Hiatus

I've taken an extended March Break hiatus from blogging, which isn't to say there hasn't been mucho excitement 'round these parts. We spent the bulk of the break down in Geneseo with my sis and Uncle Rico and the family, which meant a lot of eating fatty food, checking out the designer reissues at Target, prepping for my interview, and loafing. We did manage to squeeze in some activity time - we hit the bowling alley whereupon I promptly DECIMATED my previous all-time bowling best score by bowling a game with 3 strikes, which is practically unheard of for me and was made all the more staggering considering I did so with the Big Yam riding shotgun in the wrap on my back. Amazing!

Little Little Cuz is cute-ing up like crazy. This is a picture from late February when my sis and fam were in town for my Kung Kung's funeral, but look at what a little gaffer he is:

He has an extremely endearing baby pterodactyl scratchy thin voice and is capable of exhibiting much anguish. It's very cute. He has these hoarse little high pitched wailing cries which are hilarious.

Geneseo also involved Wii Jeopardy which was SO. MUCH. FUN (if you're a Jeopardy-fanatic - and I come from a family of Jeopardy disciples.)

We came back in time to experience the tail half of a March Break that's been filled with socializing. On St. Paddy's Day we entertained no less than THREE sets of visitors - starting with H and baby D in the early afternoon, then JSculls and Lolly, and THEN for dinner we had A in from NYC and Bobes. I was busy doing interview prep so the Dotytron was in charge of the annual St. Paddy's feast - he did a bang-up job. We had champ (scallion mashed potatoes), braised cabbage with apples & bacon, and mustard-brown sugar oven baked corned beef:

I had my interview yesterday. I *think* it went well. The prep work that I did and the suggestions my sister, the Dotytron, and Bruce Wayne (who was also down in Geneseo) offered was really valuable. I was making the standard mistake of burying my answers and offering too much explanation when we were prepping - so during the interview I made sure to front-load the answer and then spend the time with the explanation and background. You're always going to beat yourself up - there were some points that I wish I had wanted to hit that I neglected to, some of the situational questions took me off guard, and I stumbled on a really basic question (describe how a bill gets passed into law), but otherwise, I think I came off as poised and eloquent. Ultimately, I have a job that I love and I would prefer to ride out the rest of my maternity leave and not have to scramble any more than I already am for daycare. The thought of leaving the Big Yam before he's even eating solid foods yet is a little heart-wrenching. It's a pretty good position to be in - the most important thing is that I put my face out there and have more interview experience under my belt - it's win-win.

I bought a Mossimo sedate, somewhat matronly, serious grey dress at Target for the interview. The Designer Re-Issues (featuring the best of 5 years of Target designer collaborations) were picked over like whoa by the time I got there, the day after they were released. All that was left was a jersey, blue and green striped Libertine dress that was okay for casual wear, but I found the puffed sleeves unflattering to my jiggly arms, some Rodarte stuff that I thought looked uber-cheap, a Zac Posen party dress (same), a Proenza Schouler pink/purple number in XL, and some Luella and that was about it. I really wanted the Thakoon cyber-floral print dress but it was already gone. Le sigh. Ah well, better than fighting tooth and nail through a pack of rabid PYTs on opening day. My interest in fashion has definitely changed and I'm less committed to putting together stand-out looks...although I do love a good shop now and then. I love my spring/summer wardrobe of vaguely boho muumuus and vintage dresses and smocked stuff but winter is a different story. Having a baby really does mean you dress for comfort and ready access to the boobs so I'm feeling the pinch of having spent the past 3 years building up my work wardrobe. The other thing I love about my current position is that it's pretty business casual (more on the casual side). We can't wear jeans but I can get away with a lot more than I would otherwise. There is a part of me that is looking to start dressing a little more maturely - I'm worried my youthful looks (the florist we worked with for Kung Kung's funeral was shocked I wasn't in late high school, early undergrad) are undermining my professional development. Things I want: a pair of open-toed dark brown-black clogs (that I can wear with tights in the winter and around in the summer), and boyfriend-cut trousers or a pair of jeans that I can roll up at the leg. More colourful flats and belts and candy-coloured cardigans for layering.

Yesterday after the interview it was ANOTHER 3 visit day. I met up with K from work to pick up my Hot Docs festival pass (wahoo!) With a baby, a festival pass is probably ambitious but TPat is visiting with me from Vancouver while it's happening, so I figure that we can go out and watch some docs while the Dotytron watches the baby perhaps...we'll figure something out! Then I came home and met up with S for some coffee and pastries at Bobette and Belle (so dangerous that they're around the corner from us!!!). We rode our bikes and it was my first time on the silver bullet in oh, EIGHT MONTHS AND OH LORD IT FELT SO GOOD! I felt FREE. I'd love to buy myself a new bike this summer or invest in a trailer for Master T, but the Chariot brand ones are like, $600! It's crazy! And because they're so expensive they're hard to come by used. Also, I'm not sure what the smallest size of baby bike helmets are.

Then we had dinner with Dr. Rei at her place, drinking flat root beer and playing with Master T and grilled Hanbo on derivatives when he got home.

Today we woke up early and headed over to the Evergreen Brickworks Farmer's Market. It was my first time going to that complex - it's pretty boss! They have skating and there are trails and the place is huge. The winter's farmer's market was a little meagre, but I could see how it would be bumping in the summer. It was earnest-lefty-urbanite mecca. There's 40 acres of space around there so I'm excited to walk the trails in the summer. We paid $10 for a "big" breakfast from one of the stands that was supposed to feature scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy. We got the equivalent of HALF an egg, not even scrambled, but in sad, folded, rubbery, flat pancake form, one sausage patty, two of the densest, most disgusting biscuits I've ever had (we were only supposed to get 1, but he gave us an extra because it was a little small) and some mixed greens. FOR TEN DOLLARS. As soon as we walked away from the stand the Dotytron turned to me and said, "meagre" and it was. I replied, "Ummm...have you ever been to CRACKER BARREL?" I forgot to mention that the sausage gravy was thin, brown, and watery. I'm 100% Canadian but how is it that I know that sausage gravy is a cream-based, flour-thickened concoction and this guy doesn't? At Cracker Barrel you get about 3 times the amount of food and it's actually delicious. The Dotytron kept saying that the breakfast was "wack attack" and that the best thing about it was the salad and that wasn't saying much. We followed it up with a crepe with ham, cheese, green onions, hollandaise, and a fried egg which was much, much better.

So you've been warned. If you go to the Brickworks Farmer's Market, DO NOT get the "big breakfast" but stick with the crepes. Or, do as Master T did and try a pear:

Baby Led Weaning! BLW! We're starting to think about solid food introduction. He's still got the tongue thrust reflex so it's a little early for rice cereal, but I ordered some laminated cotton to make a giant placemat and something to put under the high chair and I've gotten out the spoons and bowls and starting to think about it more concretely. I cut up the pear when we got home into elongated chunks and let him pick it up and play with it and suck on it. I figure if he's going to be gumming anything or gnawing on something, it's better if it's food - even if pears are pretty sweet.

Tonight we're having dinner with B & G and S & P. Fun! Apparently dinner is "Irish themed." Looking forward to seeing those guys. I'm such a lucky pig - so many people to love and see around me.

The most exciting thing that's been happening around here is some family drama involving my deadbeat da' and the woman he married. Without getting into all the ugly details, let's just say it got kicked into high gear with an email from her, to me, calling me a "RUDE HEARTLESS MISERABLE B***H" (capslock hers). CRAY-CRAY! I wasn't too fussed about it because I'm used to that kind of behavior from her, but the Dotytron was pretty upset. In his words, "you are rude and you are a b***h, but you are NOT heartless. You're ALL heart." I think he was offended that someone would think he would allow a heartless person to be the mother of his progeny. Thanks for having my back, Dotytron. I think.

Fin.

welcome to the monkey house

our new favorite thing to do when we go on long road trips is to listen to books on cd. it's kind of the best. no more fruitless trawling through the hinterlands of contemporary radio for the one song you want to sing along to in haystack that is popular music. no more frenetic jumping from station to station in search of queen. (as an aside: queen is kind of totally THE BEST.) it's nice because it generally keeps you awake and affords you an opportunity to delve into something that you might not otherwise actually find the time to read (ie. charles dickens, most classics.)

this time we loaded up with a collection of kurt vonnegut stories, entitled "welcome to the monkeyhouse" read by stars of stage and screen - maria tucci, david strathairn, etc. it was so good! so good that i was sad we weren't driving farther - we only made it through disc 2 on the drive there and back. having talented readers makes all the difference. the last one we listened to was called "life as we knew it" but we affectionately refer to it as "'miranda,' she said" because the narrator (a youngish, over-enunciating lady) refused to modulate her voice when characters changed or events happened - which meant that it seemed like a long monologue punctuated with "'miranda,' she said" over and over again. david strathairn made this collection - the stories were so good! brimming with vonnegut's signature skewering of contemporary american culture - "no one ever lost money capitalizing on americans taste for vulgarity." that kind of textbook, don't-drink-the-kool-aid counter-cultural voice is so of that generation of writers - pynchon, vonnegut, tom robbins, kesey - i love it. the problem is i don't know when we'll have the opportunity to finish the collection - there's never much cause for listening to books on tape at home.

the weekend was so relaxing. i think we slept about 70% of the time there. especially whenever we slipped into my sis' snuggie. behold, rhapsody in blue, the snuggie series:



as soon as we got there, my sister made a point of telling us: "look, you have to know, your nephew is an a**hole right now" which is never going to stop being funny to me. lol! he was actually fine. that kid is so cute it's hard to be mad at him. he's such a goofball. basically he's just into acting up and being ornery right now. whenever you bear down on him he shouts back at you, "you're the worst auntie!" but then in the next instant he's back to being a smushy goofball who gives really good hugs.

my niece is a hilarious piece of work. outlaw bro, the dotytron were driving in a car to meet me and my sis with the two kids in tow in the back. miss ramona was playing with a magnet set in the car. outlaw bro says to the dotytron, "i'm not sure how to get to so and so, i think if we take this road, it's there." to which the dotytron replied, "yeah, that's cool." at which point my niece from the back seat said idly, "it is NOT cool if daddy doesn't know where he's going." lol! how funny is that? she's such a punk.

we went to cracker barrel and stuffed ourselves with the holiday breakfast sampler. look how much food goes in that thing! it's insane!


other than that, we really just loafed. as soon as i put on the snuggie and lay down on my sis' couch, i basically fell asleep. the kind of sleep where you feel like you're swimming in molasses with a thick woolen raft - like it's impossible to drag yourself back to consciousness.

my body must have needed it though. we picked up all the stuff and got our winter tires and the captain fixed up. we went with the kids to their skating lesson and i got all jazzed on skating. i think i'm going to try to find a cheap pair of hockey skates on craigslist so that we can go this year. there is a public skating rink literally at the end of our street, so i think that'll be fun - it's good exercise and it'll be really awesome to have the opportunity to go night skating after work. i complained about xmas and how i really want to scale back. i got to go shopping with my sis for work clothes for her. i made dinner - we had steaks one night and spaghetti and meatballs the next...it was lovely.

now back to the grind - i'm already exhausted. i missed work yesterday cuz i was feeling ill and playing catch up today made me regret it. i should have just toughed it out and came in instead. i was running around all day perpetually behind. for dinner we had muttar paneer with rice and naan:

now i have to write a billion thank you cards and try to continue to get my life in order.

no fun!

fin