"i have this thing..."

so on monday night, one of the boy's co-workers (he works at a music store) came over for a quick visit and chat. this dude is like, 30 plus, and he comes over, with a basketful of sour grapes, about one of their coworkers, who i guess had seniority, but is now second-in-command in the store. so he's complaining about how he got called into the office, and this is what dude man says: "okay, so i have this thing, where sometimes, i sleep through my alarm, and i show up to work like a few hours late. i mean, it's not like it's a big deal, it only happens every few months and ___ is going to bust my chops about it?!?" so i kept expecting him to explain what this mysterious ailment was, but he didn't. i was VERY proud of myself for being able to bite my tongue and not call him out for being the lazy, irresponsible schlub he clearly is. dude, if you're flaking out on work, at least have the balls to admit it. "i have this thing where i sleep through my alarm?!?" who DOES that?

i'm all for people doing what they want to do, but i'm telling you, staying at that music store is bad news for the dotytron. it's a bunch of dudes with arrested development (not the boy, and i guess not everyone is like that)...it's like a head-in-the-clouds "musicians" holding pen. yikes, is alls i gotta says, yikes. i mean, i'm sure it's fun day to day, but they sound like a bunch of preschoolers sometimes.

first day of class was good, except for my professor breaking my heart. it's that same uptight professor as my last term. who lectures for the FULL THREE HOURS and EVEN A LITTLE BIT OVER but is so well-meaning and well-intentioned that my heart shatters to pieces. especially when he does stuff like during break, go sit on a metal chair in the corner of the room and engage in some kind of quiet reflection. how heartbreaking is that? not even shuffling papers, or going to the bathroom, or going to his office! he just sits down and stares at his hands !!!!!! gah! i'm going to talk to him next class. something tells me i'll be talking to him A LOT since i have a 4000 word essay due in less than 3 weeks, PLUS a 12 book annotated reading list. we're off to the races, people!

i have another class today, "public library service to culturally diverse communities"

i'm soo busy! it's crazy...it's already non-stop. when i get home, it's a race to make dinner, eat it, and then get to doing odds and ends before i can even THINK of doing my actual schoolwork. yeeps.

tonight for dinner we're having perogies with caramelized onions, sour cream, and some kind of salad. i keep forgetting to take pictures of my dinnies but i'll start up again, post-haste.

fin.

quiet reflection

in marked contrast to my first week of cottaging, the following week at the boy's family's cottage was a time of quiet introspection, reflection, and lots of lots of naps and eating and reading. it was refreshing and nice to have the opportunity to do both kinds of cottaging. this past week of idleness has left me feeling recharged and much more zen about stuff. that's the view from the hammock. the cottage is accessed by boat only, so it's quite removed. it's on the finger jutting off of a very large lake and their part of the lake is a dead end, so there's not a lot of boat traffic and only a scattering of properties. we went on long canoe rides and i portaged for the first time ever! (incidental note for factual consideration: the portage was about 4 feet) the next few shots are pics from our early morning canoe adventures, featuring my first experience with a real beaver dam. beaver dams are palatial residences that seem to occur near swamps with fetid smells. i'm just saying, is all.

most of my time was occupied with swimming, fishing (i caught a crapload of fish but they were too small to eat/keep), and playing games at night. we found this game called "up words" (we called it "word up") which is kinda like scrabble except you can build up your words vertically as well as horizontally, and the value is consistent for every letter. i was hooked!!! there was also a game called "rummy" (with tiles, not cards) that i suspect is very similar to mah jong, which means that i've received the preliminary training to continue my grandfather's lineage of gambling supremacy round the mah jong table. aces!

today is my first real day back into real worldsville. le sigh. my class today is called: "reader's advisory: reference work and resources", but i call it: "bird course: karl's fulfillment of credit requirements with a minimum of effort and labour expenditure" it's with that prof who has the stutter who's kind of ocd. he sent out this wacky email over the weekend thanking all the students who had already downloaded the syllabus so i'm like, "wtf guy? where the crap am i supposed to download the syllabus from?" and i emailed him something to that effect with no response. i'm telling you, universities are saving a crapload on paper costs by getting US to shell out for ink cartridges and paper and whatnot. and yet, tuition continues to rise?

also, one of my resolutions upon returning to the cottage was to limit my time doing purposeless interneting/tving. to that end, i'm trying to break my addiction to online celebrity gossip. however, i couldn't help but watch britney's performance at the vma's. wow. tragic. you can see the dawning awareness of her own irrelevance in her eyes. it's like the bard himself couldn't have crafted a more poignant scene of crushing self-realization.

tonight for dinnie we're having pasta with leftover sauce but i'm going to switch it up and bake it in the oven with ricotta and mozzarella and have it with caesar salad again. the roomie made a solid meat sauce! she gone done good.

fin.

backstreet's back, aight!

well, it's the new, improved, less stressed, more relaxed version (2.0 perhaps?) of karl lagerfeld esquire round these parts, which is what two weeks of doing absolutely nothing will do for you. i mean, we did do things, but we didn't HAVE to do anything, which is the major point for the very existence of the muskokas region, as far as i'm concerned. the first week with my family at the cottage we rented was non-stop laughs; hilariousness; bawdy, off-colour humour; ruminations round the fire every night; star-gazing; lazing on the dock; swimming in the unseasonably warm water; snacking; and eating outrageously, sinfully well. the lake we were on was fairly small (only about 1 - 1.5km across) and wasn't overly deep, so the water was really nice and refreshing. we were blessed with fantastic weather - hot, no humidity, blazing sun for every day except for one. the cottage was fairly well-appointed, although the "fully stocked kitchen" was a big, fat, lie. i mean, i guess it was "fully stocked" if all you were going to be eating was weiners and beans, but for the way **I** cook at the cottage, it was slim pickin's. the good thing was, that in my infinite wisdom and obsessive compulsiveness, i packed about 30 tonnes of kitchen equipment to make our lives easier. my other major contribution to the events of the cottage was the idea to create thebaby-containment-holding pen known forthwith as "babydome" (2 kids enter, 1 kid leaves). basically, i stuck some blankets down inside a mosquito tent on the property, we'd chuck the kids in there, and then zip 'em up while we went and drove atv's drunk, mixed heavy machinery with depressants, and drove around in a shallow lake with a 160 horsepower engine. fun! i jest, though. in reality, we were mere steps away, mainly to prevent alarmingly brazen chipmunks from slipping into the tent and terrorizing the children.

it was a fantastic, family-bonding experience. i'll put up some pictures of our time at the boy's family's cottage tomorrow. i was clever enough to take the day off today to futz around and clean and prepare for my insane-o weeks to come. i've got 12 hours of class time, 20 hours of work at the library, and 8 hours of work at the public library, bringing me to 40 hours from monday through friday. not counting the work i have to do for class (which is basically a joke, as faithful readers all know that i don't DO work for class).

i've been eating like a disgusting pig so it's back to healthy portion sizes and lots of fruits and veggies for me. tonight the roomie made us some kind of meat-based pasta, which we're having with caesar salad.

finally, what kind of geek-family cottage vacation would it be without a time-lapsed documented attempt at drawing the batman logo in sparklers?

fin.

gone fishin'

well ladies and gents, for the next two weeks i'll be internet-and-blog-free, hanging out at a cottage my family rented in bracebridge for a week, then spending a week with the dotytron and his family at their cottage in the muskokas. i will be in engaging in plenty of the above, as well as communing with this:
and hanging with these peeps:

it's going to be so much fun! i've been waiting for this all summer. i can't wait to wake up and have the only pressing concern (and not that pressing at that) be making breakfast and dinner. long, endless hours spent reading in screened-in porches, listening to the sounds of water, stargazing at night, roasting marshmallows over a crackling fire, laying on a dock, getting up early to watch the sun rise over a lake as still as glass. there's something about cottage country in ontario that tugs at my heartstrings. i can't think of any place i'd rather be, surrounded by my families and unwinding.

enjoy the next two weeks, team!

fin.

lil' baci

did not disappoint. my only quibble (and it's a small one) is that the room is all hard angles and consequently very loud. it makes for a very shouty dining experience. the company was nice, although i didn't feel i got to talk it out as much as i like to. however, i did get to express my hate for various things, such as: alberta, faith-based funding of schools in ontario, and i think there were some more but i forget. which caused one of my dining companions to announce, "wow, you hate a lot of stuff" which i thought was a most egregious reading of me. for some reason, people tend to focus on the stuff that i hate, making me seem like i'm some willy nilly hater of all and sundry. not true! last night, with equal weight, i professed my love for the following: cured meat, akon, and some other stuff i also can't remember.

there was also a hilarious mission for cupcakes after dinner that was very peanuts-esque (as in, the beloved charles schultz comic) in its execution and resolution. i was also wearing a new(ish) ebay purchase that i love. it's a cream coloured dress with silver chevron stripes, slightly sheer, in a style and cut that makes me feel like faye dunaway. kind of late 60s, early 70s dreamy feel. today i'm wearing a new blouse from ebay that makes me look like an intrepid girl reporter from a slapstick romantic comedy from the 50s. i LOVE clothes. see? so there.

i'm going nearly bats**t insane with cottage preparations. it's killing me. what's also killing me is my family's near-obsessive need to turn any situation that could easily be resolved with SIMPLE AND TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION into a giant, disorganized, cluster of epic proportions. i love my mum, but her spirit animal is a monkey wrench.

tonight we're having a salad nicoise with poached eggs for dinnie. i'm trying to keep things simple as i'm going on a two week vacay on saturday.

fin.

pizza day!

remember pizza days at school? when the mere suggestion of pizza being brought to your school to break the monotony of an endless line of sandwiches, minute maid fruit punch juice boxes, or snackables was enough to send you into a flurry of novelty-infused excitement? i sure do. this is, of course, before you hit your late student/university years, when pizza loses its novelty status and becomes the rotating staple in a short card of regular dinner options.

this nostalgia-tinged preamble is merely to preface the announcement that i'm having a pizza lunch at work today. weeeeeee! i convinced my supervisor to order from mamma's. she's also making us ceasar salad and bringing pop or water or juice and having watermelon. i baked a lemon curd tart in a poppyseed crust.

last night's dinnie was muy fun! great company is the best stuff ever. i've also taken out some "learn italian" cds from the library to practice before i go to florence. oh yeah, i'm planning on going to florence, rome, and venice with dr. rei and the boy (aka ian...thanks, spoiler alert jenn!) after school ends in late april/may. which meant that i was answering the phone with a booming, "buon giorno!" all afternoon and night, which meant that the telemarketers who make up the bulk of our phone calls (we have no friends...or at least, no phoning friends) were mightily confused and hung up a few times.

tonight i'm going to lil' baci for dinner with some old high school friends of the boy's (aka ian)

fin.

getting your wed on

congratulations to my dear friends attila and jen who are getting hitched! they're a couple that makes sense (actually a rarity). do any of you have any couple friends where you wonder that they simply MUST have some kind of secret, behind-the-scenes life that provides the fuel for their companionship, because when you see them out together, you just don't understand how it works? i do. attila (aka my male doppelganger) and jen are NOT THAT. i love you two!!!

in other news, i haven't done a lit round-up in a while, but that doesn't mean i haven't been reading. au contraire, mon frere. a month or so ago, i finished reading "the 100-mile diet: a year of local eating" written by a canuck couple living in vancouver or thereabouts. they're writers. i kinda knew that i was going to hate it, but it's one of those things where i HAVE to read it so i can know in concrete terms exactly what it is i'm hating. the two decided to embark on a 100-mile diet (which works for them because they live in one of the more fertile and ecologically and agriculturally diverse areas in canada) for all the usual reasons (fossil fuels, blah blah blah) and go about it and write about it in the usual way (the de rigeur earnest-and-self-congratulatory-with-interjections-of-wry-self-awareness-
that's-supposed-to-mitigate-the -earnestness-and-self-congratulatoriness) taken by young, privileged, urban thirty-somethings with aspirations of pastoral redemption. bah. the book was REALLY annoying (i thought). they go through month by month and it's more of a personal journey than you would think, which on the one hand makes it more engaging than a laundry list of their dinners (from a voyeuristic perspective) but on the other hand makes the scope kind of limited to how much you want to know about their lives (for me, i found them annoying, so i didn't care all that much). let me put it to you this way: their relationship starts to "crumble" (or at least the reader is led to believe this) and is redeemed by them finding a source of wheat. oh yes, my friends, WHEAT becomes the symbolic and literal turning point in this slim narrative of ponciness.

meh. it just wasn't my thing.

tonight we're having the coach and her co-star over for dinner. we're having fried masa and fresh corn cakes (kind of like really THICK tortillas...sopas?) topped with a guajillo pepper black bean chili with monterrey jack, guac, salsa and sour cream. i also want to make that blueberry sour cream pie so we can eat that with ice cream and clear some space in the freezer. we'll see whether i have enough time.

fin.

the blame china chronicles continues

first, allow me to say that my first gander (haha) at cooking a goose was a cracking success. i roasted it and served it alongside a port-enriched gravy, with the goose-fat roasted tatties and the casserole (i skipped the corn). it was delicious! the verdict is in: goose is > turkey by about a billion. the meat is so rich and flavourful and because of the high fat content in the animal, it doesn't taste dry in the least. also, i think geese are more active birds, so unlike the freakishly over-fed and lethargic turkey specimens we get nowadays, the flesh has actually developed some toughness and flavour. the thing i hate about turkey is that most of the time, people overcook the poor thing so that it's dry as f**k, and the meat is spongy and beyond bland. i lurve the goosey goose!

the cake also turned out amazing. you can't tell from the picture, but part of it buckled under it's own weight and collapsed a bit. heehee. isn't she a beaut? the lemon curd was a last-minute addition but it helped to add some freshness and a suggestion of lightness, even if a slice of the cake itself probably consisted of your day's caloric intake.

i saw pictures of an old high school classmate's wedding that took place in nelson b.c. in their backyard, and for the first time in my LIFE, i wanted to move there. they have a huge property with a river running through the back, and views of mountains. it's absolutely stunning. the thing that gets me is, i can't imagine being 5 hours flight away from my family. i mean, you never know where people are going to move, but still. being proximal to my family is something that definitely factors into the equation. although, now with the dollar being almost par, and knowing how cheap housing is in the states, i just might move down near rochester and buy a house in the finger lakes. a 3 bedroom (decent) house on a large-sized lot costs under a hundred grand in the states. redonkulous. also, the top rated music school in the whole united states, the eastman school of music, is based in rochester, which definitely has piqued the boy's interest.

okay, finally, the "blame china" brigade continues. we watched the final few episodes of planet earth and it ends in a SPIRAL of blame china (and africa. and the rest of the non-westernized developing world). basically, the last disc is reserved for all the proselytizing about the coming doom of the planet that they refrained from (though it was subconsciously implied) during the previous episodes that make up the bulk of the series. it's the head of the wwf, and noted conservationists and academics and the camera people talking about how as people in china start to want to consume on the level that we do, that we're in dire straights. it was REALLY annoying listening to a bunch of poncey brits blather on about how it hinges on the DEVELOPING WORLD to save the snow leopards and shiz. it's like, "oh really britain? how many NATIVE SPECIES DO YOU HAVE LEFT?!?!!!" there was no point when they were like, "you know what, we effed up royally" it was all finger-pointing at how it rests on china and africa's shoulders. EFF YOU! i hate that crap. clean up your own backyard you colonialist, imperialist f**ks.

on that note: today is my long day and i'm packing a nicoise sandwich again.

fin.

a study in yellow

last night's dinner ended up being very yellow and golden, except my chicken didn't brown as much as i would have liked it to. i made cornbread for the express purpose of eating it slathered with margarine and maple syrup, and it holds up to further scrutiny. i don't think i can have cornbread any other way. i ate an ungodly amount of chicken skin, which made me feel VERY guilty afterwards. not so guilty that i didn't eat dessert, though (blueberry pudding cake with vanilla ice cream).

you know what time we went to bed last night? TEN PM. we're practically geriatrics round these parts. to be fair, new york friend was hung over, the boy was mildly hung over, the roomie is on call, and my excuse? i'd been buzzing around like a bee all day.

we watched "hot fuzz" last night. it's about as funny as "shawn of the dead". i mean, there weren't points where i was dying with laughter but it elicited more than its' fair share of chuckles. it's kind of a send-up of those michael bay-buddy cop action flicks, and as a satire it works pretty well - highlighting the forced dramatics and ridiculous action shots frequently employed in that amped-up genre. the absurdity of the storyline matches the satiric tone of the flick and there's lots of likable characters.

it's my stepdad's birthday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG D!!! (he doesn't read this)

my mom emailed me really late to do something, but big d's so lowkey, we kinda figured nothing was happening so we planned something here for the roomie instead. tonight we're having roast goose, with a port gravy, potatoes roasted in goose fat, a broccoflower and carrot horseradish casserole, and corn on the cob. it's a bit of a strange, dickens-christmas-in-the-summer vibe, but i'm trying to make oodles of space in the freezer for the glut of cottage stuff to come. for her birthday cake, i'm making a lemon curd, mixed berry and whipped cream golden layer cake.

fin.

i know, i know

dear readers: i'm as deeply troubled by the hither-and-yon, flighty, unpredictable posting times around san dimas here, as you are. if there's one thing k. lagerfeld, esquire adores, it's regularity! order! schedules! things have just been crazy, what with my 1 hour earlier start time at work this past week, and the non-stop party extravaganza that was last night.

first: an interjection. behold my quickie dinner last night! it's a nicoise sandwich, which means the components that make up a salad nicoise, stuffed into a roll (in this case, an ace bakery rosemary focaccia roll). there's blanched green beans, sliced tomato, roasted red and yellow pepper, a hard boiled egg, and my infamous green olive tapenade. it's nutritious and delicious and really hits the spot. comes together in about 20 minutes (if you have my infamous olive tapenade waiting in the recesses of your fridge to be called upon for just such an occasion).

truth be told, last night's parties were rather sedate (at least, at the point that we arrived/left). it was good times though, although it inexplicably became FREEZING cold last night. i was alright, but biking against the wind felt like it was november already. not an encouraging sign of things to come.

i've just worked a 4 hour shift and have a mighyt list of things to tackle. *ahem* *assumes list oration voice* : lemon curd, strawberry fig jam (make and jar), caramel peach jam (jar), infamous olive tapenade, tonight's dinner, roomie's birthday cake components, blueberry compote for roomie's birthday breakfast, poppyseed pie crust, wash and fill in my 4 month laminated calendar, yoga, and start thinking about packing for the cottage.

i've actually ALREADY started packing for the cottage. i started last week. 3 weeks before we're going. heehee. i can't help it! i won't be happy til everything is packed and accounted for. there's nothing that makes me happier than regularity! order! schedules! things accounted for!

tonight for dinner we're having bbq brick-weighted grilled chicken (the chicken has the backbone taken out, is spread flat, and is grilled weighed down with bricks) slathered in my chipotle bbq sauce with corn on the cob and grilled yellow squash. last night, at the high school friend's birthday hoo-ha, i was hepped to something glorious. they had it at a cajun creole restaurant called southern accent. well, they serve cornbread there, and the high school friend's brother slathers the cornbread with butter and then tops it with maple syrup. HELLO NEW FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD, I'M KARL LAGERFELD, YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND! it was amazing.

fin.

birthday asplosion!

this weekend is a birthday bonanza. it is: the roomie's birthday, high school friend's birthday, canoe friend's birthday, stepdad's birthday. that's a lot of birthdays! we're hitting two parties tonight - the roomie's "dirty thirty" party that she and her crew are throwing (about 5 of them turn 30 in august), and then the highschool friend's party. it's going to be a frenzy of drive-by/one drink affairs and then home and rest.

this weekend is going to be pretty lowkey. i'm packing for my cottage vacation, doing some preserving, and making a special birthday meal for the roomie.

tonight for dinner i think i'm going to make a nicoise sandwich, with beans, boiled egg, olives, basil, roasted pepper, and tomato. and some sweet corn on the side.

fin.

is there anything cuter

than a fat little bumblebee, stuttering around, all drunk on nectar? i don't think so. our garden's in full bloom right now and we have a couple of plants that are bumblebee favorites. which spurred the boy last night to suggest, "we should keep bees". YES! how fun would that be to make your own honey? i have a co-worker whose husband is a beekeeper so i'm going to get the lowdown from her.

the neighbours STILL haven't gotten rid of the garbage. they've moved it under a tarp in their backyard. apparently a lot of it isn't "garbage" per se, so they're waiting for nice neighbour lady to get back to give a final verdict on which stuff is for keeping and which stuff is true garbage. i'm no expert, but i think this is a bad idea. if you have someone who has a tendency to keep things in general, why would you give them the option? OF COURSE they're going to want to keep it. that's what they do! i'd just haul everything to the dump, myself.

last night's dinnie was just what the doctor ordered. a juicy epitome of burger-ness. i will never understand why people feel the need to gussy up hamburgers. breadcrumbs, eggs, worcestire, etc. all you need is BEEF. and salt and pepper. look at that corn! finally sweet corn paid off like crazy. it was practically dessert.
real dessert was that blueberry pudding cake pictured to the right, which i know, i know, i overcooked. preparing food poorly plagues me. it eats away at my soul. actually, doing anything half-assed or poorly eats away at my soul (except for school, where the half-assedness of my school doesn't inspire full-assedness from myself). i'm a total perfectionist. i can't help it.

tonight i'm getting my hair cut, which puts me in the queen west area, which means that i'll be grabbing takeout from gandhi's for dinner. mutter paneer roti, butter chicken, malai kofta, and maybe a lamb curry one for my little bro.

fin.

the baconator

is my new best friend. i was taken out for a belated birthday lunch of all you can eat indian food at kathmandu (yonge and wellesley) by two of my super-nice coworkers yesterday. the buffet is delicious there and i ate a LOT. so, feeling full from that, i naturally decided to scrap cooking for dinner. since the day was already a partial write-off, i decided to make it a full write-off and tried my very first wendy's "baconator". it's AMAZING. there's no vegetables on it! it's just the beefy patties (and i will say, that wendy's manages to imbue their mostly-soy-and-chemical-composite patties with an amazing amount of char-grilled beefy flavour) with processed cheese and loads of bacon. it's amazing. i really really really enjoyed it. we scarfed down this cornucopia of empty calories with the movie "drumline" on bravo. it's pretty good, mainly for the drum sequences and marching band formations (i love formations!), but it lacks the heart and cohesiveness of "stomp the yard" which is the definitive film in the screwed-up-kid-who-learns-humility-and-team-work-through-group-activity-involving-choreography-and-music idiom.

i also experienced my first do-you-own coin carwash yesterday (hey, i'm an upper middle class kid from markham...my family doesn't DO do-you-own carwashes). i had *just* taken a shower when in comes the boy, enticing me with promises of fun, sun, and suds. being the game-for-fun intrepid, plucky little thing that i am, i said YES! it's not how you imagine it. it's actually kind of seedy. and you get COVERED in filth, and film, and the water jets out at a velocity that coats you in a dirt-encrusted fine mist. but i was pleased with the boy for showing some initiative to clean out his parents car. which was a right mess and emerged a slightly-less-right mess.

dinner tonight is burgers. real ones. made with proper beef. and a salad. and blueberry pudding cake for dessert. real. healthy. proper. food.

fin.

sad!

through some gentle prying, the boy found out yesterday that the nice neighbour lady is the hoarder, NOT shortround! for some reason that makes it really sad. she's the nicest, sweetest, most neighbourliest lady around. apparently she has a "problem with clutter" and her family is trying to get her to seek help. she's away visiting her mum for 6 weeks so shortround and his parents (nice neighbour lady's sister and bro-in-law) are attempting to clean it up before she gets back. but if you're a hoarder (they didn't use that term but it's patently obvious), i suspect you're going to feel very violated if someone came and did that to your place.

yikes.

in other news, my mum came down unexpectedly and joined us for my bro's birthday celebrations. i'm always nervous but my mum was a hoot. she had a blast and was laughing hysterically at the antics of one dr. rei, md. and we all had a grand time. she's the cutest.

this is the cake i baked for my bro. it's a bit of an in-joke.

tonight we're having burgers with salad for dinner. sounds boring, but my all-beef burgers are award winning.

fin.

lateski

you can forget about my early-morning posts this week, as i'm starting work at 7:45 in the am covering a co-worker on vacation, ergo, vis-a-vis, i'm waking up about 10 minutes before i leave and bolting out the door.

my neighbours are wack. this dude, J owns the house, but i *think* keeps another residence someplace else. he looks like shortround from indiana jones (like a 40 year old 12 year old if that makes any sense) and dresses like a hip hopper. he rents the place to his aunt, and this other greek gentleman (my neighbour who lights his charcoal bbq with a propane blowtorch). the other greek "gentleman" has been significantly less than gentlemanly lately. in the late spring, he fell off a step ladder and twisted his ankle (he works in construction. kinda. let's just say he seems to work for the kind of company that holmes, of "homes on holmes" fame regularly lambastes for their poor workmanship and cavalier attitude to building codes). anyway, after dude sprained his ankle, he sat at home getting wasted all day. his normally bleary-eyed visage became more bleary-eyed and florid with each passing day. then the leering began. he'd say hello to me and the roomie and give us the not-so-well-hidden leisurely up-and-down look. it's gotten the point where i used to be friendly and chat him up and now i'm curt in the extreme. also, the next time i catch him blatantly staring like a ugly sexed-up boar, i'm going to ask him "what the F**K do you think you're looking at?!?" (it's my patented line at the public library - except i replace the expletive with EFF).

anyway, it's a "shared" driveway, but previous tenants to us, made life miserable for the nice lady (shortround's aunt) by parking a giant truck in there and being dinks about moving it so that she could park also. so our landlord, when he shows the apartment upstairs to new tenants, doesn't mention parking, and just let's nice neighbour lady have the run of the driveway. which is fine. the odd time we have a car in our possession, nice neighbour lady is very nice about moving in so we can park behind her, or communicating with us so that it's vice versa. happy happy.

shortround, on the other hand, is another story. suddenly, he's parking there ALL THE TIME. which is annoying cuz it's hard to get my bike in and out. nice neighbour lady is gone for six weeks. we had a car on the weekend, shortround calls us at EIGHT AM SUNDAY MORNING to ask us to move our car as he's "moving some stuff" and doesn't want to scratch it. so fine, the boy begrudgingly wakes up on his one day to sleep in and moves the car. shortround then proceeds to unload about EIGHTY full black garbage bags from the bowels of his house and pile them in the driveway, his front porch, and the second level front porch. it's gross! and then proceeds to LEAVE THE BAGS THERE all day. no communication, no nothing. they were still there this morning. it's ridiculous.

i had read an article about "hoarders" in some women's magazine and was joking that it must be like that in their house. now we know that it's TRUE. hoarders are people who maintain "normal" appearances outside of the home but you're never allowed in because they never throw anything out. these are the kind of people who die in their homes and neighbours don't find out until it starts to stink and when you do go in there, there's rotting food and dead pets and showers rendered unusable by 30 years of accumulated dirt.

that's what it's like next door. except now the insides of next door are outside. also, in one of those bags is an alarm clock that's going off and there's not a single thing to be done about it.

crazy, eh?

he's got a batman thing. today is an extra long day so i packed a dinner of corn, bacon and potato chowder and a cheese and focaccia sammy.

fin.

yesterday was a very very good day

even though i didn't do much. i finished my bro's cake (which is AWESOME...i'll post pics tomorrow because i don't want to ruin the surprise), and finished my peach preserves, and my 8 hour shift at the public library went swiftly, and me and the boy wandered down to leslieville and had an amazing meal at this new restaurant, lil' baci, which is owned by the same dude who owns kubo radio.

it was DELICIOUS! the idea is a simple, italian trattoria type place. the interior is really cozy and comfortable and unpretentious. there's a selection of pizzas, a few pastas, a meat and fish dish, antipasto and salads. the boy had a new wheat beer which he was thoroughly enamored with (he loves going to places where they have something on tap he's never tried before). warm bread was brought to the table with a fruity olive oil to dip in. we started with the three antipasto for $10. we had: marinated chickpeas with anchovies and chilies, brussel sprouts with horseradish, and oven-roasted cured olives. everything was fantastic, and the plate came to the table with a final seasoning of salt and pepper. i love chickpea salads, and this one was nicely balanced with tender chickpeas, fiery chilis, and the faint brine of the anchovies, all lubricated and made slick with olive oil. the brussel sprouts were tender and dusted with freshly grated horseradish that added a sparkly bite, and the olives were tender, fatty, luscious little bites. we accompanied this with the meat antipasto plate (3 for $13) where we had a musky, thinly sliced bresaola, a slickly slow-burning salumi picante, and a feather-light, porcine-sweet proscuitto crudo. again, the meats came to the table slicked with a shot of olive oil and a dusting of salt and pepper. we then shared one of their pizzas, which were thin crusted. the crust was whisper-thin and had a good amount of chew (my preference over the cracker-crust) had mild-bread flavour and was blistered on the bottom. our pizza was the "gorgonzola dolce" (pizzas range from $9-14) and came with gorgonzola, soft, cooked shreds of new potato, woodsy rosemary, and guanciale (!!!!!!! my beloved cured pork cheeks). every bite was fantastic. the pizza was also offered alongside their home made pepperoncini (hot pepper oil) for drizzling on top. finally, we finished our meal with the "lil' baci" salad, which cleansed our palates with a balanced mix of flavours and textures. it consisted of baby arugala and radicchio for bitter notes, oven roasted tomatoes for sweetness, shavings of aged asiago for a lactic bite, and chickpeas for a starchy backdrop smoothing everything out. the flavours were bound with a simple oil and vinegar dressing.

we were stuffed and thoroughly impressed with every aspect of the meal. our servers were knowledgeable and friendly, explaining the elements of the plate in a manner that was informative without being condescending. dinner for two with two glasses of beer came to under $75, which is SUCH a bargain, and it's a 5 minute bike-ride from home, to boot! you couldn't ask for better in a neighbourhood restaurant.

we walked next door to kubo after our meal and picked up the last two red devil babycake cupcakes, and two maple ones as well. both come with cream cheese frosting and are the best cupcakes in town.

all in all, it was a lovely evening. i love biking around the neighbourhood with the boy. it's so freeing and chummy, and we always emerge from our adventures all love-drunk and happy.

today i'm being taken to canadian tire for birthday prezzie shopping, then futzing around the house (i might start packing for the cottage) and then having some people over for my little brother's birthday dinner. for breakkie we're having fried eggs and bacon on kaisers with celery-apple-beet-carrot-cucumber juice. for dinnie we're having grilled red wine, garlic, and rosemary marinated lamb chops with stuffed potato skins (chives, dill, scallions, bacon, cheddar) and a marinated green and yellow bean salad. i baked him a devil's food cake with brown sugar buttercream for dessert.

fin.

bad, bad day

yesterday was a bad day for me and the roomie. . the roomie had a similar situation where she felt dumb and slow yesterday and it was just stressful all around. having to weed my way through the "taste of the danforth" throngs and being faced with stores that closed EARLY on the danforth because of that stupid fair was annoying to the extreme. i didn't finish my peach preserves and i gambled on my bro's cake (i didn't line the insides of the pans with parchment and just buttered and floured them) and lost (the middle layer stuck a bit). we were cranky cranky cranky numbers yesterday. to top it off, my bbq is acting funny again.

today i've got a 9-5 as a public service assistant at the public library. but it sucks only having 1 day off. i feel like i've got a tonne of shit to get done and no time to do it.

bah.

tonight me and the boy were planning on biking into kensington to find ourselves a variety of hand-held victuals from which to make our dinner (tacos, empanada, pupusas, fish sammies). that's if i'm feeling ambitious. if not, we might just stick around closer to home and eat in leslieville.

fin.

end of something old...

start of something new. we finished watching "freaks and geeks" last night. in the ongoing story of my life, the abrupt cancellation of the show left the writers with no choice but to leave viewers with no resolution or closure to major plot points. daniel desario had just embraced his inner geek and had joined the quintet of neil, bill, sam, gordon, and (my personal favorite, pictured here) harris trinsky in a dungeons and dragons game where he unveiled his character "carlos the dwarf", lindsay was possibly feeling the effects of nick's new disco-loving girlfriend and blew off this academic conference to attend a grateful dead show, and there was all sorts of other business simmering in the air. boooo!!! why do all the good shows have to die?!?

in the "something new" category, i'm embarking on strange and uncharted waters in the world of feminine hygiene. that's right, i'm furthing embracing my inner (non-flakebot, ruthlessly unsentimental and non-flighty) hippie and doing away with waste-producing, fossil-fuel coated tampons and pads (technically, i haven't used a pad since i was like, 15) and going all diva. diva cup, that is. there it is, folks, in all it's freakishly alien, siliconed glory. basically, you squish it up, jam it into your lady bits and it catches the flow from your "special time". you can't really feel it when it's in there properly, and all you have to do is pull it out, give 'er a rinse, and you're good to go (i'm going to sterilize mine in boiling water every now and then). so environmentally friendly!!! i guess this could be construed as a TMI for some peeps, but not in the blabby world of no-privacy lagerfeld.

today i'm having lunch with my friend...i love friend lunches at work because it makes the time go by so quickly. i also got invited to my coworker's bachelorette party in october. i think it's going to be halloween themed...that'll be fun! (but also terror-inducing from the social perspective).

this weekend is the most dreaded weekend in my beloved 'hood - krinos "taste of the danforth". i'll save you all the trouble of schlepping your five million kids and monster strollers and high expectations over to the east side and tell you that the "tastes" of the danforth can apparently be reduced to over-cooked, tough, cheap cuts of souvlaki at exorbitant prices, waffles (where do the waffles come from?) and the odd little exotica such as grilled quail or lamb innards. for the most part, it's not worth it, and the danforth becomes overun with litter and sweaty bodies and blaring music. i try to avoid at all costs, so tonight i'm going to go low-key, take advantage of the cool weather and jar some peach preserves and bake my lil' bro's birthday cake. we're having grilled, coca-cola marinated pork chops with a bean and roasted red pepper salad and corn, if i can find any good stuff...lately i haven't found ANY ontario corn that's been sweet.

last night we laid out on the picnic table because there's a meteor shower happening for the next few nights. i saw one!!! it was like the brightest, closest, shooting star ever!!! it looked like a single firework arcing across the sky. once you see one, you're hooked, and you want to see another soo bad that you're willing to sit out there for all eternity til you get another one...it's like playing a round of golf - you keep going for that perfect swing, or playing skeeball - you keep feeding coins in so that you can hit that sweet 1000 point spot. this weekend is going to consist of a lot of laying out on the picnic table waiting for shooting stars. aka the perfect summer evening.

fin.

dinner at barrio

barrio on queen east was a great dining experience. small plates (frites, salads) run in the $5-6 range, while larger plates (quail, halibut) are in the $12-16 range. the portions are surprisingly generous (my familiar lament about the toronto-wide epidemic on small plates hosing does not apply here) and the plates are constructed in a thoughtful, considered manner. we started with the quail stuffed with chorizo. the quail was done a little more than what i would usually prefer, but the fattiness of the chorizo, and the mild gaminess of the sausage counterbalanced the medium-well done quail. it was served ontop of a corn cake that was the essence of corn. it tasted like a little breaded cake of polenta, or masa harina, and was vaguely musty in that cornlike starchy way. this was served on a dice of jicama and bosc pear, the sweet-crunchy elements (in combination with a vinegar-like reduction on the plate) playing off the richness of the meats and bland carbiness of the corn cake.
we then shared a crispy, deep fried goat cheese croquette, that was topped with a peach chutney and itself sat on a bed of shredded duck confit mixed with a mushroom ragout. again, the interplay between the flavours was fresh and interesting and balanced. the peaches (while cooked until unrecognizable save for their floral sweetness) added an acidic saccharine element to the earthy richness of the duck and mushrooms, while the goat cheese was crispy, light, and added a barnyard tang.
i started eating before i could take a pic of this dish. the usual braised shortrib component was replaced with pork belly, lacquered with a sweet glaze, giving way in squishy, unctuous, hunks to the fork. this was served with a crispy yam (read: sweet potato) latke, and served with green beans and (the best part) stewed grapes. again the kitchen provided a dish that had interesting textural elements (softy, chewy, crispy, cellulose) and flavour combinations (sweet, acidic, vegetal, fatty, meaty).
the cheese plate was a little uninspired, but the portions were decidedly larger than the norm. we were served (from left to right), riopelle (a french triple creme), benedictin blue (i believe also french or quebecois) and a smoked applewood cheddar. my one complaint was that the cheese was served with toasted raisin bread, and my personal preference when tasting cheese is to have a neutral bread to allow the flavours of the cheese to shine. in this case, i thought that the raisins in the bread introduced a sweet element that i wasn't able to control.
desserts were pedestrian and unevenly executed. flourless chocolate cake was very chocolatey, but the actual chocolate flavour itself wasn't intriguing or deep. the creme brulees were also inconsistent. mine was overcooked and curdled, the boy's was served correctly. there's nothing worse than overcooked and curdled eggs! it's like eating ceiling paste.

overall, i would definitely recommend it.

this was last night's dinner. i LOVE eggplant when it's cooked until custardy. tonight we're having capellini in a fresh tomato, garlic, basil, parm sauce, with salad.

fin.

i know what you're thinking...

that time spent in a phillipines prison must be a never-ending, soul-crushing, monotonous grind of fear and self-loathing; a daily maelstrom of depraved and demoralizing activities and events that will leave you a blackened and hardened shell of an individual.


OR IS IT?!?

check this out - it's the phillipines inmates who somehow learned the choreography to thriller. i know what you're going to ask, how did they get a WOMAN in there strictly for the purposes of maintaining accuracy? well, that's no woman! it's a ladyboy!!!



finally, here's a clip from the encore of the toronto daft punk show. i love robots and french people! you know who else was french? oh, only foucault, baudrillard, and derrida. and they were probably robots too. love!



i'll post some pics from dinnie last night either later today or tomorrow.

tonight for dinner we're having penne with fried eggplant, grape tomatoes, basil and olives with a salad.

fin.