I Love...

...napping in a screened porch, hazily hearing the buzz of bugs that want in, but can't.

...putting on a pair of dry underwear after a full 8-hour day in a bathing suit.  Really, that feel of dry underwear hitting your nethers is a golden gift.

...long canoe rides with the Dotytron, exploring a lake's nooks and crannies. We've been doing it for so long...I think the end of our second year together we went up to his family cottage for the first time.  No lake will ever be as magical as that one.  The sun burning the mist off an abandoned beaver dam we happened upon; drifting into a mess of lily pads and catching glimpse of a 1 1/2 foot shell of a turtle disappearing beneath the canoe; bobbing beside a family of loons; hearing the reedy scrape of grasses against the canoe hull as we pass through a cathedral of fallen birches; watching a blue heron take flight off a rock; pretend-buying cottages.  Healey lake is filled with so many fingers and inlets and bays - I loved that time we spent there with the Dotytron's mum and dad and sister, before we had kids, when we were still kids, pretending at being grown.

...canoeing with my kids now.  Perfunctory canoe rides punctuated with constant sharp admonishments to the twins (mostly Lenny) to STOP LEANING OVER and to PLEASE SIT STILL.  Loud canoe rides because my youngest (Lenny) is so pure of heart and without guile and filters and lives in a perpetual present, and therefore, the canoe rides are filled with: "I want to go over dare, wit the grasses. Ooh!  We're going over there!  Are we going over dare?  Are we going over dare...wit the grasses now?" Endless loops of his stream-of-conscious narration, scaring off any potential wildlife for a 5km radius.

...being with my family.  My crazy, loud, contentious, hilarious, inappropriate family.  Building upon nearly 40 years (!) of sibling in-jokes and now inter- and intra-generational jokes and folding in outlaw siblings by marriage.  Seeing my eldest nephew forge a special bond with Twin A (Quincess), the two of them thick as thieves.  Little little Cuz and the Big Yam skulking around pretending to be spies and sitting, heads together, lost in their Minecraft universe.  I have the best family in the world.

...being with my kids.  The twins have a knack for finding frogs?  And we never believe them, and each time, they find a bigger one.  When we went camping we did a gentle hike on this path through an abandoned beaver village (?), and Twin A and Twin B ran up ahead and we saw them crouched over a bridge over a small creek and babbling away: "We found a frog!" The Dotytron and I were very skeptical and we walked up and sure enough, there was a tiny dark green frog head just popping out of the water.  We showed up at the cottage this week and they immediately ran to the dock and when we checked in on them after unpacking, they were once again crouched with their little butts in the air, peering over the dock and yammering again about a frog, and once again, we were like, "Yeah, whatever, I'm sure it's a rock or something," and we look over and it's a GIANT BULLFROG THE SIZE OF A COW HEART.  LOL!  It's just so funny how these clowns legit can't "find" a giant toy that's right in front of their faces and meanwhile, are frog-spotting savants, and each time we doubt them and the frogs keep getting bigger and bigger.

...playing board games.  Taboo, Catchphrases, Telestrations, Apples to Apples, Pictureka, Guess Who?

...eating a giant baked pasta dinner after a day spent basking in the sun, lazily floating on my back in the water

...floating on my back in the water.  Ears submerged, my hair fanning out in the current, the sky above me, the sound of my breathing filling my ears, buoyant, relaxed...like I'm in a sensory deprivation tank.

...all the good food.  Bags and bags of salty snacks, multiple desserts, big egg-based breakfasts, everyone trying to outdo each other in the cooking department.

...the mostly stupendous people in my life.  My family, my friends, my bff.  I'm in love with all the inspiring, beautiful people I've met and continue to meet, who are all so different but at some level all share the quality of wanting to unravel the universe with me.

...time to read, and write.  Plowing through books. That little death you feel when you get to the last page of a book.  Time to spend thinking about what I want to write, how I want to write.  Time to let the words come to me, the things I want to capture, to reflect, to talk things out with smart people I love.

...being with the Dotytron.  Always.

...turning 37 (!).  Being firmly in the back half of my 30s. Spending my birthday surrounded by people I love, with the sun setting on a gorgeous lake, the smell of outdoors in the air, lazily working on a blog post while various people are splayed on in repose in various parts of this giant house.  Being okay with my age and mostly okay with who I am at this very point in time.  Settling into it.  Feeling myself.  Feeling so much love for the people I know.  Just being in love with it all.

 So basically, the cottage is great guys, is what I'm saying.

Fin.

A Banner Month Part 1

I think I'm going to spend all of July catching up on what was one of the more insane Junes in Lagerfeld life history.  That month was OFF. THE. CHAINS.

First of all, these nuggets turned the big 0-3.  Which is like, HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

We had the grandmothers over for a twins birthday dinner of their favorite meal (spaghetti and meatballs and a homemade ice cream cake I made).  Guys, buying ice cream cake is such a rip off!  Homemade ice cream cake is the stuff that dreams are made of.  Chocolate cookie crust, a layer of chocolate ice cream, a layer of Momofuku Milk Bar's chocolate crumb, a layer of vanilla bean ice cream, topped with fudge sauce?  I froze it and then added more warmed fudge sauce after with some dollops of whipped cream.  It was SO GOOD.

We also went to an old skool jungle rave that weekend?  Just the two of us but we ran into our buddy Burton there and we had a good night of dancing to old skool hardcore music and early early jungle and it was THE BEST, although we were predictably wrecked on the Sunday.  We still pulled ourselves together and did things with the kids, we just did it feeling like a bag of a-holes.  As always, doing things that make you feel like people, even if there is the inevitable bag of a-holes backlash, is the only thing that makes us functioning parents and people.  If we DIDN'T do it?  I'd be even worse of a parent, guaranteed.

Giant useless disco ball at the rave.

 Peppa Pig birthday cake evolution.

On their actual birthday, I had a pretty brilliant idea - I invited all the neighbours and the kids on the street out onto the street for pizza, snacks, juice and cake, and then just leveraged the play that happens after work anyway.  It was AMAZING!  The entire party cost about $140, and that was $100 worth of party sized pizzas.  In lieu of gifts I asked the kids to make the twins cards and the kids stepped up and it was so, so, so cute.  I also made a Peppa Pig cake and it looked like Peppa and I mean, that's all one can really ask for at the end of the day, right?

I did the birthday "interview" questions and I wish I had recorded it.  It was so funny.

Here are Twin B's answers:

What is your favorite color?      White

What is your favorite toy?  The Rocket

What is your favorite thing to eat? Peanut butter toast and yogurt

What is your favorite movie? Wreck It Ralph

What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Thomas!  (Thomas Pajamas)

What are your favorite animals? Gorilla

What does Mama do for work? Treasures!

What does Baba do for work? Go to school

What is your favorite book?  Peppa Pig!

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Playing with my light sabre

Who is your best friend? Joel (neighbour)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Tooth Fairy

What's your favorite game to play?  Poop

What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Poop on the toilet

What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Eat breakfast on the couch

What's your favorite special treat?  cake

If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  The dinosaur one

What makes you happy?  I like to cut up papers

What makes you sad?  Quincy hits me with the horse in the head

What makes you scared?  Pirates of the Caribbean

LOL at wanting to be a Tooth Fairy when he grows up.

Here are Twin A's answers:

What is your favorite color?    Blue

What is your favorite toy?  My crown (his birthday crown)

What is your favorite thing to eat? cake

What is your favorite movie? The King and Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Diapers

What are your favorite animals? Horse and a cow

What does Mama do for work? Go to a minion tower

What does Baba do for work? Buy money

What is your favorite book?  Wreck It Ralph Christmas Story

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Playing with my light sabre and my rocket

Who is your best friend? You! (Mama)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Ummmm...Dinosaur

What's your favorite game to play?  Having my birthday presents!

What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Poopy

What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Pooping on Baba

What's your favorite special treat?  Having cake

If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  To Mister Stink

What makes you happy?  When the caterpillar turns into a butterfly

What makes you sad?  When Lenny hits me

What makes you scared?  I’m scared of spiders

LOL at "diapers" being  a person's favorite outfit to wear.  Also, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly making him happy???  So cute.  I know that both of their answers are influenced by external (read: older sibling) factors, but getting some insight into the swirling mass of confusion that is a preschooler's brain is pretty fascinating/hilarious.

The valley of tears, aka Kindergarten graduation. The Big Yam's teacher organized a ceremony, with little caps and diplomas.  Each kid had their own framed photo with them in a cap and gown.  Then there was a small party.  I went in late to work and almost cried my guts out.  I can't believe that this guy is going into grade one next year.  Like, recess with the big kids, no longer in the kindie pen.  IN WITH THE GEN POP.  How does that even work?!????  I hope he's gonna be okay.

We also went to see my outlaw sis perform as part of LuminaTO. The site for LuminaTO this year was a decommissioned generating station, the Hearn Power Plant.  It's on the east side, so we rode our bikes out there and brought the kids.  The Hearn was VERY raw.  My neighbour told me they put $60 million into it? Not really sure where the money went.  There was some space cleared inside for live performances, and art, but in between were piles of concrete and rubble.  It was pretty cool and I hope they can continue to use the spot in the future.

Big Yam's wedding pre-game routine involved playing hard at the beach and then solo-slamming back a bag of pepperoni.

And finally, those first two weeks in June culminated in my brother's wedding, at Deer Park Lodge, on the banks of Lake Huron, which is gorgeous beyond measure.  It looks like the Caribbean and maybe that's due to pollution and agricultural run-off, but I gotta say, I don't even care?  I mean, I do care, but also, not really.  Haha.

We arrived on Friday, mid-day and immediately hit the beach.  There was a pot-luck barbecue that night, and we hung with our friends from CLE.  The next day was more beaching, and then the ceremony, and then the reception and dancing, and we busted out the next day.

I still can't quite believe that my brother is married now?  I'm trying to put down in words what it means to have siblings, and it is late, and I am writing to fulfill my mum's desires for more blog content, and I'm finding my writing muscles have atrophied somewhat.  I love my family.  My relationship with each of the members of my family hasn't always been easy, or smooth, or effortless. Despite growing up essentially within the same set of parameters, we are all very different individuals, but what I love about my family is how, when external pressure is applied, we close ranks, salt the earth, and raze the ground upon which our aggressors stand.

There is a 16 year age gap between my eldest sibling and my youngest.  We are different people, with different values, and beliefs, and modes of operation, and yet.  And yet, there is nothing quite like having people to bear witness to your family with you.  Your parents can't do it.  They're their own thing.  Your siblings are the ones you get to complain, and reminisce, and enjoy your parents with.  That bank of shared memories, in-jokes, after-the-parents-have-gone-to-bed shenanigans...that's something that only your siblings can know and understand.

I was so proud of my siblings at that wedding.  I was proud of my brother for being an adult (not that marriage makes you an adult, but I think being able to put together a wedding certainly does).  I was proud of my youngest brother for being a good best man, being an adult, and giving a really touching speech.  I was proud of my sister, for singing a speech from the musical Hamilton and the two of us coming up with something on the fly to say (we were asked to say something about 30 minutes before we took the podium) and for being both a sister and mother-hen to us all.  I was proud of my outlaw brother, my new outlaw sister, and my youngest brother's girlfriend, for taking one look at our crazy clan and being okay with us, in all our unpolished, behind-closed-doors, s**t talking, occasional arguing, screaming, disheveled glory.  I was proud of my mum and Big D, for raising us 4 accomplished, bright kids, and not really having any plan or fixed pedagogy when doing so, other than inculcating in us the concept that family and honest are the most important things in the world.

I loved hearing my brother's high school friends speak.  I loved hanging with them at the wedding.  I loved being able to spend time with my family in this gorgeous setting and spend a long weekend relaxing.  When my sister sang the toast from Hamilton, one of my brother's friends from the audience called back the response.  It was so cute.

Fin.

HELLOOOOO OUT THERE...

A month since my last post.  A MONTH!  Can you believe it?  Remember when I used to post like, EVERY GODDAMN DAY?!?  What happened?  Other than, you know, real job, 3 kids, house.

What have I been doing in this month?  I've been living my friends.  Living and summer-ing like there are only 73 days of summer vacation (and there are - I just counted) speaking of which, are you familiar with the show Phinneas and Ferb?   Kids were super into it around 3-5 years ago.  The theme song starts with the line, "There's a 104 days of summer vacation, and school comes along just to end it," which has always been a source of friction for the Dotytron.  Seriously 'Murica, if your kids get 3 months off from school, maybe you should be taking a look at that in terms of your knowledge and innovation gap?  Just a thought.  Expert policy analysis, $0.05.  I just looked for the cents key on the keyboard and then Googled "where did the cents key go" and then found out that it hasn't existed since the typewriter.  Whoops.  Just an indication of where my head is at.

I went back to work after 10 days off and my mind is mush.  I came back to a stern sign on the women's bathroom stall doors interiors admonishing people to "show consideration" and flush twice (if you have to - gross) and just Googled "Is Dave Grohl a bad person" - LOL! 

 So yeah, I've been off gallivanting.  I have TWO YEARS' worth of book reviews to get to and I'm committed to a new, regular blogging schedule.  Chinotto Is My Nemesis will never be left by the wayside!  Especially now when I've clearly missed the monetizing blogs boat, why would I abandon this ship?  This month has been BUS-AY and because I'm a slave to chronology, we're documenting it systematically. 

My weekend of pretending I was a 20-something raver again went off well and more than repaid the air-traffic controller-like investment in logistics that had to occur to make sure we could go.  E slept over on Friday night and we had our caregiver come in on Saturday morning to manage things so that in theory, we could sleep in.  We didn't even stay out that late - we were home by 2:30am?  But it felt like we were gone for DAYS.  The party was amazing - it was the first time Syrous had thrown an event in over a decade.  People brought air horns and went out and purposefully bought lighters. Total throwback:

We got to hang out with Bwong again and I got maybe 4 hours of sleep but it was so worth it.  Then we got back at 'er the next day at Skrillex's Full Flex Express stop at Echo beach, which I booked early in the summer for a few reasons: 1) I was desperate to go dancing and didn't think there'd be anything else on the horizon (I didn't know there'd be a bomb old skool jungle rave revival happening the night before), and 2) my youngest bro has gotten into EDM in the last few years and I wanted the opportunity to party it up with him.  So we got my mom to come and watch the three kids and we got our butts down to a 19+ show filled with next gen candy ravers, who are much more stylized and less goony than the ravers I remember from my heyday.  It looked like a Coachella/Free People/trap explosion but CHova was in fine form and I got to hang with him and Aunt Viv and dance and the Dotytron got wasted on $20 rum'n'cokes and the whole thing wrapped up at 11:30 we were home and in bed at midnight so it was totally respectable.  Do Skrillex and Diplo "dj" in any sense of the word?  No.  But is it bass-heavy disposable dance music with a giant crowd that brought two generations of siblings together?  Yes, and for that, I was grateful.

The Dotytron was grateful for being the "oldest person I've carded all night" (he got captured in security's trawl when the guard saw CHova pass him a drink), but was considerably less grateful for being a giant, hungover, overtired, husk of a man the next day.  Me?  I was okay, but I party sober, which is something the Dotytron actually faults me for, the day after, when he's the living, breathing embodiment of Voldemort's shattered soul baby on the platform of King's Cross station.

As a consequence of being Voldermort-ed, the Dotytron declared that Sunday that he’d had enough partying for the next little while, thankyouverymuch.  I could go for some more, but I’ll take what I got.  After dancing all night two nights in a row, I think I added years to my life, truly.  It reconnected me to a part of myself that has been missing for a long time, an essential element that makes up the lil’ dynamo of yore, 20-odd pounds ago when I used to dub myself “120 lbs of hype” (let’s pour some on the ground for when I was anywhere near to being 120 pounds and could get away with wearing glorified hankies as tops).  It’s important to do the things that will make you feel human again, even though the Dotytron and I are like, the poster children for doing things that make us feel like us (often at the expense of our parenting).  The Roomie was marvelling over how full our lives are recently, but I honestly think that carving out the time to do our thing and not subsuming ourselves to our children is the only way we could do it.  Anything else would be a fast-track, do-not-pass-Go ticket to resentment city.  

The following week we embarked on a week at the cottage with BFF-fambam, Dr. Rei, Hanbo, and baby Zoon.  The cottage was only okay (but it did have a sauna!), the weather wasn’t fully cooperating, but it was worth it for the opportunity to be in nature with my favorite people.  Cottages are really just grown-up sleepovers, and you know how much I love me a friend sleepover.  Once all the kids were down in bed, we could sit by the fire and talk and eat s’mores or play games and watch movies when we were forced by a mosquito intifada to take refuge inside.  So many endlessly funny things happened at the cottage:

- Dr. Rei’s version of the Golden Girls theme, which involves trying to force, “You would see, the biggest goddamn gift would be from goddamn me,” into the metre of the song

- talk of gay imams and whether gay imams should be forced to perform straight weddings (in case it’s not glaringly obvious, this was a particularly laboured thought experiment on my part to try to suss out why bakers have to be forced to bake gay cakes for gay weddings)

- the lead singer from Yaz (?) allegedly being a “Liverpool transvestite”

- the Dotytron’s British accent being employed during some Big Yam ice cream truck LARPing, when the Dotytron took on the persona of a British busker, “see the problem is, mate, I only have 20 pence”

- Dr. Rei’s impression of the one black kid in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban who says, “It’s like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands”

- This butt carefully lifting up a $20 bowl of pine nuts, displaying them to me so I could get the picture, and then methodically dumping the entire bowl on the floor:

- Watching the movie Singles (which is terrible) and getting so mad about how terrible it is.  Quincess waking up and being inconsolable about 1/3 of the way through the movie, coming out and joining us and being completely enthralled and ultimately, the only one paying attention.  The next day, I angrily was talking about how bulls**t that movie is (Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, and Alice In Chains cameos notwithstanding), and I said something like, “Gah!  That movie was so stupid!  Did that stupid couple even end up together?!???  Quincess – [calling to him across the room] – did that couple even end up together?” He didn’t pause a beat, looked at me, and said in his sweet, Placido Domingo little lisping toddler voice, “yesth.”  LOL!  He was legit the only one paying attention.  

- Our soundtrack to the entire week was basically the twins’ saying, “more cereal, more cereal, more cereal” – I don’t think anyone has ever heard the words “more cereal” more in one day (we went through two boxes of Cheerios and one box of Shreddies).  

- Lindsay copying Hanbo and biting blueberries in half to give to Baby Zoony.  

- The twins saying “Baby Zoony”

Lindsay is so sweet and cute sometimes I can't get mad at him even though he's also a giant, entitled, bossy  butt

 

Look a this gorgeous family.  They look like they could be in St. Tropez

THIS. G-D. FACE.

I love this picture.  Dr. Rei and I, unpacking the universe

The Dotytron is a real good egg.  To wit, just before my birthday proper I came home from work to this:

...a surprise early birthday present - a pegboard kitted out for all my crafting supplies and a completely cleaned and operational office/shared space for me and the Dotytron.  The little printed picture above the pegboard is a copy of a cover of a Robert Munsch book called We Share Everything and is the Dotytron's very sweet way of telling me he had heard my constant carping (there was really no way he could miss it) that the office downstairs was going to be a shared space and that I was sick and tired of hearing him lay claim to it and annex parts of it without giving me my due.

I mean, really.  C'mon.  What a turkey.  He also orchestrated this greeting when I came down the stairs where the kids came out in sequence with potted plants that were individually labelled with the words: "Happy Birthday Mama" while he played the Bangles' Eternal Flame.  At least, that was the idea, but I was home a little later and he had to turn on a movie and so by the time I came home, wolfed an ice cream sandwich, snapped at him, "WHAT. I HAVEN'T EATEN ANYTHING ALL DAY" when he tried to gently hustle me down the stairs, the only person who was committed to the performance was the Big Yam.  But you get the picture.  He and the Big Yam had been going on all these secret missions all week to get me quilting supplies and goodies from the Workroom - a new retractable measuring tape, beautiful variegated thread, new sewing needles.  It was all too much and required so much secrecy and coodination and cahoot-ing with my resident sewing guru, E.

It was such a thoughtful, sweet, well-planned birthday present tailor-made for me, and all I can say is: HOLY MOTHER OF EFF AM I F**KED - I won't be able to top that when the next Dotytron significant gift-giving occasion happens.  He just can’t handle his life.  He’s an old, grey mare that ain’t what she used to be.

Then we had a few days at home that were filled with even more visits and hangs and then our Cleveland fam came and stayed with us over the August long weekend.  We hung in playgrounds and parks and took them to Sprouts and on my birthday, lined up babysitting so we could go axe throwing (I won!) and eat dinner at La Carnita East.   

My sis’ kids were in town so on Monday, my mum took the Big Yam for a sleepover with his cousins and we only had two kids and it was SO. EASY.  It felt like we could do anything!  We felt so free!  We took them to the Leslie Spit on an epic bike ride and then we were extra brave and took them for a dinner at Ceili Cottage which went better than I ever could have hoped.  

After experiencing the ecstasy that was one less kid sleeping at the house, we took in all three of my sister’s kids two days.  Yes, that’s right.  Six kids, two adults, in one tiny Toronto semi.  It went better than I expected.  We hooked up with Ehmdo and took the kids to Centre Island and Centreville where we somehow spent $200 and had nothing to show for it.   When my bio-dad used to pull out the cooler at Canada’s Wonderland I used to vow as a child that I would NEVER be one of those parents that packs a lunch at a theme park.  OH HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN.  I packed lunches and STILL spent $200.  Ferry rides, parking, ride tickets MY GOD, THE RIDE TICKETS, and snacks all added up to more than the cost of my birthday dinner at La Carnita East.  

But just check out all the fun stuff we did:

The Big Yam was VERY concerned about being able to drive properly - he and Quincess took this very seriously.

This guy's "stubborn" face when you tell him he can't do something

Last weekend we hung with my family and discovered that the twins are terrified of cooked lobsters.  When they brought them to our table, Lindsay started wailing and then Quincess took up the cry.  His little heart was racing and he was so sad/scared.  When toddlers get scared it’s so tragic but also so funny that you (if you are me, and in this case, you are) almost want to expose them to the stuff that’s scaring them because their reaction is so poignant.  Genuinely being so scared of lobsters, or birthday cake candles (which is a new thing) or fire (which happened at the cottage and is what then leap-frogged to the birthday cake candles fear) makes you feel so sad for their little pea-brain butts.  Especially since Quincess, when he refers to himself, likes to press his hand to his chest, so if you ask him if he wants to go to the fire, he’ll say “no” press his hand to his chest “scared.”  

Here’s some video of that:

I apologize for the ghetto video quality and my annoying voice.  I WILL NOT apologize for wearing my "cat person" one-size-fits-most Micelli Monday uniform

We went to a birthday party for our friend’s kid and they did a go-around introduction where you were supposed to say your name and your favorite animal.  Quincess *hand to chest* “Dee-dee” [Quincy].  Favorite animal?  “Um…cat.”  He’s been prefacing sentences with “um” and it makes me die inside Every. Single. Time.  

Vamping out

For the first time in his entire life the Big Yam wanted to get face-painting done and he was so clear on his vision (vampire) that I didn’t have the heart to say no (I almost always say no because mess and because line).  I had kind of talked him out of it and then the woman doing the face painting came around and asked if anyone else wanted their face painted and his little hand shot up so fast – I couldn’t say no.  And then he got the jankiest vampire face-painting done but he was so in love with it that it was one of those parenting moments where your heart just breaks for that weird little person you’ve brought into your life who just wants to pretend to be a vampire soooo bad and then will lose his everlovin’ mind when he wakes up from a post-birthday party exhausted nap and realizes that some of his janky vampire face paint rubbed off.  KIDS ARE SO TRAGIC HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LIVE WITH BEARING WITNESS TO IT?!?  

We want to enroll Lindsay in a judo class or something because he’s always trying to grapple Quincess and wrestle him to the ground and he’s always tussling with a pillow or something and making weird karate grunts and sound effects.  He walks and runs belly-out and he’s such a Rodney Dangerfield like buffoon, you can’t help but love him.  Even when he does the infuriating thing where you catch him doing something wrong (taking the vinegar spray off the table and spraying the wall with it, for example) and he sees that you’ve caught him and will start frantically doing the wrong thing EVEN HARDER AND FASTER just to get a few more jollies in before you take the “fun” away.  

This FINALLY brings me mostly up to date.  We had a Micelli Monday: field trip edition hang on Monday – went to this restaurant Tandoori Flame which is allegedly “the largest indian restaurant in North America” which was a bald-faced lie, but obviously Tamil Tiger Big Yam loved it.  When he got his first plate of food, he turned and asked us, “Is this a buffet?” *pause* “I LOVE it!”  LOL!  

I’ve made some good dinners lately:

Back from the cottage kalbi ribs and bi bim bap rice with a fried egg.  I made my own kalbi marinade and added pureed pineapple.  So good.

When Cleveland was in town we smoked ribs, made that buffalo fried chicken cobb salad, and a delicious, classic mac salad

Coconut cream pie (one of four pies I made that weekend, the others being: coffee toffee ice cream pie, chocolate pudding pie, and a lemon chiffon pie)

Post-swimming spaghetti and meatballs always hits the spot.  I made this dinner and put on dry undies after yet another afternoon at the pool and it was one of the best moments of my life

This dinner was based off a Smitten Kitchen idea for elevating a tomato sandwich.  Two words: FRIED. PROVOLONE.  Yup.  You heard that right.  I panfried 1/4" thick slices of provolone and put that on top of miche bread, lightly toasted, spread with a tablespoon of roasted garlic mayonnaise.  Then I topped that with sliced heirlooms, crunchy salt, some basil and oregano, and some bacon.  

Fin.