No, YOU'RE spamming ME.

OK.  For real, I'm back this time.  I came back from my work trip and things were mental with my timelines and extra commitments but I just submitted the thing that's been consuming me for the past three weeks and I'm free for the time being.

It has been a SLOG.  Travelling for work involved grueling days - up at 6am, in meetings all day from 8am to 5pm, then packing up, going to the airport, hopping on our tiny charter plane and then going to the next destination, checking into the hotel around 8pm.  I didn't really get the hang of how to travel with this group until mid-week, at which point, after consecutive nights of indigestion from eating dinner at 9pm, I came up with a quasi-solution that involved wolfing down my lunch in 15 minutes, then going for a walk so that I might grab something I could eat on the plane and then have a reasonable digestion window before going to bed.  Travelling with my clients meant that I had to be on all day, every day, and even though my threshold for being "on" is high - I am, after all, master of the inane questions-based small talk - being in anonymous hotel rooms without the benefit or "your" stuff or "your" people wears on you.

I did get to do some fun things.  Like:

Win $20 at blackjack at the casino in Windsor.  UGH! Gambling is so FUN!  Why is it so fun?!?  My heart was racing and I had to make a decided effort not to spend my whole night there. 

  Marvel at how Robo-Cop-y Detroit looked across the river.

Order $20 worth of Johnny Rockets and eat it in my bed in my pajamas uninterrupted.

I wanted to try this restaurant called the Hoito in Thunder Bay - it's the oldest restaurant in Thunder Bay and sells Finnish pancakes.  My colleague told me to "just call an Uber," there were "so many" when he was in "Tiny Tom," Ontario (in retrospect, totally a made up, place!)  so I woke up at 6am, got ready, and opened the Uber app on my phone.  Radio silence.  I called a cab and misunderstood the distance AND cab rates in Northern Ontario.  I ended up paying $30 EACH WAY for this $10 breakfast.  It was good, but not $70 good.  I was a proper city-girl n00b and I deserved the taxi fare pwnage I received.

Northern Ontario is a mess.  After sitting through a bunch of deputations, I totally get why everyone hates Toronto and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.  The discrepancies between infrastructure funding up there versus down here are appalling.  First Nations communities who are the potato in the hot potato game between the various levels of government, high unemployment, high addiction and homelessness issues, sectors with razor thin margins that are being pushed beyond the limit.  I felt for these companies and industries, who are trying to create jobs, being squeezed by pressures from well-intentioned labour and environmental policies.  It's really a conundrum - there are no easy answers at all.  But I do think it's important to at least attempt to view things through a rural/Northern lens when we're developing public policy.  In the same way that I think it's important for urban advocates to understand and journey to the outer reaches of our city (and don't give me the whole, "I don't travel north of Bloor" parsimony) before they go ahead and propose policies that work against people who can't bike to work and don't want to.  This myopic tendency is a thing, and it's a thing that we have to work against, in order to build and nurture the relationships that are going to create the impetus for change.

After my eye-opening week abroad (I also got into green smoothies while I was away - so for real: travel does change you), I came back to work and have just been in head-down, beast mode trying to summarize over 300 oral and written submissions and then turn that into a draft report, after two days of local hearings.  It's been a sedentary marathon.  My butt's been glued to my desk chair and my muscles have definitely atrophied, but my deadline is insane and this is just what you gotta do to facilitate the democratic process, 'naw mean?

In the midst of all this I was contending with that fundraiser family dance I'm organizing (done this past weekend - YES!), and my parent council commitments, and dealing with static from weirdoes in the service of my parent council commitments.  Like, people are cray.  There's no way around it.  I'm the "volunteer coordinator" which means that I signed up for this new role and got no direction.  Fine, I can deal with that.  I set up this spreadsheet and aggregated volunteer names but the list isn't robust because at the Big Yam's school, parents in charge of certain activities are very proprietary about "their" lists of volunteers.  Which is weird, but okay, I can deal with that, too, I guess?

Anyway, someone wanted me to send out an email to ask for volunteers.  I do, with a nice italicized message underneath my name saying that if you don't want to be on the list, just email me.  This broad emails me and tells me she never asked to be on the list and that according to Canada's new anti-spam legislation I can't email people who haven't asked to be emailed, blah blah blah and then she links the Anti-Spam FAQ in the email. Da fuuuuuuuuq?!?  I research for a living, you b!  Don't test me!  So I fire back an email and say, no problem, I'll remove you from the list, sorry for the inconvenience,  I don't think that calling for volunteers constitutes the "commercial activity" the legislation is referencing.  Warm regards, me. Then she WRITES BACK.  BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CRAY (remember how I told you that?  Still true.)  "Regardless of what the legislation says I still don't want to be on the list."  Oooookay.  I didn't respond to that email (BECAUSE I'M NOT A PSYCHO).  THEN!  Four days later, she emails me AGAIN!  She forwards me this thing and says, "I checked and you're right, requests for volunteers aren't considered spam. I still don't think anyone should be on this email list unless they requested it." (Italics mine).  At this point, I'm like, YOU'RE spamming ME!  Why can't you just shut up?!  Why do you care about having the last word with the volunteer coordinator for our kids' school?  Are you seriously so inept that you don't know how to ignore and/or delete the one email a month (at most) you're getting from me?!?!  I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULL!

I just can't.

Leftover picture from when we went to Lolly's farm over the holidays.

Sick Twin B

Throughout this time I've gone through my usual whirlwind of micro-obsessions.  I have many many thoughts on Beyoncé's Formation video.  The Big Yam has started saying, "Excuse-me moi" to preface his points and it is amazing.

So we watched the movie Dope on the weekend, which is a fun, awesome movie that speaks to everything I'm into.  I'm super into teen caper movies (teen comes into ill begotten gains, uses it to their own advantage to shine on some adults, hilarity/wisecracking ensues) which I'm convinced is a genre, but when pressed by the Dotytron, I couldn't think of any other examples (The Secret of My Success)?  I'm almost positive this is a thing.  I'm totally obsessed with all the style in the film, but particularly, Diggy's (the girl on the right, above).  Her outfits were amazing and if I were 20 years younger, I would totally go for it.  The costume designer went for an overtly 90s aesthetic, so if I were 20 years younger, I would have been period-appropriate, though I don't think I had the style sense or body confidence to put things together with half as much panache.  The movie is like Attack the Block - teens, of a very particular type (in this case, geeks, in Attack the Block they were chavs), get in over their heads and meet some characters as they hustle.  I loved it.

THIS. BOOK. OBSESSED.  Remember Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl?  In that book, the protagonist wrote fanfic (that was peppered throughout the novel) about these two characters, Simon (a mage) and Baz (a vampire and mage), who were from this Harry Potter-like series written by a fictional author in the Fangirl world.  Well, Rainbow Rowell, being the amazing creature that she is, took those characters and wrote a book about them, in her own voice, and it was SO FREAKIN' GOOD.  I squee'd my way through the whole thing, savouring pages with gay romance and kissing and quips, and then as soon as I finished it, picked it up and read it right through again.  A book that should have taken me 2 nights to read, I stretched over a week (twice!) because I loved it so.  The characters were fully-realized and the dynamic between Simon and Baz is the perfect antagonistic stuff of teen-beat dreams.  It's like Buffy and Spike, Riggins and Layla, Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls.  There's a strong female friend, Penelope, who is even better than Hermione because she's got more of a sense of humour and is more overtly misanthropic.  People have dismissed the world of Carry On as Harry Potter fanfic, but I disagree.  It's its own thing, which is what makes it so addictive.  The story is self-contained and the narrative is compelling - it falls a part a bit near the end - I'm not clear on what we're supposed to think of the principle villain, but notwithstanding my love of British magician boarding school tales (and make no mistake: Rowell knows what makes for good British magician boarding school tales [read: she includes a lot of food descriptions]), I would have read a single volume for each year of Simon Snow at Watford (their Hogwart's).  The modern world is acknowledged (they have cell phones), and all in all, the romance was delightful and the supporting characters are fantastic and feel real.

I've read a few gay romances and they never did anything for me, and I was beginning to worry that I was too heteronormative to handle it, but based on the HOURS I spent looking up Simon and Baz fan art and additional fanfic, I can report that I was just waiting for the right story and the right characters and Rainbow Rowell served them up to me on a platter.  I can't recommend this enough.  One of my top books of 2015/16 (it was released in 2015) for sure.

Dead. Seriously. So hot.

I can't even.  Thank you, teenage girls everywhere for pouring all your frothing, hormonal, tentative sexual energies into making Simon and Baz fanart/fanfic.  You are treasures, the lot of you.  

I went from reading that (twice!) to tackling Jonathan Franzen's Purity (for academic book club, obviously) and seriously?  Like, what is this?  Is this white privilege in book form?  Because that's how it feels to me.  I can't even (in the bad way).  Now I'm at the 20% mark and am somewhat committed to seeing it through.  UGH.

After a long week and a weekend that felt even longer, I warmed up a coconut bun and put it on the dining room table.  I went to supervise the Big Yam practicing piano for about 1 minute, and when I came back to retrieve my treat, I saw that Twin A had stuffed the ENTIRE thing into his mouth.  He looked up at me, and through a mouth full of ill begotten gains, said, "I ate it all."  This is kind of what it sounded like, but his cute, soft voice was even cuter muffled through a coconut bun filter.

Here's what we've been eating for dinner, lately:

Bi bim bap.  I bought the thinly sliced ribeye that's in the freezer section of Chinese grocery stores (for hot pot) and mixed it with purchased kalbi marinade, stir fried it, and then added thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and snowpeas with a touch more marinade and piled this on top of rice.  Topped with a fried egg and sesame seeds, this was a very budget-friendly weeknight dinner (total cost was about $20!)

More budget weeknight dinners - French onion soup and croque hermaphrodites (ham and swiss with a fried egg on top)

Sunday supper a few weeks ago was meatloaf - sauteed brussels sprouts (which Twin B strangely loves), and a sweet potato-cauliflower-yukon gold mash.  Things my kids hate: mashed potatoes.  I don't get it.  

Another budget weeknight meal - sausage and peppers (sear Italian sausages, then bake on a tray with sliced peppers, onions, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and chili flakes) served up with soft mascarpone polenta (done in the slow cooker), and sauteed rapini.  My kids hated this meal, but I loved it.

Lately I've been craving retro 90s, 2000s desserts like creme brulee and molten chocolate cakes.  I don't know why molten chocolate cakes fell out of favour, but there's really no reason why?  Who doesn't like an underbaked, warm, gooey brownie topped with ice cream and salted caramel sauce?  Clearly not me, judging by my nightly consumption of one such dessert.

Budget weeknight dinners: Hawaii edition.  Steamed rice, topped with fried spam, a fried egg, with canned gravy on top = moco loco.  Hawaiian people are geniuses.

I was all inspired by my Discerning Coyote friend so I pulled my 9 year old (!) sourdough starter out of the freezer where it's been for 3 years (!) and brought it back to life.  I made two ugly loaves that tasted pretty good, all things considered (all things being: I was rushed, I subbed wheat bran for wheat germ, my starter is sluggish, I didn't have a razor blade to cut the tops, and I was rushing like whoa).

Yesterday was pancake Tuesday, so we had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves and maple syrup and bacon from the Mennonites, which is the very best bacon in the world.

Fin.

BAAAAACK.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

- Anne Lamott.

I'm back, here, where I belong, in my Brio-hating corner of the internet.  I took a little hiatus and started a side blog for a while, but as the previous post (which was supposed to go up on the alterna-blog) shows, it was too difficult for my frazzled brain to keep track of both places, and also, my mum loathed having to put in a password and basically heckled me out of making this blog private.

During my time away, I have grown (probably not) and learned (yes) and renewed my dedication to writing my story and being able to stand by it.

I am not always the best version of myself on here (as you all know).  For the past ten (!!!!!) years in this space, I have changed as a person (thank goodness!) and this is a little corner that I've cultivated for me to work out my own s**t.  I'm not asking you to agree with me, to like me - hell, I'm not even asking you to read this - there's a reason I use aliases a plenty.  You've been warned.  If chinotto is NOT your nemesis, then move along.  Noted lippy broad/mouth of the south/iron stomach Lagerfeld/Chinese Veronica Mars/unapologetically angry/Karl Lagerfeld, esquire is here, and here I will stay.

I will not go gentle into that good night. I will rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Yours in impudence, irreverence, and often-ignorance,

K. Lagerfeld.

The Littlest Hobo

I'm travelling for work this week which means I've been in a different city each day for the past three days.  I'm writing this from wintery Thunder Bay.

Pros of work travel: expense accounts for food and big per diems
Cons of work travel: ^^^ I'm overeating like a Pigface McGillicuddy

Pros of work travel: opportunities to travel to places I might otherwise never prioritize visiting (e.g. Thunder Bay)
Cons of work travel: having to be "on" all the time

Pros of work travel: getting to know my clients and my colleagues in a new way and meet people around the office
Cons of work travel: dealing with bitchy, negative intelligence mid-20s girls who are still in that sad, fragile place where they see other women as competition (but also: HOW AMAZING IS IT THAT THIS POOR THING THINKS I'M HER PEER?!?"

Pros of work travel: alone time to stuff my face on takeout in a king sized bed in a hotel room I didn't pay for
Cons of work travel: missing my family (kinda).

I say "kinda" because I miss them, but I weirdly haven't missed missed them (yet).  Work travel is kind of a solitary thing - you're the autonomous, independent, "work" iteration of yourself, but switched on all the time, without reprieve.  It's weird, when Kool Moe Dee and I leave the kids for more than 2 hours, or even when the kids are in bed and we're getting ready to turn in, that's when I find myself missing our kids the most, bordering almost on nostalgia as we replay the funny things they do with that little bit of space and time to reflect.  Maybe I don't miss them as much because I don't have the Dotytron to share the missing with?  I miss them in and of themselves but maybe I also need someone who gets them like I do to share the missing with.  Missing as a communal, creative activity as opposed to a solitary one.

Tavi Gevinson, that slip of a sage, said something recently: "I believe fear of loss is a common cause of collecting, nook-making, and other forms of resistance against all randomness."  I think my deeply ingrained fear of loss is what drives me to do the things that I do - to make things with my hands, to feed, to cook, to document that cooking obsessively (going on 10 years - if not more - now!), to maintain this blog in the face of the long-foretold death-knell for long writing pieces (and in the face of an occasionally hostile and misunderstanding readership).  I am resisting randomness as best I can - holding the ephemeral, intangible, impotent line.  Maybe that's why I'm so baby crazy...maybe that's why I do all the things I do.

The Dotytron and I had a long, rambling, philosophical conversation once with our friend, about our friend's existential crisis and latent need to feel that they've "done" something with their life.  My mortality fears aren't rooted in the need to do something big, or important.  My mortality fears are because I love the here and now and everything so. damn. much.  I won't go gentle in that good night.  At least, I don't think I will.

Fin.

Emerging

Back.

Twins are napping, I'm back in my pajamas, soup is simmering on the stove, matzoh balls are resting in the fridge, house is (semi) clean, taking deep breaths after a glorious 16 1/2 days off of work. I think I'm ready?  Although I truly am suited to a life of leisure.  And let's face it: there is actually NOTHING leisurely about the holidays.  {Edit: usual disclaimer about this post taking days to write.  That idyllic imagery was actually on Sunday afternoon.  We're now into Tuesday and s**t is ON.}

My two-week holiday began with a 10pm, opening-night screening of Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens.  I'm clearly the target audience for this movie, having grown up in a family of Star Wars/pop culture nerds, and having cried my way through all 59 of the theatrical trailers (domestic and international).  Someone asked me what it is about the trailers that made me cry, and I tried to explain that they were tears of anticipation...tears of hype.  We watched it for the second time today, this time with Master T, and as I periodically cried throughout the movie, I realized that the tears are also tears of joy...tears of wonder.  I was a bookish nerd as a child, and have grown into a bookish nerd adult. I grew up in a household of sentimental, enthusiastic, whole-hog siblings.  There is something about sitting in a movie theatre and being transported to a faraway land, of believing and yearning for that world to be tangible and true that is particularly piercing in this particular franchise.  I watched the Big Yam in the theatre and he believes, he loses himself, and I do too.  This is why I get covered in goosebumps, why I'm willing (and able) to talk about minute details, to invest in this universe like it's a real thing.  Because of wonder.  It wasn't a perfect movie, by any means, but I don't need it to be.  It did exactly what I wanted it to do, which is transport me and make me believe.  JJ Abrams' used CGI judiciously, and relied on scaled models, and that one scene of Daisy Ridley's Rey standing in a dessert in front of the ruined wreckage of an Imperial Star Destroyer is so perfect that I can become a kid again.  This is what I want and what I so rarely find.  This is why Harry Potter is so perfect, and why we love Miyazagi films, and why I read comics. 

Also, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Adam Driver.  And Rey.  We took the Big Yam and his friend to the Star Wars pop-up in the City TV building.  There was a little half-Asian girl, around 3 years old, who was dressed up like Rey and the Dotytron and I almost died from the cute overload. 

Say what you will about George Lucas as a director, but he wrote a kick-a** story and created an awesome world.  JJ Abrams honors the spirit of the films, and picked a perfect cast, and crafted an entertaining (if repetitive) story, and gets human, affecting performances from his actors.  I just...I just really love it, guys.

It was so good. Then we had a chill Friday night with Dr. Rei and company.  We've got this good Friday night hang system dialed in. Dr. Rei and her fam come over after work on Friday, we eat takeout, laugh about a million different things (like, Hanbo being friends with the Sexy Stabba from the PATH on LinkedIn), and then everyone goes home and the kids are all in bed at a reasonable hour.  And THIS FACE:

What a Dimples McGee.  Zoony's continued trepidation around the Big Yam is a source of angst for my poor guy.  "Zoony hates me. Zoony doesn't like me.  He used to like me."  It's two sensitive goof balls bumping up against each other.

Then we had the Dotytron's extended family xmas dealie, which was fine.  There was some talk about not giving the prevailing provincial government "a single cent more of my money in taxes" but I let it slide. I don't know if I was being baited, but  I rose above and just ignored it.  The next day we had did an escape room with extended Micelli crew and we lost, but it was hilarious and fun times and we got to catch up with good people we haven't seen in a loooong time, which is always heart embiggening:

We got takeout for dinner from this new place called Loaded Pierogi.  We tried almost all the varieties and it was kind of expensive?  Each dish consisted of about 7 or so pierogies that you could get either boiled or fried and then topped with stuff.  I am doubtful that they even make the pierogies in house and the pierogies were just standard size.  I'm kind of over that as a restaurant "concept": taking something premade and then turning it into a "bacon loaded" or "buffalo chicken" version. Do you know how many bags of pierogies I could have bought for $125?!?  A LOT.   

 

We kept our nanny on board for half days for the first three days of the holiday break.  Each day, we'd take one kid out on an errand/outing and then go out for a restaurant lunch, then back home afternoon nap/quiet time. We did this in lieu of xmas presents to each other, and it was one of the best ideas I've ever had. Our kids never get two-on-one time and it was SO EASY.  It was like, negative work being with just the one. I feel like their individual personalities bloom a bit more when they have the independent space to express themselves and we have the time and energy to pay attention.  We took the Big Yam to see the Force Awakens pop-up with his friend and then followed it with his beloved hot dog restaurant, Fancy Franks.  Twin A got to go with us to Kinton Ramen, where he ate opted for plain steamed rice.  When his little dish of rice arrived, he spooned up a bite, moved it to the side of his mouth, tilted his head, and pronounced, "it'sth good."  A real gourmand.  Twin B got to come with us to Kinkai (formerly Guu) Izakaya, where he also ate rice while we gorged ourselves on salmon tataki and donburi bowls and baked oysters.  It was so civilized.

 

We are still going hard with trying to "embrace winter" which means that whenever it's not a full work day, we try to bundle up the kids and take them out for a walk.  We reap the benefits in the form of the twins being completely knackered and up for a solid 2 hour nap and some well-deserved quiet time in the house for our own personal projects, or lazy couch times.  One of my favorite things in the world is lying on the living room couch, the room lit only by the tree, and having the Big Yam come up to me after he's hit his independent play limit and ask to lie with me.  It inevitably ends up in the two of us falling asleep and burrowing our way slightly sweaty from the sheepskins an hour later.  It's the best re-charging in the world.

I legit thought this kid would never be able to occupy himself doing crafts and behold!  He spent an hour decorating a keep sake box.

On Christmas Eve we ate takeout Congee Queen and a million cookies and watched that new David O. Russell movie, Joy, which is as terrible as the critics would have you believe.  Sanitized, Oscar-baiting David O. Russell is not a David O. Russell I need to see.  His continued need to cast Jennifer Lawrence in roles that are well beyond her years results in movies that are coasting on her charisma and there is a chuckle or two, but overall, it's all getting rather formulaic and maudlin, to boot.  

My 2016 cookie plate - from left to right: skor chocolate chip, malted milk chocolate, gingerbread, nutmeg sugar cookies, Dorie Greenspan's world peace cookies (recipe below), ginger molasses, homemade twix bars, snickerdoodles, cardamom butter cookies, and buckeyes along the bottom. I started making all the dough in November and was actually concerned on the morning of Christmas Eve that I "didn't have enough variety."  I have issues.

Obviously Momma D went crazy, again.  The Dotytron and I were pretty restrained.  We are responsible for 1/27th of this loot.  

Christmas dinner was at my MIL's and my kids were terrors.  There are a few things working against us: space, expectation of quiet, people who haven't been around young children in a looooong time, expectations of good behaviour, the fact my kids had a traditional WP turkey dinner...it's a perfect storm.  The best thing that happened was when my SIL was taking drink orders around the table, I heard Twin A lisp, "I want white wine!"  LOL!  So good.  

My sister and her brood showed up later that night and Xmas with my family (us, my sister and her family, my brother and his fiancé, and my MIL and SIL invited for dinner) was the exact opposite.  It was a bacchanalian feast.  Whereas my MIL was worried about people filling up on the hot appetizer I brought (blue-cheesed stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates) to her dinner, we pre-loaded my family up with shrimp cocktail, 60 oysters, a charcuterie board, and then went hard into porchetta, pasta bolognese, my sister's green bean casserole, peas, garlic bread, and Kool Moe Dee's magnum opus, a croquembouche:

We had started the day with scrambled eggs, french toast, bagels, chicken liver, gravlax, and pastrami smoked salmon.  Then we went to the park and basically played nonstop games.

 

This kid's face, man.  I can't even.

This kid's face.  I can't even.

Two notable events for the memory books happened over the course of that weekend. 1) Xmas 2015 will forever be known as "Chairpocalypse" about 3 different people fell out of, and/or broke chairs while sitting in them at my house.  It was very strange, but I guess the moral of the story is: we need to upgrade our dining chairs.  The second thing involved one of the Big Yam's Xmas presents.  Santa put a whoopee cushion in his stocking, which was met with great acclaim by the next generation.  All that is, except for Twin B, who self-selected himself OUT of the basement rumpus and came clambering upstairs at one point talking gibberish about "tooting" and being "'cared" of said tooting. We didn't think anything of it.  Later that afternoon,the Big Yam came running up the basement stairs bearing this news: "I need to tell you something. The WHOOPEE CUSHION. IS IN.  THE TOILET!!" Which of course made all the adults give each other the something strange is afoot at the circle K look.  Then it was revealed that Little Little Cuz had just exited the bathroom prior to Big Yam.  So we hauled up the Big Yam and Little Little Cuz for a good old fashioned, Lagerfeld-family interrogation.  

Little Little Cuz did not hold up well under scrutiny.  He definitely denied doing it, but did so while progressively shifting lower and lower in his chair and failing to meet our eyes.  The Big Yam claimed that Little Little Cuz hadn't gone into the bathroom with the cushion in hand, but it was all a stew of unreliable witnesses.  At the end, realizing we wouldn't get an admission out of either of the two 5 year-olds, we dismissed them, chalking it down to one of those times when it's just not worth the effort interrogating a child to get the answer you're expecting.  What we did come away with, with reasonable certainty, is that it is likely that Cousin M peed on the cushion in the toilet, and didn't think to mention it.  Later, the older gen discussed it at length and came to the conclusion that it was odd that the kids didn't fess up.  During dinner, we thought to ask Twin B whether he did anything to the cushion.  At first, he gave us this face, glowered a bit, and refused to say anything:

Then, finally, he said, "I flushed it."  LOL!  We died.  Imagining Twin B so terrified of the whoopee cushion that he conquered his fear just enough to try to eliminate the problem via our plumbing system (as so many before him have tried to do), is all kinds of hilariousness.

We did a lot of driving over the break.  Driving to Diana's to pick up seafood on the eve of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, where Twin B poked the eye of some Norwegian fishman with his light saber, driving to Schmaltz Appetizing to pick up pastrami-smoked salmon and gravlax, driving to Nu Bagel to pick up some proper, wood-fired everything bagels.  I was harping on the Dotytron to be careful driving and not let us get t-boned, which is my usual habit because I feel like the drivers of vehicles are always looking out for themselves, amirite?  He took a left-hand turn that was a little close for my liking, but was actually totally safe and as he did so, fake-cried out, "T-Bone Burnetttttttttt...." and I literally died laughing.  If "T-Bone Burnettttttttttt..." is the last thing I hear before getting T-Boned at the Dotytron's hand, I'd be so upset.

We had visits with our friend from Montréal, I, and the Roomie and her family.  We spent New Year's at L's farm.  It was all-around a really, really good time.  It's nice to be somewhere else on New Year's.


There was also the Dotytron's birthday, where we celebrated by engaging in some high-octane birthday parkour:

We also set up an air mattress and let the twins be very unsafe, because we are fun, but reckless parents:

In keeping with fun, but reckless, we also let the Big Yam go on his first-ever friend sleepover.  Which in hindsight, might have showed a lack of judgement?  The Dotytron spent the night kind of freaking out about it.  We gently probed Master T the next day and it didn't seem like anything sideways happened, but kids are unreliable witnesses.  After watching Spotlight, this world, man...it will sicken you.  Do I have a kid who likes to show people (always in a place where he's surrounded by family), his junk?  Yes.  Is it horrifying to think of someone taking advantage of that childhood bodily innocence and exploiting it like a monster?  Yes.

Spotlight is a really good film about print journalism, which might just be a 2-film genre consisting of itself and All the President's Men.  I'm obviously predisposed to like this genre because it's all about research and digging and libraries and old-fashioned pre-internet searching and I love s**t that romanticizes my profession.  Although, I agree with what Ty Burr says - the film doesn't lionize journalists, it just depicts them doing the at times tedious work that they do to bring issues to light.  So, I guess the film doesn't romanticize my profession, I am the one romanticizing my profession.  Can you blame me, though?  Look at all these clown steppers who think they know how to find out information.  It's the worst.  Also, people who are "internet smart."  That's where the person does a tonne of "internet research" and comes up with the most basic, predictable, opinion on stuff because they are an algorithm eating robot and not a real person.  I know someone who claims to be a "foodie" but then will slag legit-good restaurants when all he eats all day, every day at work is a bowl of broccoli steamed in a microwave.  He's the one who's always claiming really good stuff is, "overrated" and in general, his opinions are the polar opposite of what Kool Moe Dee and I think about stuff, which is fine, if you can defend it in a way that makes us believe you've actually thought about it in a considered, heartfelt way, as opposed to being a Reddit regurgitating internet smart robot.

Also: it is heinous and reprehensible what the Catholic church did.  I think the movie is solid but it's not, earth shattering or ground-breaking.  Just some solid, reliable, workhorse filmmaking that allows me and Kool Moe Dee to practice our egregious, insulting, fake-Boston accents by attempting to insert the phrase "pahk tha cahr" into every conversation for the duration of the film.  It was also gross how the institutions of Boston (including the newspaper) were implicated in the cover-up of this case.  Do spotlight-type teams exist in every newspaper?  They should.  Guys, investigative journalism is dying and it's a sad, sad, thing.  No wonder people are dummies nowadays.  There's been a lot written about the normcore clothes the protagonists wear and how accurate that is for newsrooms - it seemed pretty period-correct, to me, although I don't know why journalists wearing khakis from the Gap constitutes a news story.  Maybe people just wanted to be able to throw the normcore word around?  Who knows.  The Boston Globe has solid coverage of the history of the events that make up the core of the film.  You can find that here.

Sicario was another dudski.  It was all faux-ominous and faux-ratcheted-up-tension with this over-bearing brass-blast score and your standard take on the seedy, immoral, (yet-Hollywood alluring) drug trade.  Like, stop it Hollywood.  And don't give us the straw-man of Emily Blunt's protocol droid moral quandary.  I kind of found it sexist.  Like, it was so, "this is a MAN's world lady, and yeah, you could handle it for a bit, but you're breaking down when it comes time for MANLY MAN DRUG ILLEGAL STUFF TO HAPPEN?!?  MAN UP, LADY!"  At least, that's the subtext I got and I wasn't in for it.  The movie was totally forgettable other than for how sloppily it trades on tropes.

That pretty much brings us up to date (mostly).

This happened. 

Fin.