September 2008 Archives

I know, I am not blogging too much, but I am enjoying my holidays, I do think I deserve them. I treated myself to a jog on the beach today, shocking huh. I got off the streetcar at Woodbine, jogged all the way down to the end of the boardwalk, and back to Coxwell. Marathons of the world, here I come. And besides all that I am entertaining guests. The famous Mr. S. and Ms. de B. of NRC Handelsblad are in town to visit me, I think that is pretty major. Of course I am not entertaining them the whole time, right now they are at Niagara Falls. I've been there a few times too often, and I really think there are better destinations, but who am I. No self respecting European can go home without having seen the Falls. So they say. Last night for example we had a much better destination. Mr. David Levine himself in person spoke at Piffin's art school. And what a sweet sweet nice man he is. With eyes like beads on fire. I had the nerve to ask him two questions. Of course I had many more, but I didn't want to give myself away. Before the show he had already asked Ellen how many of us three were cartoonists. One and a half, she said.

We concluded that anybody who may ever, at any point in time, had reservations about us, should be proud of us now. Such a respectable crowd at our party, es ist nicht zu fassen. The only thing is, we are left with more booze than we started out with. Okay, problem solved. Just had some neighbours at the door who didn't make it last night, they're coming for champagne later.

Weren't we sweet, 25 years ago. This photo was taken in the kitchen of our squat, if you look very closely you can see we cooked on propane. We didn't have natural gas or electricity. We only had cold water, because the very nice next door neighbour let us tap his main. The other next door neighbour was a college, in fact the college owned the house, and the college was built around the old house we squatted. There was a door in the basement leading into the college. One of the teachers once opened it, and somehow gave us access to their hydro, but that didn't last long. The college had been planning on tearing down the old house, but after we squatted the beautiful old villa, so much attention was drawn to it that they couldn't. We lived there for two years, two extremely harsh winters. One day we really couldn't defrost our water anymore, and we moved out. One of our art school teachers then bought the house, and for all I know he may well still live there.

"We are not a lingerie store. We are a bra fitting boutique that concentrates on educating women." These are the best sentences on their website, they sum it all up. Only I read "educated women", it says "educating", shit. Anyway, it is where I spent a good chunk of my first real day off in a loooong time. Lovely. I recommend all my Toronto sisters to go there, especially since they moved to a new location. The store is roomy, but the best part is the fitting rooms area. It's as big as the store, a gigantic secret boudoir. Bra shopping is never fun, but in this store it is very bearable. Besides a bra, I bought head phones because the stupid Ipod plugs fall out of my ears, and a new handbag, couldn't resist, a shovel, because I always use a soup spoon in my yard and that is pathetic, and mouse poison. I found a live trap behind the couch covered in droppings, I don't know how they do it, but this is it.

The forebodes of hurricane Ike are moistening our Saturday, it is warm and damp, sticky. Which was especially funny because there was a Christmas film set around our corner this afternoon, all the lamp posts decorated, big wrapped presents outside the diner, and the beer store had a Christmas tree sale! They should do that for real, it looked good. A shabby news stand was built, and an otherwise empty shop was converted into a liquor store. The corner store also had a prettier display than usual, and had posters for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Poor Toronto, always having to pose as a US city. Michiel heard someone say they had two hours for the shoot, what a lot of work for just two hours. And not even a white Christmas, just a very wet one. Ike will be here tomorrow, with even more water, they say. I doubt if Ike will still carry a lot of wind, although I heard a forecaster threaten with tornado's. But those people like to exaggerate. I painted the floor in the guest room. Looks nice and clean now, I'll give it a second coat tomorrow. Michiel painted the window. You can't say we don't put much effort in receiving guests. But I am painting too nice a picture here, the guest room is still hardly reachable because of the piles of junk on the landing. Fortunately the city delivered a humongous garbage container last week. Throwing out stuff will become my new hobby.

I'll whack some quick colour on this tomorrow, and the publisher can print the image in their prospectus. I'll finish it up in October, next week is my Summer holiday. Next week the hubby and I are together 25 years, imagine that. Maybe I'll throw a party, haven't decided yet. I have to clean the house anyway, we're getting some people over from Holland. And I think they'll want a door in their room. For example.

A lot of mother and son quality time, Otger and I went out for dinner tonight. It's a great trick really, I know all about his first two weeks of school now. His only mwa teacher is his gym teacher, and what else are they for. Otger is very exited about his architectural design course, he gets to design his own house. I think he's already done in his head. You can leave that to Otger. He was interviewed once on a Belgian radio show, when he was seven or eight, don't remember. He told them he wanted to be an architect, and they made the mistake of asking him what he would build. The radio host practically had a seizure when he was done. If I remember right, it was a building in the form of an ape, and he described exactly where all the rooms were, in the arms, the fingers. And what the rooms were for, and how to get to them. I think the real house is called Otger, and it has an infinite number of rooms.

Yesterday the Belgian article had to give way for the Joint Strike Fighter. I can dig that, a little more money involved there. And now that my Summer series is finally finally over, I should relax and blog blabber about some different things. Truth is, there aren't many different things yet. Maybe I have to get used to real life again. I bought a blender. My old blender died. Stopped blending. So I bought a bigger one, and now I am making smoothies. And I watched two episodes of Dr. House with Otger. Michiel is having dinner with work people. Michiel is using Dr. House as a roll model, even though he doesn't look much like Hugh Laurie. (Which reminds me, watch this.) Piffin is with girlfriend. God, we are boring. And we went running this morning, I am astounding myself.

The last of the world village articles was supposed to be in the paper today, but it wasn't. No idea why. And you disappoint me. Maybe the book crowd doesn't read me anymore, maybe these authors are just too obscure. I don't think I drew them unrecognizable. So make an effort, will you. Who are these people?

We are back at guessing authors! Now show us how knowledgeable you are, don't disappoint me. I think I'll add four more to this entry tomorrow, because tomorrow I'll have to blog my Belgian newspaper.

Voila, my summer. Best summer ever, I have been everywhere!

I wouldn't dare compare Toronto to Abidjan, but Toronto also stinks today. It was the first thing I smelled when I stepped out this morning to go jogging, thick smog. On the track down by the river it was worse, the car exhaust from the Don Valley Parkway seemed to trapped right there. I had to give up a minute before the podcast was done, I just couldn't breathe more filth. Threatening storm weather for the rest of the day, but nothing more than three drops of rain. Maybe there will be some relief tonight. If you want to be relieved tonight, listen to Casa Luna, you'll hear me. I don't feel like I have much to say though.

It is hard to believe, but I have almost made it. Twenty-two drawings non stop. And no Summer holidays. And thanks to Ann and Orbit I don't even need physio. After my first two Little Golden Books I did, I wrecked my back drawing so much. But now I am a dog walker and a runner. Session six tomorrow morning. I feel all sorts of body parts shift towards where they once were. I feel I even stand straighter. And I see some muscle definition just above my knees, I am sure it wasn't there before.

And I even have some time left to enjoy this perfect day. I will jump on my bicycle and celebrate. No I won't. Orbit is being the perfect dog today. I hate it when he wants to go in and out, and in and out, and in and out. And I have to get up all of the time. Hate it. So now I have the front door open, and the back door open (there is no wind), and Orbit walks in and out as he pleases. And he stays on the porch, he doesn't run away, what a good boy. My friend Martin emailed me and asked if we want to borrow his piano for a year. What do you think? I can play Brother Jimmy.

Almost back on schedule. I think I will steal a couple of night hours, when it's cool also. Listen to Dutch early morning radio. And then after the one I am doing now, just one more. Out with a bang, Belgium. Belgiyummie. And after that, on to a brand new client, Querido no less. I am becoming such an established illustrator, you have no idea. Rich and famous. I'm just doing the famous part first. Rich will follow. One day. For now, I am just very happy not to be Indonesian. And Otger's school started, he picked up his schedule today. Full of mysterious course codes and names of teachers he doesn't know. He (smart, Piffin's idea) googled the course codes to check if he had the courses he signed up for. And he has. Life is perfect.

No time, have to work fast because the briefing was a little late!