...and baby makes three!

I know two posts a day might be considered excessive (especially if one bothers to have a look at the actual content!) - but I had to share the good news!

A couple of weeks back, I came home from work to the following scene:

I guess I forgot to give the little speech about the facts of life (which, in my public school days was "Abstinence is the only 100% effective method of birth control, so I don't know how much good it would have done anyway) because today when I returned from the dollar shop, lo and behold:

Bubbles Duck! (Baby Duck = "bubbly" = well, you get the picture)

Oh, I should mention that Bubbles has already been baptised as in the Greek culture it is considered bad luck to reveal the baby's name before the baptism. (Plus, the godparent actually gets veto power over the name. No wonder I didn't have kids!!) I did not wait the requisite 40 days after birth... I do hope that's OK.

From the left: candle, Father Yanni, Panayia and Christ, candle, the proud nouna (godmother) Spiroula, and Quack.
Where is Daisy, you might well ask. The answer: standing at the back of the church. This is where the proud mother gets to hang out for the whole baptism ceremony. Nice, eh? Especially when the ceremony involves stinky incense and dunking the kid in a huge tub three times. I've never seen a video of a Greek baptism where you could actually hear anything but the baby screaming!

But where did I find a priest at such short notice?

Look familiar? This is Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister. My mother gave me this "action figure" a few years back. He had lived in Kingston, my hometown and so everything in Kingston is called "Sir John A" this and "Sir John A" that.

It should be noted that to my understanding the action figure is not accurate as Sir John A (or, on second thought, was that Sir John, Eh?... I'm such a hosehead!) is not holding a whisky bottle and chugging from it. According to popular legend this was about the only "action" he got up to on a regular basis. This is not surprising, as he came from Glasgow, JJs hometown.

The Scots are everywhere! Do I hear bagpipes?!?

But I digress. Here is a photo of the full family:


Funny how much bigger Bubbles is than his parents already. Rather similar to all of these 5 foot tall Greek parents with 6 foot 5 Greek Canadian sons (man, I wish I had benefitted from that diasporic height gene!!).

This is my present to the new arrival:

Hir first Greek schlock art piece (I say "hir" because I'm not clear on what gender s/he is. And really, it doesn't matter!).

Please don't mind me - I'm just giddy from my huge success in my shopping expedition earlier today. It was a lovely day for a walk, meaning I spent far more money than I had intended. Nothing changes.

On my way out, I spotted a full length mirror someone had scrapped at the first building south of mine. I debated taking it back to my place right away, then decided that I was was intended by the fates to have this mirror, it would still be there when I got back.

My first shop stop: Zia Mosaics. I had not been at this shop in a long while and so I got to meet the new owner, Patrizia, a lovely woman. I had intended to spend no money at all due to a still rather large stash of glass and tile, and with the best of intentions wandered in to look at her pieces on display (which were great).

Then I made the mistake of looking at her selection of books and tiles. So, of course I left the shop with all of this:

A CD with 746 mosaics on it!!! Wow!! And I was so impressed that she sells pieces of broken china... I've not seen that at other shops I have frequented in past:


(I must say that "Good Kristina" was conspicuously absent today in my travels. She must still have been hungover from all of the Keith's that Evil Kristina chugged at the tenant advocates' pub night last evening. Given the typical futility of her presence at all, I feel rather relieved.)

Patrizia then advised that she will be getting in smalti starting in January. There go the January, February and March 2008 paycheques, by which point I should be well into the process of getting evicted for non-payment of rent.

Before I started looking around any more, I hightailed it out of there. Next stop: my favourite neighbourhood dollar store, Bargain Home (located very conveniently next to the No Frills and a stone's throw from the LCBO. Here is part of the haul:
The above plus this:


(from the Pro hardware on the way back to my building - another favourite local hangout) will hopefully equal a Carmen Miranda headdress very, very soon.

After popping into the Shoppers to stock up on Diet Coke, I headed back with all due haste to see if the mirror was still there:


YAY!! A real score... I had thought it was scratched but it turned out to be mud only. Treasure from Trash!!!

So, lots of exciting crafts to work on - and I must also get back to my knitting design project (after, of course, I do my monthly excavation... er, cleaning. Where is Heracles when you need him, anyway? Sheesh).

Cheers,

Kristina

PS. Were you wondering what is up with Bubbles' little metal attachment? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway. It is an interesting genetic mutation clearly passed down to hir by hir yarn-loving parents. Viz.: