Who belongs to whom?

Whenever I go to give my cat a treat, she runs over and rubs up against my leg before she sits and waits for her goody. I like to think this is her way of saying, "Thank you!" but in reality, I know it's her way of saying, "Yes, good job, servant. You WILL give me a treat. I'd like a salmon-flavoured one, post-haste."


And in the interest of blogging about something other than my cat, here's a picture of my nephew, Nathan. It was taken a few weeks after his first birthday, so by this time he was well versed in the world of cupcakes.


Really, I just saw the photo while I was searching for photos of my cat to post. Hmmm. Lame? Well, in my defence, I see my cat a lot more often than I see my nephew(s).

In other news, just because I like seeing my name is print, check this out. This time my name is in BIG, BOLD LETTERS. Holy shit. Someone might actually be reading this stuff. In fact, I know people are reading this stuff. I heard yesterday that one of my profs is using a J-source article that I wrote last year as required reading for one of his classes. That's pretty damn cool.

Now if only Anand can get his new TV pilot written and off the ground (which stars me as an out of work journalist who starts a PI agency) within the next few months, I'll have pretty much accomplished all of my life's goals before I turn 23. Well, save for having my own Wikipedia page. I guess I can't be too greedy. That can wait until I'm 24.

Extreme Makeover: Apartment Edition

After four very, very, very long months, I am finally free of the suburban shackles (otherwise known as my parents' house in Burlington) and am back in the city. I would be very excited if not for the construction that is polluting the airwaves and the airshow noise that is accompanying it, as well as the giant mess that was left in my apartment from months of not dusting and the new-found knowledge that a neighbourhood very close to my own is now the city's most violent corridor.

But alas, it is good to be home. It's also nice to finally have a proper home for my projects. I finally finished sewing some new curtains for my bedroom. And while, yes, it would have been easier and probably cheaper to buy them at Ikea and yes, there are many other things I could have done with the seven hours it took to make them and yes, the stitches are crooked and they are uneven, I am still very pleased with the result.



My cat likes to sneak into photos.



Notice the freshly painted walls. My poor camera skills make it look a little washed out, but in reality it's quite lovely. My stepdad did a great job. I think it'll look a lot nicer, too, once I get some art back up on the walls. I have a really great idea for the space above the bed, but I'll save that for a future blog post.



And a couple before pictures:



You'll notice that previously I had nailed some blankets to the walls instead of putting up curtains. Granted, the new ones don't block the sunlight as nicely as the comforters (my bedroom, which faces east, was like a bear cave).



And an earlier sewing project: new throw pillows for my couch! Like the curtains, they're not perfect, but I'm pretty proud of them nonetheless. To be honest, I'm proud just to have finally learned how to use my sewing machine.





And finally, my new knitting project. As if the last afghan wasn't a big enough task, I have decided to make another afghan. My goal is to have it finished by the first snowfall. I started it a month ago. I think I'm about halfway done, but with school starting next week and my new job (I'm the new Students' Lounge Editor at J-Source.ca), I can't imagine I'll be able to dedicate as much time to it as I did during my unemployment days.

The twilight zone

It's the middle of the summer and currently I am wearing jeans and a sweater. The temperature is hovering around 20 C and doesn't look to increase much in the next week. It's also been rainy and overcast for the past few days.

As I recall, this time last year Toronto was in the middle of a serious heatwave. Temperatures were closing in on 40 C (plus humidity!) and I was sitting in a pool of sweat in an sweltering office. I went to a movie for the first time in a year just to cool down.

Now, a sweater. Seriously, Canada, what is up? I am starting to believe all those rumours about the Great White North. I'm half expecting to see igloos and polar bears popping up.

I guess it had to happen sometime.

The Great Undertaking

I have always been very crafty. The craftiness took a downturn in my teen years once I discovered the concept of going out and buying things and the need to spend a lot of time jacketing books and folding T-shirts in order to earn money to go to said places and buy said things. But still, many moons ago I was the child that turned egg cartons into caterpillars, file labels into Christmas ornaments and Popsicle sticks into picture frames.

One thing I had always wanted to do was learn how to knit. My Grandma Wilson tried to teach me once when I was about nine, but I seemed to be incapable of knitting even a scarf for my doll and she deemed me hopeless. Dejected, I gave up my knitting needles.

Ten years later, I started university and met my friend Seema, whose knitting skills could rival my Grandma's. Three years after that, I finally built up the courage and motivation to get Seema to try to teach me how to knit. Surprisingly, I picked it up pretty quickly. Seema taught me the basics and the rest I figured out on an as-needed basis from the internet.

A few weeks after my first lesson I had successfully knitted a scarf for my Macbook and started a very sad looking purse (I haven't, to this day, finished the purse). Looking for a new project, I decided on this: an afghan.

I wish someone had told me just how long knitting an afghan would take.

Nevertheless, Easter was around this time and my mom bought me a few large balls of yarn to get me started on my afghan. Still afraid of any big girl knitting projects, I decided to make it in patches (nice, easily digestible bits of knitting) and used big needles and two strands of yarn at a time to make the whole thing go by faster. I also tried out a couple of different stitches to keep my fingers on their toes.

Still, the whole process took over three months (granted, there were periods where I didn't knit at all for a couple weeks, and periods where I knit for two or three days straight). Plus, because I was a beginner when I started and a, let's say, beginner plus when I finished, a lot of the squares are slightly different sizes and are of varying levels of, well, niceness.

I sewed the last square on just a few days ago. Behold:



It matches quite well with the old lady-esque bedding, doesn't it? Sidenote: the comforter, in a previous life, belonged to another grandmother. It took over my room when I moved out.







All the yarn that I have left. I just made it without having to buy another ball. All told, it took five very large balls of yarn (two orange, two yellow, one purple).

So, in conclusion: Take that, Grandma Wilson!

HP-Day

I wonder how I can incorporate a craft table into my decor

It all started when Seema taught me how to knit. Then I started knitting a lot. And then knitting wouldn't satisfy me all the time, so I decided to learn to use my sewing machine.And things have started snowballing from there. I don't know where my spare time has been going. All I know is that I have been in a serious craft kick for the past few weeks.

The only catch is that I'm still in the beginner stage in the sewing department and the beginner-plus stage in the knitting department, so mostly I've just been trying to develop some basic skills with some small projects that don't require much time or material (in case I screw it up). But, how many teeny tiny things can you knit and sew? Not many, it seems, though I have found a plethora of things to make for my cat.

Let me preface this picture by saying that I 1) paid less than a dollar for the fabric and 2) have (almost) never bought my cat anything other than litter and food. I have never bought her any sort of clothing or accessory.

Nevertheless, the dragon Apple suite:



First I made the blanket, to practice sewing hems. Then I made the pillow, to practice for the pretty non-dragon throw pillows I'm going to make. Then, for whatever reason, I decided to see if I could one-up myself and made the cat bed. I didn't even have the fill for it so I stuffed the thing with old (but clean) socks and underwear.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the bed is way too small for my constantly growing cat. She has to squish in and coil herself up like a snake.

The great outdoors

Last weekend I went to the cottage with my parents. While they were out shopping and doing stuff outside and, well, cottaging, I spent most of my three-day stay sitting in a reclining chair, while knitting, with a blanket on my lap and (usually) a kitten sleeping on my legs. A good amount of my time in the summer is spent hiding out, trying to make sure the sunlight can't find me. Otherwise I turn into a lobster. I am an 80-year-old woman.

Now, since unemployment, that routine is pretty similar to what I do every day at home. The only difference being this: I didn't feel particularly guilty about being so lazy. When I was at the cottage, I could nap in the afternoon, read, and watch HGTV and think about how much I want my own house and not some piddly little apartment. When I'm at home, well, I try to be a tad more productive.

The kitten also wasn't allowed outside, but that certainly didn't stop her from trying and from making new friends.

Not too sure about the new kid.


Scared the new kid away.


Waiting patiently for his return.


Reunited again. The kitten has gained the chipmunk's trust. Now if only she could get through the screen...


I think I post about my cat too much. I need new hobbies.

A sea of (potential) debt

Why are credit card companies so willing to just hand me thousands of dollars? I assume they must be banking on the notion that, as a young, impulsive, irresponsible student, I'll quickly rack up huge bills and end up paying the principle three times over in interest. If they've been paying much attention to me over the past four years (since I got my first Visa with a $1,000 limit), they'd know this isn't the case. I've never paid a dime in interest. So why am I so attractive to creditors?

I have barely worked in the past year (for money, anyway; school really kicked my butt). A four-week stint at BP over Christmas, a pool shift here and there and a handful of pennies from a handful of freelance gigs: that's it. I'm unemployed again, and what did I get in the mail today? Another credit card.

A couple weeks ago I was at Sears buying some dragon-print pjs for my nephew's first birthday. The clerk told me if I signed up for their Mastercard, I'd save $10 off the pjs, which were only $10 to begin with ($0.47 birthday present--don't tell my sister). I said, "Hell yes," and signed away, assuming I'd get maybe a $500 limit and planning to cancel it the second it came in the mail.

Au contraire. Sears Mastercard gave me a $5,000 limit. This little guy will join his older brothers in my wallet: a $5,000 Mastercard and a $2,500 Visa, and then the lesser-known $2,500 overdraft I have on my chequing account. (All four have a zero-balance, for the record.)

Until I cancel the card (I may decide not to and earn some nifty Sears points, dreaming of the day when I'll have more than 450 square feet to furnish and call my own), I, at 22 years old, currently have $15,000 worth of available credit.

It's a good thing I'm not the shopaholic kind.

In other news, my spider cat did this yesterday, and it was the highlight of my weekend.

Amateur of Cakes

My sister and I watched the Ace of Cakes crew make, among other awesome things, a cake in the form of a Scrabble board, completely functional and to scale. It. Was. Awesome.



It inspired the two of us--mostly her--to see what we could create with some rolled fondant and food colouring. The result:



OK, so it's not quite as fancy as the Scrabble board, but it was delicious nonetheless, and kept us entertained for a good two hours.

Unemployment. It's not for everyone.

There goes my plan of chronicling my road trip in real time, or at least with a 12-hour time delay to edit out horrible bus rides and sketchy accommodations. We got home in one piece a little over a month ago, and through some sort of miracle, Marie and I managed to 1) not get any speeding tickets and 2) not kill each other (though we did come close). On the homefront, the Camp M.W. kitten correspondent reported that the kitten survived her vacation with the grandparents, and only got sick once due to excessive treats (I said one per day...mom hear seven). I'm working on writing an update city-by-city of the road trip (complete with pictures!), so I'm hoping to get those up in the next little bit. I'm going to post them all together so it seems at least somewhat organized.

I still haven't managed to find a job (oh, how I've looked), which is starting to become quite disheartening. I'm getting turned down for jobs that I was overqualified for three years ago. I guess that's just the way it goes. I did, however, make the decision to sublet my apartment for the summer (to a lovely Vancouverite named David) and move back in with my parents, so at least if I'm not making money, I'm not spending a dime either.

I was pretty bummed about the job situation until I realized that between rent and groceries and going out (it's easy to stay in when surrounded by family...when it's just me and my cat in Toronto, I quickly start to go nuts), I'm saving over $3500, which makes me wonder why I choose to live in the city in the first place. That's only a little less than I could hope to make working full-time for minimum wage for those three months, and let's face it, where would I even get full time? That's making me freak out a little less. That, and the fact that Marie's dad has been really great about giving me some hours here and there with his pool business, even though I'm terrible at the job.

Otherwise, I have been spending my days sleeping in, job hunting, looking online at things I want but can't buy, watching crap television (have become addicted to Till Debt Do Us Part and Ace of Cakes), making sure my grandma eats lunch, keeping house and hanging out with my cat.

In fact, I got so bored last night that I did this:



If anyone has any project suggestions, please let me know. I haven't been unemployed or not in school working my ass off since I was 14. Slackers, tell me. What do you do all day?

Homesick for Canada

Marie and I arrived safely in Boston, checked in with our lovely host, Matt, who's offered us his couch for a couple of days. We made excellent time on the 9-hour drive until we got off the highway in Boston. We decided on a new driving rule: Melissa is not allowed to drive in cities. At all. It took us 45 minutes to go about 11 kilometres. Hmm. It's a good rule, I think.

Marie and I then embarked on an adventure that took us to see the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. It took us about an hour (and several unhelpful passersby) to find the place and almost two to get back. First we got lost. Then we got lost again. And again. We asked about a dozen people to help us find the streetcar (called a Trolley, which I like).

Marie and I have started rating Americans on a scale from 1-10 in terms of politeness. 1 being a hand-in-face refusal to help us find our way and 10 being an offer to walk us two blocks to the subway station so we wouldn't miss it. We got one 10. From Canadians. Perfect ten to the Vancouver couple who walked us to the station and gave us fool-proof directions to get home. Bonus points to Matt who waited to make sure we got back safe even though we arrived an hour after we'd planned.

Being a gluton for punishment, I looked up the distance from Matt's house to Fenway Park. It would have taken us 40 minutes to walk it. I wish I hadn't done that.

Pictures tomorrow, perhaps.

An update from our Kitten Bureau: "The kitten was lonely today because we had to leave for my competition and we didn't get back until after six, but she got a lot of attention when we got back. I may have given her two treats, but it was because she was a good girl... and I felt guilty for leaving her alone."

There's a 5:30 in the morning now?

It's first thing in the morning and we are about to leave (hopefully, if we can figure out how to pack the cooler) for our trip! First stop, a Titanic Museum in Massachusetts. Only 7.5 hours away.

It's supposed to rain all day all the way to Boston. I'm driving the first leg. Wish me luck.

And finally, a word from our foreign correspondent, Krystal (my sister) on the kitten's vacation.

The kitten bit me, so I put her to bed, then felt bad so I played with her for a bit before settling her in her laundry basket. Right now she's sleeping, which I should be too, but I thought I'd give you an update.

Before she went to bed she was playing with a spider she found on the fireplace mantle. So don't worry, she's making friends.

On the Road

So, it's May. I'm three quarters through my education, I managed to get through my exams in one piece (I hope) and I came out of third-year with very some very respectable journalism grades. Seems like I should be in a pretty good spot, except--oh yeah, we're in the middle of a recession. Like eight (nine?) percent of the rest of the Ontario work force, I haven't been able to find any sort of paying employment (save for a couple days' work painting swimming pools in the hot sun--a drop in the tuition bucket for a greater chance of skin cancer). My resume is pretty awesome, too. I can fold clothes and check facts like nobody's business.

So there it is. My good friend Marie (also unemployed) and I have decided to find a silver-living in our dark rainclouds of debt and embark on a vacation. I know I was at first unfamiliar with the term, so for any other country-starved, stressed out students/workaholics out there, here's the OED definition.

VACATION
noun
a. Freedom, release, or rest from some occupation, business, or activity.
b. Without const. Freedom or respite from work, etc.; time of rest or leisure.
c. Leisure for, or devoted to, some special purpose; hence, occupation, business. Obs.
d. Absence from duty or from some usual post; also, a sum paid for absence or exemption.

Oh yeah. It's been years since I've had a vacation, or even left the city for that matter, and I'm going a little stir crazy. Regardless, Marie and I are doing the world's cheapest vacation: Road Trip! It will involve a lot of nutella sandwiches and sour keys and sleeping on strangers' couches. We're heading first to Boston, then to New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, Savannah and finally to Gainesville, Florida, where we'll spend the bulk of our trip.

As part of my poor New Year's resolution to start blogging more, I will be chronicling the trip here, right in your own backyard internet browser. Check back here as often as you suspect I might have access to free Wifi. And if anyone's got any suggestions of Can't Misses along this route, please let me know!

You can also follow my Twitter updates @mawilson.

I'll leave you off with a picture of my kitten, Apple, who will be having her own little vacation at grandma's house in Burlington. Currently, she is sleeping in my old bedroom closet, which is something she wouldn't be allowed to do at my apartment in Toronto. So begins what I imagine will be two weeks of spoilage. I have been in Burlington visiting for just a few days now and already my mom has removed the lemon juice from her Bad Cat Bottle (because it was too mean), changed the setting on the bottle from "squirt" to "mist" (because it would hurt her otherwise, apparently) and given her something in the neighbourhood of six kitten treats per day (because they're small...Newsflash Mom, she's a small kitten. Normally she gets one, if she's lucky).

I suspect Apple will have a better time than I will.

babies rarely make good news

I'm not trying to be cynical here, but I have a bone to pick with the media's choice of top story for today.

This is the headlining story on the Toronto Star's website: two-month-old Kaylee Wallace is dying and her parents made the decision to take her off life support and offer her heart to one-month-old Lillian O'Connor. Little Kaylee didn't pass on in time, so the operation was called off. Both girls are still alive, barely.

I'll start by offering my sincerest condolences to the families of these little girls. It is a truly terrible situation and there is little that can be said other than that.

Now, let's talk about how this has been on the front page of the Star all day. These reporters have been updating little Kaylee's oxygen intake like death counts after an earthquake (which is still going on in Italy, by the way) since the story hit the web this morning. This is a story of a potential organ transplant that was not a sure thing in the first place.

Is this where the media's baby obsession has led? Is the Canadian media now jealous that Octomom and Angelina are getting all the attention? This is what passes for hard-hitting front-page news on a prominent newspaper? I may be inclined to give the Star a free pass on this one, as the story actually happens in Toronto. But CBC, the Globe and Mail, CTV and the National Post: what's your excuse?

I like babies, and I like reading about babies, but nine times out of ten, stories about babies belong in the living/health section of a newspaper. As neither of these girls was kidnapped or won first prize in an international spelling bee, the story doesn't warrant more than a blip on the front page.