NY State of Mind

I recently came back from NY and DC, one of those rare trips where the stars align and everything goes according to plan.  

Things got off to a great start day one of my trip.  I was upgraded to business class (without asking), our plane circled Manhattan twice before landing (I had the perfect seat to take in the view), and at the Waldorf, I hit the jackpot and was upgraded to the towers (the ultimate NY crib) - all harbingers of things to come. Here are a few of the NY highlights:

• Seeing South Pacific at Lincoln Centre with my good friend Bob. Not only did we go backstage and meet the cast, but Bob's  friend Loretta let us go onstage after the show was over. Loretta is starring as Bloody Mary, after being discovered by the Director in her native Hawaii.  I love it when good things happen to good people. Tom is really enjoying my many renditions of "Some Enchanted Evening", and plans to send Bob a special thank you.
• A behind the scenes tour of the Today Show, courtesy of Natalie Morales, who is humble, beautiful and a pleasure to work with.
• A girls night out with Suzanne and Ellen, good for the soul and better than years of therapy. We went to PDT - a secret little club that can only be accessed through a telephone booth in a hot dog shop. 

New York, you really are one of the world's great cities. 

Art

Living with a photographer can be quite daunting. For years I avoided cameras, knowing my best would never be good enough.

Funny thing about life, sometimes you have hidden talents without even knowing it. By fluke I realized that I have a knack for accidentally taking photos with my blackberry. It's actually a gift, who knew that I would capture the essence of life without even knowing it.

So from time to time I plan to share my new art form with you.  Take this image for example, I like to call it "Janice looks at life and laughs in its face".

My New Mantra

Simplicity.

• KISS - keep it simple stupid

• The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.--Hans Hofmann
  

Pug Love

I knew something was seriously wrong, when I came home from work and Maggie wasn't at the door waiting to greet me.  Tex was there, happy pug face and wagging tail, but where was Maggie?

My heart was pounding as I went to look for baby girl, something had to be seriously wrong for her not to be front and centre, eager to tell me about her day. I found her sleeping in the living room, she seemed a little confused when I gently woke her.  I tried to assure myself that everything was okay, after all, we all have days when we're a little off.

I started to get scared when we had to wake her up the next morning. You see Maggie is a keener, always the first to wake up, run to the door, jump right in. It wasn't until we used the magic word, and asked her if she wanted cheese, that we realized she was having trouble hearing. You see Maggie is something of a cheese connoisseur, and can even tell the difference between Brie, Cheddar and Blue - you say cheese, and Magster goes a little crazy.

According to the vet, Maggie may be loosing her hearing. She does have a mild ear infection, but the Dr feels it isn't severe enough to impact her ability to hear. This week we're taking her in to have her ear flushed out, but who knows if it will help.

This is really hard for both Tom and I, as we tend to live in denial, convincing ourselves the pugs aren't getting older.  It's so much easier to pretend that our precious babies will always be with us.

Don't worry baby girl, we'll be your ears.

Bad, Bad Things

It's been a tough couple of weeks, seems like I'm always struggling to find my groove. Today I may have bottomed out.

All of my dog walkers are on holiday and Tom has a gig in the Queen Charlotte's - which means I've been rushing home every afternoon to walk the dogs.  Today was the first sunny day in a week - so I decided that we'd take a longer walk and soak up some Vitamin D. 

One hour later, I realize I had walked around Granville Island with the back of my skirt tucked into my tights.  Which explains why all of those people were smiling at me. I thought the smile said "cute pugs" instead of "you poor idiot, your ass is hanging out".

The real burn is I stopped and chatted with neighbors along the way, gave our handy man hell for not fixing my door, bent over several times to scope poop. 

Life, you do have a way of humbling me. 

Blast Off

This morning started with a bang.......literally.  

While making breakfast, I had a "Houston we have a problem" moment - resulting in my white kitchen cabinets and ceiling being covered in green smoothie. Oh well, at least this time both pugs managed to survive the ordeal relatively unscathed.

 

So, start your day with a bang with Mika's favorite green smoothie:

Frozen  low fat vanilla yogurt 

banana (when bananas start to get too ripe, peel, wrap in foil, freeze - good as a frozen snack or in smoothies)

matcha tea powder

ground salba (south American grain, rich in Omega 3)

1 hand full of almonds

low fat milk

3 -4 ice cubes

honey or dark chocolate chips optional

Throw ingredients in blender and blend. Don't be afraid to experiment - and for god's sake, do not, under any circumstances, forget to put the lid on the blender.

Busted

This evening I was startled by a knock on my door. Imagine my horror at finding a group of neighbors,  there to inform me that my lights were shining during earth hour. A polite way of saying "get with it sister".

 I'm a hippy at heart -  Tom even goes so far as to call me "Mother Nature in the making" -which makes what I am about to tell you all the more embarrassing. You see I knew it was earth hour, but made an executive decision to ignore it, as I really wanted to watch the telly. What can I say, I have a thing for British Mysteries.

How did it come to this? Used to be Saturday meant a night on the town, for the past few years it's been more about comfort food and really bad TV.  Even my family and friends have a hard time understanding how I can spend hours watching slow paced, British dramas. Hell, at the rate I'm going it's just a matter of time before the Queen and I are one.

I tried to rationalize the earth hour dilemma by convincing myself it would be okay to keep the home fires burning, as long as I turned them off at some point. Like maybe 3 am, which works better with Tyler's time zone anyway. Yea, that's the ticket.

You'd think being confronted by the neighbors would have been a "come to Jesus moment". Instead, I found myself hiding in the woman cave, curtains drawn, hoping nobody saw the luminous glare of the TV.

One side note: Having  the lights out did prove one thing, unlike cats, pugs do not have an innate ability to see in the dark.