This is me now

Incidentally, if you haven't seen the movie, Working Girl, you should. It's kind of the best. So entertaining! And the Carly Simon theme song is feminist empowerment defined. Why don't they show this stuff on a lazy Sunday on TV anymore? Why is it always a movie that you don't want to watch, like Paul Blart: Mall Cop (which, incidentally, I caught the Dotytron watching on Sunday before I convinced him to switch to the latest version of Jane Eyre) or Goonies for the zillionth time?

Speaking of Jane Eyre, the newest version, starring my future husband, Michael Fassbender (after the Dotytron grants me my long-wished-for divorce), is kinda snoozeville. Mia Wasikowska is suitably girlish and somewhat plain and does a good job being very reserved and still and yet hinting at the depths of passion that stir just beneath her milky countenance, but overall I found the film kind of rushes through the events that make Jane, Jane. It also rushes through the events that make Jane and Rochester, Jane and Rochester. I didn't really buy the love stuff between them. In the book it takes AGES and each exchange builds upon the last until you're nearly swooning with anticipation that they just hook the hell up already. Michael Fassbender is a little too handsome and not quite gruff enough to be Rochester - he's a little slight in the build and a little too fair to be so gloomy and brooding but I have a soft spot for him so I'm willing to overlook it.

The film is gorgeous - really lush and painterly and filled with absolutely sublime shots of the English countryside in all its' woodsy, heathered, stony glory. I loved the look of it, but the story fell short, for me. That could very well be because I've never been a HUGE Jane Eyre fan. I always read up until the point where she discovers the crazy woman in the attic and runs away and then I get bored. I especially hate the St. John interlude (it doesn't help that in the film it's pronounced "SinJin" which lead me to make cracks about "SinJin the non-Asian") and I hate that Rochester gets all messed up in the end and lives the rest of his life all blind. I also don't find Jane to be that entrancing a character. Maybe for early 19th century England, but it doesn't translate. She just seems kind of poky.

Watching it on the heels of Paul Blart: Mall Cop did result in some hysterical laughing about "Lord and Lady Blart" and "Lord and Lady Mall Cop" which the Dotytron made me promise not to share because he said it wouldn't be funny out of context but I'm seriously laughing out loud while I type it, so there you go.

First Day of Work Report:

It went amazingly well. I really do love love love my job. And (most) of the people I work with. And my building. And being busy. And joining teams. And having a purpose to my day and a reason to put on nice clothes and straighten my hair and get my act together. I'm so not meant to be a stay-at-home mum. I can't do it. I loved being home with him, but I'm so much more engaged and useful when I'm firing on all pistons and when my calendar is filled up with stuff and I've got a long-long task list to beaver away at. That's just the nature of me.

The Big Yam had a good day. I dropped him off and there were no tears (there are never tears when I leave him with someone.) He happily waved bye-bye to me from J's window and she said he was totally lovely. He didn't eat many vegetables (she's providing us with a written write-up for him for the next week or so) because there were Cheerios being offered and his nap schedule got all messed up, but other than that it was smooth sailing. He was totally hungry for the boob when I got home and although I didn't find myself missing him during the day, I was near frantic to see him when I got home, which wasn't helped along by a stupid TTC delay, frazzling my nerves and ramping up the tension even more. J is Chilean so her English isn't perfect and her write up was hilarious. Does it make me a bad person that when I read the comment under "Notes about nap time" (it said, bluntly: "He cry") that I laughed? Poor Boobla. He hates sleeping in pack'n'plays and not in his own bed so I can only imagine how much "he cry" when J tried to put him down. I just find it so funny how poorly "he cry" captures what really must have gone down.

The Dotytron was on dinner patrol and this is what he made:

As my neighbours enviously commented, technically, I just use the Dotytron as my proxy - like in Ratatouille. I do most of the complicated chopping and lay out the mis-en-place and he executes per my detailed email instructions. I came home to a scene last night where the Dotytron was losing his mind and bemoaning about how "ruined dinner" but he was just super-anxious about getting it right. It turned out perfectly. That's leftover polenta that I froze, sliced and pan-fried, topped with creamed spinach and leeks, poached eggs, and cheddar cheese. So simple and so darned tasty.

Timing worked out pretty well. I was home by 5:45, dinner was on the table at 6:30 so I got to play with the Big Yam in between, and after dinner we had over an hour to hang with Master T before putting him to bed at 8pm and getting back to our own business. Hopefully we can keep up the momentum!

This weekend is a doozy. Tonight it's dinner at R & R's house. I made an apple pie (all the neighbours have gone apple picking lately and we're being gifted with the inevitable surplus - apples are just too easy to pick!) with a brown butter oat streusel. We're getting takeout though and hopefully playing Settlers. Then we're spending the night up in Markham because we're babysitting my Poh Poh tomorrow. We'll take the Big Yam swimming and then do some errands and then hang with MHui and her family. Sunday we're having brunch with Nany and Momma D and then home for some much-needed down time and house cleaning.

Phew!

Thanks to all you dear readers for the love and support and words of encouragement during this time! Much love to you all.

Fin.

Fun awaits!

Today is going to be a super-duper fun day. I can feel it in my bones.

I got up early and trucked my butt to work so that I could use the databases there and download some articles. I've just checked and my login allows me to access the legal databases from home! YES! No more having to go into work to research my next two papers! The heat is on. I have to finish my little wee 7 pager by this weekend, which will then leave me my final two 20 pagers (one supposed to be due next week, one was due in DECEMBER). I'm hoping to have those done by the end of the month, which will make me all caught up by the time my summer course starts in May. Here's hoping!

This afternoon Dr. Rei is going to come over so we can go buck and finally have a nice, long, catch-up session because I haven't seen her in TWO WEEKS and that's an eternity for us, especially when we were used to seeing each other several times a week for lunch when I was working, and at least once a week when the Big Yam was first borned. Then we're going to dodgeball, then dinner with Lolly and Dr. Rei. See? I told you: FUN!

Tomorrow is an epic, epic Saturday and I've been given the gears about it from the Dotytron for overscheduling us, as per usual. We start the morning off by heading to Markham, where the Dotytron will teach his lesson and then we'll take my mum and Poh Poh out to lunch. THEN we're taking the Big Yam swimming for the first time ever at the community centre. THEN we're visiting our friends R & P and their baby D in Richmond Hill. THEN we're visiting with the Dotytron's Aunt and Uncle who STILL haven't met Master T. THEN we're closing out the night by going for dinner with R & R. FOUR OUTINGS/VISITS IN ONE DAY!!! Bucksauce! Sunday is more sedate - we're having dinner with the Roomie & L'Army who came back from their India trip last week. L'Army has already posted some breathtaking photos pon de FB so I can't wait to hear the accompanying stories.

I'm seriously hoping there are family change rooms at the community centre. Juggling a chlorinated, slippery fish Big Yam while trying to shower and then sort out my own gitch (exacerbated by my usual ABJECT TERROR at the floors at public swimming pools - UGH RANDOM HAIR NOT ON A HEAD, WHY ARE YOU SO GROSS?!?) is already stressing me out.

On that note - I should be off to get packing/organized, but allow me to close with a thrilling potential childcare linkup update! Through going to the drop-in centre, we found out that the little girl across the street's caregiver takes her there regularly, and I've met the caregiver and she seems super nice and sweet and loving. I told my neighbour and she said she thinks the caregiver might have an opening around when we're looking and that she'll ask on our behalf. Score! Licensed, unlicensed, I care not - a neighbour vetting is more important to me and carries a lot of weight.

This is the hotel we're staying at in Boston - got a pretty insane deal off the rack rate. I'm so bougie. I can't NOT stay in a boutique hotel, even as I understand that "you're just sleeping there" yadda yadda. The look of a Holiday Inn Express is enough to make me break out in hives (or get a bed bug bite?) - I'd sometimes rather not travel at all. That being said, I'm sure the hotel's patrons are going to LURVE hearing a bambino crying for boob at 5 in the morning.

Fin.

ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!

THIS DAY HAS BEEN SO CRAY-CRAY!!!

zomg! a zillion different things going on and trying to schedule a zillion different things in the too-limited time we have left this summer. oy oy oy! my to-do list and to-see list is mega!

*deep breath*

first things first, the dotytron just might very well have a job in the TORONTO DISTRICT MOTHER-EFFIN' SCHOOL BOARD, A-HOLES! wooooooooooooo!!! it's only a 0.5 but that's still so so so good! so now he's trying to see if he can do that in the afternoon and keep his private school gig teaching music in the mornings. but worse comes to worse, the principal said that he can usually pick up supply teaching mornings in the school where his contract would be. wa wa wee wa!

i had an epic phone convo with dr. rei at lunch just trying to figure everything out for this summer into september. we got so much going on this summer! heck, we got so much going on THIS WEEK! pingy is still in town so we want to have a night in with her and then our friend A comes into town from his sojourns in NYC doing his masters in music composition and he's playing some shows that we should see and also just see him and catch up. dr. rei is itching to have us over for dinner so we're trying to fit that in somewheres. we're having AYCE sushi with goosetang & lolly on friday night followed up with a viewing of "eclipse", on saturday we're having going to see a wu-tang documentary with the kdubsguelph crew and then a picnic in high park, and on sunday our supper club was supposed to meet but i think we have to cut that out in favour of going to lounge in hanbo's parents' pool. the dotytron's parents are also trying to have us over to clean out their basement. phew! it's exhausting/exhilarating/gratifying having so many good peoples in our lives. we're such lucky pigs.

and to re-cap: so much sun this weekend! this was probably the first weekend where i felt impeded by being a vessel for the fatburger. the combination of the sun, playing outfield during kick/whiffle ball, and the squirmy bean meant that i got yelled at alot by s-dawg for doing a bad job playing outfield. basically he just sits there and screams "LAGERFELD!!!! JESUS F**KING CHRIST!!!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!?" while i half-heartedly tried to chase the kickball into the outfield.

on friday i went shopping with the roomie and our montreal friend I. we hit my favorite grocery store clothes, joe, AND winners where i managed to snag some suitably bump-friendly clothing that should take me into fall. i got a dress, 2 pairs of leggings, 1 blouse, and 3 button down shirts for about $125. pretty good, overall, i'd say. on the way up to markham for the big grandparents' s**tshow i was driving and the dotytron and i were singing in the car. we basically only sing extreme's "more than words" but last summer, when we were practicing our vows and taking all those road trips to geneseo, i seem to remember us having more in our repertoire. so the dotytron was like, "don't we sing any other songs?" and as a joke, i was like, "yeah, don't you remember how we used to harmonize to 'anna is a speed freak'?" which got a round of LOLs. in case you forgot the early 90s, "anna is a speed freak" goes like this:

ahahahhaahahahaha!!! then we flipped through the radio and the dotytron was like, "all i want to hear is 'runaway train' right now" and seriously made a concerted effort to find a call-in request show so that he could request it. we were close with 97.3fm, but i forgot the last digit of the phone number so that was a bit of a fail. in the end we dredged up the lyrics from our respective drug-addled youths and managed to cobble together a pretty solid rendition.

saturday we went for AYCE japanese and managed to break free from the loafing forces of suburbia to wrangle everyone downtown to the beach. it was LOVELY. although i have to say, the toronto beaches is a big, ol' cocktease. YOU CAN'T GO IN THE WATER?!?!! we laid out in the sun and then my sis and i took the kids to the donald d. summerville public pool, which is right at the beach. it's pretty awesome. it has an olympic sized swimming pool, a kiddie pool, AND a diving pool all in the same complex. we followed that up with the kids getting nice and sandy and the boys going to challenge some super-asians to a series of beach volleyball games that they lost.

we also made an important discovery - THERE IS SOMEONE WHO SELLS FUNNEL CAKES AT THE BEACHES! FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOU PAY AT WONDERLAND. this was a BIG deal! this means that i'm a 5 minute bike ride away from funnel cakes ALL SUMMER LONG.

we posseyed up and then headed to big mouth kee for a textbook big d's big day at big mouth kee meal. s-dawg had this plan to see the UFC fight at bo-pie with some friends. the outlaw bro, chova and the dotytron were obviously in for drinking and carousing so they went. this is how my sister and i watch UFC fights. we show up at bo-pie. order 2 glasses of water. order a brownie sunday and their chocolate explosion. eat dessert. leave before the fight begins. rent "valentine's day." i can't comment on the movie because i basically passed out from BOREDOM to the sounds of my sister complaining about how they can't write a decent romantic comedy any more and how implausible EVERY SINGLE PLOT POINT was and how shrill all the female characters are. good times. i will say that the fatburger was going BUCK during the UFC pre-fight stuff. i think he wanted to fight his in utero cousin.

on sunday me, my mum, and my sis went to this nearby nail place to get a pedicure. guys, i was BRUTALISED at that session. i'm not kidding you. the lady was ROUGH with me. doesn't she know that pedis are supposed to feel GOOD?! she had false nails and so she kept pinching the flesh on each toe between her talons and she made me bleed when she was working my cuticles. alls i gotta say is: if i end up with a staph infection or find out that i was paula abdul'ed , kathy's nails, i'm coming for ya.

we then met up with my grandparents at dim sum brunch at chili secrets. whereby my grandma dropped the BIG BOMB that she dislikes the dotytron? basically my grandpa was ribbing chova about why he and his ex gf broke up. then grandpa said that they didn't really seem compatible. then i asked out loud, somewhat rhetorically, "are the dotytron and i suited?" and my grandma, totally frowned, and shook her head, "no"!!!!! i was like, DID ANYONE JUST SEE THAT?!!!??? my grandma is like, evil incarnate so i'm not taking it seriously, but dayum. p.s. the dotytron was sitting right there. awwww, poor dotytron!

we fought the MSG AGAIN and managed to take the kids to a splash pad in this fairly awesome-for-suburbia park in richmond hill which had a playground, a splash pad, a basketball court, and like, 2 soccer fields. it was pretty fun, even if it was a little dirty. i don't think suburbanites understand that you're supposed to PUT GARBAGE IN THE GARBAGE RECEPTACLES PROVIDED. it's like a mystery to them or something. they probably expect their nannies to do the cleaning up. the next time i'm going to call the town of markham and complain just before we go up so it's all tidy. the kids had a good time and when my niece started whinging we set up a game of my sis, s-dawg and myself versus team whitey (outlaw bro and dotytron) at kickball/whiffle ball (we alternated innings). it was pretty hilarious and fun. mostly because we were using my niece's skipping rope to mark third base and when she asked to use it to go skipping WE WOULDN'T LET HER. lol!!!

so she threw a fuss and didn't want to play and basically sulked and cried for like 20 minutes. when she had calmed down she then asked to join our team when we were up at bat, WE WOULDN'T LET HER. we told her to that she COULDN'T JOIN THE BATTING ORDER MID-INNING and would be able to join once we flipped to playing outfield. LOL!!! i keep thinking about how those two events would go over with the super-research-y and super-liberal parenting types i know and i can already hear them calling CAS on us. lol!!!



after being a giant piggerton all weekend, i resumed regular low/good carb eating today. for dinner we had a salmon, corn & bacon chowder with a spinach salad with strawberries, toasted salted pumpkin seeds, and red peppers in a lime-honey dressing.

i also did the lane swim thing. things the dotytron likes about my swimming attire: i wear pretty skimpy bikinis, almost exclusively. things the dotytron DOESN'T like about my swimming attire: i top said bikinis with a speedo swimming cap which is probably too small AND mistakenly purchased CHILD-SIZED speedo swimming goggles (also too small) so it's party on the bottom and immigrant aquaman on top. pure sex.

fin.

so happy it's friday

this week has been exhausting for one reason or another. wednesday night i went and watched the dotyron be a baller for the first time in like, 20 billion years. he was getting no love from the rim - every shot bounced back. poor little guy. he was subbing on dr. rei's team alongside s-dawg and s-dawg's buddy, R, who also got recruited to make up the thinning ranks of the compact pressario's.

thursday night poor dotytron had parent-teacher conferences that resulted in him coming home tired and exhausted - a state of being that i completely bulldozed over as i harangued him into coming to dodgeball. it was the haranguing of haranguings. shrill-bot 2020. after making a giant, pouty stink and basically FORCING him to go with me, i then played the CRAPPIEST GAME OF ALL ETERNITY. it was so aggravating, especially cuz last week i was ON. so so ON! we got shellacked last night. we all played pretty poorly. i hate it when that happens because the other team was ENTIRELY too pleased with themselves and thought we were a joke to play - which is the worst because if we were doing our best, we would have beat the pants off them and it would have been US being insufferably self-satisfied. gah.


treat of treats, though! we got a surprise visit from A & J last night! and s-dawg was already coming over for dinner. yay! this meant i had to high-tail it home after work, speedily pick up remaining groceries, tidy up the house, and then get dinner going. earlier in the week T gave me a jar of her sauce and some meatballs...so i mixed her sauce and my previously frozen tomato sauce with some cooked pasta and dolloped in some ricotta, topped it with mozzarella and baked it in the oven. i put the meatballs on one half so that they didn't contaminate the side for the veggies. i also made a caesar salad and croutons.

and a cardamom apple cake for dessert, served with ice cream.

okay...i already knew this, but sometimes it bears repeating: people on ebay ARE CRAZY. 15 of those mercury glass icicle ornaments are currently going for ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN DOLLARS. that's INSANE! they're the size of my middle finger!!! (fittingly) how is it possible that a few antique beads re-strung onto wire could turn ordinary (presumably), sane (usually) individuals into a pack of sir richard bransons at a rappelling convention?!??! don't they know we're in the middle of an economic crisis? jeeeez. who has that kind of extra coin to blow on fifteen ornaments?!?

so, i've kind of made a new important discovery. that is: that i'm kind of obsessed with vintage salt and pepper shakers. i'm hunting for the PERFECT set to grace our dining room table. there are so many to choose from! i tend to be especially taken by kitsch (no surprise) animal ones...like these native american kitties, which make me LOL every time i look at the beatific, serene look on their little ceramic faces:

then there are those of the "blushing woodland animal" ilk - like these dainty, rosy-cheeked skunks and pert little dalmatians:

these very, very, old wooden ones are adorable, with their cherubic, campbell's soup kids-like faces and cheeky sidelong glances:

you can also go mega-kitsch and get the classic, attention-grabbing lobster claw route:

or the toadstool route:

my favorite vignette in "fantasia" was always the little dancing mushrooms in the nutcracker suite bit. little, wee, red-capped mushrooms are kind of played out right now in the crafty, bloggy, world - but does anything this darling ever really go out of style? i say nay. they might fall out of favour but there were always be a place for them in a damp, forest-floor corner of my heart.

i've decided which ones are going to go on my table...none of the above, actually...although the longer i stare at native american kitties, the more they make me laugh. it's a bit of a surprise. they'll go with a sweet vase i found for a song on threepotatofour that spoke to me as soon as i laid eyes on it. i can picture the table in my head...a little ceramic rectangular dish holding my vase, the salt and pepper shakers, and some nice beeswax candles. lovely! i can't wait to show you the whole vignette...we'll have to wait for the items to trickle in. and the table to arrive. and the chairs to be bought...oy.

all the winter tire research paid off. i can now call up an auto body shop/tire centre and converse like a bodmon and not fear for an instant that i'm going to get ripped off/taken for a ride. it's a wonderful feeling to have. plus, i know now how to read the markings on a tire sidewall. the problem is, we've found a mechanic we LOVE, but he's in geneseo. his prices can't be beat and he's really honest (i hope) and upfront and gives you the lowdown and guarantees his work. we just have to drive 600km there and back to see him.

today (saturday) i'm meeting old supervisor T to go to mccaul's (baking supply store) for our annual trip. i rarely buy anything. the stuff there is a little overpriced but she loves it and it's a tradition now. then i'm meeting my friend D to go see "an education" - then it's grocery shopping, errands, home, baking a brown butter apple tart, then heading to J & S's house for dinner prepared by L. holy cats! i'm kind of tired already, and it's only 9am.

fin.

i'm broken.

the past 48 hours has broken down roughly like this: 12 hours sleep, 8 hours in a professional development course, and the other 28 hours either prostrate on my hands and knees outlining EVERYTHING with blue painter's tape, or moving a ladder in 2 foot increments as i edge and paint MY ENTIRE F**KING HOUSE. i have paint blisters. i barely have a partner anymore as our relationship has devolved into terse, military war-room strategizing over plans of attack, priority targets, etc. interspersed with shouting obscenities at each other. a small percentage of the remaining time also consists of singing along to the "100 greatest power ballads" that i grabbed off the interwebs and discussing how cory hart's "sunglasses at night" doesn't count as a power ballad. and how i hate it when joe cocker makes things all awkward by openly breaking down during "you are so beautiful to me". joe cocker crying is hella awkward.

i'm not usually good at asking for help. a favorite anecdote of the ex-roomie's is when we were walking home from grocery shopping, conducting auto-psychoanalysis, as is our wont. me: wearing a knapsack with about 30 lbs of groceries and my hands full with several more bags of groceries, talking about how i have a hard time accepting help. i am just expressing this fundamental weakness as i come to the front door and fumble awkwardly with shifting the bags from hand to hand so that i might grab the mail, sort it, discard the junk AND open the door to let us in, when the roomie asks, "can i take one of those bags" and i immediately interrupt with "THANKS, NO I'VE GOT IT." lol! talk about lack of reflexivity!

this house has broken that willful pride. i am OPENLY BEGGING FOR HELP. please, please, please.



the dotytron isn't much better.

me: "so...i've been flirting with ___ (contractor)"
him: *looks up from his book* "?"
me: "i'm hoping that he'll give us a break on the cost or something"

now, we're notoriously relaxed when it comes to traditional possessive jealousy. we're pretty okay with shiz like that. but the enthusiasm with which the dotytron pounced on that off-the-cuff comment caught me a little off guard. he had it all planned out: "we'll obviously pay for the materials, but if you give him 1 bj a month, he could give us the labour for free - what? look, i would GLADLY give (contractor) one bj a month for free contracting labour, but i don't think he wants one from me, k?"

i'll leave you with that image of my partner pimping me out for contracting services. i'm off to steal whatever bits of sleep i'm permitted before getting up and doing it all over again tomorrow.

fin.

can't talk...

...to busy slanging all my worldly possessions on craigslist.

too bad too - had an epic weekend of fun and being dressed like a giant disco ball. in the throes of home renos - running behind schedule (but of course). lots to tell - no time to tell it.

update soon, lovelies!

fin.

fat little weirdo

the fat little weirdo returned with a VENGEANCE on tuesday night. i didn't think i was going to be hungry after scarfing mad pizza and cake at lunch - i figured i would only nibble on some fruit or something. but apparently the fat little weirdo had other ideas in mind.

i microwaved a bag of light popcorn and started shoveling handfuls into my mouth. then i took five hotdogs from the mennonites (no nitrates!) and boiled them and ate them sans bun. the dotytron was strangely immune to my "dinner" of choice. instead he studiously tried to ignore me as i stood behind him in an oversize, dirty breakcore t-shirt, with a plate of hot dogs, spearing one up and dipping it's snappy, taut end in ketchup before taking giant bites and asking through noisy, snuffly chews, "you sure you don't want some of this?" for some reason he finds it distracting when i do that.


last night i made us a quickie dinner of pan fried paneer on top of a warm chickpea salad consisting of some of T's preserved chilies, onions, garlic, and chopped zucchini blossoms. i scooped this warm mixture on top of some baby spinach and squeezed half a lemon over and sprinkled it with sea salt. then i topped it with the fried paneer.

for dessert i was really craving a pudding cake. i LOVE pudding cakes of all stripes and persuasions. chocolate pudding cakes, pouding chomeur, strawberry rhubarb, etc etc. blueberry pudding cake is one of my all-time favorites though. it's the best of both worlds - warm, ultra-blueberry compote on the bottom cradling a tender, light as air quick-bread cake with a crusty top and chewy-browned edges, a perfect foil for a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream. the best thing about pudding cakes is that by and large, they come together in less than 15 minutes. 15 minutes of active time for a warm, homey, old-timey dessert? yessum!

i worked really really really hard today. one of those days where i was juggling a million different tasks and phone calls and memos at once. i barely got up to pee and didn't eat a thing all day except 2 tim horton's cookies. after work we went to pick up our grillz. the dotytron's fit amazing but mine didn't turn out and i have to get remolded. it's very demoralizing. what if mine's not done in time?!?? what's wrong with my teefs?

then we got the dotytron some flip flops and hit up chipotle for dinner. the barbacoa at chipotle is a wonderful thing. so good! we were going to try to be thrifty and split a burrito but i was so demoralized by my grill not fitting that i ate the whole thing. plus i was probably suffering from low blood sugar from not having had a chance to eat all day and getting up at 6am for a run.

now i'm recording a billion takes for the performance cd. singing is hard. it's hard in a lot of ways. first you have to be in tune. this is HARD. then you have to project. this is also hard. then you also have to EMOTE THE FEELINGS IN THE SONG. this is very hard. in combination with all the other stuff it's damn near impossible. especially if you, like me, are tone deaf. here's my tip: REVERB IS YOUR FRIEND.

tomorrow is a BUCKSHOT day. we have our purchaser's visit to the house, which means we have like, 6 different contractors coming through to give us quotes. then we have to go to the bank and like, take out every dime we've ever had in our lives. here's my tip: 3.7% FIXED INTEREST IS YOUR FRIEND. then i have to get my mold done for my teeth and come home and get my hair cut and then have the kdubsguelph crew over to do backup vocals and gossip. i'm exhausted and stressed just thinking about it.

here's the recipe for the blueberry pudding cake:

fin.

------------------------------------------------
blueberry pudding cake
serves 4-6, from gourmet magazine, july 2005

1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon cornstarch
10 oz blueberries (2 cups)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

- butter a 9" square baking pan (i use a 9" round casserole dish with 3" high sides)
- preheat oven to 375F
- stir together 1/3 c. sugar with water, lemon juice, cornstarch and blueberries in a saucepan. bring to a simmer. simmer 3 minutes, set aside.
- stir together flour, baking powder and salt. whisk together milk, egg, and butter.
- stir liquid ingredients into dry ingredients. spread into prepared pan.
- carefully pour blueberry mixture over cake mixture (blueberries will sink. this will look wet).
- bake for 30-45 minutes until top spring backs when touched and is golden brown.
- serve warm with vanilla ice cream.