a peek inside the fishbowl

Although this little lass likes alliteration, she isn’t much of a “lawn lovin'” kinda lady.

I’ve written about the issue of lawn care before (sans alliteration, thankgod), but I feel compelled to write about it again because those little white pesticide/herbicide signs are popping up around the neighborhood again.

This just in: A green lawn does not have to consist entirely of grass.

Society might dictate that it must be this way, but I am willing to argue that it’s best that we rethink the idea of the front lawn, dispense with the pesticides and weed killers, and make sure there are other things growing there too.

A couple springs ago we started throwing white clover seeds on the patchy bits on our lawn. Clover is green, it’s pretty, and helps the grass grow thicker, which, in turn, helps prevent dandelions from taking over. Clover is what’s called a “nitrogen fixer.” It takes nitrogen out of the air and brings down into the soil by means of special bacteria living in nodes along the roots. And nitrogen is good for lawns.

Clover lawns are supposed to have a big advantage over traditional grass lawns for dog owners too. It’s supposed to be more tolerant to dog pee. We’ll see if that holds true!

There was a song I often had in my head when I was a kid. It must have figured prominently in Bugs Bunny cartoons. Perhaps you know it too:

It’s soft and springy and you can hide toys in it:

And when you take a moment and look really close you realize that it’s like a miniature jungle down there:

Some people might find clover growing between their flagstones to be a bit on the unruly side, but I rather like knowing that good luck might be growing right outside our front door. What about you? What’s your stand on lawns?

Have I ever mentioned that I’m a drugstoreaholic? It’s my big shopping weakness. There’s always something good to buy at the drug store when I need a pick-me up. (I’m thinking specifically of lip gloss, hair products, lotions, and chips. Sometimes I even buy them all at once.)

When the kids were wee I really could have used something like Well.ca. There were many many days that I just couldn’t pull it together enough to get everyone ready for a big excursion to do a drugstore shop. Not just to buy the things we needed every day for our family like diaper cream and Tylenol, but those little things that made me feel like a happy human… like lip gloss.

Well.ca has launched something called the “Baby Club“, a new discount program for parents. Join the club and you get free samples and special deals on baby gear. And to help promote their new venture they’ve given me $200 to give to YOU.

Confession: I debated whether or not to give the $200 in one big sum or divide it into bits so I left it to the Fishies on Facebook to decide. They told me to split it in half, so that’s what I’m doing. :)

Up for grabs: TWO x $100-worth of product from Well.ca. (Intended for two different winners.)

Interested?

• This giveaway is open to anyone residing in Canada, although it is void where prohibited in Quebec. (Sorry mes amis, here’s why.)
• Have a good look through Well.ca and leave a comment below telling us what items interest you in the Baby Club or in any other category on the site. Would you do the practical thing and spend it on baby cereal and vitamins, or something else? DO TELL. :)
• If you can’t post your comment because you’re behind a firewall somewhere, you can email it to me for posting at andrea at quietfish dot com but please note, I cannot be responsible if your entry is misdirected or gets stuck in my Spam folder!
• One entry per person please! I want lots of people to have the opportunity to win. Make sure you leave the right email address, you can’t win if I can’t contact you.
• Good karma goes to those who tweet or post about this on your FB. Seriously, it increases your odds of winning!! ;)
• I will be doing a random draw (via random.org) for two winners at noon EST on Tuesday June 28, 2001.
• I will announce the winner here. Well.ca will be responsible for getting the prizing to the winners.

That’s it! Good luck!

Transparency alert: Westfest is a patron of this blog but I’m not actually obligated to write this post, and as always, opinions are my own.

The four of us spent a few hours on Saturday down at Westfest, and it was great. There were more people, more vendors, more food available, and decent weather too. All was good on that front, but this year I wanted to focus more on the music side of things.

I was very lucky to receive two VIP concert passes this year. (THANK YOU WESTFEST!) This meant that I had a roof over my head (and Mark too, as he came with me on Saturday night), a chair to sit on, access to food, an open bar, washrooms (outfitted with bugspray, hairspray and mouthwash), and of course (the whole reason I came out on all three nights) a great place to listen to some great music.

Here’s DJ Akash, spinning tunes between sets on Saturday night. It’s a short clip, but I love it because not only have I had the pleasure of meeting Akash, but he’s so obviously enjoying himself here. And I felt exactly the same way, all weekend long. Go Akash go!

For once in my life I had the perfect vantage point to take some great concert photos. I couldn’t decide which ones I liked best this morning, nor did I have the time to edit and crop all of them, so I just picked a bunch and uploaded them to my Flickr page. You can go right to the set, or watch a slideshow.

A few quick concert notes (please add your own if you were there)!

Friday night was Quaggiq, an Inuit showcase. I wish I had photos, especially of Tanya Tagaq. Holy mackerel. I enjoyed her performance most of all. I tweeted that she sounded like a freight train, or a hurricane (I couldn’t decide which) but she’s a throat singer with a huge presence. She reminded me of something out of a fairy tale. It was so amazing.

Saturday night was the big night. Bif Naked was the headliner. I’ve never seen her in concert before. I was really impressed. She was funny and sweet, and even brought people from the audience on stage with her a few different times. (What a way to make a lifelong fan eh?) She invited a girl from the audience to sit beside her during one of her songs. Here’s a quick glimpse of what that looked like (sorry for the shaky cam – I need a new video camera!):

I was also really impressed by The Pack A.D. They really rocked it, even though the weather wasn’t exactly on their side.

Sunday night was Ottawa night. I got there in time to catch Marc Charron (I’m a convert) and Mighty Popo, who had everyone singing and dancing (a rarity in Ottawa methinks). It was obvious they were having fun. And by the end of the evening my face hurt from smiling so much. How could it not?

As I mentioned, you can see the rest of the concert photos here.

Westfest knocked my socks off this year. How about you? Did you catch any of the music? What was your fave act? And what did you think of the new venue?