By The Way...

It looks like we are on the tail end of another round of sickness that swept through Casa Dotytron Lagerfeld.  Two Fridays ago, I packed up the Wonder Twins for my weekly round of grocery shopping.  I pulled up in front of our vegetable/fruit store, and heard the unmistakeable sounds (followed by the unmistakeable odour) of Lindsay Lou-Lou garfing in the back seat.  In his car seat.  He had eaten cottage cheese for breakfast.  I'll leave the rest to your imagination.  After unloading the contents of his stomach, he promptly slumped over and fell asleep.

I came home, and then he proceeded to evacuate from his bottom end.  It was epic poop-splosion times at Dotytron-Lagerfeld high.  Like, diaper changes that required full body showers (him and me) and outfit changes and the whole rigmarole.  Then, while I was running Lindsay Lou-Lou through the wash for the second time, a naked Quincess, who had just emerged from the shower, was cruising around on the floor of their room, sans helmet, and decided to faceplant on the non-rug-covered portion of the floor.  This resulted in him evacuating his sinuses and a next-level bloody nose, and me frantically Googling "how to tell if baby has a broken nose."

I got everyone cleaned up, and sent the Dotytron very angsty, caps-lock heavy texts to the effect of: COME HOME NOW. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. DON'T DELAY. SEND HELP. SOS SOS SOS.  The Dotytron came home, things settled down, we went to bed.

Next day was our high school friends baby shower.  It was so nice and so much fun.  It was all people we've known since, well, high school with some newer crew in the mix.  I've been told that I tend to do a lot of nicknames for people - the Wonder Twins themselves have a rotation of 5 different nicknames on the go at any given time.  I suspect it's something from my Markham high school days.  It seems like everyone had at least a nickname or two or three.  I had a buddy who was known by his last name initials, by the nickname "C**shot Wolfie" and by the nickname "Dirty Vagina" ("Diva" for short).  We have a buddy we STILL refer to as Fox, which was the spirit animal name he was given in some weird pseudo-Wiccan ravine naming ceremony that happened in like, grade 10.  Anyway, that's all to say that when I meet someone for the first time named Brian and then promptly start to refer to him as "Bri-Bri" or "Bri-Bro," it's a cultural thing.

Now that it's been safely gifted, I can show off the quilt I've been working on for the past, oh, 10 months or so.  Once I get going on a quilt, it's not slow-going, but this one nearly did me in.  It was supposed to be an alternating yellow and white herringbone pattern (like this quilt) but of course, me being me, I made a mistake cutting out the pieces so they were all angled incorrectly and then I measured and calculated wrong so I ended up having to jerry-rig my own design.  In the end, I'm fairly happy with it.  I like the back a lot more than the front, but I need to tighten up my actual quilting skills - I had some bunching issues.  I've started work on another and am totally into quilting as my creative/crafty outlet at the moment.

Anyway, we go to the baby shower, come home, hang out with Dr. Rei and Hanbo, get completely obliterated and owned by the co-operative board game Pandemic, laugh a tonne, go to bed.  The Big Yam comes into our room to sleep.  In the middle of the night, he wakes up, and a slow but inexorable river of garf starts to come out of him.  It was the grossest.  Parenting is NOT for people who have bodily fluid issues.  I used to be one of those people.  I used to say that poop was my nemesis.  I'm not saying that now I'm so inured to poop that I'm all, "ain't no thang" about it, but I will say that situations that I had thought before having children, would have broken me, haven't.  So there's that.

The long and short of the sickness briefing is, the Dotytron was the last member of the family to get it and he's getting over it now.  As usual, I was relatively unscathed which meant that as usual, I was feeling simultaneously smug about my immune system and put-upon by the fact that ONCE AGAIN, it was up to me to hold everyone together.

On Saturday morning, apropos of nothing, while we were enjoying a breakfast of waffles and bacon, the Big Yam said casually, "By the way...how was your night out?"  It was beyond funny (though somewhat cruel, seeing as how our "night out" consisted of eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream and passing out at 9pm on the couch).  He's such a little professor sometimes.  And other times, like this evening, when we discovered him standing on his step stool, peeing from on high into the toilet, and pumping his arms to this weird affirmation: "I...am smart!  I...am smart!" (to an audience of no one - he didn't know we were watching him), he is more like a particularly boorish member of Animal House.

Last week our friend Pingy was in town, I met up with a friend from the Canoe days for lunch at a newish Cuban restaurant on Roncesvalles, I interviewed a wackload of prospective contractors, I went with my mum to another orthotics check-up for the Quincess, and my mum stayed over and helped with the kids while I went to my first annual general meeting for the not-for-profit community complex that runs one of the early year centre (in addition to seniors, teen, baby, and newcomer programming) that the Big Yam frequents.  Here's the thing about my mum: she will rarely babysit if it means that the Dotytron and I can have a night out to ourselves, or go out for dinner...but tell her that I want to join the board and want to attend an AGM and she's THERE.  As I've mentioned before, my mum is a community organizer par excellence.  She is a constant inspiration to me for her commitment to holding the government accountable for her pet projects (mostly related to hospitals and health care in Scarborough), and her commitment to getting people engaged and becoming active participants in community initiatives.

I was too late to get on the board of the community complex, but fully intend to serve a two year term the next time openings become available.  I consider this a stepping stone to my school board trustee ambitions.  I feel like Canadians are so spoiled in certain respects.  Our generous and comprehensive social programs allow people to abdicate responsibility to the state and expect the state to pick up the tab for everything.  Maybe it's all the university academics I'm around all the time, but I hear a lot of griping about how this, that, and the other thing should be better funded.  This was made all the more clear during my last Academic Book Club session, when we discussed Orange is the New Black, the memoir upon which the Netflix series is based.  The deplorable state of prisons and the lack of rehabilitation opportunities and the futility of America's war on drugs was hashed over in detail.  My point is this, though - you can't sell prison reform to people.  Given the choice between prison reform and like, health care, people are going to pick health care (and given the choice of health care or higher taxes, unfortunately most people will pick complaining about health care and lower taxes).   The simple fact of the matter is that there aren't enough funds to cover all the things that people want, and we as citizens have to step in with at best our dollars or at the very least our time, to take up that slack.  We can't just expect the state to be able to provide everything.  Because then you live in Sweden, and while I love Scandinavian design, I do not love Scandinavian racism.

We started watching the Kroll Show and are big fans.  This skit exemplifies everything wrong with Europe and North Americans who are obsessed with Scandinavian countries. They cut out one of the best lines, which is when he's like, "We like to complain about Israel and the West Bank but then also treat our Arabs terribly."  LOL!  

Probably my favorite skit - Too Much Tuna.  

La Cubana on Roncesvalles.  We had the corn fritters, served with a spicy aioli dipping sauce, some yucca fries, and because I am crazy, I got two medianoches: the "traditional" with ham, pork, and gruyere; and the guava glazed beef shortrib (in my defence, I ate half of each one and brought the rest home to the Dotytron).  If this is what Cuban food is like in Cuba, I don't know why I've been so resistant to go to an all inclusive there!  Just kidding: everything I've heard is that the food in Cuba is terrible.  But North American renditions by ex-pats?  Sign me up!  Everything here was absolutely delicious.

I wanted to take my mum to Seven Lives on our way to Quincess' doctor's appointment, but it was closed, so thanks to an Instagram tip from my Discerning Coyote friend, we hit up Pancho Y Emiliano, which occupies a second floor space on Augusta in Kensington Market, right next to La Tortilleria.  We had the baja fish tacos, which were good - battered fish served with a crunchy vegetable topping and drizzled with a spicy mayonnaise (fresh, grassy hot sauces are available at the table so you can adjust the heat level on your own).  

Chicken pibil tostada.  I love a tostada, but not the best for sharing.  I find that chicken-based tacos always taste kind of watery and same-y  This was good, but not as good as the fish taco.

The pastor tostada was TERRIBLE.  Most pastor tacos feature slightly dry pieces of pork mixed with pineapple (pastor is usually prepared like a schwarma, with a big pile of pork rotating on a spit, topped with a pineapple).  This was almost like, stewed pork, heavy on the beans and gravy, light on the meat and pineapple.  Not great.

A favorite spring dish - tempura battered haddock, artichokes, and lemons (fried lemon is SO GOOD) on top of a bed of arugula, drizzled with tartar sauce.

Crab carbonara with pappardelle.  Pappardelle has been my noodle shape of 2013/2014

I made a "broken" skillet lasagne - basically instead of layering all the elements, you make a quick sausage tomato sauce in a big skillet and stir in broken lasagne noodles and cook the noodles in the sauce.  Then I dollop on ricotta and top with mozzarella and throw it under the broiler.  I found it tasty but my mum was meh about it.  I can tell when my mum is "meh" about one of my dishes because she doesn't try to brazenly pack up all the leftovers for herself.  

Roasted asparagus, on top of scape pesto and garlic butter broiled toasts, with poached eggs and hollandaise.

More slow-cooker Asian ribs and cornbread, broccoli slaw, and steamed green beans.

A salted caramel chocolate pudding cake.  From this recipe, but simplified (I basically dumped all the cake ingredients together, instead of putting all the components in separate bowls and then combining them).  The next time, I would reduce the amount of espresso powder in the sauce - the coffee flavour overwhelmed the other ones.  This was so good I'd make it again in a heartbeat.

Last night's shrimp and grits and okra.

FAIL

I didn't get the job.  Found out yesterday early afternoon.  I was pretty gutted about it and had myself a pretty unprofesh subdued, trying-not-to-but-not-very-successful cry at my desk and then a bit of a pity-party lunchtime walk with Dr. Rei.  By the time I got home, I was feeling more myself.  I don't know that it would have been a complete perfect fit.  Plus, it was an internal candidate, so my chances were slim anyway.  If anything, I'm feeling chuffed that out of 350+ candidates, I was obviously good enough to give the internal a run for their money and make the decision-making that much harder for the people hiring.

It's demoralizing because I'm all like, uhhh...do you KNOW me?  I have Red Bull running in my veins!  I've done two graduate degrees (both while working full time, one while on maternity leave!)!  You could basically hire me for a job where I have NONE of the qualifications and I would kick about 50 different kinds of a** because I'm an exceptional person.  I think that for the sector I work in, I've got too much zing.  I think people are looking for someone with less ideas and enthusiasm and someone more meek, and if that's what they want, then I can't give that to them. Plus, I love love love my current job and I find it fulfilling and it affords me a pretty exceptional work-life balance, so at the end of the day, I didn't lose.

I'm a lucky button, still.

I came home to this from the Dotytron, who went and got me treatsies from a new, local French bakery, Bonne Journée, as a pick-me-up:

See?  I'm a lucky button with a lovely boo.

Then, the Roomie and sweet baby T came over so I got to look at this little mug while I ate my dinner:

See?  I'm a lucky button with amazing friends and adorable babies in my life.

So we had a nice long visit and I got to squish T and listen to her funny little hooting laugh and gossiped with the Roomie and planned our New Year's Eve plans and then I busted out my glue gun to finish my new and improved yarn-wrapped wreath, because my long-awaited new shipment of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments arrived yesterday:

See? Could the successful candidate do THIS?!  I don't bloody well think so!

Also, we had a splendid, rib-sticking dinner of slow cooker chili with avocado, sour cream, cheese, and cornbread on the side.

This all goes to show that when life gives you lemons, you pick up your hot glue gun and take comfort in the fact that you lead a full, fulfilling, and joy-filled life filled with good food, good friends, good family, good crafting, and love and no amount of failed job interviews can take that away from you.

That wreath was the easiest by the way (so technically, I guess the successful candidate could do it, BUT DIDN'T), and it looks classy as all f**k.  I have an allergic reaction to decorations made with cheap, plasticky dollar store ball ornaments.  They just never look...Etsy enough, for lack of a better word.  Anyway, this is a simple matter of finding ornaments and a color of yarn that produce a nice color combination - I liked the modern feel of a the tweedy brown-grey with the antiqued, faded metallic undertones of the ornaments.  First, I wrapped a foam wreath form with the yarn.  Then I took my hot glue gun out for its' maiden voyage and put a dab of glue along the edge of the ornaments so that the tops were secure and they wouldn't pop off and shatter.  Then I strung them on a 12" piece of thin, flexible, low gauge wire and alternated sizes and colors until they formed a pleasing cluster.  I twisted the wire a few times to make sure the cluster would stay put and then tied the wire around the wreath and twisted it around the back to secure it and hide the sharp edges.  Then I hung it - ta-da!

I still have the red yarn-wrapped wreath form from two years ago and I might do something similar and then give it away (I'm running out of doors to place wreaths - I put my classic, felted, "Holla!" wreath on our inner door).  

And then, to complete my full descent into young, urban, crafter cliché, I've decided that all presents this year will be wrapped in brown kraft paper and classic red baker's twine.  BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY WOULD BE.  I'M A WALKING ETSY BILLBOARD.  

Tonight we had freezer curried squash soup &amp gruyere and ham paninis for dinner and listened to holiday music (Advent Activity #5).  Even though the Big Yam's preference is to listen to his Chinese School CD, which he loves more than anything.  I guess I shouldn't complain - he's picked up two of the songs and a bunch of the vocabulary, which is reinforcing my belief that early second language introduction is both feasible and practical.

Pretty terrible picture of the Boobla (who looks 10?!) going to town on his 4th bowl of squash soup.  But I love how our tree photographs against our purple wall.

Fin.

Artists

What was supposed to be a week of lions ended up being a week of lambs.  Our dinner plans for this evening cancelled, the host is sick and didn't feel up to making dinner for a dozen people (I don't blame him!)

We skipped dodgeball on Wednesday, I was sick on Tuesday, and missed my FROG meeting on Monday. So it's actually been pretty low-key.

Our friend A is visiting from NYC, so we had him over for dinner last night.  We had shrimp and grits with andouille sausage and okra.  It was KILLER.  We also had a hail-mary assist from a neighbour too.  I forgot to turn the slow cooker on before leaving the house and then sent out a frantic APB to all my neighbours to see who could come into our house and turn it on for us.  Love my neighbours, love my 'hood.

Anyway, through the course of conversation last night A was talking about how his recently released record is akin to his child (in reference to some friends who he'd given a copy to and hadn't given it a listen).  I gotta say, I really really really disagree with this statement.  Obviously, context is everything, A wasn't using it on a one-to-one level the way I've heard it employed elsewhere.  He was just using it as a shorthand to say that the album was really important to him and he wanted his friends to give it a listen.  I get that, I totally do.  But here's the thing: I kind of believe that as an artist, your painting/dance/theatre performance, etc. isn't your child, it's YOUR JOB.  People have children ON TOP of their jobs, not as a replacement for them (for the most part).

I always see all these things on Facebook and on my internet travels that feature pithy little statements about art and the value of art and how artists do it FOR THE LOVE OF IT, blah blah blah as if producing art is more pure or a more difficult path than other career trajectories.  I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.  I'm not saying it's NOT hard.  I'm sure it's very very very hard and challenging and I know there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't as difficult or trying.  BUT IT'S NOT THE ONLY ONE TRUE CHALLENGING JOB.  It just isn't.  Look at my littlest bro and his dentist aspirations.  Look at what the Dotytron does for crissakes.  Look at the expertise you need to do policy research or policy analysis and like, help the province run.  Everyone (for the most part, of people I know and consider peers) has a hard job.  It would be difficult for me to step into the shoes of a lot of people I know and do what they do, the same way it would be difficult for them to do what I do.

Which isn't to say that we don't all have days when we need a boost and need some support or just want to complain and b***h about our lot.  I'm just saying it's not like artists have the exclusive right to that line, ya know?

Also, talk to me when you work a full 40 hour work week, EVERY week.  So few artists I know do that.  Same with my grad student friends.  Talk to me when you put in a consistent 8:30-5:30pm EVERY DAY, and then we can talk.  I used to work consistent 60+ hour work weeks.  Then I got my current job and 40 hours felt like a dream, but my 40 hours is still MILES above what my grad student friends pull.  Grad student friends are like, wake up at 9, leisurely coffee drink, read Salon and Gawker, grocery shop...uh, NONE OF THAT COUNTS AS WORK TIME!

Anyway, this is all to say that I find likening your work product to a child is silly.  Not that children are such precious, special, all-consuming tasks, but more like, very often, people are doing their parenting ON TOP of working full time jobs, so the comparison isn't apt, from a time-investment perspective.  *Insert cringey FB meme about how "I work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  I AM A MOTHER"*  LOL!  Those memes make my insides contract with displaced embarrassment.

My not-so-new-but-has-to-be-reiterated obsession is with the Beckham family and specifically, any photos I see featuring Harper Seven.  I just want Posh and Becks to adopt me.  First of all, that baby is freakin' adorable.  Second of all, I love what good parents Posh and Becks seem to be.  Third of all, I love that despite VB's plussed up fashion sense, she always seems to dress Harper tastefully.  Like, Harper's not always jacked up to the nines the way J-Lo's kids are or like Suri Cruise or Mimi's kids are and a lot of the times Harper is wearing pants and a shirt that are totally normal and suitable for Upper East Side/probably will be sent to boarding school rich kid play.  Not like, the rough and tumble, communal snack play of regular people's kids, but still not approaching the levels of fancy froufrou that rich kids could go.  Fourthly, I want that cape that Harper is wearing up there.

For dinner tonight we had our favorite Afghani takeout from Bamiyan.  So. Good.  

The other night we had freezer tomato basil tart (which the Dotytron over-browned in the oven) alongside a salad of cornmeal-crusted fried green tomatoes, bacon, and greens with a buttermilk-chive dressing.  The salad was so good that I snapped up a bunch more green tomatoes from the CSA to futz around with.

I'm freaking out because we only have 4 more freezer meals left and I'm an emergency preparedness hoarder so only 4 meals seems dangerously low to me.  I'm a headcase.

I have also chosen to embark on the lunacy that is making cake balls.  I'm going to split it up over a few days and hope that this will make the process more bearable.  It was a snap decision that I made when I was trying to think of what I could bring to the kids Halloween party we're going to on Sunday, and to bring into the drop in centre for the annual Halloween potluck next Wednesday.  For some reason, CAKE BALLS seemed logical.  Which is INCREDIBLY stupid, in hindsight.  But, I had already bought the cake mix and the frosting.  As my friend G so sagely suggested - why couldn't I just turn the box cake and frosting into cupcakes?  BECAUSE I'M A PSYCHO, THAT'S WHY.  According to the immutable logic (?) of my me-ness, box cake mix is okay for the purposes of cake balls, but to bring in boxed cake cupcakes to a party as a representation of what I do (even though, at the drop in centre, that table of food is going to be a randomonium smorgasbord of the highest order), is unacceptable.  Because I'm a psycho.  

Here's a pic of the finished product:

Never Again.

We just did a little Big Yam Halloween costume dress rehearsal...and let me tell you - it's pretty awesome.  

Fin.

Thanksgiving weekend!

It's my favorite holiday of the year!  This year is a little different - instead of doing the big turkey and all the fixins, we're decamping to Western New York to visit my sis and family.  Bruce Wayne is coming, too!  

So yes, I'm going to be missing out on turkey, but I can cook a turkey any old time (see: 2007 when I randomly would roast a goose or do a giant glazed ham for no particular reason).  I'm going to be loading up on Aunt Cookie's subs, Cracker Barrel breakfasts, Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes, Nick Tahou's garbage plates...and because my outlaw bro is on the campaign trail and has to kiss every baby and show up at every church fundraiser in town, I think there will be a lot of community pot roasts and chicken and biscuit dinners, and apparently an all-you-can-eat breakfast fundraiser in my future.

HOWEVER.  I downloaded this app that my friend told me about called "My Fitness Pal" which is basically a calorie counter and helps you lose weight.  I input my goal weight (which is about 7 pounds less than where I'm at now) and said that I wanted to lose about 1 lb a week...AND IT GAVE ME A LIMIT OF 1200 CALORIES A DAY.  Buhhhhhhhhhhh.  THAT'S NEGATIVE FOOD!  I put in a banana and an apple and that's like, 300 calories.  WTF?!?  You can "earn" more calories by doing exercise and my average day consists of at least 40 minutes of biking and an hour+ of walking, but still!  1200 calories?!????  Get outta here!  I haven't been running lately because the string of sexual assaults has me wigged...I run in the early early morning and I've just been avoiding it.  I've also been feeling lazy.  I'm going to do a 5km run for victims of domestic assault in my sis' town though.  Nothing like a cold 5km!  HOLD THE PHONE.  Avoiding running because of sexual assaults and then doing a run to benefit domestic assaults = my run is mad topical, yo.  

Last night was crazy productive.  I finished my Halloween wreath:

This was a super-easy project that my friend G hipped me to.  I bought pipe-insulation from Home Depot (flexible foamy stuff) for about $3.75 (you definitely don't need all of it!)  I cut off about a 16-18" length and taped it into a tube.  This will look like a small circumference for a wreath but keep in mind, the wreath gets HUGE with the tulle sticking out. Then, I cut a tonne of approximately 12" lengths of orange and black tulle and using 3 at a time, double-knotted them around the foam tube until I was done. I was too excited to put it on the door (with Halloween decor, you only get a month and I'm already 5 days in!) to properly fluff it, but you get the drift.  If you used red, white, and green tulle you could do a Holiday wreath (or an Italian one?)  I've also put out my Halloween bunting garland and I'm going to turn some of my shrubs and tomato cages into ghosts (see Pinterest inspiration below):

I also finished the two birthday crowns for the Little Big Cuz and Big Big Cuz.  I'm going to do photos when we get down there.  I also packed and did some tidying so I felt really good about myself.  My friend G at work heard about my last weekend (when I made the drapes and planted bulbs) and was like, "Do you have Redbull running through your veins?!"  I'm high on life!  I can't help it!  I also found my US sim card which made me very happy.

Have a very very very happy Thanksgiving, you beautiful turkeys!

Fin.