[Previous entry: "Good...and yet...just good"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "The weird and the wonderful"]

01/06/2003 Archived Entry: "Making stuff out of other stuff"

In a vain hope to spend less on things like $50 movies ($12 each for entry, plus ultra-costly popcorn and pop, plus gas), today we went and bought craft supplies and spent this evening making cool-ish things. I started out making marble magnets - they make it out to be much more complicated than it needs to be though. I just used the magnets and an exacto-knife to cut out the pics from magazines and some standard white (dries clear) glue to put it all together. It seems to take a little longer to dry, which I expected since it's basically trapped between two hard surfaces with no airflow.

After that Jen and I made some beeswax candles (hers are very pretty, mine are very disturbed - very much a reflection of who we are, I think). Following that I poured food colouring into rice-filled jars and shook the crap out of it. Just because. Really, I'm curious if I can do some sort of glue and board painting with it or maybe something like the between-two-sheets-of-glass sand sculptures using rice instead. Who knows...could be fun. At the absolute very worst...rice is dead cheap, the jars can be washed and if we get really desperate the rice is just coloured with food colouring so I may start a trend of eating blue and red and green rices in public. Jen will be beautiful, I will be disturbed :) Actually, Jen will be disturbed too.

Other crafty stuff...the nice big gnarled arbutus branch we nabbed off Gabriola Island is going to be combined with some english ivy that we've taken from our underground parkade walls and will become our main balcony plant. Something more managable than a large tree probably. The ivy sure grows like mad downstairs anyway, I doubt we'll have any trouble growing it up in the south-facing sun.

Before we hit the craft store we took a drive up into north Coquitlam, trying to figure out what was -behind- the rows and rows of hideous houses on their postage-stamp land. We drive as far as we could up Pipeline Road until we came upon what looked like a military compound...razor wire, searchlights, tower cameras, etc...as we approach I saw that it was just the Coquitlam watershed, providing water to the cities in the area. It's a shame that in Canada, where we have so much water that it's free (we don't have a water utility), that we have to lock down the reservoir so that sick freaks don't poison it.

I remember going out as a kid with my father to fish on a reservoir...one of the very few times I remember anything positive about my father - at least at the start of the boating - then my father got bored and headed back as soon as he got rid of me he headed to the bar. That's all I remember; I was annoyed and offended and that pretty much sets the stage for the rest of memories of my father. There's a thousand memories there, but they'd be boring to relate to you. So I won't.

Replies: 2 comments

Get your friends to give you gift certificates for Christmas and birthday presents, then don't buy the popcorn and drinks. Or, get a job as a trailer checker -- you go to movies and write down which trailers play before all the showings of a particular film. That way you actually get paid to go to the movies. (Although if you want popcorn and stuff you still have to pay.) Posted by Chuk @ 01/08/2003 09:37 AM PST