rather ghostly in them. As a matter of fact, the girls who did only have black clothes looked quite ghostly or gothic in them, but they liked that. Me, not so much.

So with all of the middle-aged pink addicts today, who only have pink clothes, do they look any better than the teenagers of my youth who only had black clothes? Not so much. You really need the right mixture of white, red, orange, and yellow to make a pink that compliments skin tone. And everyone's skin tone is different, so it is a very personal pink that can make someone look good. So no, many women look ill in the wrong pink, some look rather ghostly in the wrong pink.

I think the answer is yes, pink is the new black. Only a few women are lucky enough to get the right pink to make them look good, the same way only a few women look good in black. There are many more women wearing pink than look good in it, the same way there were many more teenagers wearing black than looked good in it back in my youth. But are they the same people? Hmmm, maybe.

Is there catnip for squirrels?

Squirrel Playing
Originally uploaded by Clara Johnson

This is one of three squirrels I watched playing next to a schoolyard this week. They were having fun, and a lot of it!

The squirrels chased each other, ran up and down the chain link fence (amazing dexterity!), chased each other around the tree trunks, and played with twigs! This photo shows one of them playing with a twig.

So I wondered if there was the equivalent of catnip for squirrels... and with a bit of googling... catnip has the same effect on squirrels as it does on cats! So maybe these squirrels dug up someone's supply of catnip! Awesome!

Is the automobile an extension of the human?

Whilst at the farmer's market this morning I heard a snippet of conversation:

"I was broken into! During the fireworks. I was parked in the underground."

I was a bit alarmed when I took that at face value - breaking into a human being sounds painful! Then I realised she meant her automobile was broken into.

It sounded like this person took personal affront at having her automobile broken into. But this sounds like just a crime of opportunity to me. The robber probably had never thought about - and will never think about - the owner of the car! It was truly nothing personal, he just wanted to steal stuff.

So now this woman is traumatized about having her automobile violated. This does not sound like a healthy extension of the self to include your possessions. If you extend that to all of your possessions, you will see yourself getting old in so many ways, and bumped, and bits of you will break down and need replacing, and other bits will be hopelessly outdated and tired.

This doesn't sound healthy, but I think it's a prevalent attitude in the western world. How sad.

Is there anything worse than a summertime cold?

Oooh, you had to ask... how about a summertime cold with smoke from dozens of forest fires clogging the air?

Is there anything worse than asking "Is there anything worse than..."?

You just know that the infinite universe can think of a whopper of an answer for that, no matter how you end the sentence.

And if you don't ask... can you escape the universal "worse"?

If we all pretended that everything is wonderful and life is simple and easy... would it be? Pardon me while I blow my nose for the 667th time "667, neighbour of the beast". At this point I'm willing to try anything, but my cold keeps interrupting my concentration. What was I writing? Is there anything worse than having a head when you have a cold? The ancient Egyptians regarded the brain as an icky organ that dripped out of your nose. Blow like an Egyptian...

OK, well, think about it... I don't have the answer... brain is dripping

Will the evicted people be living in the alley now?

An extremely odd thing is happening in the alley behind our building right now.

The people from an apartment a couple of floors below ours are being evicted today. There were a lot of complaints against them and the person who owns the apartment is kicking them out. But now they are sitting on their furniture in the alley behind the building. I've never seen anything like this.

So will they be leaving? Or do we have squatters in the alleyway now?

One of the drawing points of this building when we decided to buy a condo was that no more rentals would be allowed, anyone who bought one of the places would have to live in it. Over time that should effectively get rid of absentee land owners who don't keep the place well maintained. But there are still a couple of apartments being rented out. The place with the evicted squatters is one of them.

The Pride Parade happened earlier today, less than half a block from us, and there is still a party (or several) going on in the street, but here just below us are evicted people sitting on their furniture in the alleyway. This is a bit surreal.

Aug 6 update: Ooh, this building has quite the information gathering mechanism, everyone knows lots about everyone else who lives here... the people evicted were essentially using the place as a shanty town with a roof. Every available surface had an inflatable mattress on it, and there were at least 18 people living in the 2 bedroom apartment. It is, as expected, a complete shambles. New sinks are going to have to be put in, etc. etc. The fire that they started on the lawn outside their balcony will need to be rehabilitated by the gardeners, thankfully we have automatic sprinklers in the lawn that put the fire out!

So the scoop on the furniture in the alleyway is: the people were just sitting and resting there for a while. These people somehow found another apartment a couple of blocks away and were using their two office chairs with wheels to move all of their stuff. I'm not sure how they got the old couch onto those chairs... would have been interesting to watch. So the problem has moved on. So much for buying a place and renting it out as an easy way to make money!

It is unfortunate that there was one really nice guy in the group. He was friendly and tried very hard to be helpful whenever I ran into him in the lobby. He's now lumped into the "group of scum" on life's scorecard, but he could be so much more. That's the tragic part of life.

Could we have just one loud music player?

The Vancouver Pride Parade just finished a couple of hours ago, and it was great. It was extremely colourful, and well attended, and very long - more than 3 hours of floats and crowds going through Vancouver's West End. We have a great view of the parade from our balcony, and even had an MC with a microphone just in front of our place so we had all the commentary for each float! What a great place to live!

And in the next couple of days I will have lots of photos posted on Flickr of the colourful excitement.

But now there are people partying outside at the hotel across the road from us, and some more over to the left, also partying outside but at a different party. The problem is, they are each playing extremely loud music, but not the same music.

One could say there is a battle of music going on outside our home right now. This is not nearly as much fun as the parade was. We have all the windows closed now because we couldn't stand it anymore, but we can still hear the cacophony.

We're not against loud music, it's a festival atmosphere and quite fun, we just want it to be from one place, not two. Is that too much to ask? Do they have to make us sound like grumpy old people because we want just one source of loud music? That's somehow not fair.