homeowner...helping homeowners

(almost.) i don't actually have the paperwork in my hands yet, which is what's preventing me from fully believing that the dotytron and i own a motherf**king house. a HOUSE. lil' ugmo is mostly ours (pending anything egregious that might turn up in the title search or on closing day.) there's too many pendings. so i'm not going to fully accept that i might be a homeowner...helping homeowners until i get the paperwork in my hot little hands and start pouring money into making lil' ugmo mine. the seller's agent is being a pain in the arse. first, even though the owners had signed off on it, the spouse hadn't. because the seller's spouse didn't come home until 7pm and the agent lives in richmond hill, she couldn't be arsed to come down and get her to sign it. the worse that could happen is that the seller's spouse could say, "i didn't agree to this" at which point my mom's would take them to court and sue the pants off of 'em. seller's agent finally got the spouse signature and then faxed it to our agent, but FORGOT to fax the first page with the owner's initials. argh! my agent is going to a wedding this weekend so i probably won't have it until monday.

note: your agent makes a S**TLOAD of money for NOT very much work. our agent drove us around for a couple of hours (maybe 6-8 hours maximum), haggled the night of the offer (4 hours) and then has maybe put in an additional 4 hours since then. i think in total, a generous estimate would be 40 hours of work. for that, her commission is going to be $7,000. SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. my mum seems to think that it's perfectly acceptable to haggle with your agent about their percentage of the cut. thankfully, you don't pay your agent if you're buying. but if you're SELLING?!??? get outta here!!!!! you gotta pay TWICE!

anyway, the mis-education of lil' ugmo is going to be assiduously documented on this blurg, although dr. rei feels like i'm going to need a separate blurg just for lil' ugmo's progress. never fret my lambs. i will show you how you too, can spend oodles of money you're going to be re-paying for many aeons and probably never recoup on an ugly east-end semi that you're probably going to outgrow just as it's up to snuff.

expect to see a lot of home furnishings in the roll call of awesome. actually, in the interests of organizing and for harnessing the power of 2.0 in all its cloud computing glory, i should probably create new installments based on room.

so here goes - introducing a brand new blog installment: my fair lil' ugmo - dining room edition.

dining room:

alumni classroom furniture makes seating and tables and desks for classrooms (duh.) based out of the ever-banging waterloo, they make some pretty stylin' and profilin' furniture that because it's meant for industrial usage, can probably take a lot of wear and tear.

these two (stackable!) chairs would make a thrilling addition to any dining room set. they're kind of eames-y. the first one, more so. it comes in more colours but truth be told, i kind of prefer the bottom one more. it's so cute! but it only comes in burgundy and navy. i think navy would be nice, but then i have to rethink my oil cloth short list. F-U-N!

can't wait to have breakfast with the work crew, their menfolk, and more importantly - THE BABIES!

fin.

knock knock

where have i been at? my dear friend T touched down on wednesday and is staying with me for a glorious week and a half so i've been preoccupied with that.

on wednesday i came home and we caught up and i made us a nicoise salad dinner with potatoes, blanched beans, cherry tomatoes, roasted peppers, seared salmon, a poached egg, lemon vinaigrette and bagna cauda.

for dessert i made a layered rhubarb thing. i made a strawberry rhubarb compote, and layered it with meringue and whipped cream. it was underwhelming because it's been so humid (T brought the rain with her!) and the meringue was flaccid and limp and chewy instead of crisp. annoying!

last night was dodgeball and we met up with dr. rei and went to tacos el asador and feasted like kings. when i was literally full of beans, i then went to play dodgeball and had the opportunity to introduce T to the unique and slightly juvenile charms of my teammates.

today is a super fun day at work where we're celebrating a recent re-organization. WITH A PIZZA LUNCH!!!!!!!!! love the pizza lunches. adore them. i'm not eating any breakfast in anticipation because old supervisor T has been making tonnes of cookies and snacks and goodies. i made banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and a feta-fava bean dip that i'm going to serve with belgian endive and chopped veggies.

tonight for dinner i'm thinking i might grab ghandi's rotis for us and we'll do a celebratory dinner...or i might stick to the original plan and make a black bean chili w/ corn tostadas, guac, sour cream, and tomatillo salsa. we'll see. it depends how ambitious/motivated i am after stuffing myself all day at work. for dessert i'm making devil's food cupcakes with brown sugar buttercream. my mum has demanded cupcakes as "payment" for her legal services. she's kind of the most unprofessional legal practitioner i've ever met, considering she openly scolds her clients and calls them stupid (or maybe that's just me...lol!) i think she's been wearing her mom hat and her lawyer hat.

if this deal actually goes through, she can't technically represent us because it's a conflict of interest in the bank's eyes (i don't really understand why) anyway, we'll be having cupcakes tonight and i'm going to present T with her belated birthday prezzie.

yesterday my friend from my pastry chef days, M showed up at my work and we went for lunch. the other pastry chef at canoe, S was doing a presentation at holt renfrew for her new company, bobette and belle. they make french macarons in thrilling flavours like caramel with fleur de sel, gianduja with praline and roasted hazelnuts, madagascar vanilla buttercream. the packaging is ever so dear and my free samples indicate that the macarons are ethereal - crunchy, chewy little bites with the perfect amount of puff, airy sweetness, pure flavours. takes me right back to paris. i bought T a box of those (with the hopes that she would share!) and a lesportsac bag. i hope she likes her prezzies!

this weekend is a busy one. heading up to markham tomorrow morning. having brunch with G & family, M & family, K and her manfriend at the bluestone bistro. then my sister is showing up with her family, we're going to see UP! with the kids and then who knows what. then it's family portraits on sunday with my grandma and grandpa and then back downtown for dodgeball and then back up to markham for my grandma's birthday banquet.

i switched my day off to monday because of the big to do at work today, so i still get my long weekend, it's on monday instead and i get to spend it with T doing our usual toronto thing of shopping and gossiping. i'm pumped! she hasn't been to toronto in the spring/summer in 7 or 8 years.

fin.

things i didn't know were possible

/ house edition of roll call of awesome:

a) that you could fall in love with a shower curtain:



b) that i would suddenly go apes**t over oilcloth tablecloths and marimekko prints. i could picture any of these providing a jaunty and practical jolt of colour to my dining room table (while protecting it from the dotytron's tendency to becrumb everything and the cats' tendencies to scratch everything up):






so so so lovely!

i also love the look of european high-gloss cabinets in kitchens. i want a blue and white kitchen (the better to show off apple clock!) with cork flooring. that's the dream. i had originally wanted blue high gloss cabinets with a white tile backsplash (words of advice: NEVER GET WHITE CABINETRY!) but then i saw the ikea 2009 catalogue and a whole high gloss kitchen is actually TOO reflective and it would be a fingerprint, smudgy nightmare. exhibit A:

so eighties! so i think now i want light grey or blue cabinets, white backsplash, cork floors.

i can also totally envision the upstairs bathroom worked around that shower curtain as inspiration, too. all soft blues or bright greens with little white hex tiles:

those are marble. that is NOT happening. but you get the drift. like all white hex tile with just the random soft blue one every so often.

that's all a long way off. like, dotytron has a job and all the big stuff has been dealt with long way off. our priorities are probably something like this:

i) electrical
ii) furnace/hvac
iii) roof
iv) plumbing/intake pipe upgrade
v) adjusting the closets/size of upstairs bedrooms a bit
vi) basement finishing/opening up staircases
vii) kitchen
viii) deck/garage
ix) landscaping the front/digging up the back
x) not killing each other

le sigh. it's going to be a long, dirty, slog...IF we get it.

so we've put in an amendment on the price. we'll see if the sellers' take the bait.

--------------------------

edit: later that same evening

so our realtor presented the offer and the sellers went ape shiz. we ended up coming in $8,000 under our existing offer (that has been accepted.) the seller is apparently under the belief that if he put 8 grand in the house he could sell it for $400,000, which actually made our realtor LAUGH OUT LOUD (if you could see the interior, you would too.)

so maybe they'll knock a grand or two off.

tonight i made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. there are few things that spaghetti and meatballs CAN'T fix. and lemme tell you, i needed fixin'

two nights of minimal sleep can get to you. last night the dotytron and i got into a very immature tiff that resulted in me sleeping upside down on the bed (my feet where my head was supposed to be) out of sheer stubbornness. we had gotten into a tussle brought upon by stress and anxiety and overwork and a few too many sleepless nights in a row. i threw his pillow onto the ground. he told me to pick it up. i refused. then it became a battle of the wills. after 20 minutes, he said, "i work with 8th graders, dude, i can wait it out" which is the point at which my resolve solidified into an unyielding, lead obelisk. the short of it is, i didn't pick up the pillow and i successfully proved that i could be more stubborn than an eight grader, even if it means sleeping upside down on the bed with no covers. lol!

'terminator salvation' and book reviews forthcoming! tomorrow night my friend T is arriving by way of a conference in ottawa from vancouver. she was here over the holidays but it's been 8 years since she's been back in toronto during the spring/summer. i'm so excited! she's going to be staying with us for a week and a half. joy!

fin.

oy vey

you remember how when you're growing up your parents were always "working on the house" and complaining about what a burden you, your siblings, the house, the yard, etc. were? and you were always like, "gimme a break mum/dads/grandparents, etc. being a grownup is fun! now fork over an extra $10 so i can buy big league chew and another ride on the perilous, creaky, chiropractor's nightmare of a "ride" sitting outside of the grocery store, coated in lead paint [if you're lucky]!"

being a grownup ISN'T fun. houses are a giant, sucky, wet-wool-blanket-in-the-dead-of-summer albatross around your neck and tied to your shoes (i know exactly what i did with that metaphor and i stand by it.) which is the long way of saying that the home inspection was VERY revealing. in the "bank account hemorrhage" sense of revealing. goodness.

i was pretty proud of me and the dotytron though. we went in armed with tape measures, a note book of handwritten questions, and pages of questions photocopied from mike holmes' "holmes inspection" book which we had both read. we basically took a crash course so that we felt pretty confident and knowledgeable going in. while we may not be experts at soffits and fascia, we have an idea of what they're about and what they do. we took a zillion pictures and went over the place with a fine-toothed comb. the house inspector commended us for being realistic and not starry eyed and totally in love with the place and we both felt really in control of the situation and not afraid to ask questions and get answers when we didn't understand stuff. all in all, it was pretty cool, as far as learning experiences go.

we also get two more visits to the house (if we go ahead with the deal) which is probably when i'll have more work people coming through to give us quotes and whatnot.

the long and short of it is: you're always in for more than you bargained for and the start up costs are EXPENSIVE. land transfer tax, lawyer fees (thankfully - hopefully? - waived for me), moving costs, house insurance, the list goes on and on. you really have to be on top of your shiz unless you buy something brand new and move-in ready. condos are looking pretty amazing right now.

but then...but then you meet your (potential) neighbours (as we did) and you see that they're all young couples with a wee babe or two (also, curiously, on our street, there's THREE couples that are asian wife, white husband - so we kind of fit the profile) and people know each other and the park is right there and it's a lovely, tree-lined, dead end street.

so we've put in a new offer...we'll see how it goes! i'm not holding my breath. if it falls through, we're feeling good that we had a great learning experience and that there's another house around the corner! plus, we don't HAVE to move. not in the least. we can sit on our fat little weirdo butts and maybe wait until the dotytron makes more than $12/year and then get a giant lovely castle that's ACTUALLY move in ready instead of a giant gaping whole that eats your money. we're also pretty okay with the fact that we'd rather do things right and take care of the big things (ie. HVAC, roof, electrical) before focusing on fun things like paint, furniture, trim, lighting fixtures, etc. we want to do it right and give lil' ugmo a fighting chance at being okay.

to that end, i'm no longer looking at any of the home decor blogs in my reader. that way lies madness. the same was true of wedding blogs. JUST DON'T DO IT! you'll drive yourself to distraction if you look at what mimsy and poppy are doing out in the hamptons or what typographer xander is doing in portland. it's redonkulous!

tonight for dinner we had seared salmon with tartar sauce, sweet potato and russet latkes with sour cream, and steamed then sautéed fiddlehead ferns.

we know so much more now that if we have to look at houses again, we won't be like 99% of the other n00b alley first time homebuyers who see something moderately well staged and then go buckwild bidding it up. the words of the day my friend, are: fair market value. that being said, you're ALWAYS getting ripped off. don't ever forget it. also, my final words before i trundle off to bed for some well deserved shut-eye: your realtor is not your friend. BE WARY! it's annoying! it's galling to have to decode every response, emotional nuance, statement, sentence. it's also tiring.

i'm exhausted. to bed i go, says i.

fin.

homeowners...helping homeowners

it's been a while since i've checked in. sorry, buds. this maybe be because WE PUT AN OFFER IN ON A HOUSE. zomg. zomg. totally. what the frack? it happened SO FAST! one day, i'm calling the realtor to make appointments for viewings, the next day, i'm calling electricians trying to get quotes. it's madness i tell you, madness.

so, if you want to find out how to make a super-rash decision that will leave you financially beholden for many years to come, then do please read on!

tuesday was an after work session of many, many viewings, or whatever we could squeeze in that we couldn't see on the weekend that hadn't been snapped up yet. out of 12 i had sent our realtor, only 5 were still available. we drove around and came up on lil' ugmo. lil' ugmo is owned by a chinese family. the owners are a little difficult in the sense that they are ALWAYS there and aren't that amenable to showing the place - now showings on sundays, etc. it's been on the market for a while...it had popped up a few times in my property matches and i even recall seeing it ages ago before we had even retained a realtor when i was just trawling realtor.ca.

lil' ugmo is on a quiet, dead end street with a ttc stop right at the end of the street. also at the end of the street is a very large park with a playground, 3 baseball diamonds, a hockey rink, a dog park, and an outdoor swimming pool. it's not as nice as withrow park (not as many mature trees) but it's a bit of an urban oasis still. it's a 2 minute walk to the gerrard street car which will dump me off right in front of my current employment and a 7 seven minute walk down to queen street and the wonders that are leslieville. it's a 3 bedroom semi that's touted as having a finished basement with a bar.

that is a lie. no one would ever want to spend time in that basement. pros: it appears dry. cons: it's disgusting. it also has knob and tube and the whole place has to be rewired - service upgrade, new panel, outlets, etc. (can you tell i've been talking to electricians?) the dotytron was kind of keen on it. it's got 3 decent sized bedrooms and a really nice bathroom and an okay-for-the-basement-but-probably-not-holmes-approved sink and toilet in the basement. it's got a shared driveway and a giant garage in the back which is crumbling to say the least.

ANYWAY, the dotytron was a little keener on it than i was. i thought it was okay. the dotytron's rationale was that even if we DIDN'T get lil' ugmo, we would be buying something similar in the same price range later. so i was like, whatever, we'll see what happens. lil' ugmo already had an offer on the table that expired on tuesday night. our realtor said it wasn't a strong offer because they let the offer sit on the table for a long time (ie. there was a long deadline before the offer expired), which means that the potential buyers are giving other potential buyers a lot of opportunity to put their hats in the ring as well.

so the next day i email our realtor with this message: "hi realtor, we're considering lil' ugmo. what do we do now? we haven't read that book you gave us. we don't know what's going on!" and she CALLS ME BACK and is all like, "okay. we'll get together after work today and put in our offer at 8pm. don't worry" and then i called the dotytron and we were both like, "what the hell?!? zomg!" but she picked me up and we went to a few more viewings (none of which were as suitable as lil' ugmo) and then we grabbed the dotytron and we sat down and went over our offer. we went in $20,000 under asking. then the agent went to present the offer and we buggered off (aka ate big mac combos with filet-o-fish chasers at mcdonald's) and waited. the sellers countered with $4,000 less. we went up $3,000, they came down an additional $5,000.

this whole time, the dotytron and i were initialing pages (so many initials!!!) and signing stuff and the realtor would go deliver it. she kept remarking that she'd never seen any other couple so calm about the whole process. i think it helped that we're not the kind of people to FALL IN LOVE with a house. i mean really, the more houses we've seen, the more they become more and more the same. people either have crappy taste or they have the standard, $450,000+ taste that's ubiquitous. we're just not the kind of people to be totally emotional and GOTTAHAVEIT about it...which probably helped in the end. when she came back after the sellers countered our second offer with their $5,000 less, i outright said, "i REFUSE to pay more than X for this house," at which point our realtor was all crafty-like, saying, "are you willing to meet them halfway and go up to X" and i said, "absolutely not" we just didn't care, ya know? like, we obviously CARED but we weren't about to lose our heads for lil' ugmo. i really can't imagine myself losing my head for ANY house, because a house is a house. you lose your head for the life you build inside it. you lose your head for your choice in decor and aesthetics. not for the house itself. then the realtor got super crafty, being all, "well, are you going to be upset if it sells tomorrow to someone else for [$3,000 more than my maximum]? you know, $3,000 over the life of a mortgage is nothing." and i was like, "no! i don't care!" at which point i think she could see how obstinate and unyielding i am and backed down (i show everything on my face.)

so she went in with our final offer and at 11pm she shows up at our house and me and the dotytron are all like, "we didn't get it...ah well, at least we went through the experience," except when we open the door, our realtor is like, "YOU GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!" and me and the dotytron just stare at her, mouths agape, blankly. the next day our realtor told me she later told her husband that she has NEVER seen a reaction like ours. lol! to be honest, the whole time we were signing, it felt like pretend...you don't really conceptualize that you might actually WIN the everloving thing, you know? and when you find out you get it, you kinda are like, "gah! i don't want it anymore! can't you take it back!" hahahahaha...or at least you get that way if you're me and the dotytron.

so we were totally in shock and everything happened SUPER fast and the days afterwards are a total whirlwind of sorting our your financing and calling home inspectors and trying to get a crash course in being bob villa or mike holmes and making sure you didn't buy a lemon. it's like they keep you busy with busywork to prevent you from actually realizing what you've done. we were in the place for TEN MINUTES!!!!!!

our home inspection is tomorrow. we're going in armed with a digital camera and a tape measure. i've also got two electricians coming in to give us quotes (the house has the dreaded 'knob and tube' and probably requires a whole sale overhaul) tomorrow at the same time. if i find ONE thing i don't like the sounds of, it's OFF!

to say it's been a crazy few days is a mad understatement. last night for dinner i made us braised squid and artichokes with chorizo potatoes...it's the first time i've had a chance to cook since monday. felt weird!

today i went and met up with H super early in the morning and we biked out to roncesvalles, because it was the annual yard sale. it's crazy! we met up with M and a bunch of her friends and the Mister (M's mister) and i bought 3 catering trays (for mint juleps and to hold our bar supplies!) and an ikea tray for the kitty bowls, and 8 1-gallon glass jars with lids from some kooky herbalist for storing dry goods because glass is better than plastic. it was a solid haul. thanks to the kindness of A & C for letting me store the glass jars at their place. loves yous!

now we're taking a harvey's coupon (if we go ahead with lil' ugmo...it's going to be coupon eating for a while...oh well, alinea was a fitting last huzzah) and doing dinner and a movie at the amc. we're going to see 'terminator salvation'! it's been getting middling reviews.

tomorrow is a crazy hectic day...i'll try to come back with a full report.

fin.

lucky button-ness abounds!

but we can't crow too much about it lest the fates come down hard on my semi-charmed life.

yesterday was delightful! sunday was equally delightful although it was marred by a wicked bout of indigestion following a too-gluttonous trip to AYCE japanese land. i can't blame it all on AYCE, though. when the goosetang reconvened at casa del hones, we decided that we really needed something sweet. which of course meant that we had to pile into bwong's car, hit up a sobey's and "get inspired" by the freezer case, cookie aisle, and bakery department (in that order.) inspiration struck to the tune of a classic hamcamp klik viennese dessert table, consisting of: semi-frozen creme puffs, lil' debbie swiss roll cakes, a club pack of ice cream sandwiches, and a mixed pack of creamsicles (assorted flavours, which is a bust, because we all know that creamsicles ARE orange.)

my nascent acid reflux probably wasn't helped by the bile-producing interminable boredom that was 'amadeus.' dr. rei and the dotytron contend that it was the director's cut version that dr. rei procured that marred the film. i beg to differ. the director's cut and the theatrical release differ by about 20 minutes. the extra 20 minutes go towards epic opera sequences that last FOREVER and are just barely redeemed by doves flying out of a paper mâché horse's butt. i don't get it! it doesn't do anything to portray mozart's genius. the dotytron says that that's the point - they're attempting to demystify mozart. that's fine, i guess. but the framing device of using salieri's long-standing resentment doesn't do anything to help propel the narrative along. salieri doesn't come across as ENOUGH of a tragic figure. the performances are pretty decent, except for mozart's wife, costanze ("stanzy" to you and i) who seems to have wandered in off the set of 'rocky.' her line delivery and tone and accent and gestures were appalling. like, i don't know how this film won oscars, appalling. the film gets entirely too repetitive - there isn't enough propulsion in the story or in the development of the characters to make the destinies of the two principals engaging. as i said upon the departure of the goosetang, epic STANZY fail!

the win part of sunday was our meeting with trevor d, who is a goony guy but a consummate professional, or as consummate a professional as you would expect someone wearing triple xl sweats and some lower single teeth caps with photos of pit bulls as his screensaver to be. he was being very kind and considerate with us. lol! "look, i know these are probably your first grills, it's okay, i'll take care of you, maybe throw in a matching diamond in the canine for free." hahahahaha! it was very cute. plus, he's done grills for mtv and junior reid. i think it's pretty respectable and on the up and up.

also, the dotytron was SO GOOD at shopping! so well behaved! we started off at harry rosen in the eaton centre but we didn't like it. as soon as you walk into that place, it's like the sharks smell chum and even though you can't see them, you can sense that you're being stalked by 3-5 salesmen keeping a "discrete" 3 feet behind you. then when you finally dare turn around, you're left with the winner of the secret harry rosen silent tussle invading your face with a sharkish grin. our guy had the additional distinction of accessorizing his not particularly fashion-forward look with some inflamed coke-nostrils. lovely. we looked over the boss and zzegna and dolce and gabbana selections. but the dude was all up in our grill. then we tried on a few things, with the dude first scoffing at my hypothesis that the dotytron is a 42T ("no, he looks like a 40T to me" ) then getting out his measuring tape and confirming that actually, i was right.

we hightailed it out of there. we ended up in the bay. the bay is AMAZING. a lush, tranquil (the less charitable might say deserted) oasis of calm. you're left to your own devices to paw through things at your liking. fine, so you might have to chase someone down when you finally need assistance, or they might not have the size you're looking for, but the dude helping us took one LOOK at the dotytron, and casually said, "oh so you're a 42T, i'll show you what we have in stock in that size" with nary a brandishing of measuring tape in sight! it was blissful! we found a lovely suit, not in the light grey that i had originally envisioned (it did nothing for the dotytron's skin tone) but a lovely inky, blue-grey, that has the magical trick of turning different colours depending on what shirt/tie you match it with. you could totally see the dotytron getting into it, too! offering suggestions and opinions. it was amazing!

then, when we're finally ready to make our purchase, the guy helping us, mohammed ali (with no less than 35 years at the bay under his belt - responsible for the custom tailoring, to boot), tells us that he'll take down our credit card number and charge the suit and accessories to us in 2 weeks when it'll be 30% off!!!!!!! so nice!!!!! I FREAKIN LOVE THE BAY! who does that?!??? the hudson's bay company, that's who.

monday morning we did some tidying and cleaning in preparation for kdubstdot bbq action and then went to the park to play some frisbee while we waited for a court for no-rules tennis. it was so much fun! we've gotten way better at no-rules tennis in the year since we played last...we can actually get a decent rally going. first for the monday version of a sunday breakkie i made a fridge clearing kind of western omelette on a kaiser with orange peppers, green onion, diced genoa salami with swiss cheese melted on the bun, lettuce, tomato, and mayo (the swiss cheese and the mayo were total overkill.)

then the kdubs gang came over and we hung out and it was the BEST! s-dawg came over too and made a wonderful impression on everyone...i think J wants him as her second husband. this cemented through the unique bonding devices of tasteless, crass humour and les miserables singalong karaoke. i'm not gonna lie: les mis karaoke was kind of awesome. during the song, "confrontation" between javert and valjean, the group SEAMLESSLY broke into two parts, each group taking on the role of valjean and javert. it was awesome. special shouts to poor A who wasn't feeling well and was a total good sport. we missed the fireworks...but there's always canada day. the dinner was delicious. N brought the BEST chocolate chip cookies in the whole world...we had pop and chips and salsa and i made cheeseburgers and spinach avocado salad with toasted salted pumpkin seeds and we fried up cheese sticks and poppers and finished with key lime pie. deliciouso! so good i forgot to take pictures! me! forgetting to take pictures!!!

the short of it is: i love my friends and family with all the mush and gush that my craven heart can muster (a surprising amount.)

so last night, after we had ushered out our guests and tidied up the place, the dotytron and i went down to our subterranean lair and prepared for some 'john adams' bedtime viewing. the dotytron was in his undies and went running upstairs to grab us two glasses of water. when he returned, i spun around in my desk chair to accept my glass, only to come face to face with this, because me sitting happens to put me at crotch-height if the dotytron is standing:

yes, ladies and gentlemen. stuffing ice cream sandwiches in your underpants is precisely the kind of romance that somehow warmed a fire-breathing, heteronormative fighting, nuclear family smashing, feminist like me to the (oppressive) concept of holy matrimony. i dare you to resist the same.

tonight i saw a few houses with our realtor. one that we're actually considering. it's got good bones...in a super nice neighbourhood, across from a giant park (as big as withrow!) close to ttc, 3 big bedrooms, 2 decent bathrooms...the house needs a bit of work. it would be a step down, but there's room to personalize it and make it our own without having to live in flophouse hell.

dinner was pancetta, onions, garlic, and red dandelion greens with parm on farfalle. i made a salad too but by the time i finished housing pasta, i was in no mood to eat it.

now i'm doing futzy, house type stuff and trying to figure out what my new knitting project is going to be...what should i bring to knitting club tomorrow?  

hey, you know what we haven't had in a while?

roll call of awesome:

mindy kaling on twitter. she's one of the co-writers on the american 'the office' recently given her own show to develop. mindy kaling's tweets are PRECISELY what you want from a microblogging device. fun, funny, cutely insightful. she's not trying to EDUCATE you. she's not trying to TURN THE SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD UPSIDE DOWN. she's not trying to MINE YOUR DATA. she's not trying to PROVE HOW AWESOME TWITTER IS AT REVOLUTIONIZING CONVERSATION. it's just a window into her delightfully (and self-aware) slightly vapid brain. i love it. it makes me want to log onto twitter, which is more than i can say for 99% of the other dodos on there. sample tweet: "the american tradition of talking to your boyfriend on the phone until you get sleepy and incomprehensible is a great one." heehee.

she also has a a blog, called "things i bought that i love" where she talks about precisely that. sample line: "(n.b. an adorable and mortifying thing for a girl is when her boyfriend picks her up off the ground: ”oh god oh god are my spanx showing?! am I crushing his spinal column with my weight?!)" as someone who has been completely mortified when picked up off the ground by the boys i've loved before...i could totally relate.

read! enjoy!


fin.

well, that escalated quickly

dearest readers...i bought a CREDENZA! and it is GORGEOUS! it's a gorgeous teak with a very dark, almost walnut stain. long and low, 6 feet long with both shelves AND drawers. it was a very fortuitous find and i'm absolutely in love love love with it.

i've been on the lookout for a long, long, long, time. i hate our tv stand and the stupid bookcase we inherited (it got left behind in a previous apartment) to store our dvds and videos (yes, i said videos.) so i've been trawling craigslist, various used furniture stores, ikea, looking for something suitable. everything was either too expensive, or not quite right, or overpriced (ie. craigslist - people overvalue their stuff like crazy.)

i was considering this piece on craigslist:

but i wasn't too sure of the wood colour or the leather top. it was okay, but not perfect.

this little number seemed aight...but all the way in etobicoke. and the finish was meh.

i had kind of resigned myself that i might get two of the ikea ps lockers in red:

this is an affordable option (although not really, if you get two, you're up at $260.) plus it has its drawbacks: the doors open only with a key, which means you have to either never lose the key, or keep the key in the lock and turn it every time you want to open it and access the dvd/vcr whatever inside. plus you'd have to drill holes in the metal to get the cords running through and i don't even know how to do that.

yesterday i did my crafting, did some light spring cleaning, then went over to help H move, showing up fortuitously in time to grab the last garbage bag...lol! some help i was. then i zipped down to queen east to see if i could find anything in the junk stores around.

i stopped in at one place...he didn't have any teak, but he had some walnut pieces (i like walnut too, i'm not a 100% teak fetishist.) they were too tall. finally, he showed me something that looked like this:


with a 4 shelf bookcase on top, the whole thing selling for $395. the credenza bit was only maybe 2-3 feet wide...and he was willing to separate the two pieces and sell the bottom to me separately for $225 plus tax. the finish was more blonde...i didn't love it, but i think i was in a credenza buying/nesting/roomie moving out so i have a proper living room again frenzy...so i thought about it and seriously considered it. then i called the roomie cuz she was in the area and i thought we could shove it in her car and be on our merry way. i went to meet up with her, but en route, popped into another store, and lo and behold fell in LOVE with my little beauty piece.

i don't have a picture. it's gorgeous. it has some minor scuffs and nicks...nothing a little go over with steel wool and teak oil won't take care of. it has shelves on either side hidden with sliding doors, and three drawers in the middle. one of the drawers was missing, the dude at the store told me it was being fixed. it was being sold for $250. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY! i had just walked along a strip of queen east where similar sizes (already oiled up) were going for $1000+. so i snapped it up. i was in lovelovelove and it felt rightrightright. it turns out that the drawer is outright missing...but i can deal with that. i can slide the doors over to cover the space, or take out drawers entirely, put in shelving, and put the vcr/dvd/pvr (eventually) player on that. that's why it was so cheap. it's so lovely! i'm in total love with it. the drawers slide smoothly, and everything is in good shape. i can deal with scuffs...i mean, if the piece is from the 1970s, i don't expect it to look new. otherwise, i'd buy a reproduction, right?

i also really love these industrial things...but i figured i should get out while i'm ahead:




then i went by upsidedive to pick up a dress of H's that she had bought online. they're having a $5 clothing sale. i bought a $5 stripey, cotton, polo tennis dress thing with a drop drawstring waist for FIVE DOLLARS! i'm in lurve with it. it's grey and pink. i can't believe it was still there. it's the perfect beach/swimsuit coverup. then i saw THIS and fell in love all over again:

a chrome rocker!!! i sat it in it...it's pretty comfy...nice high arms would make it good for knitting. it's rare to find vintage rockers that aren't all colonial style...or the DAR chairs...i hate the DAR rockers (example below)...i think they're super ugly:

we're going back today to grab the rocker...and then i'm done buying stuff. lol! we're going to get some expedit bookcases to sub out for our mismatched, falling apart ones...and then stick everything back in the living room once the roomie is gone. i'm so excited!

ohhhh!!! i also picked up this little number at upside dive:

hi cute apple clock! why are you so cute?!? isn't it adorable?!??? i love love love upside dive. they're the best. they're a team of siblings (it helps that the guy is kinda hot! lol!) and everything is really gently priced and they're super nice and so close to my house! they're the ones that sold me my bedframe.

look at my crafting! my bread bags turned out really swell! i'm pleased...i especially love the poppy print.


this is last night's dinner. i almost poosed out and had us order pizza, cuz i spent about a million hours at H's helping them unpack. i hate moving but i'm a fiendish unpacker...i'd rather stay up all night unpacking because the sooner the new place is in order, the sooner my troubled heart can be at ease. H was ready to quit a few times but i was totally bossing her into finishing the kitchen. ha. the last few times we've moved, the dotytron has taken beer breaks and he'll come back and i've got two rooms done. i have the energy of like, 5 mes when i'm moving. considering how much money i spent yesterday, i decided it was prudent to cook. it was delicious! yummy tartar sauce, yummy fried artichokes, the arugala cut through everything, the shaved parm add a little salt and texture. and the fried lemons! i love fried lemons! i sliced them on the mandoline, peel and all, and then battered them and fried them and sprinkled them with salt. i could snack on fried lemons like chips.

okay, i'm about to eat a bacon'n'egg breakie and then embark on shopping with the dotytron hell. wish me luck! then goosetang forever!

fin.

nothing says long weekend

like a little saturday morning sewing machine crafting flex. what what! yesterday was a short day at work made lively by a visit from G, hubby C and sweet, serious-faced baby G. so cute! G is probably the hottest mummy i've ever seen. she's positively glowing - i guess no sleep is agreeing with her!

then i came home and got a bunch of little piddly things done. like ordering my veiling and another headpiece and sorting out the rehearsal dinner and trying to get more chairs from the rental place and calling disney to sort out some details. after that, we met up with momma and poppa d and sister em of the familia dotytron at jean's vegetarian kitchen for some veggie thai food and long conversation. we missed mother's day so it was a nice opportunity to catch up. i also FINALLY got to gift the secret knitting i've been working on for the past 2 months.

i made the ishbel shawl pattern (large size) in drops alpaca for momma d. it took me FOREVER. i started off strong, but then repeated screwups which necessitated having to undo, stitch by stich, 380 odd stitches in a row, for several rows kind of slowed my resolve. i've read of some people on ravelry finishing this thing in a week. those people obviously don't do anything but knit (there's actually a seemingly disproportionate number of knitters who are also phd students - go figure.)

readers of the blog have heard me rhapsodizing about the virtues of blocking, so i'm going to offer you a little pictorial evidence of its effects. block is particularly important when you're working on lace projects because the knitting gets all kinked up and crumpled in the process. this is what the shawl looked like after i had woven in the ends and taken it off the needles:

it doesn't look much like anything, right? a brief soak in some wool wash and tepid water and after being stretched and pinned to my blocking board, the next day when i unpinned it, it looked like this:

see? keep in mind, i'm not even that good at blocking yet. but magically, through a bit of coaxing and positioning, the lacy pattern appears from that rumpled, crumpled, kinked up mess. it's kind of like magic and it makes lace knitting totally worthwhile.

i don't know what my next knitting project is going to be. we're having regular knitting club meetings on wednesdays so i'll need a steady supply of work. i'm thinking of making myself the twilight mittens or some other cabled mitten pattern that's snug like the twilight ones were. i'd like to make something for myself for a change...maybe a cardigan? who knows...i'll figure it out.

today is an odds and sods kind of a day. i'm going to do some early morning sewing, trying to bang out a couple of quickie projects and refamiliarize myself with my long-languishing and neglected sewing machine. poor little lamb. then i'm going to be real neighbourly and help H, that guy, and sweet baby D move into their new abode. which is SO SO SO close to me! i'm so happy about that! walking distance friends are the best friends to have and they're literally just across the park. love it. i might go check out this used furniture place to see if they have any credenzas worth buying then do some light grocery shopping and come home and hopefully have time to work on the performance invites and itinerary. make dinner and bake a loaf of bread and the other usual to-do has to be fit in there somehow as well.

tomorrow is even more of a gong show...we've got to get up early, eat a nice sunday breakkie, then head down to harry rosen, the bay, and the hugo boss store to see about a suit for the dotytron. i met some guy a while ago who was trying to convince me (and half succeeded) of getting a custom job done but then common sense prevailed. it would be RIDICULOUS for the dotytron to have a custom suit, considering he has to wear a suit maybe 4 times a year. plus, the dotytron hates shopping more than anything. there are witnesses! he almost had a breakdown buying BIRKENSTOCKS in italy last year while dr. rei and i giggled away at how wound up he got. we might just break up over the whole suit thing. we'll see. here's hoping. anyway, a custom job is out of the question...we'll probably just throw down for something from the boss black label or zzegna. he's got other more conventional, man suits but i think it'd be nice for him to have something a little more european in the tailoring...slim lapels, quite fitted...probably in a dark charcoal or a grey. he has a black one, he as a blue one (that needs to be upgraded, but not just yet) so i think a dark grey is the next choice. and a new pair of regular dress shoes. and a narrow tie. and possibly a vest. the crazy thing is how EXPENSIVE men's clothes are. like girls can easily find a $20 top that would be fine for work. good luck if you're a guy. it's basically never happening.

then we're going to meet up with trevor d of trevor d custom jewelery to see about the grillz. i'm a little suspect but i'm not sure if that's because i'm being classist. i'm going in thinking, if it's good enough for dank of frank'n'dank fame, it should be good enough for me, right? right? *tugs on collar* eeks.

after that, the day slides into more relaxation mode as we get together with dr. rei and hanbo and bwong for some all you can eat japanese action up in markham. once we're stuffed to the gills we're going to head back down to our pad and watch some amadeus action. sounds like a near-perfect evening, if you ask me.

in other news, i'm seriously considering getting a masters of public administration or public policy...or an mba. doing the mba means i have to do the GMAT which i think means that i probably need to brush up on my long-lost grade 10 math skills. the masters of public policy or masters of public administration doesn't require the GMAT, so i might go that route. i really want to be a research officer and secure my place in the public sector somehow...and i kind of want to advance in my field too. a two year, course based degree seems like a good insurance policy to have in the back pocket. plus, i took a look at the courses...SNOOZE fest...i could probably do it with one eye half closed and my shoelaces tied together. the major deterrent is that the programs are hella expensive. the good thing is that a lot of them are geared to working professionals so they do intensives where you only go to class one weekend a month or something. i think with my MISt and an MPA/MPP/MBA that's basically going to make me super hire-able and eligible to work in a liberal think tank. possibly.

tonight for dinner the plan is to steal another page from paul kahan's book and copy a dish i had at publican. it's going to be fried fish, fried artichokes, fried lemon with tartar sauce, arugala and shaved parm. i'm excited. we don't have smelts readily available so i'm going to use a plain white fish like tilapia or halibut instead. it really doesn't matter as long as there's something crispy and battered with something tartar sauce-y.

i don't know if i'm going to bother making a dessert or not. i've been craving dessert like mad lately but i'm not feeling inspired to actually make anything. plus we're having key lime pies on monday at the bbq/lowkey chill time hangs i'm hosting.

time to get cracking.

fin.

trip the light fantastic

i don't know what that phrase actually means. but so strongly do i feel about e. lockhart's amazing authorial talents and so hastily did i write that post last night, that i feel i didn't hit the point home well enough yesterday. e. lockhart is a FANTASTIC author. go pick up her books. do it now! you will instantly be transported back to high school, except it's kind of the best possible high school experience because you're one removed from the ACTUAL trials and tribulations and angst. ruby oliver is a winning protagonist and her surrounding cast are equally endearing. did i mention she has hilarious sessions with her shrink and fantastically kooky parents who sound just like real (white) liberal parents living in seattle? did i mention that i'm positively salivating at the prospect of ruby oliver book 3 'a treasure map of boys' and upon its purchase anticipate unplugging myself for the entire blissful 4 hours 2 days it will take me to hastily devour (4 hours - first pass) and slowly savour it (2 days - second pass)?

i actually don't have time to talk. dr. rei is meeting me shortly and we're going to walk to the subway stop that will put me on the bus to take me to dodgeball. thursday night dodgeball is in some faraway land known as st. clair and dufferin. it's the ends of the earth! plus i have to use my precious free time feverishly finishing knitting a shawl that i want to block tonight to gift tomorrow. this shawl has been TWO months in the making. shawls should NOT take 2 months! well, i guess they do if you lead a fantastically busy life and put it in time out after one too many times undoing messed up rows (that's 300+ stitches to a row, friends.)

i'll update with more plummy book reviews tomorrow!

fin.

move over sarah dessen

there's a new YA writer i'm obsessing over in town. i've read A LOT in the last little while. like, a lot a lot. so i'm going to give a rundown on what's been passing before mine eyes.

my second e. lockhart book (timeline: 'fly on the wall' was the first), 'the disreputable history of frankie landau banks' has landed itself on a number of "best of" lists for 2008 - not all of them YA, either. it's a boarding school story (put down the pager! dr. rei has already read this one) of a girl who's come into her own (ie. gotten hot over the summer) and is whip smart and ready to cause havoc on her well-meaning but kind of sexist boyfriend's secret society. there are pranks! there is romance (kind of)! there is a girl finding herself (totally)! i really enjoyed this book, but i was a little put off by frankie's strange awakening to feminism. it was kind of wishy washy and it did the annoying YA thing where the protagonist JUST SO HAPPENS to be a hot little number which is a little galling. it's like, regular girls can't be rebellious? despite minor quibbles (here's the anti-feminist one i wasn't going to put in the review lest i ruin my credibility - then i remembered i don't have any - the girl doesn't end up with the guy she should end up with!) lockhart's brains (i think she's got a phd or something) and her way with words and characters and dialogue is glaringly apparent. she writes entertaining, fully-realized stories that land on the respectable side of fluff without having to pander to clichés or strangely ramped up tragic narrative devices or TEEN cruxes (ie. pregnancy, pre-marital sex, physical abuse, death.)

after finishing this one, i went right out and grabbed whatever i could from her. the next two i read were part of the 'ruby oliver' series, but i read them out of order. 'the boy book' is the second in the series (the third isn't out until july 2009; a fact i discovered when i went hoofing it to indigo on my lunch break at work only to find that i could pre-order, but not have it in my hot little hands.) the main character is ruby oliver, a wise, conflicted, very relatable teen with boy troubles and friend troubles. the story unfolds after a crisis (picking up a few months after the events of the first book, 'the boyfriend list' ends off) that leaves ruby isolated and confused, trying to sort out her life with her wacky parents, the various boys in her life, her shifting relationships with her female friends, and herself. the voice is clever, funny, and rings with a clarity that makes the character feel effortlessly real. this is a book i could re-read over and over again.

the same could be said about 'the boyfriend list' i enjoyed both of these books more than 'the disreputable history' - the characters are more flawed, without the private school gloss of wealth and beauty to insulate them from accessibility. i'm seriously addicted and i'm chomping at the bit for the next one to come out. i can't say enough good things about the writing. say what you will (the dotytron dismissively calls these books my "teen porn" and threatens to turn me into my sister - who incidentally makes a living hunting down actual pedophiles), this is just plain addictive fiction. if people can give nick hornby the time of day, then e. lockhart is certainly his equal. the protagonists just happen to be a bit younger and they're girls. i actually think i like e. lockhart more.


last night for dinner i made flammekeuche with purchased whole wheat pizza dough. i also made that celery, cucumber, red onion and pepper salad with the cumin mint dressing. it's nice and fresh and crunchy and refreshing. it was a good foil against the bacony, creme frâiche-y fatty yield of the flammekeuche.

tonight i hosting knitting club. which means that M, H, that guy, and baby D came over and we knit and talked and watched baby D's kooky, pre-verbal antics. because there were vegans afoot, i made moroccan red pepper, potato and egg sandwiches (minus the egg for the vegans) with harissa. H made us a lovely couscous salad with cucumber, onion, and raisins. it was very nice...but for some reason, totally exhausting.

tomorrow night is dodgeball. i'll have a big chunk of time between work and dodgeball so i'll do some more book reviewing.

fin.

the weekend that was

zomg. zomg. this three-day weekend felt epic but wasn't long enough by far. we started with a classic dotytron and lagerfeld productions rental car road trip (plastic bag for garbage? check. les miz and the best of heart? check. coffee and knitting? check. spotty sense of direction even though we've driven this route at least 20 times? check.)

we did a little bit of target shopping, a little bit of dsw shoe shopping (i bought the shoes pictured above. i've since found out that they come in mustard yellow and forest green. it is for the best that i was ignorant.) then we hit the house of guitars, which is exactly what it claims to be. more guitars than i've ever seen in my LIFE. plus like a million autographs from like every rock band in history on the walls. it also sits on top of a GIANT cd store that's like what sam the record man would have been in its' last days - except filled with stock. what a throwback.

then we went to 'nick tahou's' and shared a garbage plate. we got a red hots one, with hash browns and mac salad. it was AWESOME. however, it was a hot and sunny day and we were stone sober (not ideal garbage plate consumption conditions.) we split one. the magic is in the mustard and the onions and the "beef" gravy/mince stuff on top. the hashbrowns and mac salad could have used a bit of salt but it's deeply satisfying in that way that only regional americana can be. it also runs right through you. it's a total colon cleanser.

next up was mother's day tea. the day care is kind of mean about it. if your mom/parent DOESN'T show, you don't get to go! so mean!!! now i know why miss ramona had a meltdown when she found out that my sis couldn't go for the second year in a row. you're totally ostracized! and there's NO REASON for it! trust me, i'm ALL ABOUT kids not getting accommodated or coddled for no good reason. i don't believe that everyone should pass or that differences should be elided. however, this is not an exclusion based on merit or skill set and in this case, making the exception so that the four kids whose parents couldn't make it aren't left alone in the play room isn't DIFFICULT to do! totally not nice. me and the dotytron were totally swarmed by kids when we showed up. then we decided to take mosey on over to little ze's room to see what his class was like. he was eating snack. at first i couldn't see him but then the dotytron pointed him out, "he's right there!" at that exact moment, little ze looked up, saw the dotytron, and came zooming over, launching himself into the dotytron's arms for a GIANT hug. then he grabbed his coat, put it on, and looked up at us, ready to go.

we didn't really know what to do, because we weren't sure if he could come to the tea with us and it wasn't technically time to go. so we tried to explain that to him, at which point his eyes welled, his lower lip started trembling, and those fat cheeks of his started drooping. it was the most tragic thing ever. the dotytron and i looked at each other, not really knowing what to do, and both welled up. basically, we're total suckers. it's his little face! we can't help it! the little guy's face is just too cute. anyway, we finagled him into the mother's day tea and it all worked out.

we rendezvous with the rest of my siblings (after i spent a full 30 minutes trying to get the car seat into the car) and hit 'five guys burgers and fries' for dinner. leaving the kids at the hotel where my mum and big d were staying was also tragic. just as we were filing out, little ze came running out of the bedroom (my parents' had a suite), and was all like, "guys! guys!" wanting to show us something. when we said, "sorry buddy, we're leaving now" his face TOTALLY fell and he turned around and did the sad, slow, walk back into the bedroom. i swear that face will stay with me to the end of my days. it's cuz he has such big puppy dog eyes.

the new 'star trek' movie is extremely entertaining. yes, there are parts that are completely implausible and kind of annoying (bwe does the best job of summing them up here *warning* SPOILER ALERTS!) and i wasn't even that pumped going in (i'm not a jj abrams fan, unlike the rest of my siblings), but it somehow won me over. it was a near-perfect summer time air conditioned theatre blockbuster confection. smart, funny characters, knowing without being too meta and coy, nodding to the source material but forging ahead with a clear idea of how it was to be reimagined. it's also got big budget special effects (unlike the new 'g.i. joe' reboot which looks like HELL.) AND it has john cho and a pleasingly multi-ethnic cast. thumbs up. well worth it.


plus when we showed up at the theatre, the rochester star trek sci-fi/fantasy club (which seemed to consist of one dude and his gf) had set up shop with all kinds of memorabilia and they were awesome. look at him! so cute! they were also selling warf toys and giving the proceeds to charity. AND they also include buffy under their sci-fi/fantasy umbrella. if we lived in rochester, we would totally join. these guys are our kinds of people. so cute! plus, there's something that breaks my heart when you see people packing up a fan/memorabilia table at the end of the night. i don't know what it is. there's something about seeing people taking down a stand (any stand, really) that cuts to the quick. yes, i'm an emotional, sentimental weirdo...what do you want from me.

saturday was all about the dance recital and checking out the venue for the performance. we also had dinner at the conesus inn. check out my piece of prime rib:

i totally ate the whole thing! i wasn't really expecting to, it just kind of happened. that's the princess cut. to give you an idea, it goes (in increasing order): princess, queen, king, truman. there's only one truman per cow or something, so you kind of have to let them know if you're having one early on. we also split some clams casino (i LOVE clams casino!) and stuffed mushrooms and coconut shrimp. your meal also comes with a salad and a baked potato. i didn't eat my baked potato. but i STILL managed to eat that entire hunk of meat AND a slice of leftover wegman's cake later that night.

i feel shame.

the next morning i made a mother's day brunch for my sister (my mum and big d had taken off at that point) consisting of bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado on a toasted english muffin, topped with scrambled eggs, topped with hollandaise. AND some fat babies. yikes! i felt more shame.

vto compound the shame, we decided to hit an arby's on the way home. it was my first time. the dotytron has been trying to convince me to go for the entire 8 years we've been together and i finally buckled. we roll up at the service centre, park, walk in, place our order. first of all: ARBY'S IS FREAKIN' EXPENSIVE. seriously, a beef and cheddar combo in the states (small fries! small drink!) is $8.11 USD. WTF?!?? that makes NO SENSE! ESPECIALLY in this economy! anyway, we paid, and then the FIRE ALARM went off. so we all had to evacuate! so we stood outside in the freezing cold, not knowing what to do. i'd just blown $20 on both our meals, we had paid, but hadn't gotten our food yet, so we were kind of in a bind. do we drive off and just burn the $20? who knows how long it would be before we were allowed back in? do we wait and get cold food? we ended up waiting 20 minutes and insisting that they start our order from scratch (their lips said yes but their hands and negative work ethic said no.) arby's did not win me over last night. i was definitely underwhelmed. i can see the merits, but mine was obviously made with zero love. there was the faintest smear of processed cheese and the barest whisper of bbq sauce and horseradish. lame! i like the onion bun and the curly fries. i think i need to give it one more fair shot before i call it.

then the dotytron and i got lost for an HOUR in buffalo trying to get on the peace bridge after missing the exit like 5 times and paying stupid interstate tolls about 10 more times than we needed to. it was super aggravating. THEN we got stuck on the lakeshore facing the runoff traffic from that tamil protest that bunged up the gardiner. we had left at 3pm so that we could get home by 6...we ended up getting home close to 9. super irritating but we got a full singalong of the les miz soundtrack out of it, so it wasn't a total loss leader.

ha! we had started les miz when we were in the midst of getting lost and i had had the chance to sing my song ("i dreamed a dream" - thanks susan boyle, cuz now everyone is going to think that i only like it because of your human interest story. incidentally, not the case.) but the dotytron kept turning the stereo off after that. i assumed he was tense and mad because we had been so lost. then as we pull into customs, i turn it back on. he clicks it off. "why are you so weird about having customs hear us playing les miz?" his reply? "i'm not, i just want to sing and i don't want to get interrupted." lol! then i realized that the song that was coming up in the queue was "who am i" - the dotytron's favorite. hahaha...nothing dissolves tension more than the discovery that the dotytron likes to have an uninterrupted go at singing his song from the les miz sounds track. heh.

tonight for dinner i made us whole wheat penne with broccoli, chickpeas, and T's chilis. it was a bit of a throwaway, quickie weeknight thing. i didn't have a chance to go grocery shopping before we left and tonight was a late night for me at work.

i have a wackload of book reviews coming your way...you've been warned!

fin.