The Days Are Long...

but the years are short.

Have truer words on the subject of parenting ever been spoken?

Five years ago, I brought home this alien-fingered, round-headed, fat Chinaman of a baby.  I turn around, and 1825 days have passed and I have a goofy, irrepressible, sweet, risk-averse, bit of a scaredy-cat, loved-up five year old on my hands.  One that still wakes up at an ungodly hour and will sneak into our bed.  One that implores us to "make the blankets flat!" every night when we tuck him in.  One that will ask, "will you lie with me for a bit?" still, even when he's on the brink of being asleep.  One that has (unfortunately) adopted my deplorable habit of using "stupid" as a modifier.  One that told me last week that I was the "stupidest dumb mama ever."  One that makes me go berserk.  One that makes me scoop up all his Legos into a plastic bag and hide them out of sight in a fit of berserk.

Sigh.  Parenting is a trip, man.  I'm not sure that I'm getting any better at it, but I am a little dismayed that I've already f**ked up five years.  THE YEARS BEFORE FIVE LAST THE REST OF THEIR LIVES!  I need a do-over.    The fact that I get to do it with Dotytron from high school is another trip.  Last week we celebrated 14 years together.  FOURTEEN YEARS!  Look at what babies we were:

Look at us now:

We went to a newish restaurant, Dandylion.  It's a big, rustic-industrial space - exposed HVAC, marble-topped tables, lots of plants (a bit of a rarity in restaurant design).  That particular rainy, cold, drizzly night it was warm and cozy and intimate.  Despite all the exposed brick and hard surfaces, it wasn't too loud.  They have a very pared down menu.  Three appetizers, three mains, three desserts, and a beer list that's about as long as the wine list.

They started us off with warm, house made sour dough bread and fresh cheese (think, the best boursin you've ever had), with shallots and black pepper.  We were rather unseemly with the speed at which this was consumed.

Smoked scallops (I'm DEFINITELY going to be throwing scallops in my smoker, now), tender and juicy and briny with a celery root remoulade, with sea asparagus.

Raw red deer tartare in endive with horseradish and breadcrumbs. This dish was outstanding.  The scattering of ragged toasted bread was delicious toasted texture against the clean, almost sashimi-like protein of the deer.  It's so much nicer than your standard steak tartare with the toasts.  I loved this dish.  It was so delicious. Unlike steak tartare, which is usually mixed with all the standard accoutrements, you could really taste the clean, slightly tannic wildness of the meat.  

Pumpkin miso risotto.  This bowl was the epitome of earthiness.  The umami of the miso, against the sweetness of the squash - each bite punctuated with barely cooked pieces of bouncy, meaty mushrooms - the deep round flavours highlighted with the grassy notes of the sprouts.  It was like eating the forest floor - in the best possible way.

Duck, pear, and roasted kale. Tender roasted pear pieces, perfectly cooked, sapid duck, with kale that is the essence of kale-ness contrasted with crunchy, popping bits of roasted buckwheat.  

The balance of flavours and textures at this restaurant is so advanced. The chef eschews heavy sauces in favour of a really nuanced, concentrated balance of flavours and an attention to texture that you don't see in a lot of restaurants.  The cooking is very focused, and inventive.  This is a chef who has the vision and skills to practice restraint.  I loved this place and would go back again.  I loved that it wasn't that hyper-masculine "more is more" style of meat-heavy, and just plain heavy-heavy cooking that was in style for a long time.  I loved that this chef had a voice and really focused on the food without gimmicks and without overloading the plate.  The trick was that the cooking is elevated enough so that you feel like you're being treated, without being overloaded with a "concept."  Highly recommend.

We went to visit my sister on the weekend, after a visit to the ER to get Quincess' head stitched up.  The twins convinced me to let them sit on our regular dining table chairs instead of their high chairs, which resulted in first, Lindsay soaking Quincess's upper half with the vinegar-water cleaning spray we use to clean off their highchairs.  Then, halfway through their lunch, I was in the kitchen and saw Quincess fall off his chair.  In Quincess fashion, he of course went head-first and I picked him up and he had a gash on his head.  A small one, but it was deep.  The ER doctors decided to use the glue instead of stitches to put his head back together, because stitches are "traumatic" for the kid and the parent.  In retrospect, I would have gone with the stitches because my kids are very chill when it comes to doctors.  Exhibit A of Quincess falling asleep on the table as they were gluing up his head:

They glued it, plastered it with steristrips, and then because I warned them that his "twin brother is a maniac" they added gauze and tape. Cut to two hours later when we're in the car on the way to my sister's and the Quincess has picked ALL the bandages off and opened up the cut and has blood streaming down his face.

   

   

  These two card sharks learned how to play War this weekend. 

 Anyway, we had a lovely time and hung with my family and celebrated my nephew's birthday.  The 

children's museum there, which is the best that I've ever been to, was having some kind of Star Wars-themed thing that weekend so we went on the first day.  The Big Yam and Little Little Cuz totally got into the cosplay and there were a bunch of photo ops with various figures.  Quincess at first said, "No, thanks" to meeting Darth Vader but then later, when a Stormtrooper waved at him and reached out his hand for a high-five, the Quincess misinterpreted the gesture and put his tiny little hand in the Stormtrooper's.  It was friggin' adorable.

We were standing off to the side of this meet and greet and unbeknownst to me, Quincess was quietly doing an open-close hand shy wave to the characters.  They waved us over and we got to jump the queue for this photo.

The wind machine is so key. Such a classy touch. LOL!

It feels frivolous to write a post like this in the aftermath of the coordinated attacks in Beirut and Paris.  I was up late on Saturday night, my mind spinning after an intense debate with my sister, outlaw bro, and the Dotytron on what has been happening on the campuses at Yale and Missouri.  I was thinking about my family, my children, about the chubby guy in his homemade Han Solo costume, about the joy and creativity in this pretend world of absolute good and evil, of empires and rebels.  And yes, while it is frivolous in the face of the atrocities perpetrated by humanity and against humanity on a daily basis, to say nothing of what these events do to reveal the ignorance, fear, and violence that simmers just below the surface of so many (I had an active day de-friending bigots on Facebook, and it was very satisfying), I was also heartened by this frivolity.  Playing dress-up, sincerity, investment, laughter, silliness, and the multitude of tiny moments that combine to make up long days, collected in a blur to make for this rapid succession of short years, is what we're all striving for, and what life is made of.  People will prevail in making and living those tiny moments, and the knowledge of this is profoundly comforting in a world that can seem at times, to be without reason.

Fin.

Best & Wurst

Blargh.  Under a lot of stress right now.  I'm feeling a lot of transposed stress from what my Outlaw Bro and Sis are going through right now - in the thick of the campaign with less than a month to go.  I just wish I could do more to help them out and it's killing me watching them have to slog through the muck and mire.

My sister and I are also polar opposites in a lot of respects.  When it comes to stuff like organization or tidiness we're like two positively charged ions.  She hasn't converted to the gospel of organization or being a type A micromanager the way I have.  BUT DON'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH EASIER IT MAKES YOUR LIFE?!??!!!  She says, to everyone else in the whole world.

This weekend was jam-packed.  It started with EPIC ARMAGEDDON between me and the Dotytron that was forged in the flames of: travelling, long-weekend traffic, the Dotytron being responsible for packing the car, and a failure to return cell phone calls.  Any one of those things will turn me into a mad dog on a good day.  Combine them all?!  It was the worst and I basically turned into this guy:

Note: I've actually never seen Yellow Submarine because I only semi-care about the Beatles.  

The point is: it got uuugggglllly.  Then in classic me armageddon-quickly-flaming-out-to-a-bed-of-cold-coals fashion, I was like, "I'm done with being an a**hole! Let's start over!"  Hahaha.  I'm a jerk of the highest order.  Anyway, we ended up at WVRST for dinner and a combination of sausages, duck-fat fried fries and a substantial list of interesting beers went a long way to tempering the Dotytron's ire.  

The concept is similar to that place in Cleveland that we LOVE, Happy Dog.  You order either a basic ($6) or gourmet (think kangaroo and duck - $9) sausage either on a bun or served currywurst style with a curried ketchup dipping sauce, you add on your choice of 2 of 4 toppings, decide if you want fries and with your fries you get a choice of 2 of many dipping sauces.  The Dotytron had the boerewors and an oktoberfest sausage, I had a brat and their calabrese.  The duck fat fries were really good - salty and crispy and improbably soft on the inside...though not necessarily worth the extra money...given that you're dunking the fries in sauce anyway.  The sausages were all uniformly good - except the Dotytron didn't like his boerewors.    The toppings are kind of uninspired - onions, under-cooked peppers, sauerkraut and hot peppers don't really add to the taste experience much.  Overall, this is a good place to go with a group of people, since splitting the bill is easy and they're all big long communal tables.  It would actually be a pretty good place to bring kids, if they weren't being such giant King West jerks about it (i.e. it's super loud in there and they turn down the lights at like, 7pm and it's full of King West bros).  The beers were expensive but the list is interesting (according to my dining companion).  I liked it but I'm not in a hurry to go back.  It's a good, quick, decently priced option though.

Saturday morning we did a 5km run (me and the Dotytron) and the rest of the family did a walk in support of this organization that helps victims of domestic abuse.  It was my first official 5km (like, I got a number and everything!) and I haven't been running in forever.  I'm not exactly sure of my overall time, BECAUSE I MISSED THE TURN TO THE FINISH POINT AND OVERRAN.  Also, trying to stay with the Dotytron slowed me down.  I was ahead of the Dotytron and he finished around 29 minutes, so I'm saying my time was 29 minutes.  I'm pretty proud of myself!  Mostly for beating the Dotytron and for not having practised at all.  As the Dotytron said, "I'm proud of you, and you're proud of you, but you're not as proud of me as I am of you, so basically, you're DOUBLY proud of yourself, but I get the shaft."  LOL!  So true!  Haha.

The rest of the day was pretty low-key.  The Dotytron and I stayed and watched the babies while the rest of the family was out stumping/doing family stuff.

This happened.  I cannot describe to you how thoroughly DISGUSTED Little Big Cuz looked when the Big Yam hopped on this little car buck-naked.  Little Big Cuz kept giving me the look like, "Uhhh...can you do something about this?" and was definitely not okay with how okay the Big Yam is with being naked.

The Big Yam LOVES his cousins.  Loves them!  It's so cute.  He's so blasé about other kids normally but he was just beaming being around them and spent time actually playing WITH Little Big Cuz instead of playing individually alongside him.  It was cute.  When the two woke up from their nap, I offered them a snack and Little Big Cuz (LBC) started chirping "snack! snack!" and led me to the snack counter at my sister's which is an impressive mountain of every name brand snack you could possible want or desire.  As we all know, I'm super-mean about sugar/salt consumption so I grabbed the healthiest option (graham crackers, which to me are the cookie equivalent of Proustian madeleines) and doled them out.  The Big Yam, who is routinely denied sweets was in the throes of ecstasy.  LBC?  Not so much.  He held the cracker in a limp, disdaining wrist and gave me the most, "b***h, PLEASE." look and then ground the cracker to crumbs on my sister's couch.  Crumbs that the Big Yam then spent 10 minutes LICKING UP.  Those two!

Sunday morning we went to an AYCE breakfast at a Veteran's Hall.  Ummmm...these oldies are NOT kidding around!  Scrambled eggs, sausage links, toast, home fries, pancakes, french toast, biscuits, sausage gravy, orange juice.  ALL YOU CAN EAT.  FOR FIVE DOLLARS A PERSON.  Like banh mi, this breakfast operates outside the laws of macro and microeconomics.  I ended up donating more because a) they're old people and b) that was one of the finest sausage gravies I've ever had in my LIFE.  So good!

Then we went to this place Stokoe Farms, which is a pumpkin patch, petting zoo type thing.  The Big Yam had his mind blown going on a tractor ride.  We launched pumpkins and climbed a giant mountain of hay bales and launched mini pumpkins at a broken down van in a field (BEST!).  There was also some ziplinining happening - check out the Dotytron's form:

In a corn maze.  What I learned: my upper limit for a corn maze participation is about 10 seconds.  Then I need to get OUT, like yesterday.

For dinner we got dinner from the hilariously named Questa Lasagna, which actually does a really, really good lasagna.  Think: heavy on the mozzarella top layer so you get a 1 cm thick gooey, burnished layer of cheese with some crispy edge bits.  Good stuff.  We also did a cake and did an early birthday celebration for the Big Yam.

Monday we headed home in the afternoon.  We took the route that takes us along side roads and through these cute towns.  We stopped at the Pok-A-Dot, which is the cutest thing I've ever seen:

The Pok-A-Dot is known for their beef on weck, which is a Western New York thing - shaved sliced roast beef served on a salt bun with optional horseradish.  The bun is what makes this dish truly special - it's flecked with caraway, which I don't usually like as a flavouring, but I think the top of the bun is brushed with salt water, so you get a nice salty kick before biting through the yielding bun into the relatively moist, unseasoned meat below.  Good stuff.

That was my weekend!  

Last night we had the Roomie and T over for dinner.  We had cheddar broccoli soup and grilled fresh mozzarella, onion, and tomato jam sammies for dinner.

LOOK AT THAT BABY!  The cutest!!!

Last week's dinner of steamed brown rice w/ Chinese sausage & Chinese stir-fry greens from my CSA, with braised pork belly 

Tonight's dinner of baked eggplant parmesan on my new Modern Twist Kyoto placemats!

I was really mad on Friday before leaving town and what turned me around was opening the trunk of the car and seeing this craft the Big Yam had made at daycare.  So freakin' cute.

Fin.

Three Legged Pig

Well, what can I say about this weekend?  It wasn't without its ups and downs.  My outlaw bro is currently running for a political position in the county where they live and I was (unfortunately) able to bear witness to the ugly side of American-style politics this weekend.  I was just glad to be able to be there for Uncle Rico and my sis, who have done SO MUCH for me and the Dotytron (like, allowing us to host our wedding at their place, and allowing us to use their house as a glorified P.O. Box for all our goods [see below]).  I just wish I could have done more.


This all goes towards my current pet thesis, which is why do decent, hard-working, good people get PUNISHED in today's society?  How does that make sense?  Between me and the Dotytron, we've got like, 5 post-secondary degrees, and every year for the next 6 years, the Dotytron is going to be struggling this time to get a job (most likely) and we have to keep postponing all our home improvements because we like, pay our taxes and don't sponge money from the government and stuff.  How does that make sense?  Meanwhile, I see (or like, I have seen, at least once) contests that reward people for trying to quit smoking with cars and whatnot.  I mean, I get it.  I get that the costs to society of having to foot the bill to treat your emphysema or lung cancer are more than the car, but WHERE'S THE REWARD FOR NOT SMOKING IN THE FIRST PLACE?  So some jacked up fatty carmichael is gonna win a car while I'm trolling sketchy sites of questionable origin for after-market parts for the Captain?!? What the hell?  It's enough to turn you into a Tea Partier...or at least, to see the attraction for people who feel like other people are sponging off of them (ie. like my neighbour, Mad Eye Moody).


I've been a bit of a foul owl lately.  I kind of dislike everyone and I only want to hang out with Dr. Rei, which is kind of the norm anyway, so no biggie.  So sue me for having the best bff, k?

 On the Friday before we left, I made us waffles, with a cinnamon sugar swirl, so they tasted like cinnamon bun waffles.  Yeah, that happened.

 Then on the way out of town, we stopped for rotis and doubles at our favorite place in the whole world.  It's in Etobicoke and it's the ill na-na.  My (boneless!) goat roti was exquisite and the doubles are the best I've ever had, anywhere, bar none.

We ate pretty decent BBQ from this place called the Three Legged Pig.  We had brisket, chicken, ribs, and pulled pork.  The sides weren't the best but the brisket was outstanding.  Nothing really had a deep smoke flavour but the texture on the brisket was that perfect balance between chewy and tender.  I like my brisket to have some texture to it, and this one did.  I think I'm over ordering pulled pork out.  I mean, a proper pulled pork sammy is good, but ultimately, you don't get that much smoke flavour and it tends to all taste pretty same-y.  It's the sauce that sets it apart and the sauces at this place weren't that great (the Kansas-style one was too sweet and unnuanced) except for their South Carolina style mustard-based dipping sauce, which I quite liked.


Here are some photos from the weekend.  My sis' nickname for the Big Yam is "city mouse" and Little Big Cuz is "country mouse."  Both mice were being pretty darned cute.  As were Miss Ramona and Little Ze. Once your kids get to be like, 5 or 7 or so, parenting becomes like, a 1/4 time job.  They just do their own thing, hanging out, maxing and relaxing and bugging each other, instead of you.

Cousins holding hands.

Country mouse kicking back.

Grand Electric, eat your heart out - this is some real street food business.  As you can see, the Big Yam is taking his mayonnaise application task, VERY seriously.

Most of these photos were taken at the Strong Museum of Play, which is basically kid nirvana.  They also have a garden and a butterfly conservatory.

This is a portion of my haul:

Under the Texan Sun dress.  I was fully planning on returning this because I thought it would be too short.  But then I decided: "f**k it"  This summer is going to be about tanned legs and too-short skirts and messy hair.  This number is 100% cotton and the muted-neon orange and grey color combo are impossibly fresh.  It's pretty super-flattering, even with the cap sleeves.

This dress came and it fits like a dream.  Super happy with this purchase.

I also snagged this one.  I thought this would be nice for work, with a navy blazer or a cardigan.  It's a bit crazy, but one of the things I like about my job is that it's okay to wear a "statement" dress like this.  I don't have to be super-conservative all the time.  

That effectively puts an end to my summer shopping.  I'm looking for a pair of cropped pants or a longer pair of shorts and then I'm donezo.  

Tonight was a quickie pierogi dinner on account of the fact that we got in late last night and didn't get a chance to do a proper grocery shop.

So that was me.  How was your weekend?

Fin.