Sever the head, or destroy the brain

Michelle came to visit! I asked her what she wanted to do at the largest mall in the hemisphere. She wanted to do this:

It was frightening, the gun shooting. But not because of the zombies, who were easy to address:

Lenio-Nentwig

The first Lenio wedding! An honour to attend. And I don't remember who caught the bouquet, but at least one of these women got engaged before I could post this.

Wrongcuts

It turns out my shortcuts tend to turn out to be long-messy-painful-cuts when I'm steering a canoe, too.

Looking Good, Feeling Good

We waited until the day I left, but we did finally make it to the Lotus Tea House. It got pricier, lunchwise.

Makeing Blinkybugs

We finally put together the blinkybugs I got for my birthday! Like, my last birthday. They blink!

Sightseeing

Why take photos of things that everybody's seen zillions of pictures of anyway? How do you make yourself care? The easy way is to stick your face in them.The slightly less easy way is to wait for them to be so ugly that no-one's taking pictures of them:
The best way is to forget about them and take pictures of other things. Like the shoe trend I hope will be sweeping the nation OR MY CLOSET:
TEDDY BEAR SHOES. CAPITAL LETTERS OF AMAZEMENT. Also: Muckrakers for evil:
And parents! And the meeting of parents. And the parents' meeting of parents. Eek.

Lighting

Mii's father measures light, so his shop is full of spheres. She pointed out that they don't have to be spheres, but I guess the shop floors aren't strong enough to hold the kind of mass you'd need to pull all the light into an easy-to-measure point.

Special Volunteers

When you take someone special to your hometown you get to show them all the places you remember from being a kid. But what if they're from your hometown?

It turns out you go by accident to where you sort of met. Just to make sure it was real.

Living in a Powder Keg and Giving Off Sparks

Popular love songs are like new age spirituality: Supremely cheesy, which makes it that much more annoying when you find out that some of them are accurate descriptions of important things. They're unlike new age spirituality in that these days I _can_ _not_ _get_ _enough_.

The... On Season?

I'm too poor to ski, so michelle suggested snowshoeing. And she was right! They make everything more fun. Eating muffins:
Flying kites:Flat-out running:All on the surface of a pair of frozen lakes.

The Off Season

I wanted to take michelle to see the Icefields, but I didn't think to check to see if they were closed. They were, probably because they looked like this:

And there was no wind for kite flying, and Lac Beauvert was actually Lac Beaublanc:

But the mountains were more beautiful than usual, glowing blue through the mist:

And the wildlife still came out to see us:

Borscht Night

michelle is over for the week! We made borscht and brie-and-pear sandwiches for a few good friends. Mary brought wine and beet-graters. Pud brought veggie stock and his Baba's borscht recipe, and took these pictures.

Science at Home

Vinegar and Baking soda is supposed by some to unclog sinks. It might have worked - it was at least as effective as an entire bottle of Drano, which is to say, not effective at all.