Llama Love

When I was a kid, I lived in a small, rural town.  Actually, “town” is too grand a word for North Gower, Ontario in the 1980s.  Today, with its subdivisions and farmers markets and actual, sit-down restaurants, North Gower is a bona fide village, but in the ’80s when I was a kid, it was a main street with a few shops and a pizza joint, perched on the steps of which you could always find these two old dudes who were collectively known as The Delmers.  I loved growing up there, but bustling metropolis, it was – and still is – not.

Anyhow, the next small, rural town over – a slightly bigger place that had a longer main street, more shops and fewer Delmers – there was a family with a gigantic pet llama that actually lived right on Main Street, and they’d let him out in the front yard to just wander about and scare the crap out of anyone passing on the sidewalk, because suddenly, you know, LLAMA!!!  Small town country life – it’s weird, don’t know what to tell you. 😉

These are fuzzy pink sprinkled llama nails.  Why sprinkles?  Why not sprinkles?!  Isn’t everything better with sprinkles?  A sentiment that’s also a bit weird, and hey look, I still don’t know what to tell you!  Sometimes you’re just in the mood to sport a candy pink llama mani, I guess.

Narwhal Nails

As Hurricane Irma batters the Gulf Coast and beyond, a dear blogger friend who lives in Florida is riding out the storm the only way she seems to know how – with a lot of optimism, hope and creativity.  These are traits she apparently passed on to her two daughters, who – stuck at home by order of closed schools and storm prep – are coming up with their own creative ways of passing the time, such as whipping up these adorable egg carton narwhals.  Their goobery, slightly blank expressions, noggins full of glitter and toothpick horns are the cutest things ever – puts my childhood egg carton caterpillars to shame!

So with thanks to Savanna and Scarlette for putting a big smile on my face (and for sharing this photo) I thought I’d (hopefully!) return the favour with these goofy narwhal nails, extra glittery. 🙂  Thinking of you and yours, Julie, and hoping for nothing but the best.

Literary Inspiration: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

The fifth prompt in my friend Julie’s reading challenge was to tackle a book in your to-be-read pile that you’ve overlooked time and time again.  For me, that’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir), a hilarious collection of sweetly horrifying true life tales from blogger Jenny Lawson.  My best friend gave me this book years ago, after assuring me that I’d find more than a little in common with Lawson’s various embarrassments, and probably also piss myself from laughter.  And so taking her recommendation to great heart, I promptly stuck the book on the shelf beneath four other things and then totally forgot about it.  Slick.

But some gentle nudging in the form of this reading challenge encouraged me to release this forgotten gem from bookshelf purgatory, and I’m glad I did, because Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was hella funny. Lawson gets a lot of mileage out of a very unique childhood, one that mirrored a lot of moments in my own rural upbringing, only writ extra large and super bloody.  Seriously, there are SO many stories involving taxidermized animals and her crazy Viking father’s penchant for traumatizing his daughters with pelt-centric pranks.  It takes a special kind of writer to wring the humour and humanity out of a dead dog story, and yet Lawson manages it.  I tittered throughout and was sad when I finished the final chapter.  Thankfully, my friend gifted me with Lawson’s follow-up book, which is also currently languishing on my shelf, though not for much longer.

This manicure is inspired by the inside cover art of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, a 1950s-style collection of hand-drawn pigs, foxes and raccoons in various states of repose (if by “repose” you mean setting up a lighting rig.)  They’re probably stuffed.  Everything in this book seems to come back to taxidermy in one fashion or another!

I employed a bit of animal fakery in this mani myself, eschewing my normal free-handed approach for an attempt at stamping (key word here being “attempt,” because lordy, do I suuuuuuccccck at stamping.)  I used MoYou London’s Enchanted stamping plate #14, which features a charming assortment of twee little animal designs, including a sweet pug design I stamped onto my index finger in honour of Lawson’s dearly – and somehow hilariously – departed pug, Barnaby Jones Pickles.  In solid black as against an ivory creme, OPI’s My Vampire is Buff, I think the overall effect looks a bit like faded print on a slightly yellowed page of your favourite, much loved book.  So pretty much perfect inspiration. 🙂

Snail Nails

Come join me, friends, as I tell a snail of a tale about my favourite, super lame joke. You’ve most likely heard it before – it’s a total groaner. 🙂

A man is sitting in his livingroom watching the game on TV when his doorbell begins insistently ringing. Jumping up in the middle of a major play, he throws open his front door and finds…no one.  But when he looks down, he sees a snail sitting on the doormat, and in anger at having been interrupted for absolutely no good reason, he hoofs the snail off the doorstep and straight into the street.

Four years later the same man is once again sitting in his livingroom, this time watching some other game, when the doorbell rings.  He gets up and answers, and there on his doorstep is the snail, and it seems to be beckoning him closer!  And so the man lowers his head to ground level, at which point the snail inches forward and yells, “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR, ASSHOLE?”  So terrible; I love it.

War Pigs

Camouflage pigs!  And a fine print for concealing your swine during war…time.  “Cry `Havoc!’, and let slip the piglets of war.”  That’s totally what Shakespeare meant, I know it. 😉