Sicko

I meant to post before this but then I done gone got myself sick.  Woke up at 2am on Thursday with awful, awful lower abdomen cramps that had me thrashing and moaning and being a sucky baby that wouldn't let anyone (read: The Dotytron) sleep until they had  heard the full extent of my grievances.  Called in sick to work on Thursday as my tummy was still all jacked up and tender...limped my way to drop the Big Yam off at daycare and lay about and slept with a heating pad on.  By the end of the day things were slightly better, but I was still weirded out.

Yesterday took the Big Yam to the doctor and explain my symptoms.  Guess what he told me?  He said, "girl you better try to have fun..." no, wait, that's Prince.  As soon as I started saying, "I had these awful cramps in my lower abdomen" he kind of sucked in his breath and sighed and said, *Sigh* "The abdomen is really tough to diagnose because there are so many things in there," *sigh* "and with women, there's the extra stuff..." He said that basically, because I was feeling better on Friday, there wasn't anything to do but monitor it.  He felt around to make sure my appendix hadn't ruptured and gave me a clean bill of health.  The Big Yam, too.  I got mother-in-law'd into taking him to the doctor because he's had a dry cough for the past week...as I suspected, there's nothing to do with a cough sans phlegm, fever, sluggishness.  He's just gotta work it out.  The doctor said that this time of year, they see hundreds of people with coughs and they only treat about 15 of them.  

There was a flurry of wrapping and last minute shopping and braving the Mennonites for my Christmas dinner order, and standing in line-ing yesterday.  We're mostly done today, as of the time of this post.  Just some last minute finishing on tomorrow night's dinner that can be done ahead and last minute tidying.  

This was Wednesday night's dinner (pasta w/ rose sauce):

Last night was our Chanukah meal and since I made a 3lb brisket, we put up the House of Plenty signal to try to get peeps over to help us take 'er down.  L'Armi and the Roomie obliged and we had a delicious dinner of brisket bourguignon with sweet potato and yukon latkes, apple sauce, and sour cream.  It was SOOOOO good!  I used a recipe from Serious Eats, which has been my favorite food site for a while.  It's just written by my people.  They've got good recipes, good restaurant reviews, and they're not snooty like Chowhound (ie. they review fast food restaurant breakfast sammies in all earnestness).  This is a link to the recipe I used.  No changes made and I wouldn't recommend any, either.  It's perfect as is.  

Because Chanukah is all about oil and deep-frying (and the festival of lights and the reclaiming of the Holy Temple, blah blah blah) I made a low-key version of doughnuts - churros.  Some dusted with cinnamon sugar and some injected with dulce de leche.  Dulce de leche churros were sooooo freakin' good:

Huge Chanukah breakthrough for the Big Yam.  Walking suddenly "clicked" last night.  Fortified with a bellyful of latkes, brisket, and clementines, he went on a walking tear - doing crazy loops and shouting joyously the whole time.  He kept it up for almost an hour and you could see the unrestrained glee in his face at the knowledge of his own burgeoning physical autonomy.  It's a bit of a nightmare from a baby-proofing perspective, but it's also a wonder to behold:

Note: the above video contains an asinine observation from yours truly that you love your kid more than your niece and nephew.  LOL!!!


Tonight it's the traditional Christmas Eve takeout and movie with Momma D and Ehmdo.  Poppa D will be missed.


Merry Christmas, all!


Fin.

Attack of the blob

Have you guys ever had congee?  It's like a savory rice porridge that my people generally eat for breakfast in the homeland, but has been adopted as more lunch/dinner fare here.  We made it for dinner last night and even though I KNOW that it's like the most cost-effective, high yielding food of all time, I stupidly decided to double the recipe like a total n00b.  The thing with congee is, that rice is like the most absorbent starch of all time (this is not a scientific  method-based observation.)  So it CONTINUES TO ABSORB for like, a full week after you started putting the dish together.  Anyway, 2 cups of rice and 20 cups of water later, I have vats and vats of preserved egg and pork congee to keep me warm at night.  

It's been a very Asian week so far for dinners - spicy beef kimchi udon on Monday, followed by congee yesterday.  The Big Yam has been so-so about it.  He's a big fan of spicy food though - he was very nonplussed by the chili heat of the spicy beef udon.

On our way home from the Dotytron Family Xmas to-do, I was pondering aloud about what kind of kid I want to raise.  Having been forced around the company of adults from a very young age, dragged to business dinners for my mom and Big D's clients and such, all my siblings and I were forced to learn to sit and smile and be pleasant through interminably long, multi-course epic mealtimes with people who we shared very little in common with - either they were old (meaning adults) or they were weird, nerdy, future doctors of America (the children of said adults).  I may not have acquitted myself with grace back then, but it's kind of important to me now that my kid is able to be well-rounded, well-read enough to be comfortable keeping company with adults.  I want my kid to have the social skills so that they don't clam up if they're forced into situations where they don't appear to have a lot in common with their companions.  I want my kid to okay striking up a genial conversation with all kinds of people, not just other kids.  I want my kid to be able to know how to ask questions and find commonalities with others - not just talk about themselves and their own narrow interests. 

I want my kid to be the opposite of narrow.  I want the Big Yam to have broad interests, to be intensely curious, to be interested and engaged.  

This might all be a pipe dream.  Right now he's pretty self-absorbed.  He can fake it pretty well though.  He has this fake curious sound he does, which is a super-exaggerated, "hunnnnh" followed by a "hmmmmmmm" that goes up at the end so it sounds like a question.  It's pretty cute but can also be pretty infuriating - especially when he unleashes it after randomly calming down after being a bear.  Suddenly he's all like, professorial inquisitive guy, going "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?" after you've been dealing with him lying on the floor wanting to be picked up for half an hour when you're trying to make dinner.

Ahhhh, life.

Fin.

Walking it out

This weekend was crazytown.  At one time or another, it featured me, the Dotytron, and/or the Big Yam all being foul owls.  


Friday night I had the brilliant idea to make our weekend "easier" by organizing this after-work, super-ambitious, Friday night weekly grocery shopping mission, the intent of which was to free up time on the weekend.  Well - what little time I freed up on the weekend was quickly squandered by the Dotytron's tension levels at STILL having 2 more holiday concerts to get through, compounded with the usual bemoaning of the busyness that is a life with a kid, a house in Toronto, a super-type A significant other, a demanding job, and a full social calendar.  So imagine his dismay, when he met up with me at the veggie store, and I, blithely oblivious and offended at the state of the brussels sprouts at my usually stalwart Fruit King, said, "we have to go the Farmer's Market tomorrow to get carrots and sprouts."  He damned near lost it.  "BUT THERE ARE CARROTS HERE.  JUST GET ANYTHING." Me: "But I want colourful carrots" (imagine, dear readers, how well that reasoning played - know your audience, readers, know your audience.)  Suffice it to say that what ensued involved a lot of f-bombs (me) and a lot of long-suffering, tense pauses (the Dotytron.)  


When the dust had settled, we realized it was because I didn't pitch it correctly.  I should have said, "do you want to go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning and get breakfast and have coffee and walk around and then maybe we can see if there are nicer carrots for Christmas dinner?"  That would have gone over waaaaaaayyyy better.


Anyway, when we got home, we had this waiting for us: 

That would be warm, trippa alla fiorentina (tribe, Florentine style), which we scooped into bowls direct from the slow cooker and topped with grated parm, a dollop of chimichurri I was passing off as salsa verde, and sided with big warmed hunks of my roasted garlic, caramelized onion focaccia for dipping.  It was heavenly.  The Big Yam didn't think so, but that's because I had bought his grocery shopping compliance with cheddar bunnies.  I got him to eat it on Sunday, after he rejected it for lunch, by starving him into submission.  Is that mean?  Maybe.  I don't give picky eaters no quarter, though.  Choice is a luxury that is not allowed to him, unless I deign it so, and if he starts throwing perfectly good food on the floor, he can go hungry until he's willing to eat it later (which he was.)  

The Big Yam, after 6 months of being a fantastic eater (which isn't all that much time until you realize it's like, half his life) has started to become "snoopy" in the words of Nany.  But it's weird and day to day with him.  One day he's dumping handfuls of apples off the side of the high chair, the next day he's taking bites out of an apple the Dotytron is eating.  There are certain consistencies - like he will always eat: French toast, oatmeal, toast, most carbs, all berries, bananas, clementines, most fruits, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocado, corn, beans, etc.  Other vegetables are more touch and go...I just keep offering it and offering it again and again.  

Anyway, our morning at the farmer's market ended up being very nice.  We woke up and bundled ourselves in schluffy clothes into the car and went to St. Lawrence Market and had breakfast sammies from Carousel Bakery alongside some extra strips of oven-roasted bacon from one of the meat purveyors.  Did our shopping and came home and got ready for the Dotytron family xmas party which was being held up in Pottageville or some other place off the map.

It was a gong show getting there.  First we timed it so we would go to Costco and pick up gifties first and then head to Pottageville.  Got to Costco (which is MADNESS on a weekend generally, but ESPECIALLY SO on a weekend leading up to the holidays), and realized I had forgotten my wallet at home, which kiboshed the Costco mission but also kiboshed the me being the designated driver scheme we had cooked up.  So we had to drive all the way home and then head out again. 

Dotytron family xmas was lovely, though.  It was kind of a pot-lucky affair - I brought: thyme and Gruyere gougeres, proscuitto-wrapped prunes, and the homemade kit kat bars.  We were supposed to go to Supper Club afterwards but we left the family thing late (around 8pm) and it was too much for us and especially the Big Yam.  It would have involved getting him out of the car, waking him up, hauling him to Supper Club for an hour, only to pack him back into the car, him falling asleep, and then hauling him back out again when we got to our house...it just wasn't feasible and fair.  I think we'll be more ambitious when he gets a little older - in fact, it's very important to me that he get used to falling asleep at people's houses and being bundled up in his jammies and taken home, but for right now, it's too disruptive for him.

So we came home and started watching Louis C.K.'s show, Louie, which we INSTANTLY fell in love with.  It's the funniest thing ever.  We were laughing so hard we were crying.  It's also viciously smart, nuanced, highbrow, lowbrow, and keenly observant.  This scene, is brilliant.  Near the end, there's a discussion of the use of the word f****t, which I thought was so layered and perfectly encapsulates comedy, the simultaneously elasticity and rigidity of language, the nature of semiotics, and the use of taboo words.  It really struck me.  

In retrospect, it becomes all the more striking when it is revealed that my mother-in-law, the dear Momma D, might possibly have heard me call the Dotytron a "f**king c**t" on Sunday.  Whoops.  In my defense, I was joking.  He left the lock for the stroller at home and I was jokingly berating him for messing with my system.  She was in the car and this all happened outside the car, with the car doors closed, so I'm not 100% sure she heard it...but the Dotytron is convinced.  LOL!!!  I actually find it pretty funny.  But I can see how this probably doesn't improve my image as the shrewish, shrill, harsh-o-matic outlaw daughter always giving her son a hard time.  I can't help it!  I've got a potty mouth!!!  I come by it honestly, having worked as a blue-collar worker for many years.  Cooks have the filthiest mouths.  I also go straight to: "I'm going to f**king kill you" any time something small happens.  In fact, the smaller the thing, the sooner I am to jump to: "you're an idiot" or "I'm going to f**king kill you."  I guess from outside, if you don't know me, I can see how it looks bad...but I don't mean anything by it!  That's just the way I talk.  Anyway, Momma D and Poppa D like, never had screaming matches (according to the Dotytron), whereas in my family, from the outside, it sounds like that's ALL WE DO.  So it's a cultural thing?  I don't know.  Alls I knows is - sometimes, I'm going to throw down the c-word, and it ain't no thang in my books.

This all happened on the way to the Toronto Christmas Market, which was amazing, the only downside being that it was a victim of its own success.  Basically, they turn the Distillery District into this European-style Christmas Market, with little wooden stalls selling mulled wine (DELICIOUS!) and apple cider, and maple taffy, sausage on a bun, schnitzel, mac'n'cheese, candied bacon, etc and also little tchotchkes  and stuff...there's a GIANT Christmas tree and there are twinkling lights all around and a bunch of stuff for kids like a Santa's village, and the shops are open so you can stroll in and out.  It's beautiful and lovely and very festive.  Because it was so awesome, it was also a s**tshow, with way too many people trying to navigate around dogs and strollers and a million other people.  If they do it next year, I would want to take an afternoon off and be leisurely about it.  I also hope they extend it into the holiday break so that it spreads people out during the holiday, instead of all crammed into the weekend.  I highly recommend it, though!

So the long and short of it is, even though we were foul owls at some point, in the end, the weekend was perfectly lovely - full of experiences, good food, and family.  

Here is a video we finally managed to capture of the Big Yam working on his crip walk:

Spicy beef udon for dinner tonight.  Shazzam!

Fin.

Favorite moments

My favorite moment of the week this week was having the three of us on Monday night, after the Boobla's bath, in pajamas, lying heaped together on the floor of the Boobla's room, while he quietly played with his toys in his post-bath glow, listening the Nat King Cole Christmas album, playing all scratchy and warm on the Dotytron's record player.

This is hands-down my favorite Christmas album - no one in the world has a voice like Nat King Cole. And on vinyl? Quit it. It's just insanely good. We suspect it was recorded pre-multi track, which is what makes it so good. Remember when the room used to matter? Like where you recorded was a big deal? It's a miraculous album.

The Dotytron was telling me about how when he was a kid, like 5 years old, he would put on the Nat King Cole Christmas album and listen to "O Tannenbaum" and go to the tree and plug in the lights and just sit under the lit tree listening to the album and be like, "this is the BEST!" D'awwwwwww...how cute is that? Picturing wee Dotytron sitting in his footed jammies alone under the lit tree, transported by the pure joy of Christmas as made manifest by Nat King Cole's velvet voice. So darned cute.





I can't wait until this little nugget does that. Well, actually, I can wait a good long time (I don't want to rush him to the age of 5), but when he decides to do it, it's going to be just as sweet:




So, I don't know how many of you know this, but Dr. Rei recently got a job at the Ministry of Magic. It's well deserved, it's what she's wanted, I couldn't be happier for her, blah blah blah. The funny part comes in because she's had a RUUUUUDE awakening these past two weeks as a member of the gainfully employed. You see, Dr. Rei was operating under the mistaken impression that doing a post-doc and being in grad school somehow approximates a job in the real world. So we've been exchanging hilarious text messages about how PWNED she's been getting having to get up early, not take a million personal calls at work, make her lunch every day, not go home when she's tired, etc. LOL! It's been making me laugh. I love that gal. I think now she's starting to understand why so many of our telephone conversations when she's called me at work have consisted of me responding to scandalous gossip with the most terse, non-committal, "uh huh" "i know" and "yeah." Ha!

This was Tuesday night's dinner - freezer polenta lasagna:

The past couple of night's we haven't had much in the way of dinner because yesterday I had this massive holiday catered staff lunch at work and today was the annual buffet at Hart House which is like eating at Hogwart's (think, long wooden communal tables, portraits of headmaster's past, a grand piano, turkey and stuffing and a carving station). So consequently, we haven't been doing much in the way of dinner around here.

Fin.

Rock and a hard place

I'm stuck in the hinterland known as the place where my practicality butts heads against my principles. It's a bit of a pickle.

Because I'm trying to move away from extravagant xmas presents from siblings, outlaw parents, outlaw grandparents, and the like, I haven't provided preemptive gift list suggestions this year, as I think doing so would be hypocritical and a tacit endorsement of a system that I'm trying to extricate myself from. Yet, at the same time, I know that by NOT providing a list, I leave myself open to all kinds of well-intentioned but misguided items that will subsequently be sitting in my basement until such time as we do a basement clean and they make their way to Goodwill and the like. Is it awful of me? I don't know. I know you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth and be grateful for the sentiment, etc. - but surely we've all been the recipients of gifts where we appreciate the thought and feelings behind them but can't bring ourselves to submit to the actual execution? It's kind of crazy how wrong people can get it, sometimes.

Anyway, so I'm torn. I hate the waste when people spend their hard-earned dollars on stuff that's just not me. But I'm not going to submit a list. All this pent-up frustration has to go somewhere though, and so here are some things that I adore.

Roll Call of Awesome:

BleuForet cotton tights. These are the BEST cotton tights in the whole, wide world. They're so soft and stretchy and warm - like the very best attributes of soft, thin socks and tights mashed up together without any of the thigh-cinching, waist-pinching aspects that can go along with tight-wearing. They are ridiculously expensive, so I can accept that all my cotton tights can't be BleuForet brand. The grey, prune, violet, and pine coloured ones are particular favorites of mine.

In the winter time though, tights are generally a good bet for me. Black, opaque, fishnet, patterned, they're all good and since I almost exclusively wear skirts and dresses to work, I'm always blowing through them.

I've been pining after this for a while. David Chang edits this kind of expensive magazine called Lucky Peach (well, expensive by magazine standards, I guess - it's $28 for 4 issues). It's a compendium of food writing from people and chefs I admire, all packaged in a cool, hip little bundle.

Other good literary-based gift ideas for me: Amazon gift cards so that I can stock up my Kindle, renewing my subscription to Entertainment Weekly for me.

Cast-iron cookware. I don't use Teflon anymore and I'm almost exclusively cast-iron when it comes to cooking nowadays. The problem is, that I only have a small, 10" skillet and while it's seasoned beautifully, as you all know, when I cook, I COOK, and I cook for a crowd. So a big, 14-15" cast iron skillet would be lovely.

As a daily fruit eater tired of retrieving bruised bananas and pulpy pears from the bottom of my purse, a banana guard and a froot guard would be lovely, cheap, stocking stuffer presents for me. So practical!

You also can never go wrong with gift certificate to my favorite stores: CB2, Crate and Barrel, ModCloth, Joe Fresh, Ruched, Anthropologie, Social Butterfly on the Danforth. PEOPLE LOVE GIFT CARDS. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE UBIQUITOUS.

I just recently started using this stuff after reading about it in the pages of In Style magazine for the past 17 years. I got a trial, sample size from my friend M and it's kind of changed my life. A little blush and a bit of eyeliner go a LOOOONG way with me - turning me from a wan, snake-eyed, sickly looking thing in the winter, to someone who looks robust and healthy and glowing. Seriously. I've gotten mad compliments from colleagues who are all like, "you look fantastic after having a baby!!!" and then you have to go and admit that it's all smoke and mirrors and it's only because I'm wearing a bit of this stuff on my cheeks. It's so easy. I don't know how to use highlighter or any of that shiz - but I can rub this stuff on the apples of my cheeks. I find it hard to justify buying a full-size bottled of the stuff though. It's like $30 for a little bottle of dye. That shiz just ain't right.

Sorry for the GIANT photos. Thanks to my gal, Mindy Kaling and her super-smart guy writer friends who helped contribute to her Black Friday gift guide, I've been hepped to Creative Recreation shoes. Look at those kicks. Just look at them. That's some fly, motherf**king s**t right there, folks. That's like the perfect Dotytron shoe. Uh huh. Hot. And they're hella affordable, too.

That's it for this installment of Roll Call of Awesome.

Fin.

Successes/Failures

Things I'm succeeding at, lately:

- skipping class

- watching movies

- making people laugh

Things I'm failing at, lately:

- attending class

- blogging regularly

- not eating a million sweets/fatty things

I have much to tell, but never enough time to sit down and crank out the lengthy, verbose entries that all my dedicated readers love.

On Friday night I hosted Academic Book Club. We got our house looking as cute as Lil' Ugmo is capable of looking and our little wee house got some rave reviews. I have to say - our house does have personality, even if it is wee. I'm lucky I'm such a visually oriented person and that making our house look all Portland-crafty-blogger-librarian-design-enthusiast magazine ready is something that I enjoy. A few things came out of book club.

1) Those honky grandmas are still trippin'. I love book club. They make me laugh, they really do, and those women are smart and learned and they're like, truly good people, but I feel like some of the ladies just don't know what's what in the world, even when they like, REALLY know what's what in the world, in their U of T professor-y kind of way. Like, they can probably talk about Israel and Palestine in a way more informed fashion than I can, what with my knowledge-gleaned-from-listening-to-2-seconds-of-a-Noam-Chomsky-lecture-before-falling-asleep-and-Joe-Sacco-graphic-novels-derived education on the Middle East. But...but they're also adorably clueless. Like, we were talking about role models and one of them was talking about Tori Amos.

...

That's right, Tori Amos. I kind of died inside. My vagina was cringing. It was the worst. WHO TALKS ABOUT TORI AMOS?!!!??? As a feminist role model?!?

2) They don't really get comedy. As a basis of comparison, I cited Mindy Kaling and Donald Glover as role models. I like ivy-educated funny people, who are creative in a pop-culture relevant way. Is that sad? I dunno. I feel like my way is better because I get humour. So, par example, they were talking about Sarah Silverman, who I don't like, because I find her schtick seriously one-note. I get it, you're cute and you say filthy things. I don't like Chelsea Handler for the same reason. I get it, you're a woman who likes to booze and have sex with dudes with giant d**ks. That's not charming or smart or witty. Boooring! It's not sustainable humour. Anyway, a few ladies were talking about how they love Sarah Silverman, but that sometimes (ie. when she jokes about rape) she goes too far. I feel like that's kind of missing the point of Sarah Silverman, don't you?

Then they found these fake beards I made for SMckay's birthday party. And they were asking what it was about, and I said, "oh, I have a friend who's really into Judaism and beards" and they started laughing, but at the same time, as they were laughing, were like, "I'm so offended!" (a lot of them are Jewish). I get that, I do. Fetishizing someone's religion is kind of offensive. But it's got to be contextual, right? So like, SMckay's appreciation for Jewish culture, while it's an unlearned appreciate, is funny precisely because it's so throwaway...it also has a limited range of applications. She doesn't go around telling just anyone about it (at least, I hope she doesn't) and it's more of a joke for close friends. I just think it's a question of context, and I feel that the younger generation (of which I am tenuously a part) has a more nuanced understanding of context and humour and what's disposable and what's not. Or maybe me and my peers do. As the Dotytron sagely noted, "they don't know where to draw the line." Which I thought was sooooo apt. It's not that Sarah Silverman doesn't know where to draw the line, it's that you don't know. The Dotytron is a super genius, sometimes.

3) I may be a bad person, but I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking. As another example, one of the women listed Dorothy Day as her mentor/role model, because she started the Catholic Worker Movement, where you take in homeless people to live with you, not as charity, but as like, a member of your family and community. To which I immediately blurted out, "ummm, do you like, interview the homeless person or are you supposed to take the first one who shows up?" and they all started laughing again, but I'm like, SERIOUSLY?!? AS IF ANY OF YOU, WHO LIVE IN HOUSES WAY NICER THAN MINE, WOULD LIKE TAKE IN A RANDO HOMELESS PERSON!!! A lot of homeless people are weirdos. And it's not societal. They are skeevy. Skeeviness isn't a societal issue, all the time. Sometimes it's just skeeviness. Wanting to vet a homeless person who you're taking into your home, while it might not fit the acceptable definition of St. Francis of Assisi-style charitable Christian goodwill, is just being a normal person. You just wouldn't do that! I mean, I guess it's awesome that there are people out there who are willing to do that, but I don't actually think it makes them better than other people, sorry. I just don't.

Anyway, we laughed our butts off and I do love my book club ladies. They're the best. It's refreshing for me to be around them because it helps me to realize that not everyone is like me (even if they should be).

This is Thursday night's kimchi fried rice, which the Big Yam ate a lot of, thereby assuaging my fears that he doesn't like Asian food and only likes Indian food:

Saturday morning's breakfast was a homemade sausage and egg sammy with aged cheddar on the most boss buns of life from Strickland's butcher's up the street. I love Strickland's because they're all old-timey in there and it's really bare bones and ghetto looking and they make no claims about selling organic or naturally raised meats but they're 3rd generation butchers and have been working with the same farms for like 75 years and so they're as good as being all hip and trendy and organic. They're super nice and sweet and don't know a think about being modern or cool and I love them for it. They also sell mincemeat tarts in pre-made tart shells and jams, and buns and sausage rolls. It's very odd and the butchers are old and they walk very slowly. In other words: I LOVE IT. Because I'm an old people champion. And I love things that exist in this world that can't be cool and hip and trendy and continue through the support of normal, regular people who still like things like genial, warm customer service. Anyway, the buns are PERFECT. I know, because I live with a bun connoisseur. The Dotytron is very choosey about his buns (human and bread). They're soft and thickly flour coated and so giving and plush - the perfect sandwich bun:

Saturday, I skipped class and we hung out. We decided to do a neighbourhood exploration and so after considering and rejecting the Distillery District and the Junction, we settled on Parkdale - we wanted coffee and to check out the junk shops. We found out there are quite few junk shops, unfortunately, and as Dr. Rei mentioned, that what we really wanted was to be in our own neighbourhood, which is where people go when they want coffee and furniture and antiques. Whoops. It was still nice to go for a stroll - we checked out the Drake General store and found a Christmas tree ornament that looks like Hedwig! Perfect! I've settled on a theme for the tree - we're going with birds and vintage mercury glass. Bird-themed ornaments can be of any material, but anything not a ball or a teardrop or an icicle, will be a bird. I can't tell you how glad I am to have that in the bag.

The best part of our walk (aside from getting the Hedwig ornament) was that I found a vintage Valentino skirt in my size that is work appropriate and was reasonably priced !!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE finding vintage designer stuff! It's suitable for wearing now, which is another bonus - like, it's not some kind of weird relic piece. I love it, so. The thrill of the thrift!

On Saturday night we had Lolly over for a dinner of carnitas and leftover cookies and such:

Followed by a viewing of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1.


I don't even need to do a review of this movie. It's terrible. Nothing happens - except for a long-awaited-by-Twihards marriage, sex, a pregnancy, and a baby. I know when I write that that it sounds like something happens, but seriously, nothing really does. Also, I disagree wtih my sister, who loved Bella's wedding dress. I agree that the back was lovely, but the front! The front looked like this weird harlequin/street mime/Russian gymnast singlet that was entirely too plain and did weird things to her boobs. Also, did Kristen Stewart actually become anorexic for the role? It seems like she did, thereby adding to the list of highly irresponsible and questionable rules that Stephenie Myer, in all her Mormon, anti-feminist, schlock-writing glory, espouses:

1) you should let a guy control you and emotionally manipulate you

2) you should subsume your desires when you fall in love with the guy who controls you and emotionally manipulates you

3) you should not foster any friendships/relationships with your family when you fall in love with a guy

4) you should just barely finish high school but give up all your career aspirations/independence for love

5) sex (which you shouldn't do without being married first) hurts. If your husband leaves bruises all over your body, you should crave it and make excuses for him and say that you love them.

6) when you get pregnant, it is YOUR choice to keep a baby that is killing you

7) it is okay to drink human blood when you're not a vampire to keep your weird, sicko love baby.

WACKSAUCE. I hate the Twilight phenomena and I view it as a highly troubling indicator of the problems with America in general and the modelling for young girls in particular.

Here's a bonus shot of the Boobla Khan looking super-cute in his Christmas party finery with a bonus shot of our tree in the background. Look at how cute he looks, snacking on some cheddar bunnies and in his plaid shirt/cardigan combo. So cute! We went to Momma D's side of the family's annual Christmas party in Markham yesterday. It was fun - although I was the victim of some mother-in-law-ization when I voiced that the Dotytron and I had decided we're not into lining up at the mall to get the obligatory kid-with-Santa photo. Momma D gave me the "You're not getting the traditional photo with Santa!" along with some "what's wrong with you?" eyes. I would like to defend myself and say that the Dotytron and I are in agreeance about this - we have no interest in standing in line and wrestling the Big Yam into submission for a photo with a weird Santa where he'll inevitably be crying. We just don't care about it. And we certainly don't want to pay $20 for the privilege of an over-flashed photo with the Big Yam in some ridiculous white people fancy garb. It's just not our style. If anyone in his life really feels strongly that he's missing out, then they are more than welcome to take him to fulfill this rite of passage.

In the background, you can see our tree, which is a real tree, because as I've mentioned before, the Dotytron has very strong feelings about real trees, which I find endearing. What I also found endearing is that our tree, while a handsome specimen, doesn't have much of a smell, and I've been hearing about it NONSTOP since Wednesday. The Dotytron is truly anguished about it, and it's cute. To the point where we had to buy balsam fir scented incense to make up for it. The balsam fir incense doesn't smell like tree though - it kind of smells like an electrical fire. LOL!

Here's a photo of him at the City of Craft free photobooth they set up. LOL! City of Craft was a bit of a bust. I'm glad I went, because it gave me and Dr. Rei a chance to poke around her hood, but I didn't find anything I would buy. Some of the items were expensive, some were too arcane. There were some people doing some nice prints, but then I got lazy and didn't want to spend the money.

Tonight for dinner we had a chickpea, leek and parmesan soup with salad.

Fin.

Better

I'm feeling better today. The prospect of a long weekend certainly helps. The smell of hybrid Douglas Fir scenting our vestibule is also easing things along. We're setting up the tree tonight after it's had a full 24 hours of drinking from a bucket of water. Hopefully, if the boughs drop by tomorrow, we can decorate during the Dotytron's PA day and my day off. I'm not sure how to manage vintage mercury glass ornaments & a grabby-handed piccolo bambino, but we'll figure something out.

This is going to be a fun weekend - day off tomorrow with a massage, erranding, xmas tree decorating and then I'm hosting book club. Saturday I have class followed by a carnitas dinner with Lolly and Dr. Rei and their respective SOs, coupled with a screening of a bootleg copy of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Then on Sunday I'm going to City of Craft with Dr. Rei and my friend S, followed by Momma D's side of the family's annual Christmas get together - which this year is taking the form of a jambon dinner. I loves me a jambon dinner. There are going to be a lot of rugrats running around, about whom I feel fairly indifferent, but there is the aforementioned jambon dinner to see me through things. I kind of don't like it when people dress their kids (usually daughters) up in like, ball gowns for a family Christmas, during the day. I just find it really odd and uncomfortable-looking. I kind of hate kids (usually little girls) in velvet and satin ball gowns and those shiny black mary janes. Maybe I'll be tuning a different harp when and if I have a daughter of my own...it's just not my personal style.

On Tuesday we went to see the Dotytron's winter concert - it was so cute. He's so good at his job. There's talk that the school is going to do a "pops" night which is when I'll hopefully see my dream of a kid orchestra playing Kanye's All of the Lights. I've been harping on him to do it for the past year. Any time he's talking about entering Kiwanis or something, I'm like, "you should do All of the Lights" (even though my suggestions/opinions weren't invited), to the point where now, whenever the Dotytron is talking out loud about his orchestra, he preemptively tells me to shut up because he knows what I'm going to say. He's promised that he's going to try to throw something together for the pops night, which has me thrilled. I'm actually contemplating going to the morning rehearsals, because I really want my vision to be realized.

My problem is that I'm a super-idea-generator and I'm also a control freak. After the concert on Tuesday night, the Dotytron and I spent a good chunk of time debriefing, and I'm seriously considering joining the Parent Council at his school, because I feel like I could really up the calibre of the shows. That's psychotic of me, I know. BUT PEOPLE ALWAYS SCREW STUFF UP! I just want the show to be killer. I want them to tear the roof down. I want people to be talking about that shiz for months after and for it to be sold out.

I feel like I would be an awesome school administrator. I'm so good at being organized, it's a damn shame that my talents are being under-utilized running my household and my workload at work. Like, have I told you guys about my awesome fund-raising idea for the Dotytron's band? I think they should sell raffle tickets so that the winner gets to throw a pie at a teacher's face.

...

Genius, right? It works on so many levels!

Monday night's dinner was an old standby, 'round these parts: spaghetti and meatballs. So freakin' good.

Last night we made curried potatoes and cauliflower on brown rice, which I supplemented with Malai Kofta and Kari Pakora from MotiMahal in Little India. Malai Kofta are paneer and potato balls in a creamy tomato sauce. Kari Pakora are chickpea balls in a tangy, yogurty sauce. I kind of got stressed out because it seems like the Big Yam isn't so down with Chinese food, but he freakin' YAMMED (har) that Indian food like it was what he'd been longing for all his life. Fistfuls of cauliflower, spoonfuls of kari pakora-soaked brown rice. I feel like he's a traitor to his race.

My fears were somewhat assuaged tonight when he ate a big bowl of kimchi fried rice. Guys, kimchi fried rice is the lick. I fried up some ground pork in some garlic and ginger, added soft scrambled eggs I had cooked up in another pan, cold leftover brown rice, two jars of kimchi, some frozen peas, and chopped scallions and tossed everything together in a bit of canola oil until hot. SO GOOD! So very, very good.

Tell me that kid orchestra doing this isn't going to be murderation. I can see it in my head: stage is completely pitch black, single spotlight on the Dotytron while the cellos start up, then when the first lyric kicks, full blast lights on, horns going - goosebumps! As I listen to the lyrics, I think we might have to do some rejigging of the lyrical content, but that's a small concern. EEKS! It's gonna be so good!!!

If the Dotytron can realize my vision, that is.

Fin.

Shock

For the past couple of weeks, I've had a feeling that the initial shock of Poppa D's passing has started to wear off. The strange, insulating numbness that allowed life to continue on with only the vague notion of loss appearing intermittently at the periphery of my life is starting to give way to sudden disruptions of my usual routine with the crushing weight of my loss, the Dotytron's loss, and the Big Yam's loss. I feel like at any moment, the ground shifts beneath me and an event, a thought, will leave me crying at my desk the way I did today. For a while, life continued on with relative ease, as if we just hadn't seen him for the usual amount of time that we'd sometimes go between visits. I took for granted the safety net of the comfortable knowledge of his existence, fuzzy and indistinct like the out-of-focus crowd in a photograph, but still a presence in that mass that could be called into sharp relief if only I wanted it so.

Lately, lately I know that wanting it so won't make it be so. And it makes me so very, very, very sad. I'm sad for the Dotytron, for Momma D, for Ehmdo. I'm sad for the Big Yam and finally, I make room to be sad for myself - for the sadness I feel because of the sadness of these other people. The Dotytron and I will sometimes just start crying together or he'll come down with red eyes or have to stop a task because something reminded him of his da'.

I think this is contributing to my general sourness about the holiday season and the emptiness of the gift buying. I just don't have the mustard for it. I feel like I can't face going out and shopping and trying to come up with something thoughtful and personal to give people. I just don't care. I care for the kids (because as hard-hearted as I am, I'm not so hardened as to want to deprive children of wonder and joy), but I'm also not into kids with their epic, toy catalogue wish lists and short attention spans and disposable mentality. The glut of plastic, branded crap makes me feel physically ill.

I want Santa to give us a do-over on this past year. A chance to take all the good stuff and enjoy that without the too-numerous funerals we attended this year. When it comes down to brass tacks - would I want to erase this year? Ultimately, I guess not - we've come out the other side and the conventional wisdom seems to be that the bad stuff is part of life too. I guess I just want a bit more of my innocence back. Not all of it - but more time thinking that Poppa D was going to be around for a long, long time. More time thinking that he would be able to pick up the Big Yam from daycare and take him to do white-person-grandpa stuff. Just...more.

Fin.

In which I injure my own child

So...how was your weekend? Mine, mine was okay. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT I'M A HORRIBLE PARENT AND HURT MY OWN SON. Still feeling awful about it. On Sunday, I stuck him in an empty laundry basket to hang out on the kitchen floor while I rolled meatballs for tonight's dinner. He had a bowl of cheddar bunnies to keep him happy so he seemed okay. Then he tired of the bunnies and tried to stand up and haul himself over the side of the basket. Laundry baskets being the flimsy things that they are, it toppled over, the Boobla toppled with it, landing face-first onto the kitchen tile and biting his upper lip with his bottom teeth. There was so much blood. The poor little lamb's lip swelled up and combined with his cold and possible case of viral conjunctivitis, it wasn't a pretty sight:

Why am I the worst parent ever?!???!!! Who does that??? He's such a good kid, and here I am trying to maim him. Ugh. I still feel terrible - I can see his face all smeared with blood and tears and it makes my heart stop.

This weekend was fairly uneventful, in the end. Except that our car died. AGAIN. Captain Save-A-Hoe is not doing so well. This is the 4th time The Cap'n has died. First time was en route to Cleveland. We get the battery replaced, continue on our way. Then, it dies again, while Miss Ramona was visiting. We get the alternator replaced, and continue on our way (the idea being that the alternator was the problem, since it wasn't charging the battery). Then, our car died AGAIN last week. We got the alternator replaced for free, as it was still under warranty. Finally, on Friday, the Dotytron noticed it was giving the same troubling signs that usually precipitate an all-out car death (brake light goes on, flickering battery light, radio gets wonky) and he managed to cruise into a gas station with the last remaining juice the car had in it. I've told him that since the Captain has a tendency to DIE-die (like to the point you can't put the hazards on, or shift it into gear), that he should pull over as soon as he sees the signs, rather than risk stopping dead on the 401 or something and getting slammed into (my heart stops at the thought). Our auto electric people now think that it's not the alternator at all, but the computer getting the signals all jumbled up. Ahhh, life with the Captain. What a mess.

It doesn't help that the Dotytron has like, 2 holiday concerts this week and so he desperately needs a car - he's borrowed his mum's in the mean time. The only ray of light is that our ROI on our CAA membership is through the roof. That's cold comfort.

Thursday night's dinner was spinach & feta pie:

Saturday morning breakfast was oat scones with devonshire cream and jam:

We scarfed that before jumping into the car at 7:30am to go swimming...only to arrive at the pool in Markham and find that it's closed for maintenance. The number of times we've showed up at that pool, happy and expectant at the prospect of seeing a joy-filled Boobla splashing around in the water, only to be turned away due to an error in our reading of the swim time schedule or some other such thing, are too numerous to count. So we did a bunch of lame errands which made the Dotytron unjustifiably testy at me (he seems to have a hard time understanding the fact that now we do errands on the weekends and that's what being a grown up is about, unfortunately). We had lunch with my grandma and my mom at Ajisen Ramen in Markham. It was good. I like the selection better than the selection at Kenzo Ramen, but I like the base broth better at Kenzo. The Ajisen broth was a little too salty and msg-laced for me. But they have this thing called "tenderous" ribs which was pretty boss and the pork ramen that I had was chock-a-block full of tender, fatty, pork neck pieces. I do loves me some pork neck.

Saturday night's dinner was roast chicken legs, tatties roasted in chicken fat, brussels sprouts, and carrots:

Then the Dotytron abandoned me to go see his friend A, who'd been staying with us while he was visiting from NYC play a show. So I ever-so-foolishly PAID for Love, Actually on ROD and instantly regretted every second of it. Mostly because Alan Rickman's character does a very foolish thing and I hate situations in which I can't like an Alan Rickman character. It makes my heart stop.

Sunday breakkie was my attempt to recreate a dish I quite like from Lady Marmalade. My version is a wholewheat crepe, stuffed with ham, quick-sautéed spinach, rolled up and baked with a cheddar cheese sauce on top, and then topped with two poached (in my case, over poached) eggs. It was deelicious.

Here is my latest holiday craft - my felt ball garland! So cute, huh? I've got it hung in that broad expanse of light grey hallway we have in the house. I'm using little mini wooden clothespins to clip up any cute xmas cards and such that we get this year - it'll also be nice to hang any artwork done by the Big Yam in the future:

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs and salad.

Fin.

Bunkering down

All I want to do is hunker down in Lil' Ugmo with the boys and haaaaannnnggg out. I'm feeling very sluggy lately. I don't want to do anything but quietly craft and eat cookies and wear flannel pjs. It's that time of the year for me.

Last night we had a perfect night with the Big Yam. It was one of those nights when dinner came together quickly, he ate well, we gave him a bath, he went to bed without a fuss, and he was in a good, giggly, laughing mood the entire evening and didn't whine or squawk once. Those nights are somewhat rare (it's rare that we don't have at least a little jag of whinging), but it's so lovely when they happen - like all is right and good in the world.

I'm so committed to hibernating that I've been a bad dodgeball coach and I haven't really been trying to hustle to make it to games. We had to forfeit this week because we didn't have enough people to make a team and I was not-so-secretly pleased at the prospect of another quiet night in. The following photo is for the benefit of one SMckay. Two years ago, shortly after we first bought Lil' Ugmo, I upgraded all my plates to a set from Crate and Barrel. In between each plate was a piece of corrugated cardboard meant to keep the plates from chipping. Well, shortly after we moved in SMcKay was over and I was wondering what to do with the cardboard and she was of the opinion that I should throw it out but I was of the opinion that I might be able to recycle it into some kind of craft project. Here is the resulting craft project, two years later:

Ta-da! It's a garland of corrugated cardboard stars strung on red yarn that we have hanging over the archway between our living room and dining room. I think it looks quite handsome.

While we were sick last weekend we watched J.J. Abrams' Super 8 which I really wanted to love because it stars Coach from Friday Night Lights but which I couldn't love because it was boring and lacked emotional resonance and failed utterly at capturing the childhood wonder and adventure of 80s films that were standard bearers of that genre like, E.T. or Goonies. It just fell kind of flat the whole time and the cast of kid characters was too big and too poorly developed for you to care about them the way you care about Chunk from Goonies. I feel like I'm ready to come right out and say that I don't like J.J. Abrams. I don't get what all the fuss is about. The Dotytron also attempted a viewing of Crazy, Stupid, Love which he turned off after a good 45 minutes because he couldn't handle how unfunny it is. I still don't understand how so many people went crazy for that film and thought it was the smartest, funniest, mature film treatment on relationships in years. FALSE!

Tonight for dinner we had shakshuka eggs and warmed pitas. I love shakshuka eggs - it's a tasty, filling, 20 minute meal. What's not to love?

Fin.

Words cannot express

What has been happening around here lately! I haven't posted since Thursday because things have been insane. I worked my little butt off to get my literature review for class on Saturday (that I skipped) done by Friday so that I could go into the weekend and not feel stressed. I did it (got my marks back today and I got a 98% on it too!) - which meant that in addition to just generally feeling pumped for the weekend, I had the added high of handing in an assignment early. That is one of the greatest highs of life.

This was our Leslieville Wanderlust dinner of beef stroganoff, root vegetable mash, and brussels sprouts:

So good! Look at that? Don't you want to faceplant into that bowl? I know I sure as heck do. The Big Yam has been a bit of a picky eater lately. He basically just wants to eat nothing but fruit and carbs. Which overall, is better than wanting to eat nothing but straight up fried carbs, but not enough for the controlling mother in me. He's been sick from one thing or another for the past month or so, so I'm willing to give him some leeway, but he's just being a weird jerk sometimes and refusing stuff he's eaten before and just hucking perfectly good food on the ground, etc. So I've asked J to cut out his afternoon snack and it seems to be working. He can't afford to be picky if he's hungry, right? Works for Africa, right? (Too soon?)

The Wanderlust was so much fun. We met up with my friends M & M and had a grand old time being idiots on the street. Dr. Rei and I were yucking it up non-stop and we ran into some friends of hers at Bobette and Belle. All the stores had little nibblies and cookies and we got to poke around and window shop. It was a good time. There was also this weird, sketchy homeless-looking guy selling charcoal-grilled souvlaki outside of this rando store on Queen East called Holy Cow! which occupies a disproportionately large storefront and seems to be in the business of selling vaguely "ethnic" looking tchotchkes like giant fiberglass cows. The funny part was how willing the Dotytron was to eat a souvlaki from that guy when I made a joke about it. It was hilarious how sincerely he wanted homeless souvlaki.

I wanted to buy some birch branches to put in these galvanized planters I have outside the house, flanking our Costco wreath which only cost...wait for it...$17.25. SEVENTEEN TWENTY FIVE! FOR A REAL WREATH! Steal of a century! I want birch branches and like some of those branches with the berries...but birch branches are expensive and the participating florist at Wanderlust wasn't cooperating with big enough deals.

On Friday night I was feeling tired and cranky from a sick Big Yam waking up at like, 3 am. So I opted out of Ladies Night Out on my street, even though I was the one who organized it and made the reservation, etc. I was sad because I do love a chance to hang with the Ladies, but it just didn't make sense for me, considering the rigours of the weekend to come. So I went straight home and started holiday baking and got to live out one of my sublimated dreams of parenting:

First of all - look at how cute he looks in his polo and dark rinse jeans. Seriously. It's a fine line when you're dressing children. Dressing them in mini-versions of adult clothes can be super-cute (see: little black toddlers dressed like Kid Cudi or Kanye) but it can also be kind of icky too (see: little toddler girls wearing faux fur stoles and mini Uggs.) Basically, it comes down to this for me: don't dress your kid like a privileged spoiled brat in first year at York University. It is a difficult line to negotiate, but I will say that light rinse jeans for kids are THE WORST. Why you wanna be dressing your kid in dad jeans? Secondly, look at how cute he is all up on the step stool watching (soon to be "helping") me put together a batch of cookies. He's such a little homunculus!

Saturday morning breakfast - french toast, cinnamon peaches, breakfast sausage. Did you know that the Dotytron claimed that he didn't know how to make french toast? I couldn't believe it.

Saturday pre-Prince we had a surprise birthday party for SMckay - the theme of which was "SMckay's favorite things" which meant: beards, Jewish-related stuff, and Pizza Hut. So I made rugelach:

So good! And so easy! I'm adding it to the Xmas cookie rotation. They're so cute, too. The cream cheese dough comes together lickety split and is really easy to work with. Here is the decor that I picked up:

Then there was our date with His Purple Majesty himself. I can't even describe it. That guy is pure charisma. The sexiest, velveteen miniature pony with winged eyeliner that has ever walked the earth. How is he so sexy? No one knows. It seems so counter-intuitive. It was non-stop hits - banger after banger that had us up out of our seats dancing our little heinies off. A few well-placed slow jams. A rocking light show and a backup band of super models. It's insane. Like, hotter than the servers at Moxies by far. I don't know where he breeds them, but they're all gorgeous, insanely talented musicians/singers, and 99% female. It's crazygonuts. Anyway - he is so over-the-top and melodramatic and he brings a pretty diverse crowd out. People bedecked in ball gowns. More leather leggings and stiletto ankle boots than I've ever seen in my life. He introduced a "special guest" to the stage and it was his guitar. LOL! And the man can SHRED. Each time he's done with a guitar he tosses it off to the side and it's the responsibility of some poor AV tech to make sure they catch it each time. So G-D funky. I loved every minute of it. We had been primed that the people on the Friday night show had received 5 or 6 encores and so we were so disappointed when we only got 3...but the man is 53 and totally gave us our money's worth. I wish he would move back to Toronto. I mean, Andy Allo is okay, I guess - if by "okay" you mean, "gorgeous, talented woman"


I think that Prince is the only person left alive still supporting Versace. He finished the concert wearing a velvety Versace number. Zomg. I can't believe how good this concert was. It was the first show I've been to in like, over a year (since I was pregnant and went to see Rush) and it was PHENOMENAL. What a freakishly talented person. Shouts to Lolly who totally babysat the Big Yam for us while we went out.

Post-Prince, post-being up super late, post-post-party cleanup breakfast of hanger steak, over-easy eggs, Brick Street Bakery bread toast and chimichurri. We finished up Sunday with a visit from the Dotytron's good bud A, who is in town playing a few shows from NYC, and I took the Big Yam with me to our friend L's hot dog party at his house. He made up a bunch of fancy hot dogs and J & S brought homemade hot dog buns and I brought baked beans and made these maple doughnuts which were THE LICK. So good. Such a nice doughnut recipe - all yeasty and light.

Bonus shots of the Boobla in his skeleton PJs, looking all cute:

Look at his skinny little legs and his chubby feet! In other Boobla news...he's taken his first steps!!! He did it last week some time...I can't quite remember exactly what day...I think it was last Monday, November 21st. He's so funny - he won't do it all the time...but J has been practicing with him. He's tucks his arms up by his armpits like little chicken wings and he walks with his belly out in this loose-limbed, drunken, old-man sailor way that is really funny. We had Momma D over on Sunday for a brief visit and it was classic mother-in-law behaviour...the Dotytron mentioned that the Big Yam had started walking and she says, "What! Nobody told me!" *insert accusing glance in my direction* I dunno!! I forgot!!! And why is it my responsibility??? Anyway, he's not walking just yet...more like he'll take a few stumbling steps from one set of arms to another. Pretty cute that the Dotytron may or may not have teared up the first time he saw it happen. D'awwwwwww.

This was dinner last night. Freezer Greek Mac'n'Cheese and salad (not pictured - just greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette) and my new favorite, quick, cheaty appetizer - proscuitto-wrapped prunes baked in the oven for the ultimate in sweet-savoury one-bite goodness.

So I'm having this ongoing dilemma about xmas - basically, I don't want to buy presents for anyone over the age of 18. I think it's ridiculous. But Sdawg is insisting and to a lesser extent my sister is insisting that we continue to the holiday consumer glut. My sister, whom I love dearly, and Sdawg (whom I also love dearly. Most of the time) are way more "American" and "mainstream" than I am in their general belief systems and degree to which they can be swayed by the forces of capitalism. Growing up, we didn't get presents. We went away on a trip over the holidays, and to this day, I prefer experiential gifts over stuff that's essentially garbage (I'm talking more like, grandparent presents or presents from people who go-off list) - garbage in transition?.

I feel like buying on the list is stupid, because how much thought is it for me to go out and get you your freaking windshield wipers? It's the antithesis of what I enjoy about gift-giving. But going off-list is even more dicey, because you're basically just making me help Value Village line their pockets when I inevitably dump that stuff off to them. And it just sucks all around. In my heart I would much much much prefer that people kept their hard-earned money rather than knowing that they spent it on garbage for me. I would rather they did something useful with that money other than create clutter. However, I believe Sdawg feels that he missed out as a kid and that's the line my sister gave me last night when she was trying to talk me through how much I don't want to be doing it. Because it makes them "happy" to do this big, ostentatious display. But then I'm wondering, when does my happiness get taken into consideration? When does the fact that I believe it's at stupid, crass, empty display of poor financial management in action get to be heard and taken under advisement? Short answer: it doesn't.

It doesn't help that my family is the anti-handmade gift type. Like, my brother always makes a big show of being a jerk and saying, "how much did YOU spend on your niece and nephew?" when I've knit them a sweater or something (this after he goes out the day before Christmas and gets in line to get them a tickle-me-Cookie Monster that just gets neglected in their mountain of toys.) If I had the time to make by hand or craft something for everyone I would. Especially if I knew they appreciated it...but as a general rule, my family comes from the "if it doesn't come with a price tag, it's not a present" school of thought. Meanwhile, I'm always gazing enviously at all those shiny, happy, design-y families in the blogosphere who get together to craft beautiful presents of engraved mugs or something else charming and sweet (and impeccably designed and executed).

I think ultimately, I don't like having my hand forced. I like getting stuff for people when I think of it or when I come across something thoughtful and personal and specifically tailored. I don't need you to get me my cotton tights. What I DO want is stuff that you can't afford. Like a Fisher Paykel 2 oven gas range. And I certainly don't expect you to get it for me.

Anyway, the conversation with my sister was redeemed by some funny moments when I asked her what we should get for Little Big Cuz. "Don't get him toys," she told me, "he just got a GIANT sock monkey from his aunt, I'm talking life-sized." To which I replied, "What do you mean 'life-sized'? It's a sock monkey! Is it the size of a sock? Or a monkey? Or a human?" LOL! Little Big Cuz is also a fan of those intensely boring non-fiction picture books that I personally can't stand - the ones with photos of real babies and trucks and real animals and stuff. So my sister goes, "well, there is one thing he does like, he likes my Everyday Food magazine" (which, in case you're not aware, is a Martha Stewart recipe magazine). So I guess I'm getting my nephew a subscription to Everyday Food. LOL!

Fin.