Blog of a not-so Social Gal

Once upon a time, a very lucky girl (aka: me) got invited to a very fabulous party.

The raison-d'être for the party was the launch of the third edition of the Diary of a Social Gal magazine. Described as "part diary and part social/lifestyle/fashion port," the magazine (and website) are ALL editor extraordinaire Jenn Campbell's creation.

And boy oh boy does she know how to throw a party! 

Not to mention the fact that she, along with yours truly, is dying for "a night out with Chelsea Handler."

But I digress.  

Held at the Ritz-Carlton on hump day, the party featured live music, salt-baked fish and more beautiful people than you can shake a stick at. 

I mention the salt-baked fish not in jest but because I really enjoyed it. Thanks Milos!
 
Plus the Moët. Ahhh the Moët!

The raison-d'être for my being invited to such a fabulous party was my previously mentioned luck. The oh-so-lovely Olivia (aka: Dirty Martini) asked me to go along as her date because she knows of my writing (and fashion) related aspirations.

And my love of Moët.  

After work, and pre-party,I made my way to Indigo for some (very) fresh air and a browse through the fashion section. While there, I surreptitiously overheard 2 Fashion Police wannabes rip into Alexa Chung's "It" book, suggesting it be named "Shit" instead.

 alrighty then!

After the rude awakening, I headed back to my office to get ready. 

"Am I really glam enough for a Social Gal party?" I pondered anxiously while using Lysol wipes to try and fix my still-wet manicure and googled "bare winter legs" to see if my decision to not wear tights, despite the below-zero temperatures, was gauche or not.

The Fashion Police wannabes would surely have something to say about it.

Don't mean girls and boys always have something to say about everything? Especially other people's happiness.

I pushed my negative self-talk aside and headed to the washroom to change into the Victoria's Secret dress the beau bought me for Christmas last year and take a few obligatory selfies.

After I applied an Instagram filter, making myself feel even better, I headed out to meet Dirty Martini and have a fabulous time.

Take that mean girls (and boys).

 

Blood is thicker than water

My sister and I have a few things in common. 

An affinity for Elvis Presley. The tendency to speak our minds. An obsession with vampires. 

Blood...

I was watching True Blood tonight when I realized that Mo (my sister) really reminds me of Pam. Not Pam my sister's sister (!) but Pamela Swynford de Beaufort.

Like Pam, my sister is gorgeous. Like Pam, my sister has lips Mick Jagger would kill for. Like Pam, my sister is a bit of a... straight-shooter. She is blunt, to say the least, with a "sweet yet highly lethal charm."   

Like Pam, she's perfect just the way she is.

In honour of my sister, and sisters the world over, here's to gals like Pam and Mo.

You gotta love 'em! 

Thanks for being the vamp to my Sook-eh sis!

Nihon o omoidasu

If the title of this blog post leaves you lost in translation, you're not the only one. 

I woke up this morning "remembering Japan," or "Nihon o omoidasu," and wondering what it is about this time of year, this week, today, that has me reliving, and remembering, the past.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that I recently moved into an apartment that reminds me of the one I had in Japan. 

Koshigaya, to be specific. 

After a year of living large in the country, in an abode that housed a walk-in closet larger than my current kitchen, I'm back to Japanese-style living.

Think... capsule hotel.     

While my current apartment is not quite as, ummmm, cozy (real-estate talk for small), as a capsule hotel and, thankfully, isn't equipped with the (mite-infested) tatami mats it's Koshigaya counterpart was, it does remind me of the place I called home for one year when I was 23.

Minus the genkan. Which I loved. 

Imadake is another reason I've been lost in translation recently. 

Meaning "only for now," Imadake is a Japanese pub in downtown Montreal that serves small, traditional and very "oishi," or "delicious," dishes (including mochi, takoyaki and okonomiyaki) in an ambiance totally reminiscent of Tokyo.

Ever have a sake bomb? If you haven't you should.

When I say sake, you say bomb!

 the sake bomb starts at 1:02

To appease the lack, and loss, of Japan in my life I decided to watch Lost in Translation this morning while writing this blog post. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, the movie provides moment after moment of deja-vu, as Scarlett Johansson's character finds herself living, and feeling, so many of the same things I did so many moons ago.  

Like this:

And this:

 Lost in translation indeed.

Gif it up!

After a somewhat traumatizing evening (I won't go into details... suffice it to say, I'm traumatized!) and several somewhat politico posts, I'm ready for a laugh.

And nothing gets me laughing harder than my all-time favourite Kardashian: K.

(That was a trick. Those of you who know the Kardashians know that all of their names start with a k.) 

(Then again, those of you who know me know that my favourite Kardashian is Queen Kourtney.)

But I digress.

Since my name isn't Khloe, Kim, Kylie, Kendall, Kris or Kanye and I don't live in Calabasas, I most certainly don't have the privilege of knowing Kourtney personally.

Krap!

 

Well, I don't know about you but I feel somewhat better. 

Somewhat.

The urban warrior

When I lived in Toronto, way back when, there was an urban warrior.

Dressed in army fatigues and armed with nothing but a large plastic bag, the urban warrior had but one task in mind: picking up litter. Over the seven years I lived in Toronto I saw him all over the city, slowly but surely making it a better, greener place - one piece of litter at a time. 

I often tried to find information about the urban warrior, but to no avail. 

He was nameless. He was faceless (not literally, but figuratively). But he certainly wasn't useless. 

In doing a little research for this post, I decided to try and look him up again. While I didn't find him, I did find this guy, Mark Giesbrecht, aka "the litter guy." Much like the urban warrior, Mark spends his days picking up litter in Toronto. Unlike the urban warrior, Mark asks for donations/supplies via a large, handwritten sign that he keeps strapped to his back.

While you can't blame, or shame, a guy for asking for money for a job done, I kind of love the fact that the urban warrior did what he did payment, and glory, notwithstanding.

Either way, both the urban warrior and the litter guy are special people - angels, in their own special way.

According to this article from the Toronto Star, incivility and unfairness trouble Mark.

I know how he feels.

Can you imagine the kind of world we'd live in if everyone cared about the planet, and people, as much as Mark and the urban warrior do?

Mark used to be homeless and his dream is to help the homeless. He works seven days a week to make his $450 a month rent (this is back when the article was written in 2009) and he loves morning talk shows "because ignorant comments about the homeless fill him with the indignation he needs to start his day."

I know how he feels.

One last word.

According to David Suzuki, cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world, with 4.95-trillion (trillion!!!) tossed onto the ground or water every year. "Cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic, which can take up to 25 years to decompose. The toxic butts are ingested by animals, especially birds and marine animals."

 
And so the urban warrior in all of us must fight on!

The better way? Me thinks not

Now that I've been back in the city for a little over three months I can safely say the honeymoon is over!

Taking the metro into work this morning, all my old feelings (annoyance, aggravation and anger, to name but a few) came flooding back.

Every time I lineup to take the metro, whether it be in the morning on my way to work or in the evening on my way home, I feel like George Costanza. I mean... we are living in a society here, right??? So why doesn't anyone else seem to be aware of that?

The rules of society (it's called first-come, first-served people) and the Societe de Transport de Montreal, or STM for short, dictate that everyone wait their turn. The STM even took the time, and spent taxpayers' money might I add, to have diagrams drawn on the ground of every metro platform, so commuters would know exactly where to lineup before embarking.   

But nooooooo.  

At least 50% of commuters disregard these diagrams completely, budding ahead of the other 50% of people who are desperately "trying to live in a society here!" 

Getting on the metro is literally like whatever sport is most like a shoving match. Football perhaps? Or maybe rugby?

Gripe #2: Move to the back of the bus assholes! 

Every time I force my way onto a "packed" bus and literally squeeze and curse my way to the back of said bus, I want to take a picture.

Why, you may ask?

Because the entire back of the bus is EMPTY!

That's right. Emp-ty.

Most commuters are too stupid selfish to realize that if they move to the back of the bus others will be able to get on - as opposed to freeze their buns off while they watch half-full buses drive by without stopping because there is "no space left."

URGH!

My last anger-fueled rampage is aimed at pedestrians who think they own the sidewalk.

You don't!

While you and your three friends may enjoy walking down St. Catherine Street arm in arm a la Sex in the City, I will not jump out of your way, into a ditch or oncoming traffic, so you can do so. I will continue walking and make direct physical contact with you.

And we're back to football... 

While the Toronto Transit Commission's slogan is "the better way," I suggest the STM's should be "the most annoying way."  

And I could really do without the music every. single. time. the metro doors open and close...

Homeless nation

Having lived in the confines of the country, and a somewhat gated community, for the past year, I've missed out on the misery that is the ever-worsening homelessness situation in Montreal. 

As winter quickly approaches and being homeless takes on life or death proportions, I can't help but feel that I (and everyone else for that matter) should be doing a lot more to help those that this city seems to have forgotten.

Or chooses to ignore.

Last week, as I made my way from the metro to the office (I'm talking about a very short, maybe three-minute walk max) I counted over five homeless men sleeping on the ground. In the cold. With nary a blanket in sight.

I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry.

But crying won't help anyone.

With municipal elections about to head to the polls (November 3), I thought I'd go online and see what our city's politicians are doing saying about the sitch.

I was surprised glad to see that each candidate had, at the very least, taken the time to formulate a policy re: poverty. I was surprised shocked to see that l'Equipe Denis Coderre had not even announced a position re: the environment.

But I digress.

The Coalition Montreal Marcel Cote seems to have given the issue the most thought. According to the (handy-dandy) diagram created by the Montreal Gazette, his team plans to "build 15,000 social and community housing units over five years with assistance from (the) Quebec government, including a proportion adapted for the disabled or infirm. Develop a bank to make cooperative housing ventures more affordable as needed. Hire inspectors and create (a) database to track landlords and properties which aren't being maintained. Support organizations (that are) fighting poverty."

McGill's Centre for Research on Children and Families recently (2012) reviewed literature on homelessness in Canada. According to their findings, Montreal's homeless population was anywhere between 10,000 and 28,000 people in the early 2000s, with males making up a disproportionate percentage of the visible homeless population (and accounting for 91% of shelter users).

Those who know me well know why this issue is so important to me - and why it touches so very close to home. 

A home that I, unlike so many others, am lucky enough to call my own.

if you'd like to help Montreal's growing homeless nation there are any number of ways you can. From simply 1) respecting them as human beings (a simple smile and/or hello works wonders) and 2) education yourself about the homeless to 3) passing on gently-used clothing, bringing food and/or donating money to 4) volunteering... there is definitely something YOU can do to improve at least ONE PERSON'S lot in life.

For a list of resources (mostly shelters), click here and contact the one that speaks to you to find out what else you can do.

Thank you!