#TOONswag - Live-drawing #BlissDomCA

BlissDom Canada conference, Toronto.

When I sit down to live-draw someone new, I think to myself, "...can I do this?"
Every. Single. Time.

Going to a conference to meet a lot of new people can have the same effect on me: What if everyone finally finds out that I have no idea what I'm doing? I'm getting better at pushing through that.

I have to start at a pre-Blissdom meetup here in Montreal - organized by Fariha Naqvi who blogs at Canadian Mom Eh. You may have seen her in the media lately speaking out against the Quebec Charter of Values. We met for coffee and I totally toonswagged her!

Super-cool @JackiYo finally posed for me at BlissDom Canada. She blogs at What Did She Say? I've met her a few times now.

This is Jason Theodor aka @jted. His session at BlissDom - The Art of Creativity - was amazeballs. This man is truly gifted at wordgenesiosis. Watch for his upcoming book at JasonTheodor.com.

I met @ActiveKidsClub at BlissDom's Great Canadian Outdoors Party, which was a good fit for someone who blogs about getting kids outdoors at Active Kids Club. I was smitten by her pink stripey billyboots and sparkley silver top. Toonswag ensued.

Kirstine Stewart, Head of Twitter Canada, was giving a brilliant keynote at BlissDom about Twitter "moments" when I drew her. But when I tweeted out the image, I sent it to @KirstenStewart. OOPSIES.

Twas the jugular of irony. Luckily @RadioRedHead was on the ball and made sure @KirstineStewart got the tweet.

And she used it as her profile pic.

I know, right?

Which culminated in a perfect Twitter "moment" for me, #toonswag and #BlissDomCA.

Of course, I didn't want Kirsten (Kristen?) Stewart the actress to feel left out, so I drew her too. I can't even tell which account is actually her! What a debacle; I blame menopause.

What is this woman's Twitter handle and can Kirstine Stewart get it verified for her?

After four years of Innerwebbing I met Tamara McPherson of WonderMoms.ca at BlissDom Canada. And she posed for me. It was her birthday, so she didn't hold still for long.

Silver crowned loveliness! @RossanaWyatt showed off her groovy necklace. She blogs at Being Gluten Free.

Sandy Macnamara invited me to be BlissDom roomies at the Delta Meadowvale Hotel. We stayed up late chatting and getting to know each other; it was like super-concentrated friendship. I miss her already.

@ToyWithMe on Twitter, Sandy runs an adult toy review site called Toy With Me. Go check it out: it'll be your pleasure.

This woman is @ShannonFisher - a blogger who walks the delicate line between courage and vulnerability. She's got a zillion watt smile and writes with her heart on her sleeve at Truthfully. We had recently bonded over the Mrs Hall blip and Shannon posed for me at BlissDom.

Who's the Daddy blogger with the biggest heart? Chris Read! If you sit near him, you can actually hear it go BOOM. This dude blogs at Canadian Dad and tweets as @CanadianDadBlog

Finally, closing up the bookends with another homie, @MoxieDude! Also known as Mona Andrei, she blogs at Moxie-Dude (as in "she's got moxie, dude!"). Ask her about the hamster.

Mona drove us to and from Toronto for BlissDom. She only hit the rumble strip twice and I'm pretty sure one of those times was to wake me up.

One conference, eleven TWELVE toonswags.

Who's next?

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The Tenth Floor TURD.

WARNING: Not for those who are easily flushturd.

This didn't actually happen. Well, okay, it did happen but not exactly.

Me and my friend Robin (known as #TheRobin on Twitter cuz she has yet to exist there) went to BlissDom Canada this weekend. We trained it from Montreal, and headed straight to the Sheraton Centre, located "in the vibrant core of downtown Toronto". Needless to say the long train ride had resulted in an urgent need to use the toilet for Number 1. Which we did as soon as we got checked into our hotel room.

But instead of flushing, the toilet did that horrifying thing with the water rising up threateningly to the brim of the toilet bowl...and then just staying there. Uh-oh!

The Robin called the front desk, and some poor unsuspecting maintenance man came up from house-keeping. He just stood there and stared at the toilet bowl. I was standing next to him thinking, wow, this is really embarrassing! But I love embarrassment, it's like, one of my favorite emotions.

Some of my best stories come from my ability to embrace embarrassment.

So the maintenance dude and I are staring silently at the toilet, full to the brim with pale yellow water. And a token bit of toilet paper floating sexily on top. Naturally it also smelled faintly of female pee.

Eventually he looks at me and says, "If I flush it, will it overflow?"

Seriously? How should I know? I shrugged and smiled. Anything could happen and I was hopeful.

He wisely decided not to try flushing it. Off he goes to get a plunger, tarum, tarum, tarum. And he unplugs the toilet. And later that same day it blocked up again. So he came back and unblocked it again.

Lucky for him, it was only ever Number 1. But that didn't stop me and The Robin imagining what it would be like if it was Number 2.

The Robin came up with the title for this blog post. You guys can thank her for that. And the Sheraton gets top marks for prompt toilet unblocking services.

Embarrassment might be one of my Super Powers.

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The Morris House Hotel.

My mom came over with her travel book , opened it up and pointed to a photograph of a picturesque garden restaurant.

“This is where we should stay in Philadelphia,” she said.

And so we did. Built in 1787, The Morris House is the ultimate heritage boutique hotel, an oasis of colonial charm a few blocks from ye olde Liberty Bell. It’s seriously cute!

The first morning we sat having our coffee in the hotel's Salon and this Napoleonesque style painting was winking down at me from above the mantelpiece and practically flirting. I peered at it closely.

Something about the face didn’t look quite as “period” in its execution and my thoughts were just lingering on that. Yeah, there was something about it…

“Good morning ladies!” I turned to see a dashing gentleman in blazer and ascot. It’s possible I imagined the ascot. Probably.

This dude is smiling and friendly and has something of a playboy twinkle, walking through the rooms all debonair and asking us how we like the place. 

Shannon, the Innkeeper, comes into the room from the reception and introduces him. “This is Michael DiPaolo, one of the owners of the Morris House.” Then she points to the mantel and says, “that’s him in the painting”.

It totally was!
Hoteliers with a sense of humour? I was most intrigued.

Michael Dipaolo was joined by another dapper dude, the other owner Eugene Lefevre - they chatted with my mom about the restaurant in the Hotel, Restaurant M, the menu, the plating, the service…the wine. The soft shell crab. My mom was loving it.

How many hoteliers do you get to do this with?

Over the course of our stay I decided I really wanted to draw these guys. So I told Shannon I was a blogger and asked if they’d mind being tooned.

And I gave her my card. And she read my blog, pinworms and all.

Must’ve been ok though cuz she arranged for both the owners to sit down with us on our last day, and they agreed to let me interview them.

Eugene Lefevre and Michael Dipaolo are architects, they started their business together restoring heritage buildings. Audaciously they once put a 10K deposit on a 10 million deal to buy Lits Bros. Department store built in 1891, saving it from the impending Wrecking Ball of Doom. It’s now the Mellon Independence Center and you might say that was their flagship project together. These guys are real estate developers who actually care for the history of the city's buildings.

The pair bought the Morris House in 2000, and with a lot of TLC and attention to colonial detail, they turned it into the boutique hotel it is today. Turns out Michael’s not the only one to have been painted – Eugene told me that he was the first one to hang his portrait in the Morris House as they restored it. Their friend Bill Whiting had portrayed him as an English country Squire” and Eugene hung the portrait above the mantel at the front entrance.

I didn't get a very good photo of it so I just tooned it. The actual painting is truly lovely.

Eugene said that when Michael saw it, he wanted one too. Bill Whiting apparently just told him to bring a frame and said that he’d “fill it”. So Michael showed up with a honking big frame and claimed the mantel in the main sitting room.

The Rogues Gallery doesn’t stop there – several friends have had their portraits done by Whiting (including Gene's wife Deborah!), and these hang throughout the main floor rooms. Which totally makes me feel at home, cuz that’s what I do: surround myself with I DRAW YOU’s and TOONswag.

I'm not a travel blogger but I will tell you this: the place is amazeballs - it's full of stories! But best of all, the nice people at Restaurant M gave me a beautiful glass of Chardonnay when I got back from the Philly meetup. They let me take it up to our room.

Luxury.

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England - Cloudy with a CHANCE of showers.

Here we are in England land! Normally we stay with my MIL down in Cornwall, but this time we're here for a funeral so we're staying in a hotel near Ascot (horse races, big hats). This hotel was built in the 1940's and the plumbing is, er...interesting.

Yes indeedy, I have been confronted with some difficult decisions during our stay - to shower or not? I decided to take my chances.

I never did get to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.

The shower experience is a little random for sure, but hey, at least I'm clean!

I drew this one using Paper, on my iPad.

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