Living Morganism

Wedding Take 2:

My dear friends Dave and Josephine embarked on a journey of their own on July 10 when they tied the knot! I was happpily able to attend the two ceremonies in Los Angeles and happier still and honoured as well to bake and decorate the wedding cake. There were actually two ceremonies, a smaller more intimate one in the morning for close friends and immediate family and a much larger one in the evening for all the family and friends. The cake here, the tiered one, was for the first ceremony. I made another one tier cake for a toppper to a massive tray of cupcakes also that I'll post separately. The cakes were a vegan base with tulsi and rose flowers in the batter and a lemon "buttercream" frosting. I also made little marzipan woodland creatures and put them in a forest made of willow twigs on the cake. SO FUN!

(Written July 1, 2009) It began with a parade not celebrating the independence of a country, but the independence of eccentric locals with musical instruments. Roughly 16 hours ago I awoke. I roused myself much too early on a Saturday with coffee (more to follow later) and a promise to be the first ever resident belly dancer in the Cheltenham Day festivities. The weather: a cool, sea-like, breeze and a cloudless sky. Roughly 16 years ago, I was growing up here in Cheltenham , Ontario . I used to walk with my cousins through the corn fields into town for Freezies. Town, here, being defined as a grouping of houses and a general store and differing from the country in the density of said houses and lack (although not entirely) of barns and tractors. I used to play t-ball here next to the fire house with my Kindergarten mates and swim in the Credit river. Today I am reestablishing myself here, 30 days in, to the country in this Country. I shall call myself a Canadian re-patri

We had an exercise in one of my classes to think about ourselves as 7-9 year old's and try to express the experience of place we had at that age. The idea was to understand where we come from as designers and where our relationship to place came from. Studies, evidentially, say that largely it comes from this time in our development (7-9 years old). I have previously written, though without explicitly stating, about this exact time in my life. My fondest memories date from then (I now know I am not remotely singular in that) and indeed my enduring desire to relate to the landscape on ever deeper levels stems from this time and the place that most inspired it in me. I was living in an ant infested house (I loved it still) in Hockley Valley, Ontario at that point in my life and it's the only house I lived in for any amount of time (4-5 years) that I can remember (technically I lived in Caledon, Ontario in Robinson Hall for closer to 7 years but I was born there and I don't re