Pleased to Meat You

I have so many problems deciding whether to capitalize the blog titles like titles or just follow regular sentence style.  Decisions!

So Meat Club.  The friends we know who are part of Meat Club didn't show, so the only person we knew was the principal organizer, who we had only met once before, at our last Supper Club.  It was still fun though.  We lucked out and sat with the loveliest people by far and we had a grand time.  Richmond Station is themed like a subway station (kind of - I only read that it's supposed to be such and didn't really think so myself) but the decor is ho-hum.  The restaurant was bumping though - filled to the brim and busy the whole time we were there (from around 8pm to 11pm).  Here's what we had:

The charcuterie board.  I kind of hate it when the board features this many things and the server just comes over and rhymes them off to you in one long list.  How am I supposed to remember anything?  Just print out a piece of paper or something, or else don't bother telling us.  The charcuterie was served at the perfect temperature, but sliced a touch too thin for me.  Everything was paper thin which didn't allow you to enjoy all the textures of each type.  It was all good, it kind of got lost in the jumble.  

Presskopf (headcheese) fritters with grilled tongue, and a fried egg and greens.  This dish was outstanding.  The little breaded triangles of headcheese were hot, crispy, not the least bit greasy and so, so light.  The grilled tongue is a no-brainer for me (I love tongue) and the egg was properly runny.  This might have been my favorite bite of the night.

Seared côte de boeuf and braised beef cheeks with potatoes, sautéed spinach, roasted root vegetables and brown butter hollandaise.  They brought out the GIANT rib steaks for us to view - they were Flinstonian in scale, before whisking them back to the kitchen for finishing.  They steaks were a touch over for my liking, but there's nothing not really to love about seared meat, hollandaise, and thinly sliced gratin potatoes that are cut into triangles and then deep fried until they're little, dreamy puffs of deliciousness.  I enjoyed the steak more than the beef cheeks.  I find that braised meat treated like this can get very same-y tasting.  I actually felt that way about the côte de boeuf.  Maybe that's the problem with meat club?  The meat-centric focus means that you're getting food that isn't particularly ground-breaking or inspiring.  It's not something I couldn't get at some other restaurant. It was well prepared, though.

The Richmond Station burger - tender meat on an even more tender milk bun.  Served with textbook fries.  It's hard to really get a sense of a burger when you're only getting a quarter of one, but this was tasty enough?  

Dessert was a cinnamon bun with a walnut crumble, candied bacon, and beer sauce.  These buns were delectable - so soft and fluffy and warm.  The candied bacon was a stand-out too, taking the bacon firmly into sweet territory from the savory side.  This was delicious.  I ate two and then gazed longingly at the ones that were left, wondering who was the lucky sod who got to take the extras home (we left early to relieve Momma D from her babysitting duties).  I easily out-ate everyone there.  I even went so far as to mistakenly think that this nice guy I had just met was challenging me to an eating competition.  So charming, am I!  The Dotytron had my back though.  I take my ability to out-eat most people as a very serious skill.

Friday night was lovely.  Our neighbour kid came and knocked on our door and came in to play after daycare and then invited the Big Yam over to their house for popcorn and movies.  So cute!  I love living in a neighbourhood where the kids just knock on each other's doors asking if so-and-so is coming out to play.  It's so darned cute.  After we ate dinner we dressed up the Big Yam in his jammies and sent him over with his milk.  FOR TWO HOURS.  It was kind of the best and obviously the Dotytron and I immediately started scheming of how we could formalize the arrangement so that you did a rotating Friday Night movie night at a different neighbour's house every week.  LOL!  We're such schysters.  We offered to take the neighbour kid this coming Friday in exchange.  If we're home, I certainly don't mind having a pizza, pajama, and movie party with the kids from the 'hood.  It's cute and the Big Yam was totally and utterly THRILLED with the novelty.  

The Captain started flashing weird brake-related warning lights on our way to Chinese school on Saturday.  I think the Dotytron would have continued driving it, but because I am a GIANT nerd who thinks that we are always one dashboard indicator away from our car exploding and consuming us in a fiery inferno, I looked it up in the book and they were all like, DON'T DRIVE.  So we missed Chinese school AND missed our long-planned, oft-delayed visit with J & Tillers in KW.  It was the WORST.  I can't even tell you how annoying it was.  The Captain INSISTS on making us look bad!  It doesn't even break all that often, but it's always when we're en route to visit people from out of town.  Ugh.  As Tillers said, we probably could have driven with the indicator lights like that for a good long time but I'm a nervous nelly.  Our mechanic thinks it's just a brake fluid issue.  Le sigh.

On Sunday we had R & R over for dinner with their adorable, sweet-eyed little bambino, M.  Little babies are so cute!  They are so light!  She was experience some sleep regression and was thus a little cross.  I keep somehow convincing myself that babies are so low-key and it'll be SO EASY to juggle the twerps when they come but I feel like I might be fooling myself.  We somehow had an easy time of it with the Big Yam but that probably means the twerps will be colicky, fussy, messes.  Why is having babies so jinxy?  I just read a story about a woman who lost her baby at 38 weeks.  Worst.  

Cutest thing ever: we watched part of Mary Poppins with the Big Yam (this is after I vetoed Star Wars as age-appropriate viewing - ummm, hello, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's charred bodies, much?  Not cool for a 2.5 year old!), and the Big Yam was calling it: "Miss Muffin."  

The Big Yam's room is slowly coming together (conceptually).  I ordered his bed frame, dresser and mattress today.  Here is the photo that inspired me: 

I just thought this was a great, fresh, gender-neutral color scheme.  I already have orange accents going in the Big Yam's baby room, so I wanted to carry that over so I could re-use certain things.

For the bed and dresser I went with the Ikea Mandal line.  I wanted a platform bed for the low profile, and there aren't a lot of options with storage.  It'll be nice to put his bedding in there and other lighter items.  I'm not crazy about the birch outsides.  I've heard of people painting them or staining the wood a less birch-y colour, but after seeing how it's been styled, it will go well against the blue accent wall.  The rest of the shelves will be white.  I saw the bed and dresser styled in this New York Times house and it does look nice with blue and orange accents.  If it drives me crazy I'll paint or stain it in the future, but for now, I think it'll look bright and airy.

We ended up going with a deeper, more navy paint than the one in the inspiration photo - Benjamin Moore's Old Navy.  

I saw this photo that totally inspired me:  

That's a $2 Ikea bracket, people!!!  Then I searched high and low for an affordable industrial cage pendant lamp and found someone on Etsy who will make one for me with an orange cord for about $60.  Not bad!  Considering the other lighting will be Ikea, I thought it would be nice to splurge (if you can even call $60 for a light a splurge) on something not from Ikea for the room.  I'm going to paint the bracket white.  

I also ordered these sale FLOR carpet tiles in orange and bone and designed my own design on graph paper.  It's going to involve investing in a carpet knife from Home Depot, but the cost of the knife (around $11) is still way cheaper than having FLOR do the cutting.  It's a triangle based pattern so lots of cuts and FLOR charges $3 a cut!  Ridiculous!  

We'll see how everything looks when it all comes together, but I'm happy with what I'm seeing in my head.  

The Big Yam has been having the time of his freaking life with the bowl from my Kitchen Aid mixer, some styrofoam packing peanuts I saved from our stroller box, a mixing bowl and a measuring cup, a whisk, a spoon and some water.  That alone guarantees us a minimum of 45 minutes.  If I want more time, I throw in some shaving cream and some food coloring and he's good for at least an hour and usually a lot longer.  It's the best!  Clean-up is okay.  It's not hard to wash off the oil cloth and the water on the tile in the kitchen is a bit of a pain, but at least it's tile so not a big deal.  We might get a giant rubbermaid bin to contain the mess for the future, though:

Here's what we've been eating lately:

Friday night's iron-boosting dinner: a roasted crouton, asparagus, and chorizo salad with seared skirt steak.

The Big Yam pointing at which New York Times chocolate chip cookie he was going to eat as his "special treat"

Sunday breakkie: fried green tomatoes, on top of mashed avocado, with English bacon and a fried egg on sourdough toast.

What I made for Sunday dinner - that radicchio tagliatelle with bagna cauda.  Not pictured: raw kale ceasar salad.

Dessert was a roasted vanilla pineapple tart with a coconut crumble.  My first time serving pineapple as a dessert not in upside-down-cake form.  Pretty good!  I'll post the recipe below.

Fin.

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Pineapple Tart with Coconut Crumble

serves 10-12

1 pie crust, enough for a 9" pie

1 large pineapple, peeled, quartered and cored

1 vanilla bean, scraped.

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

2 T. dark rum

For the crumble topping:

1/2 c. whole wheat flour (you could use all purpose - I was trying to be healthy !)

1/3 c. brown sugar

1/3 c. oats

1/3 c. shredded coconut

1/4 t. salt

4 T. butter, melted

- put your pie crust in a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom.  Chill.

- slice the cored pineapple quarters into 1/3-1/2 inch slices

- place the pineapple slices with the sugars and vanilla in a large sauté pan.  Cook on medium heat until the juices run and the sugars are evaporated, tossing/stirring occasionally.  Increase the heat to high, add the rum, and cook until almost all the liquid is evaporated.  Set aside to cool

- meanwhile, mix all the dry crumble topping ingredients together in a bowl.  Stir in the melted butter until loose clumps form.

- with a slotted spoon, spread the cooled pineapple in the prepared crust.  Top with crumble topping.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 40-50 minutes or until the pie crust is golden brown.  The coconut in the crumble will brown rapidly, so it might be necessary to tent the top with foil when the crumble is brown and finish baking this way.  

- serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or coconut ice cream.  

Oh Captain, My Captain

Sorry it's been silencio...things have been stressful here lately.  

We had a pretty wide-open weekend with few commitments, and so when SMckay called me with an idea to piggyback Lolly's trip to Guelph for haircuts and visits on Saturday, I jumped at the chance.  The Dotytron had already made plans to jam with his friends that day, so I was going to be rolling solo with the Big Yam and was feeling slightly daunted by the (imagined) interminable afternoon hours with just me and him.  So I loaded the Big Yam up into the Captain, and drove to Lolly's and she drove us in the Captain to Guelph.

We had good times all day and I got to see J and her baby V and be mortified by the fact that the Big Yam proceeded to smack V upside the head with, among other things: a tractor, a teacup, and, in dire situations, his bare hand.  The poor little Hungarian Princess was a mass of welling eyes and quivering bottom lip and I felt like the worst parent in the history of the world.  I don't know what the Big Yam's problem is with the hitting, but right now he has mad issues!  I know it will pass but it's trying.  Being the parent of a hitter (and I'm told it's the same for parents of biters) is the worst.

It's Lolly's birthday today so we discussed our options and she wanted to go to Mandarin so we planned to meet up with the Dotytron and Lolly's hubby in the west end of Toronto.  We're in the Captain, it's 6pm, we're all peckish, we're on the 401 eastbound, just outside of Guelph, and then the battery indicator comes on the dash (or at least, I notice it's lit up).  So I'm like, "Uhhh, the battery light is on." To which SMckay replies, "It's fine, I'm sure it's nothing, keep going."  But because I'm a paranoid nerd when it comes to cars, I look it up in the book, and it says it has something to do with the alternator belt and you should pull over (which Lolls says she's NOT going to do on the 401) and check it out, and if the belt is fine (not that I have any earthly idea what an alternator belt looks like), then get it checked at the earliest possibility, but if it's worn, then your car could overheat.  I'm reading this out loud and look at the temperature indicator and me and Lolls notice that it's cranked all the way to "H."  I call the Dotytron and fill him in on what's going on.  He calls me back five minutes later and is like, "the boys say that if it's the alternator, just keep driving, because otherwise, once you stop the car, it won't start again," and I get all shrillsville panic mode and I say, 

So we're both like, "we gotta pull over" and she doesn't want to pull over on the 401 (rightly) so we're trying to get to the next exit.  From the back, SMckay is like, "Ugh. Don't pull off at 312, cuz there's like, nothing there," and Lolly and I got all snappy with her (in retrospect, this is funny), about how we DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE AMENITIES AT THE EXIT BUT WE HAD TO STOP BEFORE THE CAR EXPLODED.  We just manage to pull off and pull into this car stop thing just as our power steering gives out.

6:30pm.  In a random, rape-y car stop off some deadsville exit (SMckay was right about that) outside of Guelph. With a sleeping Big Yam (thankfully) and a car that's getting colder by the minute.  So I'm calling CAA and the dude is all like, "Is the Dotytron in the car with you?" and I say no, and then he does that apologetic "hmmm" sound that phone customer service people do when they're about to screw you.  BECAUSE CAA COVERS THE PERSON, NOT THE CAR.  Which is the STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE.  He puts me on hold for a million hours to "see what he can do" and the solution he comes back with is that his "supervisors" are willing to waive the waiting period and sign me up for automatic basic coverage, which gets me a free ten kilometre tow and then I would be responsible for paying the rest of it to Toronto.  I was like, "Uhh, why don't you ask your supervisors if I can just G-D pay for the premium coverage now and they can waive the waiting period for that?" (premium package covers towing your car to wherever you want within 200km) and he puts me on hold for a million more hours and finally agrees.  THANK GOD.  So we wait for a million hours for the tow truck driver to show up and SMckay convinces her adorable and nicest Papa in the world to come and drive us all to Toronto.  Seriously. Best Papa ever!!!  Meanwhile, the Dotytron calls me and is like, "So...the guys here are going out to eat soon...so what's going on with dinner?  Should I wait for you guys, or..." and I almost reached through the phone and strangled him.

When we finally get to Lolly's house to meet up with the boys, it's 8pm.  Everyone is STARVING. Tempers are short.  We show up at the Mandarin and there is a FORTY FIVE MINUTE WAIT.  We go to a nearby restaurant and there's ANOTHER hour long wait.  It's tragic.  People are getting to the point where they're like, "I just don't want to do anything any more" (you know when people are so dispirited and crochety that you give up having an opinion because you just want to be a foul owl?   We were all that).  Anyway, we somehow pulled through the badness, decided to make Lolly happy and give her the Mandarin meal she wanted, and we were sat within 30 minutes and we ate and instantly regretted life.  But this happened:

So it was all worth it in the end.  Also, the Big Yam was a trooper.  He was up until 10pm and ate the latest dinner of all time and was just lovely about it.

This was great because on Friday, I kept the Big Yam home with me on my day off for the morning, and he was a monster and it was non-stop time outs and lots of me yelling and I just felt awful and guilty and at the same time, mad at him for not being a peach.  So his behaviour on Saturday made up for it, big time.

The good thing to come out of our Friday hours together was that we made this cake:

It was AMAZING.  Think: the best, classic, chocolate cake with white (vanilla) frosting you can imagine.  It used a new (to me) frosting called butter roux frosting which creates something so light and fluffy, it belies the fact that there is flour in it as a base.  It's the perfect marriage between true buttercream (based on a Swiss or Italian meringue - my favorite for it's lightness, but it's actually heavy on the butter and labour intensive) and what I call fake buttercream (icing sugar and butter, which makes something kind of thick and gritty, but which can also be delicious, in a homespun kind of way).  This frosting was so light!  The cake is a classic, oil-based chocolate cake, which means that it comes out very chocolatey and very, very moist.  You can also make it all in one bowl with a whisk - no mixer required!!!  I used this recipe, from the blog Posie Gets Cosy, here.  The only change I would make is to line the pans with parchment (I had some sticking issues) and to switch to a whisk attachment for the frosting after creaming the butter with the paddle attachment.  I also omitted the almond extract (didn't have it) and put the beans and scrapings of a 1/2 of a vanilla bean in the flour-milk roux mixture.  The Dotytron and I are obsessed with it and are eating this cake like it's going out of style.

 For dinner on Friday night I made us shepherd's pie.  I mixed leftover mashed potatoes (from my turkey dinner last week) with mashed cauliflower for the topping and it was awesome!!!  A great way to add more vegetables and it adds a nice flavour.  The two textures meld together so that you don't notice it at all.  I made enough to freeze a giant pan so that was also a bonus.

I spent all of Friday night toggling between the menu for East Side Mario's and Red Lobster.  Guys, Red Lobster has SHRIMP FETTUCCINE ALFREDO and it's ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT.  I want a giant plate of fettuccine alfredo so bad...I can hardly stand it.  We're hoping to head down to Geneseo in a couple of weeks just so I can go to Delmonico's and get my fix.  I just lost about an hour of my life salivating over the Delmonico's menu.  I want veal parmigiana AND alfredo and that giant rib-eye steak!  With fried calamari and fried mozzarella triangles!!!  LOOK AT THOSE PRICES, PEOPLE!  They are not fooling!  And best yet: the quality is good!!! It's not garbage food (the way East Side Mario's is).  UGHHHHHH, I want it so bad.

Last night we had dinner at Momma D's and she made us prime rib and we had mashed potatoes and beans and beets.  She also made the Dotytron a birthday cake - a classic mom cake - golden cake with mocha fake buttercream.  It was DELICIOUS.  It brought me around again on the fake buttercream and the sweetness of those old-fashioned cakes.

Tonight we tried to get our lives back on track with that spicy grain soup and quesadillas.

Found out from my mechanic that the alternator belts just got worn.  The repair isn't that pricey, thank goodness.  Captain Save-A-Ho is on my bad side, lately.  I guess this is what you get when you buy an 8 year old car, for $6000.  This hasn't put me off of buying used.  I can accept that cars break and they have a limited life span, and I think it's ludicrous to buy new.  To me, it's six of one, half dozen of the other.  If I bought the Captain new, I would have had to put in this amount of money at this point in the car's life anyway, but I would have overpaid (in my opinion) for those first 5 years of driving worry-free.  Rotors and belts wear out, that's just natural.  However, I will concede that next time, we're going Toyota or Honda and everyone else can go eff themselves!

I've been meaning to post about these for ages but it kept slipping my mind.  In the Big Yam's stocking this year, we got him a pair of slippers from this Etsy seller, Wooly Baby.  These are the coolest slippers ever and I'm in love with them.  First of all, they're made from recycled materials.  The uppers are felted recycled sweaters and the bottoms are suede, which makes them non-skid.  The elastic around the ankle coupled with the height means that they stay on and they're so warm and cozy and stylish.  I love them.

I also knit the Big Yam this cabled hat and mittens and they were in his stocking.  Apparently at daycare J asked him who made him the beautiful hat and whether it was his Mama, and the Big Yam was very serious and said, no, Santa brought them.  I get no cred, but at least we know that Santa indoctrination is working.

This morning when he woke up we did our customary, being cosy and smushy in my bed routine while he drank his milk and he said to me very seriously, "I go to work."  Haha.  You sure do, buddy, you sure do.

Fin.

a funny thing happened on the way to the drive-in

...we got hitched! tied to the hitching post! we're joined in an unholy union in unholy matrimony for richer and poorer (even though i think i mouthed the word, "NEVER!" at the dotytron during the "poorer" bit) and in sickness and in health until we're parted by death (note to people getting married: vows can be a bit of a downer - there's some macabre shiz in there, friends.)

first: i can't believe that w.p. video of them dancing down the aisle has been taken off of youtube because of a "copyright claim by kevin heinz" - GHEY! so lame! why would you do that and be so weaksauce? are you trying to give me further ammunition for my "you guys are lamewads" thesis? jeez.

ANYWAY, this weekend was all kinds of awesome. geneseo, ny tends to be guaranteed good times but the dotytron and i love it SO MUCH that it was nice to be able to show people why. we got in late wednesday night. thursday dawned bright and sunny so we loaded up the car and went to wegman's and finished up our last minute errands. stuff like: renting an amp from buzzo music on main street geneseo (tip: if you click on the link, please do take the extra effort to click on "buzzo poems" - you won't be disappointed). buzzo doesn't usually do rentals but he was so tickled pink at our "rock'n'roll" wedding performance that he made a special exception. for your general buzzo trivia edification: buzzo also once won a wrestling match in guelph. amazing! he talks exactly the way you'd expect someone who looks like a grizzled veteran of the grateful dead to talk and he walks with the aid of a walking stick fashioned from what appears to be 3/4 of a magic 8 ball frankensteined onto a lucite bar with packing tape. he's kind of awesome.



after that, we had some spare time so i proposed a trip to stony brook state park for me and the dotytron. stony brook is near and dear to my heart. its a place that is teeming with magic. a stream fed pool nestled at the base of a towering gorge, public picnic tables with hibachis hidden amongst the dappled shade of tall trees, a concession stand selling fries and perry's ice cream, and a cedar-chip floored playground with all manner of entertaining things for kids. there's nothing better than going for a freshwater swim, clambering out and letting the sun dry you as you lay out in the sun to dry on a damp towel, happy and tired, alternating thumbing lazily through the pages of a book with dozy, sun-drunk naps with your arm flung over your eyes. i love the tired you get from being outdoors and being active. that fresh-air/swimming tired/cottage tired feeling. there's nothing better because it's so removed from your mind whirring. it's your body that's tired, not your head.

for lunch that day we had subs from aunt cookie's sub shop. now, i RARELY eat subs. i'm not the biggest fan of cold cut sandwiches in general - you'll never see me going to mr. sub or subway as my first choice. but upstate new york has a huge sub culture (heh) and aunt cookie's are THE BEST. hands down. it's so simple: a toasted wheat or sesame seed bun - ever so perfectly crisped so that there's the slightest bit of crunch and between the toppings and the soft give of the bread. sub bread at the chains is gummy, rapidly reduced to tissue paper pablum, but the stuff here is made for topping. and the meats, the meats! you've got regular assorted, italian assorted, just capicolla, just italian salami - a dizzying variety that manages to thrill while still being restrained enough so that your decision making processes aren't compromised. some oil and vinegar, some mayonnaise, a fine confetti of shredded iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced white onion, and some sliced tomato and salt and pepper are all you need to reach sub heaven. i could eat those things all day.


i made dinner for my sis and outlaw bro and family that night. something simple: grilled sausages, a corn and jicama salad with scallion aioli, and sliced tomatoes with basil and little balls of fresh mozzarella cheese, topped with olive oil and coarse salt.

the next day we did some more erranding - some small final preparations, putting welcome bags with rochester-area treats (nunda's mustard, dinosaur bbq chips, maple syrup), an itinerary, and some bottled water in our out-of-town guests' hotel rooms, laying out the tables in the tent, setting up the folding chairs, cleaning my sister's house and then packing up to head to the B&B.



at this point, i had put myself on a "no carb" diet in a bid to make sure i could fit in the 26" waist of my dress. there was NO GIVE in that thing and no extra room for alterations. it was still, "no carb" lagerfeld style, though. which means that on friday morning me and the dotytron had breakfast at the cracker barrel where i indulged in chicken fried steak and eggs, biscuits and sawmill gravy, grits, hashbrowns and a side of patty sausage.

that's the dotytron in his brand new, $6 buzzo t-shirt.

my sis & outlaw bro booked friday and saturday night at a B&B for us. it's a lovely place, the temple hill is, shaded by towering, verdant oaks in a quiet strip off the main drag. our room was gorgeous. we chilled out there and then went to meet everyone for the rehearsal dinner, which was a hoot.






best thing about having a tiny performance - everyone came to the rehearsal dinner! we had it at delmonico's italian steakhouse. the dotytron's family were totally flummoxed by american style serving sizes. "does that say one HALF pound steak?" "no, that's ONE AND A HALF pound steak" i could hear nany and poppa (dotytron grandparents) and uncle mert and pat (dotytron grand-uncle and grand-aunt) muttering about how on earth they were going to finish everything, what with the pork chop dish on the set menu described as "two 8oz portions of pork loin chops" i gotta say, you can't beat the value. the banquet/large group menu had a house salad, followed by a MASSIVE entrée and dessert! the desserts were HUGE! look at the size of the KIDS sundae! look at how happy dr. rei is!

everyone was in jovial spirits. a small group was also nice because people could freely get up and mix and mingle and talk to each other and it was a lot more manageable facilitating conversation across groups. of course nany and poppa ended up knowing the manager at delmonico's, who presented us with a GIANT surprise gift basket of all kinds of italian treats. it was so random! lol!

the next morning we got up super early and went to my sis and outlaw bro's house to do some final set up, before heading back to the B&B to get ready. we had a quick breakfast at the B&B and met this hilarious kid, hunter, who was there with his parents attending a different wedding. the kid was hilarious because he was so awkward. dr. rei helped me get primped and did an awesome job. she totally made my eyes pop and managed to perform admirable under pressure while hanbo took pictures of us being ghey because he eats that stuff up.








then we did the ceremony. it happened REALLY quick. i was kind of worried that little ze might be difficult but in the end, he took his job REALLY seriously. the dotytron played me down the aisle with a ridiculously over-the-top electric guitar to the tune of the "theme from top gun" and then the judge did his vows and we sang our vows, which was the theme from the tv show "growing pains" - here are the words:

Show me that smile again. (Show me that smile)
Don't waste another minute on your cryin.
We're nowhere near the end (nowhere near)
The best is ready to begin.

Oooohhh. As long as we got each other
We got the world spinnin right in our hands.
Baby you and me, we gotta be
The luckiest dreamers who never quit dreamin.

As long as we keep on givin
We can take anything that comes our way
Baby, rain or shine, all the time
We got each other Sharin the laughter and love.

the best part of that was that we filled in the electric guitar bits. with our voices. lol! then we exchanged grillz and kissed and trooped out to the sounds of the allman brothers' "whipping post." cut to: tuesday afternoon. dotytron calls me at work. "ummm, have you actually LISTENED to the lyrics from 'whipping post' before?" me: "yeah." him: "so you know it's all about how the dude's woman has been a skag and is floozing it up with some other guy?" me: "sounds about right."




we piled into our vandalized car and headed out to do photos. you can't tell, but there was a mysterious green lantern insignia that appeared on the side of captain save-a-hoe.


chowtime! the food was really good! dinosaur bbq runs a tiptop operation. the food that was supposed to be hot was hotish, the food that was supposed to be cold was cold, the deviled eggs and peel'n'eat shrimp were as tasty as they are at the restaurant. even better, they provide everything. paper plates, cutlery, napkins, wipes, serving utensils...you can just load everything up into a garbage can after and whisk it away and it's like nothing ever happened.


after lunch, most of the older folk left and the younger generation played a bocce tournament. we randomized the partners. bwong and s-dawg were team "ching chong ching", me and hanbo were "the kings", dr. rei and the dotytron were "team boring", and c-hova and outlaw bro rico were "booze." me and hanbo pretty much won. after that we kind of got the itis and we laid out under the sun on towels by the swing set and idly chatted and played random motivational games s-dawg picked up from the ted rogers autobiography.

the dotytron's sister got us an amazing wedding prezzie (in addition to being the girl photographer for hire for the entire festivities) - an antique door knocker engraved with "dotytron / lagerfeld" - BEST!

we rested up and then piled into our cars to hit the charcoal corral and silver lakes drive-in. that complex is like a warren of time-warp fun. there's an arcade, a room filled with rattan furniture and wood-bladed ceiling fans known as the "fiesta room," a wood-paneled pizzeria, an old fashioned ice cream parlour, a grill restaurant, a stage for concerts, chicken bbq on fridays and saturdays, outdoor seating, a GIANT bouncy castle, and a mini-putt course. it's crazy! the dotytron's sis fell in lurve as soon as she saw that this was a real-deal drive-in replete with oldies wafting through the air.


by the time we got there (6:30pm!!!) chicken bbq was sold out, so i had another buffalo/western new york specialty, beef on weck, so named because it comes on a kimmelweck bun (a bun flecked with caraway seeds and coarse pretzel salt). the bun makes it. it's rare roast beef sliced thin and piled high on the bun. i had mine plain (it was my first time) but it's best (apparently) with horseradish and mayo. i had heard of it in my travels but as i was contemplating the extensive charcoal corral menu, a little forlorn at the chicken bbq shortage, i mused aloud, "beef on weck? what's that?" and a really nice lady at an adjoining table gave me the lowdown. when i finally started eating the sandwich she came up and asked me how i liked it! so cute! the thing about my experiences in geneseo is, people are SO NICE. so genuinely, warm, friendly and NICE. there's no artifice. it's very sincere.

the dotytron and i were bickering outside in the parking lot at wegman's over captain save-a-hoe's busted calipers and there was a jolly fat guy in a biker t-shirt and his batik-muumuu wearing wife kind of being forced to listen and not quite knowing what to make of our display. the woman said, "i can tell you like each other by the way you're talking to each other," in a friendly way, and i replied, "i know! we're actually getting married this weekend!" and she came right over and pulled me into her bountiful bosom for a bear hug. it was sweet.

we played improv games outside of the screen waiting for the movie to start. we saw "funny people" (review to follow). it was an exhausting day and we went to bed tired.


the next day was my THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY. dun dun duuuuuuuuuun. i woke up, way too early, groggily slumped my way to the bathroom to pee, peered at myself in the mirror and FREAKED OUT. THE EYE FOLD ON MY RIGHT EYE WAS MISSING. my right eye had gone asian on me (see top photo for an example). i rubbed at it. i rolled my eye. i poked and prodded at it and while i could coax my eye fold back for a second or two, it KEPT DISAPPEARING. at this point, i woke the dotytron up, frantic. "MY EYE FOLD IS MISSING!" he was a little befuddled to say the least. at first he claimed not to know what i was talking about and tried feebly to convince me that both eyes looked the same. BUT HE WAS BEING A LYING SACK OF POO. then i kind of had a meltdown and threw myself face down on the bed and moaned and groaned, "is this what happens when you turn 30?!??? one half of my face turns asian?!??? this sucks!!!!! this is what makes me cute!!!!!!!!! i swear if it doesn't come back by monday i'm scheduling the surgery!" (asian people can get an eye fold cosmetically manufactured by any semi-skilled plastic surgeon). i know, crazy talk, right? after about 45 minutes of me lost in a 30th birthday depression, i looked in the mirror and it had come back. i think i was just overtired or something.

the dotytron gave me my "surprise" birthday prezzie. he made me a tshirt that said: "my two most beloved things are: 1) amens, all kinds; 2) 808s, all kinds" with my little happy face picture on it. super cute! he totally spoiler alerted himself though because a week and a half ago i came home to find a google chrome incognito window open on my computer with a map and address for a t-shirt making place on it. ON MY COMPUTER! lol! i was good though! i didn't give it away that i had suspicions until i opened the prezzie. he also gave me a voucher for a weber charcoal bbq to be picked out at a later date. dotytron's sister em gave me a gorgeous muumuu and momma and poppa d got me an awesome day of the dead apron and scrilla. so aces! i'm such a spoiled lucky button.


we went to brian's u.s.a. diner for breakfast. we were supposed to go golfing but it was raining pretty hard and we knew it would be miserable. breakfast was fun - again people were boggled by the portion sizes. then we said goodbye to the dotytron's family, my family, and headed back to my sister's place to loaf. dr. rei and hanbo went shopping but came back in time to see me presented with my birthday cake:



the lead-up to this cake was pretty awesome. i had kind of guessed that it was coming - the day before as we were packing up the leftovers i faux-casually said to my sister, "oh, we should just use the carrot cake for my birthday cake" to which she replied, "no, i got something from weggy's" (which i knew, but i just wanted to be sure. she's really easy to bait, being the anti-scheist and all). anyway, later on i mused, "i wonder what kind of cake you got me?" and my sister said something like, "you couldn't even IMAGINE a cake like this" which of course made me super curious. she and the dotytron were in cahoots. the two of them went together to pick it up and he kept laughing each time she mentioned it. it totally lived up to the expectations. lol! apparently the weggy's people were SUPER embarrassed to even have this design at the back of the book, much less make it for people of the asian persuasion. the dotytron even tried to get them to do a mash-up - they had some bride cakes and he tried to get them to combine the bride cake with the racist chinese people/miley cyrus scandal cake which my sis rapidly kiboshed. awesome, eh? i love my family.

a-mazing. then the remaining people sat outside and hung out and talked smack and the boys smoked cigars. we talked about our garbled understanding of french new wave cinema and how dr. rei hates the future and the apocalypse. lol! best part was when i saw my doosier nephew, little ze, starting to get a little crankers and i said, "i think it's time for a nap" to which he looked up, looked me square in the eye and replied, "NOT." lol!!!!!!!!! so funny! my niece was being super cute all weekend too. i introduced her to babybel cheese and she was quite taken with it. she took her role as grillz-bearer very seriously and was being ultra precocious on the day of the performance, laying on the compliments, "your hair looks pretty like that," "i like your dress," "i like your flowers," etc. the day before the ceremony when i was going through the timeline for the umpteenth time she kept interrupting me by raising her hand and saying officiously, "i have something to say" and then saying something kind of inane. at a certain point, she leaned over to my outlaw bro and whispered, "i think you should tell aunt lagerfeld that you've been married longer and that she has to listen to you." ha!




on monday we packed up the kids and took them to stony brook. we packed a pretty fantastic picnic, if i do say so myself. we had water, juice, babybel cheese (bonbel AND original babybel), spicy salami, genoa salami, ham, some other kind of italian cured meat, little roasted marinated tomatoes, baguette slices, little bocaccini balls, cherries, crackers, and grapes. it was a feast.

we also dealt with the captain's seized calipers issue. the dotytron suggested that it might be cheaper to get it fixed in the states, and i was starting to get super-concerned about making a 3 hour drive with the grinding noise we heard every time we applied pressure to the breaks, so we took it to a mechanic near my sister's house. they put it up on blocks and called us 2 hours later and said that it was because our rear rotors were warped and we needed new rotors and pads and new calipers. if we wanted to do it all, it would cost us $875 (USD) + tax. but, we could get away with just doing the rotors and pads for $400 and change. at which point i started hyperventilating and freaking out. the dotytron was of the mind that we should get it all done at once and they did guarantee the calipers for life. so i was like, "ummm, if they can guarantee the calipers for life, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO THE ONES THAT CAME WITH THE CAR?!???"

i was kind of hopping mad at how expensive it was and of course this reaction was exacerbated by how little money we have now and how much we're going to need on our closing day. so i called the mazda dealership and i called a tonne of places in toronto (nothing was open because it was a holiday). i managed to get one toronto garage on the line who said that something like that would run 400-500 bones. CANADIAN. then i called another garage who said that it would cost $540 plus tax. so i had the dotytron call garage number 1 back and play them against each other. dotytron tells garage 1 that he's been receiving quotes from $500-525 with the same year-long guarantee on the labour and the lifetime guarantee on the parts so what's with the discrepancy, blah blah blah, and garage 1 puts him on hold to "crunch the numbers" and comes back and says that he can do it for $520. WHAT. THE. HELL. do they KNOW who they're messing with?

meanwhile, i've called garage 18 who's literally 4 stores down from garage 1 and just when we decided to go with garage 1 since they already have the captain up on the blocks or whatever, garage 18 comes back and tells me that it's going to be $340. gives me the breakdown on how much each part will cost and tells me that labour is $70/hour and it'll probably take an hour and a half but he's going to charge me for one. so we place a frantic call to garage 1, tell them to CEASE AND DESIST and drive it over to garage 18.

you want to see furious? try to screw over a chinese girl when there's money involved. nuh-uh. i am NOT some doddering biddy who'll roll over. this experience was educational on a number of levels. 1) now we know where to get cheap and good auto mechanic work done in geneseo 2) now i know how to deal with mechanics. you pit them against each other. make up how much you WANT to pay (average out the quotes and then go a bit lower) and don't EVER tell them that you're from out of town and want to drive your car back tonight. hear that, auto mechanics of the free world? you're going to be SO SORRY that i ever got possession of a possible lemon mazda protégé. your days of pulling one over on me are OVER.

and i will never go hungry again!

enough epic post for me. above is the rundown of my totally excellent weekend. i love my family. i can't say enough for all the things they've done for me. i'm blessed to have the BEST siblings in the whole freaking world. THE BEST. bar none. i'm lucky to have gotten such an amazing, warm, accepting NEW white family! they're kooks but so lovable. and my friends can't be beat. i was so happy to be able to have bwong and dr. rei and hanbo there, in this town i love, with the people who know me best in the world outside of them, all together in one place.

love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fin.