Weddings are a blood, sweat and tears marathon, my friend. Well, minus the blood and tears, I hope.

Holy moly! Weddings are hard! Well, maybe not hard but definitely very busy, and if I don't end up a little bit sleep deprived I'll be throughly surprised. This is why people take honeymoons right after the wedding, I suppose. You need that time to decompress.

Oh! We finally perfected our wedding cupcakes (after 3 trial runs) and this is it:

Simple, but at least it's not a cupcake wreck like the last ones we tried. Tonya did say it looked "boob-ish" but we're okay with that - I mean, it is a lady + lady wedding.

Preparations

It's officially under 2 weeks until the wedding! And, man, we have a lot to get done. I've made lists upon lists of things to do, and then I always seem to lose those lists and just go off the top of my head. I guess we'll see what we get accomplished this weekend. At least we've finished the inevitable mess of the seating arrangement. All the table now have "font names" like Cracked or Garamond. We figure it's more fun to announce these names instead of table 1 or table 2. Here's Emma preparing our signs for the highways. We also made our own gift box. DIY weddings are a blast!

This is going to be the best gay bash of the year! Take that Toronto Pride Parade! Really, I'm just saying this so I don't get too upset that we'll be missing it. Plus, the Edmonton Pride Parade always has those couple of protesters that get humiliated by the overwhelming amount of queers that try to hug them. Heh. That's always fun to watch. We'll get to see it all one last time before we head out East. 

Speaking of out East, I've compiled a list (oh, how I love lists) of things that I can't wait to do or try out upon our arrival:

- Good Food Box - Ontario-grown food, organic (if you want), and a variety of fruits and vegetables depending on what's in season.

- Riding my bike or walking pretty much everywhere.

- Never missing a great band because they just don't come to your city (*cough* Patrick Wolf )

- Never missing great movies because they don't play in your city, and then having to order them online just to see them.

- So many great vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurants.

- Records, records, records! And cheap ones at that.

- More than 2 good festivals per year.

- A less insane and bigoted government that the one in Alberta.

- The sheer number of Jesus fish on people's cars is likely to decrease.

- The humidity is bound to do amazing things for my hair and skin. Keep my tattoos from drying out every other day.

- An effective and far-reaching transit system. I'm selling my stupid car as soon as we're settled.

- A city that's not afraid to use graffiti on it's buildings. Here's a perfect example: 

- Hang out with Kelly! And many of the other cool people in Toronto.

- Eat sushi more than twice a month. Here we come cheap sushi buffets!

That's all I can think of at the moment but, trust me, there's many more reasons.

Ooops!

Uh, so I ended up getting my proper income tax refund. It seems I'm the monkey (obviously, the shit-flinging one). It's bizarre that I received 2 cheques, though. Not that I'm complaining but you think they'd just send it all at once.

Even though, I got the money to take my spring class we've already booked our Calgary trip so I'll take it in August. Frankly, I'm relieved. This means I can help out for that whole week before the wedding instead of worrying about having a mid-term on the Monday after the wedding bash.

Speaking of the wedding, it's only 17 days away! Huzzah!

Hahahahahahaha!

Mr. Buns with a blue/purple mohawk:

Tattoo Tuesday

As I type this Emma is getting tattooed by the extremely talented Shawn O'Connor at Ink Machine. I think this is one of the reasons to stay in Edmonton - the abundance of great tattoo artists. We've been lucky to get some great work by Shawn, Miles Kanne of Lucky Strike, Lee Conklin at Crimson Empire, and even a little neck tattoo by Kevin at Urge 2. Unfortunately, Toronto has close to nothing for great tattoo shops, so every time we end up back in Edmonton we'll have to get some work done. Or there's always Montreal. 

Also at the moment, Mr. Buns and Finnigan (my mom's dog) are getting their spring haircuts, and Mr. Buns is getting his mohawk dyed! Blue! We're hoping it comes out more of a purple-ish colour but blue is still pretty cool. I'll post pictures once it's all done. I'm really excited for this grooming because, lately, Mr. Buns has taken to burying his bones in shit. Yup, good ol' shit. I don't know where he's finding it, and it doesn't smell like other dog poop so I'm guessing he found a pile of manure somewhere in Grandpa's garden.

But enough of tattoo and doggie talk - yesterday, I got my Canadian Income Tax refund. I sent it in on Netfile and it said I'd be getting somewhere close to $900 back. To my surprise, it was... $67 (and that's rounding it up)! What the hell? How do you go from $900 to $67? Monkeys could do better math! And, perhaps, they do:

Well, there went all of my plans to take my French 112 course at the U of A in a couple weeks. Now I have to wait until the summer course in July. I can afford the $700 then. So, since Emma and I can't move until I finish that course in mid-August we've decided to go on a brief honeymoon in Calgary a day or two after the wedding.  If anyone knows of some cheap accommodations please let us know. Currently, we're looking at renting out a condo for a week. Slightly cheaper than hotels and we can make our own food! Personally, I just can't wait to get away from the constant amounts of people around. Emma and I can finally just sit and peruse the interwebs, and not worry about being interrupted by company or seeming lazy (for those who don't know - we are living with my Grandfather for the moment which is a great way to save money for the wedding, and we helped him out after his car crash, but it's a bit tough living back at home after you haven't lived there in probably 4 or 5 years). Oh, also The Dears play in Calgary on June 2! Hence, good reason to go!

One Fine Weekend

Had an excellent weekend. We went into Edmonton to pick up some groceries and horribly cheesy horror flicks for a fun-filled Saturday evening full of food and bad dialogue.

While in town we stopped at Planet Organic and picked up this:

Gluten free cookie dough ice cream made with coconut milk! So delicious, but also $8 for this tiny container. Well worth it in my opinion.

We then visited The Lobby on Whyte Ave. and picked up The Re-Animator and Troll 2 (apparently the " best worst movie" ever). Not soon after, Katie and Matthias came over so we could eat some BBQed deliciousness. Emma and I made some firm tofu marinated in Braggs on a bun with melted cheese and avocado. It was tofu heaven. Almost tasted like chicken - but, then again, I haven't had chicken in quite awhile. I'll have to try it again without a couple of girly drinks clouding my judgement.

As for the movies, they were terrible and I loved every damn second of them. Here's a link to a trailer of Troll 2:

Looks awesome, doesn't it? Feel good movie of the year. The year 1990, that is. The real trailer is here.

These are just a few things I learnt from Troll 2:

- Never trust vegetarians
- Always carry a "double decker balogna sandwich" in your backpack
- Sex = Popcorn
- An apple a day makes you goblin pate
- Nilbog is goblin backwards.
- Grandfathers and grandsons bond over molotov cocktails
- They're eating her! Then they're going to eat me! Oh my Gooooooooooood!

Hopefully, once we move to Toronto we can find a theatre that plays it once or twice a year. The upcoming documentary actually looks quite good.

Tonight we actually plan to watch some decent DVDs: House Season 2 and Man on Wire. Man on Wire should be rad, and House is always fantastic.

P.S. For Tonya - have a blast in Winnipeg! And avoid any confrontations with squirrels.

Blogger Time!

I figure it's about time for a "real" blog (can't do Livejournal from this damn phone, not to mention the useless posts from LJ communities) Also, there's not much to do out in the middle of nowhere, and when Emma and I move to Toronto we have to keep the Edmonton folk updated on our big city adventures. So here we go.