bitches of kensington

Hey everyone! These kids are making a show for the Toronto Fringe Fest called “buffering…” about a blogger and a witch who may or may not live in the internet? Sounds good to me! Plus they’re all ridiculously good looking people so who doesn’t want to watch that. This morning I shoved them all in my room against the only patch of white wall in my apartment and made them pose for me while I stood on my bed not being a creepy photographer. Here’s three photos from this morning.

allie just told me that in LA mexican, mother is ‘mama’ and commanded me to write it on the blog.

It’s seven pm I have a huge bag of toys and goodies for a three and five year old and they’re nowhere to be found. Bubbles, windmills, sparkly headbands, candy, all wrapped in pink tissue paper waiting to be torn into by little hands. I think there’s a skipping rope in there. And water guns. The other day I gave the three year old lipstick and she really liked it but she didn’t know how to wear it and got it all over her face. Kids are so dumb

Taylor is chewing on a beef bone I’m flossing my teeth and dying to jump in the ocean.          

    See you tomorrow, Toronto. I can’t wait to be back in KENSINGTON It’s so loud here. KENSUNGTUN KINGSINGTIN KINSOWTOW

My landlord’s dog masturbates all the time and it’s really awkward. I miss our striped couches and our coffee shops and painting and my guitar and RUBY! I miss Ruby the most. Also I miss Kaela sometimes a little bit. 

I like Kaela because she says things like Who says your nails are supposed to be painted except the stores that put the bottles of nail polish up at the front where you pay for your clothes so you think, oh everyone must buy one and they you buy it, and you paint your nails. And then I think, I’m never going to paint my nails again, she’s right, it is silly. And then she says let’s get a manicure. And I really want to.

Really though, I’m going to miss these funny little children I’ve become so close with. And the filthy little flea bitten mutt who paws at the wall under my bedroom window until I let him in. I think I get along better with kids than adults anyway. Grown ups are so mean to each other.

Tomorrow I’ll be home. Someone tell Kaela I’m lonely there….. 

When in America, do watch some television.

These two shots come from the casino parking lot where we had our late night Arby’s picnic on the first day of our road trip to Quartzite. I hadn’t eaten Arby’s in years and remembered it tasting a lot better than it actually did. It’s pretty amazing that there can be an entire chain of fast-food restaurants dedicated to roast beef sandwiches. My parents were always huge Arby’s fans from there days of living in Saskatchewan where eating fast-food roast-beef sandwiches was an acceptable date.

The lot was lit by excessively large industrial park style street lights (likely high-intensity discharge) illuminating a giant lot in the middle of a sparse desert. I used two different white balance settings on the shots below.

While Kaela was busy gawking at pictures of me on her computer, I was busy writing the most brilliant screenplay the world has seen since “Raising Arizona.” Also, coincidentally, set in Arizona.

Apparently she wasn’t the only person in the cafe (Insomnia, my favorite spot to write, and open-late) obsessed with staring at me. This super talented artist set up shop beside us and drew me, looking smoking hot as usual. After Kaela figured out why he was creepily watching me, we struck up a conversation and snapped a photo of his newest masterpiece.

No, it wasn’t just my jaw-dropping good looks that made him pick up his E-pen. He does this all the time! Lining the walls of the cafe are photos of patrons he has drawn. Here’s his website: www.stevecurcuru.com/

And here’s the photo.

I took this photo last fall when I moved to Toronto. I had a mattress, lamp, a laptop and some papers.

I’ve done well for myself since arriving in Toronto. I now have a box spring.

The best lighting is hiding in the oddest locations.

The views from the downtown Toronto airport are a pretty lovely on sunny day and impressively depressing on rainy ones. I sometimes go here to look out the window. I have a strong affinity for airports and their oozing feeling of departure and new arrival.

These photos are of Max. He still calls airports hairports because he’s frencher than a baguette and always will be.

24-hours with reflection.

A summer ago Max and I were in a Hungarian vineyard. We biked all the way up an impossibly steep hill off the main route circling lake Balaton and rewarded ourselves with icy rosé and a bag of chips. I left my lens cap on the table by accident. Hope someone found it and put it to good lens protecting use.

This is Tings on the balcony last Saturday night.

Have I mentioned yet that I lived in Paris for two years? This entitles me to talk disdainfully about the state of public transport in “North America”, the terrible coffee in “North America”, the abysmal bread in “North America” and the unforgivably high price of bad wine in “North America”.

y’all click me!

There are flowers in my house!

Some favourite photos from snowball 2012, an open bar extravaganza of undergrads.

As a proper host to my friend Gaby, New Zealand by way of France, I planned a variety of cultural activities for her stay in North America. Of the utmost important, a late night trip to 7-11 to drink slurpies in the snow. The prospect of snow was thrilling for Gaby and she welcomed the arrival of the delicate white, icy flakes with a splendor of glee.

Pure white snow soon turned into fructose infused slush.

Surprise! I can play guitar. And I don’t totally suck. However, your personal taste preference may disagree… find out the truth below.

Mmmm… angst. 

BOK and Tristan went to 24 hour Pho Sunday night. The waiter with blonde hair is our favourite. Don’t read these reviews http://www.yelp.ca/biz/pho-pasteur-toronto. Pho Pasteur at midnight is the best place to be in Toronto on a Sunday night. It’s better and cheaper than hugely over rated Pho Hung (it’s just kitchy pretty y’all, the pho no good).

CHICKEN. IT’S ACTUALLY CHICKEN.

Tristan ate hot sauce and got the hiccups as usual.

And Allie couldn’t stop looking at me, as per usual.

I HAVEN’T EATEN MEAT IN MANY MANY YEARS and for the last month I’ve been incorporating it into my diet and WOWWEEE I started listening to the BLOODY BEETROOTS AGAIN TODAY! What does this mean? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I also started cracking my neck by dropping my head to each side until I hear that satisfying crunch of bone on bone. Speaking of bone, I’m looking at a chicken bone popping out of my soup bowl as I type this. Because I don’t need to look at the keyboard when I type. Somehow this is all connected, and it all comes back to this song:

While these are things I did indeed do today, all photos save for the first, were taken by myself many years ago….

Yesterday I ate diner.

Today I rode my bike.

And drank a lot of tea- and one cup of coffee but shhh…I’m trying to quit.

The weekend was rife with foggy mornings and snowy days in restaurants.

These are the boots that Bahman bought me.

And this is the lamp that lights my room with ‘colour-blocks’ on the walls.

3 falafels and a lentil soup at Akrams, the best and cheapest Middle Eastern resto in Toronto. I reviewed them for BlogTO here

On Saturday morning we went to Grapefruit Moon and ate it all. Keep posted for our review of them coming out soon on BlogTO.

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Allie, so clever and oh so witty with her internet memes. So gullible too it seems…see here

In more interesting news, here’s another great illustration of why cars shouldn’t be in cities

And here’s some cool photos of an abandoned 6-flags in New Orleans

And here’s some crazy pictures taken from airplane windows

And here’s an article about psychopaths running the global economy

Enjoy! And remember…it will bee OK.

My name is Kaela and I was on who wants to be a millianire but I had to pay for my own flight den dis happened

Tonight I stayed at school later than most and walked, subwayed and biked home. Allie was sitting in her regular spot on the couch when I got home and Megan came over soon after. Some how I ended up laying on the floor again with my camera. I’ve noticed this happening more and more often and I’m not sure what this means. The combination of a ridiculously high iso and an unreasonable amount of orange and violent christmas lights created this sunsetesque lighting. The perfect album cover for their all-girl electro-pop rock band?

Things got interesting as I kept shooting but we’ll save those for a different kind of day.

We went for a walk and it wasn’t even cold.

Everything closes at night in Kensington.

But Sam’s is open 24hours incase you need a Jiffy Pop.

And you can examine why you don’t want to eat Spam.

Allie tried to hold-up the store then we stood around in a circle loitering.

Megan left to go stay in her hotel room and Jiffy Pop was had.

Allie and I had a great idea this weekend and we wasted no time in executing our plan. Sometimes it’s good to think about things, and sometimes it’s not. I guess this was one of those “not” times. Here’s Allie face as it’s happening…

Last night Allie and I stayed home. Allie drew a bee holding the letters O K on her leg. BOK. Sound familiar?

If you didn’t already know, Allie got a tattoo during her time in Nova Scotia over the holidays.

Our friendship works out quite conveniently. I like to lay on the floor with my camera and Allie likes to look at herself.

At 1am, Tristan came over to read me stories while I sorted through my suitcase and closet.

In the morning we went to Moonbean for soy lattés because that’s what you do when you live in Kensington Market.

We sat outside in the Sunday morning sunshine.

Allie made faces and broke the camera…again.

Our friends brought us food to eat and we ate it with enthusiasm.

Watch out.

Broke the lens.

With lattes in hand we headed out onto the winter streets of Toronto.

Yesterday we went to Sublime coffee to get lattes. Allie got a single and I got a double. Tristan took these photos of us.

Today we went for a walk on Queen West. We didn’t leave the house until 4.3opm but the light was beautiful. Tristan Laing took this photos of us outside of our home. The yellow wall is my favourite wall in Kensington. 

While we were on Queen West, Tristan bought me a beautiful winter coat. It appears to be of fine tailoring but it was only $10. Allie bought several coat hangers, a dress she is about to show me, and a glass scupture in a female form of various uses.

When we returned home, Tristan made us a dinner of spaghetti with vegan sausages and garlic bread made with avocado.

Allie put on her new dress and pranced about the kitchen, at one point attempting a handstand. I think we like our glass sculpture a little too much.

There are a whole lot of great produce places in Kensington Market, so many it’s impossible to keep track of which is best and cheapest. I’ve decided to do an analysis of the produce stands around the market by making a price list and comparing all prices to the stand I currently think is cheapest, the one across the street from my house, you know, that one that’s really small and crowded but super cheap? Corner of Augusts and Baldwin. Ya, that one. See bellow image:

I will rank places in reference to this place, sort of like a Big Mac Index except far healthier : http://www.oanda.com/currency/big-mac-index

My first target was Oxford Fruit, one of the bigger, “fancier” places at the corner of Augusta and Oxford. It was clearly full of a lot of out-of-marketers who came in with big shopping lists of the fresh produce they would need for the backyard barbeque they would be hosting at their giant house in the suburbs. Women and men alike were all far too excited by the task of picking up their groceries, clearly impressed by the ‘local’ ‘natural’ ‘market’ qualities. Oxford Fruit is one of the more aesthetically pleasing produce stores around, favourable for those more attuned to shopping for their entire grocery supply twice a month at Metro and excited by the novelty of fresh produce. That aside, the prices were, unsurprisingly, inflated. Sometimes shockingly inflated with a small box of US raspberries selling for $2.99. You can grab two boxes for the same price at my place.

Here’s a list of some common items you might want to pick up. The first price is from ‘my place’, the second price comes from Oxford Fruit.

Lemons….3/$1…..same price

Limes…..6/$1……4/$1

Box of Strawberries…..2/$3.99 = $1.995 each…..$2.99/each

Box of Rasberries…..2/2.99=$1.495/each…..$2.99/each

Grapefruit…..3/$1.99….same

Sweet Oranges….6/$2.99=$0.498/each….10/$5.99=$0.599

Cucumbers…..$1.69/each….$1.49/each CHEAPER

Broccoli….$1.29/each…..$2.99/each

Hothouse Red Bell peppers…..$1.49/lb (ontario)….$1.69/lb (mexico and terrible looking)

Vine Tomatoes….$1.29/lb…..$1.79

Apples (most varieties)….$0.99/lb…..$1.29/lb

Kiwi….5/$1.99 = $0.398/each…..$0.59/each

Avacado…..$1.99/each….$2.79/each

Kale….$1.69/bunch…..$1.79/bunch

Spinache…..$1.49/bunch….$1.29/bunch CHEAPER

Lettuce….$1.49/bunch….$1.29/bunch CHEAPER

Cellery….$1.99/bunch…$1.69/bunch CHEAPER

Sweet Potato……$0.59/lb….$0.79/lb

For a couple of the big staples, lettuce, celery, spinach, cucumber, Oxford Fruit was slightly cheaper. If you are really pinching pennies, you might want to venture up the street for these items and these items only. Ironically enough, Oxford Fruits worst prices were for fruits. I didn’t see any real appreciable difference in the quality of the produce, with many of the items being identical. The bell peppers at Oxford Fruit, however, looked positively inedible. It was a pleasant shopping experience with a relatively spacious design and some extra selection offerings my place doesn’t offer like fresh squeezed juice, dandelion greens and fiddle heads. As a destination shop for someone looking for an ‘authentic’ market experience, Oxford Fruit is the Paris of Kensington Market.

I herby declare my place to be the winner of this round of Produce Wars.

I made a seriously healthy salad with my purchases (most from my place) with all this veggie goodness sitting on a bed of quinoa.

It’s Kansas-style, tornado inducing, door slamming windy out, so naturally I decided to go for a bike ride. Nothing like 70km/hr winds to up the pump of a work out. It’s fantastically sunny out though and the winds made it quite refreshing, so I ventured off down a new path I have often seen spandex wearing cyclists head down. I went south on Spadina down to Queen’s Quay and swung a right and followed the very smooth and spacious bike/pedestrian path along the lake Westwards. What a dream boat ride- hard core winds going west and crazy push going back east. Next time I’m going to see how far the path goes and disappear into the sunset and live happily ever after…

You heard right folks, people are indeed gettin’ shot up in hurr! And by ‘people’, I mean three guys. And by ‘shot up’, I mean they were SHOT, with a gun and all. And by ‘up in hurr’ I mean, right here in MY hood Kensington Market. I know you are doing a big “saaaay whaaat” right now, but it is indeed true my amigos, and you probably already know that unless your only news source is this blog. And if that is the case, the world must seem quite uneventful. Anyways, true to Kensington Market style, they were shot in outside of a vegan reggae after-hours, where they were serving vegan soup, not even alcohol. Jon McCurley, an upstanding Kensington resident explains they were just “serving soup, vegan soup, no meat”, so like what the f guys?? skip to 1:10 : http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110529/110529_Shooting/20110529 So

Shootings aside, check out this pictures I took.

OK readers, Bitches of Kensington a.k.a BOK is HAPPENING. So get ready for it. I, Kaela Greenstien, am officially making it my task to post daily on our blog that was abandoned months ago is a haze of winter storms, exams, and trips to Ameerika. I will mainly be posting from my new office located inside of Cafe Pamenar, table parallel to wall at the far back, office hours varrying.

Allie has just left to some town in Czech Republic. In case you didn’t know, Allie MacDonald is that girl from Score: A Hockey Musical. So Score has been picked up for a film festival and Allie is off!  I was walking around the appartment the instant she left…got awks when she ran back in for her sunglasses…

Anyways, here’s what Allie looks like in case you forgot. I took these photos inside of the guitar shop beside Ronnies on Nasau Street. Allie spent about 10 minutes at the counter debating whether she could afford to buy new guitar strings or not- they were $10. She ended up buying them then stringing them the next morning before a show that night. Bad idea, but it worked out in the end. Oh, except for when she had to pay $140 to get her guitar repaired in the end, but that’s another story…