Theatre Under the Stars

Yesterday was a very long day for me.  It started at about 6am and didn’t end until the wee hours this morning.  After work, I came home and we had to immediately leave again for a trip out to Abbotsford.

It is so beautiful out there.  If it wouldn’t more than double my commuting time, I would consider moving out there.  If I found the right place, I still might.  It reminds me of the island where I grew up, except without the need for a ferry ride to get to downtown Vancouver.

We were finalizing the purchase of DW’s new car.  It’s a ‘95 Mazda something.  It’s indigo, and pretty

It still needs a bit of work and a run through aircare, so we won’t actually ‘have’ it until mid this week, I think.  It will be so great to have two vehicles again.  I am very excited.

We also learned through visiting with the friends we are buying the car from, that my car’s conniption fits on long drives may just be a faulty O2 sensor.  This would be SO very awesome, since I think that is something that I can replace myself.  May head out to the auto-wrecker this week to see how much a new one will cost me – I got a great deal on my new radiator there, so they are my new best car buddies.

The friend we are buying the car from is running away to join the circus.  Literally.  I think that this is just beyond cool.  I’ve never known anyone with career goals that awesome before.

We found out that he was also starring in the Theatre Under the Stars presentation of ‘A Thoroughly Modern Millie’.  He’s the flasher, among other things

He got us tickets to last night’s show, and after some visiting and paperwork, we headed back into town to see the play.  Driving from Abbotsford to Stanley Park is a REALLY long drive.  Not so long as the drives you have when you live on the island, but I am not used to that anymore.

With traffic and all that jazz, we got there just at 8pm when they were starting.  It was a fantastic show.  We found out that DW had never been to a play before, so it was super exciting for him.  And I had never been to one where I knew one of the actors.

They all did a really great job, and the show itself is hilarious.  I highly recommend that everyone who can get out to Stanley Park this summer go and see it.  A Thoroughly Modern Millie runs alternating nights with Annie until August 22nd – so you still have time!!

Another pretty cool feature of the night was the fireflies.  We don’t usually have a lot of fireflies around here, so they kind of stole the show a bit.  You could see people in the audience pointing at them and whispering to their neighbours.

DW thought at first that bugs were exploding midair – which, admittedly, would have been a lot cooler.  After a really great time, we finally headed home.  As we were leaving the parking lot, we both realized that neither of us had eaten all day and were starving.

I let DW drive home (shocking, I know, but I wanted to sleep, so I made an exception and let him drive my car).  He decided that he wanted a cheeseburger, and we went through the McDonalds drive-thru.

This was a bad idea on many levels.  First, there really isn’t much of anything on the McDeath menu that I can eat, not a lot that anyone *should* be eating, and to make it all that much more interesting, we were stuck there for a half hour.  They had one guy working in the restaurant.  One.  All alone.  Trying to man the drive-thru and cook.  Alone.

Did I mention how McDonalds was a *bad* idea? Luckily, the other people stuck in the drive-thru with us were pretty awesome, so passing the time was actually a lot of fun.  We played horn songs.

I ended up with one of their Angus burgers with ‘extra lettuce’ since I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat the bun.  DW’s cheeseburgers were so shiny you could see your reflection in them.  Needless to say, we both felt a little sick afterwards (even with my makeshift lettuce wrapping).

Don’t think I will be making that mistake again.  Ick!

After midnight, we finally hit home, and crashed.  I don’t really remember climbing up the stairs.  It was a long day, but a pretty awesome one all around, I think.

AC

 

Whew!

Well there is all manner of new looks going on now!  New name, new header and a new ‘About Me’ page.

I can waste many many hours screwing around with web graphics.  I think I am done here now for a bit.

Hopefully, I will have something of interest to post pretty soon.

AC

 

Ideas – Jewelry and Photographs

A trip to the craft store has inspired me to take a bash at making my own jewelry to sell.  I actually know a great many folks who do this with varried success, so I don’t really have any high hopes to make a living off of it.

But, I like to make necklaces, and I think I am pretty good at it, so, why not?  I picked up a few supplies, and I am very excited about the idea of having my own line.  My new camera should be very useful in getting gorgeous shots of my creations to post – and each peice will be made to order (so I don’t have to give up my originals … which has always made this idea flop for me in the past – I want to wear my pretties too! lol), and prices will include shipping – I have always preferred to know exactly how much I am going to be charged before I order.

I’ll post more on this later, though – today I am headed to the beach with my new camera!

–Phae

 

The Muse is Rattling Her Cage

The last little while has cause me to do a lot re-evaluating of my life and where I am going vs where I want to be (Saturn-return sucks heinie, btw).

I will be going back to school part time starting on August 1st.  At first when I realized that I would be at school on Lammas, I was a little bummed, but I have come to realize the influence of Lugh on my life, and I am starting to think that it is rather fitting.

When I was young, the phrase that haunted my artistic pursuits was ‘Jack of all trades, but master of none’.  This is something that I was always something I was told that I should avoid.  I was always encouraged to focus on one thing – one skill, and master it.

Now, anyone who knows me knows how harshly against my nature it is to force myself to focus on one thing to the detriment of my other interests.

The one thing that I loved SO much when I first read about Lugh was that he was a Master of all trades.  He is a hero to me for this reason.  He shows that it isn’t a waste of time to pursue all your varied interests at the same time.

The near future is very foggy for me right now (for reasons I can’t really discuss), and I don’t know for certain where I will end up in the next couple of years.

When I go back to school, I will be working on a photography certification, and I do have the opportunity to go to Emily Carr to get a BFA with a photography major – which is a four year degree, and not really something that I had considered as possible for me previously.

This would be school for the love of school and of art.  I could major in photography and still take classes in painting and sculpting and digital media and fashion/jewellery design and creative writing and whatever else sounds interesting.

In order to get into this art school, though, I would need to put together a portfolio.  Now, I used to paint and draw and lots of other things when I was younger, but I haven’t done more than doodle in a good 5 years at least.

Last weekend, WD when out and bought me new pencils, an eraser and a new sketch book.  I’ll be starting again, almost from scratch – and my creative juices are going into overdrive.  I don’t know where to start.  I want to write and draw and paint and sculpt all at once.  Knowing that I can do it all and that I CAN master it all if I want to is something that makes the butterfly in me infinitely happy.

In between bouts of cooking, cleaning and sewing, I will be sketching this weekend.  Even if all I accomplish is to get the ideas out of my head.

Jack of all trades; master of whatever I want.

–Phae

 

Epiphanies and Discoveries

So, a minor epiphany after a much cranky LJ post of a couple of days ago, came as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep. It was kind of one of those *poof* “Oooohhhh, I get it” kind of moments.

But first, a little background – there are a lot of parts of Wiccan theology that I don’t tend to agree with. Much of it, in fact, I have really just discarded over the years because it didn’t fit at all in my world view. Over the years, I have heard people describe what writings such as the Wiccan Rede mean to them, and I have always felt mildly envious that I just didn’t see what they saw in it.

What I saw was really just a big PITA waiting to happen. The majority of people don’t really understand it and try to invoke it as some sort of High Law for Witches. Academically, I can see the value of how ‘An it harm none, do what ye will’ can be very freeing for people who have lived good portions of their lives under the yoke of a god who tends to take offense at a lot of rather trivial things.

I grew up in a very liberal family, and the ones who were more hardcore were people I just generally avoided because they were a serious buzz-kill for a young and flighty Aquarian.

In the end, I wrote off the Rede as more trouble than it was worth. Until the moment that I realized that it can work both ways. I am sure that most of you have noticed that I tend to be more forgiving of newbies than I was in previous years (I credit this attitude to spending more time working on my own path, and less time caring whether someone else looks silly in front of a TV camera). My feelings these days can be summed up in eight little words:

“If they aren’t hurting anyone, leave it alone.”

The fact that someone may have a silly or even stupid idea does not obligate me to set them straight. Let them think that the world is made of fluffy kittens and unicorns. Let them believe that they are the reincarnation of a fictional character or that they are actually aliens in disguise.

If I can live in a world of Jedis, Trekkies, Plushies, conspiracy nuts, Crystal children, Otakukin and any number of other weird personality quirks, then I can live in a world with Fluffy Bunnies in it, too. In the grand scheme of things, their offenses are really rather mild.

Not to say that I mean to keep my opinions to myself when asked, but if no one is asking, I can just as easily roll my eyes and go on about my business. And in the last four years, one thing I have learned is that no amount of denouncing them is going to change how the mainstream public views Pagans and Witches. Apparently, that takes pizza.

Now, on to the discovery part of this post. I have recently been feeling poked and otherwise prodded to get my altar finished and to get some statuary for it. I have been looking for a nice modern interpretation of Aphrodite (more on that later), when I found a couple of the most gorgeous new sculptures I have seen in a long time.

Neil Sims is an up and coming artist and sculptor from the UK. His busts of the Horned God and the Earth Goddess have been hitting some online shops in recent months (Others can be found HERE). They are really gorgeous, but obviously quite pricey as well (and then shipping from the UK – ouch!)

Some random surfing over the weekend showed me that he draws and paints too. My only sadness is that he doesn’t have a website of his own where you can order prints and see his whole collection.

Some good news on the pricing front of the busts is that the fantasy modelling community got a hold of him before we did. You can order the busts and paint them yourself for about half the cost of buying them bronzed. *as the artist in me squeals with delight* About the only part of those silly fantasy war games that WD used to play that I actually liked, was the modelling. I love painting and altering models!

Now if I can just find something suitable for Aphrodite, then I’ll be set – though, I have an inkling that I may end up having to make something for her as well.

That’s all from me for now.