This is JJ Junior (JJ was getting worried that none of the duckies were named after him, given that he has another son from a past life, also called JJ). Isn't he lovely?

Although he is an adoptee, he is still a very welcome member to the Family Brouhaha.

I come back from my absence with some news. Everything being equal, JJ and I be moving to a new location in the next couple of months:

I hate to say it here, but it's a condo. I know I've bitched and bitched about condos - but this one was built 20 years ago before I even moved to Toronto, so I feel OK about it.

Plus... this will be the view from our balcony:

This view, coupled with being able to stop paying out some $1,600 a month to THE LANDLORD, convinced to me get into the not-so-wonderful world of homeownership. And, not to blame anyone else, but part of my absence from here in the past couple of weeks has been due to getting into the realm of dealing with banks, real estate lawyers and so forth. It is far more time consuming than I would have thought, frankly.

When we move, we will be moving close to Greektown (for Toronto denizens, our new place will be at Pottery Road and Broadview, close to the Danforth). So, I'm holding off on displaying these inheriritances (I don't know if this is a word, but anyway)... from my father Ted's apartment until we move:

This is a bottle of brandy, covered with a female form.  There was also a male version which looked somewhat like Takis here:

...but I've left that bottle in Kingston for my brother.

Here is another vintage bottle:

He went and drank all the ouzo out of it.  Probably a guid thing, as any ouzo left would probably be 200 proof and would have killed me.

And finally, my favourite, given my new avocation as half-assed chef

This is a pepper grinder from Greece.  And I love it.  I'll wait to use it, though, until we're in our new house.

As for knitting?  Funnily enough, I'm still not back at it.  I have been hacking away at my never-ending mosaic project... and I'm hoping to start a simple squares knitting project with my scrap yarn soon.  Amy is working on a mitered square project which I've found inspiring in its simplicity.

As for the two lace projects I was working on... they're on the shelf for now, and I probably won't start up again until after the move in late November and settling in.  Sorry to my knitter readers - my energy is focused elsewhere right now (and if you want to tune in later in the week, I'll bore you either with work crap or political crap or both).

Hope all is well with you!

Kristina

Duck and Frog Pond | $60.00

Includes:
50 size 1 diapers
Tub Pampers sensitive wipes
Johnson & Johnson travel pack
green fleece blanket
scrap & brag book (20 pages)
frogs & duckies watery toys
snack container
wash cloth
socks
pacifier holder
butt paste sample
onesie
brush & combo set
pair of mittens
2 single packs wet ones
1 pacifier

I usually post a link to my Amazon wishlist around a month before my birthday and get some rad gifts from everyone. This year I am asking to donate to the Special Olympics instead as my birthday gift.

http://www. duckrace. com/newyorkcity/ACTIONTEAM

This weekend I went down to Roanoke, VA (not the lost city I thought I had finally discovered ... sorry to disappoint) with my girlfriend to visit her hometown ... of Roanoke. On Saturday we decided to go down to the river side and play some tennis. Now I haven't played tennis since sometime in High School which leaves me approximately 7 or 8 years out of practice. As I was, in fact, as bad as that statement might imply, we soon grew tired of chasing tennis balls all over the court and decided to go walk down by the river. When one goes by a river, one almost always decides that one's feet must be dangled into said river. While enjoying the cool water on our feet, a bunch of people started to show up. What had originally started out as just the two of us dangling feet in the water soon became a horde of people (mostly children and their respective "adult supervisors"). Now our first inclination was to leave, and to her credit my girlfriend had our tennis gear in her hands ready to vacate the area, but something in the undercurrent of conversation kept my attention. There was something coming down the river and two people with event tee-shirts were wading out into the river with nets to deal with the situation. So I asked my girlfriend to wait up because I wanted to see what was happening. Soon enough I saw what everyone had raced here to see ... a monstrous wave of these ...

That's right ... 2000 rubber ducks were swarming towards us on the river. Realizing that two people with nets were not going to be able to capture 2000 wily rubber ducks we volunteered our services to the effort. So I found myself knee deep in a river with thousands of rubber ducks racing towards me. Now it seems appropriate at this juncture to describes what led up to this event...

It was the weekend of the Kentucky Derby and apparently every year they have a Duck Derby in the Roanoke River where each of the ducks has a serial number and all the children get one duck to be their duck and all the ducks are released in the river and the winner receives a prize. Now should everything go according to plan, they have nets set up to catch all the ducks when they cross the finish line. This year the nets that were set up were too close to the water's surface so all the ducks washed over the nets and proceeded, to the complete shock of all the planners/volunteers and I am sure the complete joy of all the children, to race down the river uncontrolled and unimpeded. And this should catch you up to the point we left off at ...

At this point my girlfriend and I are wading in the river with a handful of unprepared volunteers (in their jeans and skirts as they had not expected to have to touch the river let alone wade out to retrieve renegade ducks) and a few fishermen who happened to be fishing in the river getting ready to try and fend off the onslaught of terrifying (aka: rubber) ducks. As they came we started catching them and tossing them to the riverbank to the crowd of waiting children who would catch them and place them in piles. I'm not sure if the image of 2000 rubber ducks flowing down a river to a bunch of people tossing them to the banks is quite complete without mentioning this was occurring right in front of a waterfall ... yes, waterfall. It may not have been very tall but it did cause some rapids down below them that wouldn't be too fun to be caught up in.

Things seemed to be going relatively well with only a few ducks escaping our clutches and the piles of ducks growing on the shores when I heard a yelp from behind me. I turned around to see my girlfriend waving her arms and leaning forward yelling "I am getting pulled away by the current!!" Now imagine this coming from someone with two fist fulls of rubber ducks and the reality of the ridiculousness of it all should start to set in. I immediately snap into action and carefully wade my way over (so as not to hurt my feet on the sharp rocks of course) and grab her right before she lost it and started to pull her back. About this time one of the fishermen holding the net looks back and yells in his most dramatic and Perfect Storm worthy voice, "LET GO OF THE DUCKS!!!"

I am dragging my girlfriend back from falling down a waterfall as rubber ducks wash by laughing at the situation and trying not to fall over myself. Soggy, bemused, and kind of tired by now, we walk back to shore as the stream of ducks had subsided. We climbed up the bank and walked back to the car with our shoes in our hands and the stories already beginning to be told.

So there is Exhibit A of what makes my life so ridiculous and so incredibly ... crazy.

Now, I know you can come up with a better caption than I did above.  I'm sure you have a lot better imagination than I.  Give it a shot.  Just remember: 10 words or less!

I only realised this when I got home from work yesterday, only to find JJ (who was off work) out on the balcony in a "right stushie" as he would call it (English translation: having a royal fit.)

At least, a "right stushie" as befits a calm, cool and collected Scotsman. That is to say, he was pacing up and down the grounds of his estate, muttering under his breath:

"That wee lassie has gone way oot of contrrrrol now. Ah'm starrtin to wonder aboot her, really ah am. This is just way over the top."

(Why is it that, as household Mediterranean, I always get blamed for irrational behaviour?! Sheesh).

I had no idea what he was talking about until I approached closer and saw this:

How strange. Apparently Daisy had gone and gotten herself pregnant again. I mean, she was complaining about some stomach problems... but triplets?!?

Er... make that quadruplets. I wonder what happened to this one? Must have been all the second hand smoke in the house. Sigh.

JJ then glared balefully at me and said "Would ye get that one to shurrup, already?!?"

You see, despite being less than eight hours old, this one was already talking loudly (QUACKQUACKQUACKQUACK - I guess that's why Daddy was looking after her - she knew daddy's name already! How cute), not to mention glowing:

Hmm. Not so sure that Daisy's the mother of this one, actually. Separated at birth, d'ya think?

Hmm... nah. I don't think even Susie, fabulous as she is, could manage this feat all the way from Australia.

I guess that the little one is just a second-hand smoked out mutant. Guid to know that Health Canada hasn't been lying to me all these years, I guess.
Sigh.

Anyway, in time honoured Brouhaha Lapsed Greek Orthodox tradition, I decided that a baptism must immediately take place. The last kid, after all, had been dunked immediately.

Father ... er, Sir John Eh?

was reluctant at first. His excuse was that that it is still Lent and the Greek priests are not supposed to conduct baptisms or weddings during that time.

However, judging by the rough state of him, I think that the actual truth was that he just wanted to get in all his drinking in before Holy Week starts next week. And as regular readers will know, I'm not too big on all that stuff.

So, I simply reminded him that, as he was not actually a Greek priest but was just playing one on the blog, the usual restrictions did not apply for him. He's a lawyer himself, but found it hard to argue with that indisputable logic.

And hence...

(The little one advised me just before the dunking that she is an atheist and that I would be offending her religious freedoms under the Charter if I forced her to go through with it. At least, I assume that's what all that irate quacking and light show was about. An excellent point. But she earned herself the name Quack Junior after her proud father for her troubles.

So, I have a little pagan mutant on my hands. This should be interesting. Hmm.)

And the names of the other three? That, in fact, is why they needed a quick baptism - it's bad luck in the Greek culture to use their names beforehand.

Introducing, from left to right (with photos of their namesakes beneath):

James...Sparrow...

and Liz.

Where was the nouna (godmother) by the way?

Aphrodite was there OK, just standing by. She couldn't fit on the counter next to the sink. But check her out dressed in all her finery: not one but two Brouhaha lace creations. Obviously a woman with impeccable taste.

(There was an honourary godmother as well, unbeknownst to her: Clarabelle. This is because by happy coincidence the postman brought me a lovely week package from the UK this morning!

This is my first skein of cobweb weight [or "eye-strain weight", as Clarabelle put it] yarn - by Posh Yarns [I've posted a link although it's apparently hard to come by and Clarabelle will now most likely come over the pond to kill me in my sleep when she can't get hold of any because of the flood of orders from the millions of people who read this blog]. It's a 50-50 silk/cashmere blend.

The colourway is simply amazing: Mulberry. This photo does not do it justice, I can assure you.

Thanks, Clarabelle! And you even included your address, so I know where to send the bill for the trifocals that I will need to upgrade [downgrade?!] to when I get addicted to cobwebbing. Sigh.)

When the baptism was over, the festivities commenced...
... but I soon noticed Bubbles, back home from Queen's University for the occasion (man, they grow quickly, don't they? I don't know where the time flew. Sniff. Sob) pouting in the corner.

Now, as you know, I'm new at this parenthood thing (or is it grandparenthood? Hmm) but I've heard that kids can be jealous when a new arrival shows up.

(I do hope my mother doesn't take this opportunity to post a photo of the first photo of me with my squalling, screaming, ugly little brother. But maybe if she's reading this she could scan it in and Email it to me, just for a laugh. My mother, by the way, having just learned how to use a computer a few years ago, now has more tech gadgets than me, including a scanner. How embarrassing!)

I guess I should have picked up that something was wrong when I saw Bubbles glowering earlier at the babbies (as JJ would call them) earlier.

So, I asked what was wrong. Man, that Bubbles is a real drama queen, I must say. Hir issues:

(a) they got a bigger baptismal font than he did:

(KB's INSIDE VOICE: there were three of them, dammit!!! What the $#*@$&^@#*& do you expect?!)

(b) they got a bigger candle than he did. And it was silver coloured.

(KB's INSIDE VOICE: but you got my all time favourite purple candle. Bloody ingrate.)

I managed to explain this to Bubbles in a more or less rational way. But s/he still insisted on whining:

(c) they got hats and s/he didn't!!

Actually, good point - but easily solved.

I even threw in hir favourite fruit for good measure.

But this still wasn't good enough. Guess I caved too easily on the hat issue. S/he wheedled, begged and whined about the fact that hir little sibling got a gun too:

FINE. JJ, just to shut hir up, donated his pigeon-chasing implement:

Man, this grandparenting thing is difficult. But all is quiet this morning - I guess everyone's content, thank goddess. And I can just toss them in a drawer if they act up, I guess. Hmm.

Happy Wednesday!

**************
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I believe, it is definitely tops that I have seen recently, and just may inspire me to do some of these. Probably from Mystery Men, or Hero.

I'll let you decide for yourselves...

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!

This adorable pattern and a whole lot more are created by Ana Paula of Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns & Random Cuteness

Can I just say that everything on her blog is incredibly cute. I found her on Ravelry under this week (week 9) newsletter in the amigurimi section.

Here's another of hers....Squee!!!

Look at those little quackers!!!

I'll start with these cuties! Go ahead, you know you wanna say it... AHHHhhhhhhhhhhh

This is my old Rooster. His name was Chicken... and he was totally devoted to me! Each morning when I'd open my blinds he'd come running from wherever he was and skid into the window and then do his 'rooster dance.' He followed me everywhere and sat in my lap and I'd pet him. He was too much. I never knew chickens had that kind of personality. He was a Minorca. Here he is... isn't he handsome?

And this was one of my birds. I could spend hours telling of the hilarious antics of this little guy. He was my 'Sweetie Bug' and loved to have me kiss his head every morning. He'd scramble out of his cage and run in circles and then stretch his head up in the air for me to kiss the top of it while he made kissing sounds. I miss him! For those of you with birds.... never ever use Teflon cookware!! He died from the fumes of that after I moved into a friend's house to recover from surgery. I forgot to tell her not to use that... it sends them into respiratory arrest and they die before you can get them help.

This is my nieces cat Frosting.

Now for a photo from my old Arizona backyard. A dove in Cholla Cactus. Prickly situation!

And now for some flowers from my garden in Arizona.

Please give Ze's site a visit, and get inspired.

Remember: "...Being a Sports Racer is more than just looking cool and impressing your friends; it's about being as awesome as you can be."