Sonya's Patates Braavos: Edition #11 💌🥔

TLDR: taxes, Persian food, drinks and drapes

welcome note 👋 

Hello, brave patates! Today I enjoyed warm weather in Ottawa (call-back to cold suffering last Sunday), cleaned my entire balcony, and then sat down and finished a 350+ page book in one go 😂 Harlan Coben’s “Just One Look” was gripping, enthralling, and a total page-turner. His shows on Netflix, “The Stranger,” “Safe,” and “Fool Me Once” are also fantastic.

Anyway, what was your #BravePatate moment of the week?

random cool things corner

• See: Apparently, magnolia have begun blooming at Ottawa’s Arboretum so I want to see.

• Eat: Ottawa’s Play Food & Wine is a delightful fine dining experience. For $49, you get two “small plates” but they are not that small and are, in fact, very filling. I had gnocchi with German sausage, mustard, and extra blue cheese as per my request.

• Eat 2: Ayla’s Social Kitchen is an amazing Persian restaurant in Ottawa’s Little Italy. The pulled lamb with pomegranate was amazing, and the pomegranate martini was too.

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• Watch: I started watching The Kardashians on Disney+ and it’s so good. I also returned to watching My Unorthodox Life on Netflix and I love it (how Julia Haart left an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and completely changed her and her kids’ lives). Extremism and fundamentalism of any form are awful, and for some reason, particularly awful to women…

business updates

• I am doing a lot of organizational work at Apt613. It’s an award-winning hyperlocal arts and culture non-profit. We’re always looking for more writers if you are interested in covering a wide variety of cool Ottawa events, from glassblowing and theatre to books, art, and music.

• I wrote a new piece for Telfer, interviewing Kathryn Tremblay, a successful entrepreneur who founded excelHR and Altis Recruitment. Her team is now looking it over. I used to take writing edits super personally but now I know it’s not about me as a writer, but about the image the company wants to portray online. (And I charge extra for demanding clients 😇 )

• Because I’m self-employed, I pay taxes in installments. This makes sense because I pay them in the year I earn income. CRA also does that so I don’t keep the chunks of money and earn interest on them during the year. Anyway, I did all my instalments and thought I’d get a refund and then I ended up owing more… I don’t earn six figures and I’m taxed 24%… Not very motivating for small businesses in Canada and I don’t quite understand what I get for my tax money besides OHIP and paying government workers’ salaries. Now if I lived in the Cayman Islands and also didn’t have to bear the Canadian winter…

⭐️ subscriber feature ⭐️

“Drinks and Drapes” combines fabric draping and great visual charts to help participants identify their best colours. The event kicks off with a fun, interactive activity and participants go home with personalized colour swatches. Drinks and snacks are included. Drinks and Drapes is a private event, during which participants are welcome to shop the large selection of vintage and second-hand clothes and accessories. 

Dates: Friday, May 10 and Saturday, June 15
Location: Bee You Creative Styles, 323 Somerset St. East in Sandy Hill
Time: 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Price: $40 
Contact [email protected] to book.