To overindulge

The Big Yam is 4 months old as of Friday. I can scarcely believe it. He of the expressive eyebrows, fulsome cheeks, teensy nose, gummy grin, and disregard for physical milestones has been around for 16 life-altering, refocusing weeks. Oh, we do adore him so. It's hard to believe he started as a collection of cells - his consciousness pulled from the great universal unknown, cooked in my belly until he emerged as a complete, total, sentient being. Nature versus nurture indeed (six of one, half dozen of the other).

Thursday night neighbs hangs were absolutely delightful. We stayed until almost midnight - talking about food, music, parenting, home renos...it's SO NICE to have neighbours we like! It's truly the best. How lucky are we?

Well, not so lucky that our car won't get broken into. Truth be told, the Dotytron suspects he might have left the Captain unlocked. It's happened on our street before - someone checks car doors and looks for open windows and rummages around looking for cash. The would-be thief must have been sorely disappointed to find that there is nothing in the Captain but a plethora of burned CDs with little mass-market appeal (ranging from Heart and Rush's greatest hits to the more esoteric of the Dotytron's listening pleasures), my beloved emergency preparedness kit, and my equally beloved Jolly Jumper car-seat organizer, which contains a lovingly curated stash of MORE emergency preparedness supplies - these ones baby-centred (spare diapers, outfits, wipes and the like). More than anything, it's intensely irritating that someone in the neighbourhood would DO that and that they're pawing through our stuff and that they think we're dumb enough to keep cash or meth in the glove box of our car. I'm going to write out a note and post it in the window lambasting them. I'm also going to take up a watch on a random, sleepless night. The lack of sleep will be totally worth it to catch the dickface in the act. I don't even want to hand them over to the cops. I just want to unleash a string of expletives on them and scare the s**t out of them by blasting an air horn in their face. I want to be like that landlady from Kung Fu Hustle:

My Facebook post on the subject revealed that it's happened a bunch on our street and elsewhere in Toronto, to a wide range of people, so I'm not getting all urban-scared about it. It's just what happens when you live in the city.

Friday night we dragged the Boobla to our dodgeball game which we WON for a change. It was a bit of a cakewalk, but I think the team needed a win for morale. Then we dragged Master T up to Markham for AYCE sushi with Lolly. Whereupon he had a class A wigout and we turned into THOSE people at the restaurant. He just wasn't happy. There was a lot of pathetic pouting going on. He wasn't being cranky or a fuss - just not buddies with the situation. Our friend L was having his birthday party and there was another dinner/drinks gathering of high school peeps that we had wanted to go to, but we bailed on both because the little Boobla obviously wasn't having it.

Saturday we cleaned house a bit and hung around and then packed up Master T to drop him off at Dr. Rei and Hanbo's place so that we could go see Wayne Shorter at Massey Hall. We picked up rotis and had dinner with them first - I also baked these toffee s'mores cookies, which are INSANELY good:

A chocolate cookie dough that bakes up soft and chewy, studded with toffee baking bits and topped with a gooey, melted marshmallow graham cracker topping. Wickedly intense.

It was so nice of them to babysit for us and for us to have the chance to visit with them for a bit. That's what you call champion best friends. We probably could have asked Momma and Poppa D, but I figured it's always nice to expand the potential pool of people we're comfortable leaving Master T with - that way, in situations like now, when my parents are preoccupied looking after my Kung Kung, there are just more avenues for child care available.

Wayne Shorter was incredible. It was basically jazz nerd mecca. The talk surrounding our seats was all "I have a gig at blah blah blah" and all "I go to Humber/U of T" etc. I don't have the grounding in jazz to really appreciate the intricacies (in fact, earlier that day I had asked the Dotytron, "so, Wayne Shorter plays the trumpet, right?" and basically broke his heart), but it was an incredible sonic experience. Brian Blade, the drummer, is INSANE. Not to mention a hot piece of ace:

See? When we came back from the show, Dr. Rei's mum and dad were there, so we had a chance to visit with them. Apparently Master T was quite taken with Dr. Rei's mum speaking to him in Farsi. We had a really interesting discussion about Facebook and Twitter and social media and peak oil and the food crisis which made us all kind of depressed and resulted in the conclusion that we have to figure out a way to keep the developing world down somehow. So that the growing middle class in the developing world doesn't take all our food and grain and oil. LOL! The funniest thing is truly how we KNOW peak oil has come and gone and yet we still insist on thinking it's a big joke and ignoring the problem. I love those guys so much. All of them! Dr. Rei, Hanbo, Dr. Rei's mum and dad. They're all adorable and warm my heart.

This morning we woke up and had the fat baby pancake with maple syrup poached apples and cranberry maple sausage from the mennonites for breakfast:

Tonight we had a special Valentine's day meal with Lolly over for good measure. I made rack of lamb with a mustard-herb crust, roasted potatoes, creamed spinach, and Indian-spiced cauliflower:

For dessert I made the malted milk ball cake from the Baked cookbook. I was happier with this cake recipe - the malt flavour is built by adding Ovaltine to the cake batter. I pooched up one of the layers by grossly over baking it so what was supposed to be a triple layer cake turned out a more modest double layer extravaganza. I substituted my own milk chocolate buttercream for their frosting recipe, which I don't trust. You can't beat a whipped meringue buttercream for texture and flavour anyway:

This was a weekend of over consumption. Now I'm trying to restrain myself and lose those last 5 pregnancy lbs.

Fin.

out of wack

i feel all out of wack when the dotytron isn't home. mostly because our morning routine is being disrupted.

the morning routine consists of the dotytron emailing/futzing around on the computer, and me coming in, standing behind him, flossing my teeth, and asking: "who are you talking to?" or "are you watching porn?"

he gets really upset because a) he hates it when i floss my teeth anywhere near him and ESPECIALLY in his studio/office; b) he hates when i ask him "who are you talking to?" and "are you watching porn?" when he's doing random internet-ing because he really just wants to be able to internet in peace, without me being obnoxious barking questions at him through a barrage of floss-loosened plaque particles from behind his chair.

also, i left the house yesterday without locking the door by accident, which means that me being scared to be home alone went into overdrive and i had to go through every room/closet/crawlspace in the house with a cell phone in one hand and a butcher knife in the other, ready to carve up any interloper to pieces.

finally, when the dotytron isn't home and smudgie can't sleep on his chest, he likes to sleep ON MY HEAD which is annoying, because i keep waking up to find his fuzzy grey butt has encroached more and more on the pillow and that i'm being pushed down toward the foot of the bed.

academic book club was a riot. i wish you could have seen the spread i laid out but one of the ladies showed up early just as i was putting the finishing touches on the table. ultimately, "twilight" worked as a pick and provided a lot of grist for the mill. we ventured into a lengthy discussion of mormonism too (the author is a mormon), which was fascinating.

now, we all know i'm all over YA fiction, but i found the "twilight" series to be puzzling in its extreme popularity. the messages we're sending! i find it anti-feminist and it seems to advocate sex-negative (chastity!), creepy, possessive, stalker-y behavior from edward that wouldn't fly if he WASN'T a vampire, and barely flies even with that caveat. bella is pretty annoying. she's kind of a whiner who treats her "friends" in forks, WA (where she ends up after moving from phoenix) who are nothing more than welcoming and inclusive, as disposable placeholders that she doesn't care about or even deign to interact with, UNLESS her stupid edward is around.

i mean, it's a quick read, but NOTHING HAPPENS. the first 3/4 is ALL STARING and longing and kind of boring with edward being intensely moody and a creep who watches her while she sleeps and acts like it's the most natural thing in the world, instead of a gross invasion of privacy. also, every other line in the book is about how devastatingly handsome he his, even though his flesh is cold and hard and marble like (we thought that meant he was the human embodiment of a phallus - a cold one.) i'm sorry, but it doesn't sound fun to me AT ALL to snuggle up to someone who's icy cold and totally pretentious. also, i think robert pattinson was totally mis-cast. when you think dreamboat, do you think of that guy? i certainly don't.

i'm not sure what our next book is going to be, but i'm excited for it.

tomorrow night is the first round of dodgeball playoffs. we're 3rd ranked right now and we're facing off against the #2 team. if we win, we get to go for #1! what a comeback story (if we win.)

last week after the game i went with my bro and fraser and her fiancée davey (who were nice enough to sub in for us) to boston pizza (or, bo-pie as i like to call it.) i've been VERY disparaging of boston pizza in the past, and frequently like to espouse my opinion that likens their pizza to that made in an english pub, that is, a place where making pizza is obviously an afterthought. if you go after a game and mention that you're from the league though, you get a free order of their cactus cut chips which are REALLY good. think fresh kettle chips with a spicy dipping sauce. i also ordered a buffalo chicken sandwich which was quite good and fraser and davey split a perogy pizza which actually looked very appetizing. it features the cactus cut chips on a thin round of pizza dough, with cheddar cheese, mozzarella, bacon bits and a blob of sour cream. if we go back i'm totally getting that. i was also intensely jazzed to win $10 in bo-pie money playing musical bingo.

i've crowed about winning the $10 so many times this week that i've worn out the dotytron's initial (pitying) enthusiasm and now he just gives me looks of withering pity at how small the prize has to be for me to exult in winning.

i really, really, really love winning, okay?

fin.

I HATE YORK UNIVERSITY

and i haven't even started it yet! so frustrating.

firstly, the program administrator is a TOTAL flakebot supreme. like, speaks in a sing-songy voice, doesn't remember anything about your client file, and gets all "i can see why you're upset" as soon as you say anything remotely ON TOPIC OR ASK A POINTED QUESTION no matter your tone of voice! i hate having to say, "i'm not upset, i just don't understand what you're saying." lol! she's so disorganized and she is the most scattershot person i've dealt with in post-secondary education in a long time. like seriously?

then, the program director is a total shacker who acts like his program is the shiznit. they keep congratulating me for getting in, "congratulations, this is a very competitive program" and i'm like, ummmm...ACTUALLY IT'S NOT. it's for working professionals, the minimum grade requirements are a B+ in your final two years of undergrad (nevermind that i got straight As in my previous masters), so it's kind of like fake grad school for mature students. stop being so high on your own juice. as if they wield so much power! a program that has to extend the application deadline TWICE by as much as TWO MONTHS is not one that's got people beating down the doors. lol! get over yourselves. i've been emailing back and forth with him asking him questions on how i should proceed with spumante on the way and he's all like, "well, if you recall from my presentation at the information session, the MINIMUM expected attendance is EVERY CLASS" and i responded to the effect of, "ummmm...i was the ONLY PERSON TO SHOW AT THE INFORMATION SESSION, and as such, didn't get the formal presentation but asked you my specific questions about the program" lolz.

then i feel a little bad cuz i remember how sad he looked sitting in that room by himself with a powerpoint all loaded up and ready to go. but i'm ALSO like, I SAW YOU IN THAT ROOM ALL BY YOURSELF, don't conveniently forget that i saw that no one showed up and that i'll actually BUY that this program is sooooo in-demand and that people are beating down the door to get in.

ANYWAY, the annoying thing is that these are my options, given that the fatburger is making an appearance in november:

1) THEY DON'T ALLOW YOU TO DEFER, so miss a whole year and reapply next year
2) accept the offer, start in the fall, pay the $2000 term fee, APPLY for a leave of absence, and then pay $200 FOR EACH SEMESTER of my leave.
^^^ with this method, there's a chance that the director might consider that a "false start" and then make me re-do the work or kick me out AND i'd have to wait the full year's cycle for the courses to be offered again
3) accept the offer and go balls to the wall and hope for the best.

i'm leaning towards #3. as dr. rei says, if she's going to bet on whether or not i can do something i've set my mind to, she's always going to err on the side that i can do it. lol! i've also spoken to people who are doing the program (colleagues at work) and they're like, yeah, the profs totally accommodate people missing classes all the time because of work commitments. since 1 course is offered 6:30-9:30pm downtown once a week, and the other course is 1 saturday, 9-5 a month - i figure the chances are good that i'll only have to miss 1 or 2 of the weekly classes and maybe just 1 of the monthly ones, and i'll pump my way through the rest of it. and lean on my friends and family and their babysitting/housecleaning services :)

it's not like there's NO PRECEDENT IN THE HISTORY OF GRADUATE STUDIES for extensions/allowances/accommodations to be made in the face of life events (or in my case, as the queen of extensions, with some b.s. reason like "shiz is getting too real") which is what the program director is making it out like. again, get over yourself.

so i'll probably miss a few classes in november/late october. classes only run into the first week of december anyway, so it's not even a deal. i think i'll be fine. i mean at this rate, NOW IT'S EFFIN PERSONAL and nothing inspires me more than a grudge match/schooling someone/proving someone wrong. i just have to get myself some slick-a$$ electrical pump and pump my way into a MPPAL.

i love my sis because she reads the blurg and then in phone conversations she'll tell me about how i got details of her life wrong and then i have to promise to post a correction. so yeah, she didn't get 3 months mat leave. she said it was like 6-8 weeks, tops. consider it corrected, T!

last night's dodgeball was aces! we ended up accidentally messing up and playing the intermediate team, while the intermediate team in the gym next door played the rec team that we should've been playing. here's the thing, even with 2 new members on board (people who were on the team but hadn't been able to make it to the previous games) - WE WON! wooooooooooooooooo!!! by a significant amount, too! what what!

it was the best!

tonight the goosetang clan is going to rise from the ashes like dumbledore's phoenix fawkes and go to see dj ayres (of the rub) at never forgive action at the drake:

so pumped! it's going to be aces! we're considering it a success if we make it to past 1am. we're meeting up with those guys at dr. rei and hanbo's pad and then having dinner at poutini or massimo pizza and pasta or mother india and then heading out for some old skool hip hop dancing fun. i feel like i'm leaning towards mother india right now, just because i know that by 8pm i'm going to be STARVING and that i don't necessarily want to make a whole meal of poutine, in light of last night's dietary indiscretions.

the next couple of weekends are kind of insane and jam-packed.

this weekend we've got brockin' out going down tonight, tomorrow is 2 hot docs, sunday is a mother's day brunch with dotytron's fam-bam and then asian legend dinner with my fam-bam.

dinner with the roomie and l'army on tuesday, massage wednesday, dodgeball and beers thursday, dinner with friends S & P on friday, kdubsguelph hangs on saturday, supper club on sunday.

then a whirlwind 4 days with a dinner with our friends S & A before heading to NYC over the long weekend, which we tacked an extra day onto to make extra-long. NYC is going to be THE BEST, because not only are we staying with pingy, but dotytron's good buddy count chocula is down there doing his masters in jazz playing at NYU and is there, and xtina and buns are going down, and i have 2 cook friends down there, and my foodshare friend M is also heading down that weekend. i've got our restos planned out - it's going to be light on the insane-tasting menu type places and more on the neighbourhood-y joints (like, $60/person instead of $250) interspersed with cheap, $20 meals of hot dogs, pizza, momofuku crack pie, gelato, etc. interspersed with buying us new kicks at century 21 and me some fat person clothes at uniqlo and jcrew and built by wendy and maybe some fun stuff at pearl river mart. interspersed with a tonne of jazz music and hanging with the best people on earth.

then we're back on tuesday for a midwife appointment and then hooking up with J & S to see sharon jones and the dap kings. then around for 2 more days before we decamp to geneseo for a long-desired visit with that crew. which is going to consist of mass amounts of five guys burgers & fries, delmonico's, brian's USA diner, aunt cookies subs, pizza pauls/mama mia's, cheesecake factory with some shopping at target, the jcrew outlet, and marshalls for discount designer gear.

and then onward into summer!

FUN!

fin.

introducing...

my new recreational dodgeball team, the admiral akbars, who acquitted themselves admirably yesterday in their first TWO games (we got scheduled with a double-header.) we got spanked the first game and doled out some spankings in game two. amazing!!! it was so much fun to play with people who are all kind of good friends/grown-ups/adults/good sports. it's the best when the only poor sport you have to worry about is me trash-talking my little keister off on the sidelines.

our first game was a rough one as no one except for me and the dotytron had played before...some of our skater high school crew were totally taken off guard by how much of a cardio workout it is when you're hustling. our buddy gaz turned to me at one point, sweating and huffing, and asked, "ummm...isn't this game played in quarters?!? when do we get a break?" and i had to inform him that we play straight through. we were down a few people so we didn't have enough subs, which would have helped. the first team totally docked us spirit points too, which was hella annoying and totally a beginner's pettiness - considering they won like 16 to 4 - really? you're going to be giant babies about the spirit points?

the second team was a total team of n00bs, which is fine, but they were classic n00bs who LOVE LOVE LOVE to know selective rules of the game and call you on the ones that they know. SO ANNOYING. i talked it over with their team captain in the beginning who agreed that all headshots would be an out (the thrower is out if it hits you in the head.) normally, more experienced teams just call head shots a wash, because when someone is ducking and gets hit in the head, then it turns into an argument about whether or not it was an actual headshot, etc. i offered them the headshots is a wash option during the pre-game captain parlay, and they declined. so at one point, our buddy gets hit in the head when he was ducking and we called the thrower off the court and the other team is all like, "ummmm, he was ducking!" and i'm like, "UMMMMM...YOU GUYS ASKED FOR THIS!" lol!!! i hate n00b teams. like, know the rules...and don't get upset when WE know the rules.

the other best thing about my new team is that they're all gainfully employed and pay you right away for the dball registration. SO ACES.

also introducing, MY NAME IN A ROUTLEDGE BOOK:

this is the book that our friends (and my former profs) J & S wrote - the book launch was a huge deal! i'm so proud of them! even though i did barely any work they were so sweet and wrote my name in the acknowledgements, which means that MY NAME IS IN A BOOK PUBLISHED BY ROUTLEDGE and IN A SERIES EDITED BY A PRETTY EFFIN' BIG HEAVY-HITTER IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE WORLD. whaa whaa!

the book launch was swinging cuz it was at the munk centre for international studies and apparently they have a zillion dollars at their disposal, so free wines and drinks and good canapes and a lot of them. J & S were also totally adorable and gave me a shout out in their thank yous at the book launch which was ever-so-lovely but made me feel like crap because it was so completely unwarranted...seriously...i barely did A THING. but they were so gracious about it.

i'm so glad i know those guys! we had dinner with L and J & S at tacos al asador (i know, my second time in as many nights) where i stuffed myself with FOUR items, before the game (chorizo tostada, chorizo soft taco, al pastor soft taco, and pork crispy taco - yum yum!)

the dotytron had met me in the afternoon because i took the afternoon off to go to an appointment and he wanted to go with me...which brings me to the last introduction of today...

INTRODUCING...

THE FATBURGER AKA SPUMANTE BAMBINO:





CRAZY, EH?!??? i'm not going to be one of those crazies who posts all this shiz non-stop about being knocked up and loving my midwife on facebook, but since my readership here only consists of good friends and family (and strangers) - i figured it be good to have a centralized place for this ish. i'm way more comfortable with people close to me, or strangers, knowing my business than acquaintances and facebook friends-types...like the people you kinda know but don't want knowing too much about your ish, 'naw mean?

so yeah, i'm knocked up...passed the 12 week milestone yesterday, but we've still got to go through genetic testing to make sure it's not a centaur or a unicorn (or a seedy samurai, or omarion) in there. incubating a bambino is enough to make you lose your mind if you're a hypochondriac. seriously...i've been obsessing over the photo trying to see if i can detect any weirdness, and since the fatburger looks like a giant blobby shrimp (but NOT a b.c. spot prawn, which was the associative metaphor i was trying to use because it's really b.c. spot prawn size and not shrimp sized, that is until i realized that i REALLY LOVE EATING b.c. spot prawns and therefore associating the fatburger with things i love to eat wasn't the best idea), it's really easy to find abnormalities.

whatever will happen will happen. it's a goddamn miracle that the dotytron has got it. it'll be a goddamn miracle when and if this thing comes out okay. and it'll be a goddamn miracle if it makes it to my age. seriously. life is a confluence of miracles and accidents narrowly averted to get you to wherever you happen to be at. an endless string of potential hazards (physiological, mental, environmental, emotional) that you want to be protected from and that you DEFINITELY want to protect your potential progeny from. so fraught. it's a wonder people do this crazy business of parenting and child-rearing at all.

the only way i can manage is to not think about it and not try to come to terms with the fact that i'm going to be responsible for something FOR LIFE and focus on the stuff i know i can control, like list-making, and conceptualizing the fatburger's room decor and thinking about linens. ha! that i can do.

i also find it hard to match people's enthusiasm. i think it's cuz i process stuff super-quickly. so whereas i can revel in the details of everyone else's momentous life events (marriage, home ownership, relationships, parenthood) when it comes to my own stuff, i'm like, "i've processed this...carry on...next." like i find talking about myself extremely boring. i love any forum to sound off on OTHER STUFF (ie. offer unsolicited advice/opinions on/to all and sundry) but when it comes to this stuff (getting hitched, having a bambino) i don't super love talking about it non-stop other than to touch on it (and my specific experience) briefly.

all part of me hating to be defined, i guess. the roomie and the dotytron are calling it me "being at war with the pregnancy" cuz i hate being defined by something that feels like it's happening TO ME kind of against my will. so far i've been pretty lucky, no sickness, no nausea, food aversions, headaches **knock wood x 100000000000000** just tiredness. but i already hate the way that people treat you like you're going to break at any second and i also feel like this is an INCREDIBLY raw deal for women and women's bodies. i don't want to be a ginormous whale criss-crossed with a network of varicose veins and swollen bits (even if dr. rei's sage advice is: at a certain point/age, it's best not to look too closely at other people in general, and women's legs in particular.) i don't want to be not able to run and play dodgeball into the summer. don't want it!

also, the idea of being at home with a BABY for a full year is giving me chills. nothing but baby talk? no workplace gossip? nothing to research? oy oy oy.

anyway, so that's what it looks like at 12 weeks. crazy, eh? we'll see what the results of the genetic screening are. wish us good health and send good vibes our way!

tonight we're having dinner with the work girls, G, M, K, their respective menfolk and G and M's adorable sons at M's parents' chinese restaurant in markham, which is known for their peking duck. i'm THRILLED and super-excited for the eats and the hangs.

fin.

movie and al asador?

a near perfect evening, as far as i'm concerned. last night K and i went and grabbed tacos al asador (el salvadorean tacos) and then headed to her adorable new house in the annex (more technically, seaton village) which is perfectly lovely and has a gorgeous, huge yard and is about twice as wide as lil' ugmo on a perfectly situated street. K suffers from a bit of "homebuyer's glasses" where you only see the negative things about your new home (and the accompanying dollar signs) but her house is so cute! K & J did so well for themselves.

i got a veggie burrito and an order of nachos that i tried valiantly to finish...but didn't succeed. isn't tacos al asador the best? i love the nachos there - corn chips piled high with chunks of avocado, crema, queso fresco, black beans, cilantro, and melted, velveeta/cheez whiz cheese. so good.

the burritos are hefty little rice, beans, and lettuce bombs that are super-filling - that place will never get old for me. i love it there.




we saw "the runaways" which, somewhat strangely, despite really decent reviews none of the menfolk in our lives wanted to see. it was actually, surprisingly good - i think i had low expectations (favorable reviews aside) - i just pictured it going really cheesy and low budget and appealing to a teen fan base (i think i was conflating it with kristin stewart's OTHER film endeavors.) it's directed by floria sigismondi (most well known as a photographer/artist and director of several outré videos for the likes of marilyn manson) - which i thought was a rather fitting match-up - the material is all about glam and feminine power and rock'n'roll sexuality and she does a fantastic job of conveying the textures and feel of the time and that glammy/punk-rock aesthetic. the texture and tones of the film and the scenes were all individually well shot and were composed in a way that made your eye want to linger - beautiful, washed out, hazy california 70s tones.

the focus is on dakota fanning's character, cherie currie's rise to fame, plucked from disaffected, small-town california ennui to be the frontwoman and lead singer of the runaways, a band that also featured joan jett (she wrote or co-wrote a lot of the runaways' songs), played by kristin stewart. the narrative arc of cherie's story is more predictable - small-town kid seduced by bowie and hollywood glam/decay, wanting to get out, corrupted by drugs, fading into obscurity - and therefore less interesting than jett's subsequent rise to fame. both of the lead performances are quite good, with fanning's glassy, doe-eyed and plump lipped flaxen lolita stylings playing off well against stewart's dark haired, slouched, mannish punk aesthetic. i always forget that kristin stewart is a decent actress - her ham-fisted turns in the "twilight" series can do that to you - it just goes to show you how much she must HATE that franchise - it comes through in her limp performance in the vampire flicks.

i thought the pacing of the film was a little off - K agreed that she wanted more of the initial set-up - fleshing out jett and curie's background a bit more and less montage-y, lingering scenes of their decline as they get eaten up by drugs, excess, and the rock'n'roll factory and the machinations of their manager and svengali, kim fowley, an exploitive, flamboyant, glittering puppetmaster, somewhat overplayed by michael shannon, who does a lot of scenery chewing.

there's a subtext about female empowerment and the dirtying up of female sexuality in the androgynous hedonism of the 70s that i wish could have been teased out more. the impact of the runaways and of girls rocking is touched on, but i wish it was a little more developed.

overall, i quite liked this flick - the set design, music choices, and costumes are fantastic and it's really entertaining. i'd give it a 7-7.5/10.

today is a busy day. a 1/2 day at work, followed by a doctor's appointment that the dotytron is meeting me for, and then we're going to our friends J & S's book launch for this book on foodies that they published through routledge and that i did a teeny tiny bit of research for.

then we're going to grab dinner either at mexitaco or la tortilleria and then a double header of dodgeball. this season we've gone back to playing in the rec league (instead of intermediate) with some friends of ours. i think it'll be a lot more fun...i got tired of playing with the death metal boozing babies.

busy busy busy!

i'll take pics of mexitaco or la tortilleria and review.

fin.

loves me a good deal

score! so you know how i was talking about how redonkulously expensive those glass doorknobs were at the door store? i told my colleague and she sent me a link to a bucket of glass knobs that just got deposited at the habitat for humanity restore in north york. people and businesses make donations of new and gently used stuff to the restores, which they sell at discounted prices. they had a heap of knobs for $25/set!!!

so i sent the dotytron and he snagged 5 for us...for the same price (actually, much less) than we would have paid for ONE at the door store! wooee! now we just have to buy the rosettes and latches - i found a guy on ebay selling retrofit sets including rosettes and latches in a variety of finishes for $25 USD/set...but we're still going to see if home depot or lowe's has any first. SO ACES! so we're going to get the entire thing done for less than $60/door which i can totally live with. $180 door when you have cheap doors is just silly. i think they're going to look pretty amazing when we have them set up.

the colour of our dining room is starting to drive me kind of crazy...i really want to repaint it, but i'll probably be sensible and wait until we have our kitchen done (a year or two? depending on when i win the lottery?):

this is the kind of colour i'm going for. i think that kind of rich, jewel tone will look lovely against the deep purple in the living room and provide a gorgeous backdrop to bring out the tones in the sideboard and will make the white accents in the room (the chairs, the centrepiece) really pop.

okay...so here's the annoying thing about the dudes on my dodgeball team (the dudes and ladies) which you might be able to chalk up to the fact that they're young, but mostly due to the fact that they're dummies. so i put together this dancehall, hip-hoppy mix of tunes with some ragga jungle thrown in to get the team (read: me and doty) pumped. there's been some controversy because s-dawg has been playing his mix which includes your standard kind of stadium fist-pumpers along with the theme from "rocky" (the orchestral theme), which when it came on, totally through two members of the team (they're young girls) for a loop and they were all like, *curled lip* "WHAT IS THIS?!" and being all snarky and one of them turned it off, even though the dotytron and s-dawg were getting all hype because they've actually SEEN "rocky" (i haven't, but i don't get ruffled by the tunes that people play during dball, generally. like, most of the time my team when they play on sundays plays really stupid metal and i just shrug it off.)

ANYWAY, sister nancy's "bam bam" comes on:



and AGAIN the two girls are curling their lips (p.s. one of them DOESN'T EVEN PLAY DBALL AND IS THE GIRLFRIEND OF ONE OF THE PLAYERS AND IS LIKE AN ELEVENTEEN YEAR OLD WHO WORKS RETAIL - NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING INTRINSICALLY WRONG WITH THAT) and asking incredulously, "what IS this?!?" like they've NEVER HEARD DANCEHALL or reggae or music made by black people before.

and i'm like, b***h, SHUT IT. it's infuriating. like, i don't expect everyone to know EVERYTHING, ça c'est impossible. i get it. but you don't have to be all like, "what is this freak music for jerks" about it, when really IT JUST SHOWS THAT YOU are a small-minded, sheltered weirdo from HICKSVILLE, WHITEYTOWN! (your standard caveats about context, blah blah blah) like, there's an opinion about music after having listened to it and giving it a chance and then there's just showing your ignorance and being a jerk about it.

like, how come i can take the time to know what fleet foxes and ok go and tragically hip and ALL THAT OTHER CRAP I THINK IS THE WORSTEST sounds like, so that i can say, "you know what? it's not my thing" but you can ONLY know the tragically hip and think all songs written by non white hairy dudes that aren't derivative to the max is "weird"? COME ON. and as usual, HAVE YOU MET YOU?

and then the dotytron told me that when then this tune came on:



and one of the tithead girls comes running up and is like, "i know this! it's sean paul!" and was all crestfallen when she realized it wasn't dance mix 2005. not that there's anything wrong with sean de paul. but they're BABIES. who DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. and most egregiously, DON'T KNOW THAT THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING AND MASK THEIR PROFOUND AND TOTAL IGNORANCE WITH DISGUST.

gah. it just makes you feel old. but i mean, i don't think there should be an age limit on being as well-rounded as you can be. there's no time when it's okay not to be curious about stuff.

yesterday's meals were all about the poultry and fries. my colleage T took me to lunch at this place on yonge called the coach house which is the kind of old fashioned diner-type places with vinyl seats, an ancient cash register up at the front, and formica tables and where they serve the classics like hot turkey sandwiches on white bread with boiled veggies and fries with real chunks of turkey and fake gravy. it was awesome. we went halfsies on the club and hot turkey and ate fries and i was stuffed. then after dodgeball we met up with old kitchen friends of mine M and F who are married and ate duff's wings and fries for dinner. i worked with M at bymark but he got out of the business and now does landscaping and F is the sous chef at george and is trying to get out of the business or at least reduce the hours/time spent in the kitchen. it's a hard mentality to break. only working 10 hours days instead of 12+ and leaving at a reasonable time and not feeling guilty when you say goodbye to the other line cooks that you know still have 6 hours of service and clean up ahead of them.

tonight we're heading up to markham to visit with my sis and the kids, sans outlaw bro. sis is in town to go with s-dawg and myself to my uncle's funeral tomorrow. it's my deadbeat dad's bro. we've only met him a handful of times so i'm feeling a little removed - but it's always sad when people go before their time.

for dinner the dotytron and i are going to phoenix, which is famous for their hainan chicken rice and hk style food (well, this type of restaurant tends to do like, hong kong takes on singaporean and malaysian style food - and hong kong style western food. malaysian curries, ox tongue spaghetti and whatnot.) i'll take a photo of our meal and post it. hainan chicken rice is rice that's been poached in a chicken stock that gets re-used over and over to produce an ultra-flavourful, concentrated stock. the accompanying rice is cooked in a fatty, rich chicken stock resulting in fragrant, perfumed rice with a distinct unctuousness and separate, fluffy grains. it's traditionally served with a piquant ginger-scallion relish for dipping. it's so addictive. totally comfort food all slippery and slightly neutral and gentle on your stomach. the best is now restaurants make the hainan chicken BONELESS. sweet mother of all that is good that was a major step forward in hainan chicken rice preparation.

fin.

empty nest

the roomie has left the building. flown the coop. gotten the hell outta dodge. blown the popsicle stand. uhhhh...i ran out of aphorisms.

she technically made the move on saturday. it was hectic. tonight is our first real night alone though, as T was here last night and left this morning (we woke up at an ungodly hour to drive her to the airport.) it doesn't feel that different. we have a giant empty room in the house now. that's kind of different. but the room still feels vaguely off-limits. the fact that we're not planning on doing anything with the extra space (it seems silly to set up the living room when we're moving shortly) makes it still feel kind of occupied. we're going to use the room as a place to throw all our junk as we start to slowly pack up our gear.

yesterday for breakkie i treated T to the fat baby. look at that rise! it's magical. she was suitably impressed.

we kind of loafed around and tidied up after the upheaval of the weekend and then i headed to dodgeball for the semi-finals. we won against my brother's team. the best is when people try to badmouth my own brothers to me. either not knowing we're related, or underestimating my allegiance and loyalty to my crazy, f**ked up family. seriously, guys...i know i play dodgeball with you for a couple of hours each week, but these dudes are my KIN. we stick together and stand up for each other against ALL interlopers.


for dinner i made muttar paneer with steamed brown rice and purchased saag and naan. our buddy A came over and hung out and gave us the lowdowns on what's what in the life of a swinging jazz musician about town.

for dessert, i cranked out a batch of cookie dough. it's on my shortlist as my entry into the work picnic cookie baking contest. it's a recipe i got from the dotytron's family. they're called mona's mother's mother's favorite cookie recipe. i've included it below. they're like a mix between oatmeal cookies, florentines, and a crisp and chewy chocolate chip cookie. they're delicious.

tonight we went and visited trevor d. i'm feeling really good about our grillz. he's kind of awesome. i haven't received my gear yet but i think i would whole heartedly endorse him to anyone looking for some mouth hardware or custom jewels. as it turns out...we know people in common! lol! he said he thought we looked familiar the first time we were in. my life is totally absurd. T was totally in shock of how many people i saw out and about from various avenues of my life. not friends...total randoms. like my nemesis from library school, a friend of dr. rei's out and about, a girl i met at L's farm over new year's, some dude who i play dodgeball against bouncing at a club on college on saturday night, a dude i used to cook with on the platform waiting for the ossington bus on sunday. i actually saw trevor d out on the danny on sunday AND the dotytron's cousin. what a hodgepodge. you know you've lead an interesting life when you cross paths with so many different types - the scarborough burnout, the rocker, the cook, the brit, the ponce. i'm certainly well rounded...just not in the way that makes you a rhodes scholar or anything.

anyway, we took the molds and put in our request. he's totally hype on it. we'll be his first set of wedding grillz. heh.

then we went and got the dotytron's suit and shirt and tie and got him some snappy, narrow, classic shoes to go with. this week i'm hoping to print out the invites and have those mailed off. the invites are mostly a formality. but i had fun making them, i must say...even if it revealed my distressing tendency towards twee and cutesy design.

i'm not gonna lie. it's been a hella long day. we woke up at 5 in the a.m. to get T to the airport on time. i'm a super sad perogie that she's gone. i know a zillion people but have like, 2 friends. it sucks the big one when one of them lives across the country.

fin.

--------------------------------------------

mona's mother's mother's favourite cookie recipe

1 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 c. flour
1 1/4 c. rolled oats
3/4 c. shredded coconut
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 c. chocolate chips (i used milk chocolate ones this time, just to be saucy)

- cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy
- add the egg
- stir in the rest of the ingredients
- chill that shiz down
- preheat the oven to 350F. scoop out tablespoon sized balls and roll them up (i make mine on the large side - using the 1 1/2" diametre ice cream scoop) place them well apart on a silpat lined cookie tray (they spread. beware!)
- bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and lacy.
- cool on tray until they keep their shape and savour with a glass of cold milk

trip the light fantastic

i don't know what that phrase actually means. but so strongly do i feel about e. lockhart's amazing authorial talents and so hastily did i write that post last night, that i feel i didn't hit the point home well enough yesterday. e. lockhart is a FANTASTIC author. go pick up her books. do it now! you will instantly be transported back to high school, except it's kind of the best possible high school experience because you're one removed from the ACTUAL trials and tribulations and angst. ruby oliver is a winning protagonist and her surrounding cast are equally endearing. did i mention she has hilarious sessions with her shrink and fantastically kooky parents who sound just like real (white) liberal parents living in seattle? did i mention that i'm positively salivating at the prospect of ruby oliver book 3 'a treasure map of boys' and upon its purchase anticipate unplugging myself for the entire blissful 4 hours 2 days it will take me to hastily devour (4 hours - first pass) and slowly savour it (2 days - second pass)?

i actually don't have time to talk. dr. rei is meeting me shortly and we're going to walk to the subway stop that will put me on the bus to take me to dodgeball. thursday night dodgeball is in some faraway land known as st. clair and dufferin. it's the ends of the earth! plus i have to use my precious free time feverishly finishing knitting a shawl that i want to block tonight to gift tomorrow. this shawl has been TWO months in the making. shawls should NOT take 2 months! well, i guess they do if you lead a fantastically busy life and put it in time out after one too many times undoing messed up rows (that's 300+ stitches to a row, friends.)

i'll update with more plummy book reviews tomorrow!

fin.

auspicious

yesterday was little miss ramona's FIFTH birthday. she is FIVE! it was five years ago yesterday that the dotytron called in sick to work and he, my mom, and i drove down to geneseo, ny in the early hours of the morning to nervously circle the hospital. while eating breakfast in an IHOP, we got the call that the little miss was born and that i was officially an aunt, the dotytron and unkie dodo, and my mum a grandma.

holy eff the time has gone by fast. i have mild pangs that i don't have a little bobbin of my own yet and that my kids and my sister's kids are going to be far apart in age. but there's nothing that can be done about that when your mom didn't have the foresight NOT to wait 7 years between her first and second childs. ah well, in due time. to be honest, the dotytron has more anxiety about it than i do. lol! i think he underestimates how close my family is. i think i see my sister more than people who live in the same city as their siblings.

so yeah, that was pretty auspicious. what was MORE auspicious is that when i changed into a pair of jeans to go look at houses with our realtor, i found FORTY BUCKS in my pocket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm going to buy a lottery ticket or two with that money. perfect! this comes at a much needed time because even though i just got paid on thursday, because of my unrelenting and spartan savings/debt repayment regimen and budgeting, i only had $25 to tide me over until the next paycheque. ha. it's actually not that unreasonable - part of the budgeting had been spending money for when i go down to the states next weekend, so really, it was only money to carry me during the week - and now that i'm biking, it's really only money for spending on food or something.

but who cares about that now? I'M FORTY DOLLARS RICHER!

so much to tell you folks! wednesday night i worked late at work and came home to perogies prepared à la dotytron (per my instructions.) basically he sautéed some onions until they were golden brown and then tossed some perogies in and dotted them with butter and salt and pepper and threw it in the oven. the point is, i ate so many that i got 'rogie sick.

thursday night i met up with dr. rei and we went to my dodgeball game where i had a class-A wigout on the other team because they started getting all cranked that we were tooling them. in particular, this one blondie in green shorts shorts kind of hated me (blondes always hate me! i don't know why?) we got a dude on our team with a super insane arm and a really hard throw (eeen) and he hit one of their girls in the neck-chest region (close to the face) and then she said something like, "that's the third time" and then her lunkhead bf came rushing onto the court and started calling out eeen saying that he should ease up on his throws when he's throwing at girls. which OF COURSE makes me turn into instant apocalyptica, for a few reasons that i'll itemize here because i believe firmly in the beauty of an itemized list:

1) yes, eeen has an insanely hard throw, but it's not like his arm is so accurate that he could make adjustments and calibrate it so that what hits at the waist on a 6ft tall dude would also hit at the waist on a 5ft tall girl (she was short.)
2) he's not doing it on purpose.
3) their guys weren't letting up on the girls on my team, but because they had crappy accuracy and weak arms, it wasn't such a big deal
4) getting hit in the face is nothing. it kind of stings and you're kind of taken aback for a second, but it literally doesn't last more than 10 seconds of shock. it's a foam ball, fer crissakes.
5) it makes me about 10 different kinds of insane when people think that girls can't take the treatment in dodgeball. it's coed mixed sports. either stand up and take it like a true playa, or step down and play with julio down by the schoolyard, 'naw mean? i would NEVER ask a dude to lighten up on me. throw it as hard as you can! i want to be able to catch that shiz...i want to get better at the game.

anyway, that was that drama. so i started yelling my little buckshot shorty face off and running at the mouth (not very sportsmanlike of me, but whatevs.)

then i went with dr. rei to meet some of her tuesday night dinnie crew at duff's for wings and fries and such. it was a good time...we covered a lot of conversational ground - state sanctioned gambling, agency, the occult...it was good times.

yesterday after work i went and checked out some houses with our realtor. attention all potential home buyers: when the listing says "attention renovators" STAY AWAY! lol! generally when houses look too good to be true for the price on the listing, it's because there are nests of rats living in the place (seriously, i saw a place that was like that.) some of the houses were disgusting. obviously suffering from years of neglect and being used as boarding houses. it was gross. i am NOT prepared to do that much work to a house for a few reasons - i don't have that capital available, above and beyond the purchase price, and as much as one of the houses broke my heart because it was soooo big and beautiful and the bones were there, you were looking at $100,000 in renos. plus the house was listed at a stupid price. if it was $200,000, then fine, that makes sense. this place was $335,000 and it was the one that looked like it hadn't been lived in in 50 years (the sad thing was, it was tenanted up until 3 weeks ago) and literally had PILES of mouse crap in corners - it was so gross we hand sanitized the eff out of ourselves after.

i saw one cute place...same owners for 50 years...lot of love. super outdated but the kind of thing where it's livable...mostly cosmetic changes...it had one of those cute attic lofts where you have this hook thing to pull the trap door with stairs down from the ceiling. that was the most viable. the realtor said it was good coming out with me so that she gets a sense of what i mean when i say that i'm willing to do some work. am i willing to take a place down to the brick? no. am i willing to basically live in tent city while my house gets worked on for a year? big no. anyway, i really really really like our realtor and i feel we made a good choice.

i made a quickie dinner of the old reliable spicy beef and kimchi udon and then we went and saw the first of our hotdocs. in deference to K's geriatric schedule, i'm not going to do a review just yet until she's had a chance to see it. i don't want to spoiler alert anything.

today is errands, working on the garden, baking bread, researching disney restaurants day. then i'm having dinner with my mum and her friends and s-dawg at lemongrass in the no-man's land between markham and scarborough. it's getting super good reviews. then we're coming home and SLEEPING! i'm feeling mega sleep deprived lately and tomorrow is a big day with dodgeball and two documentaries.

a demain.

fin.

adventureland

is the definition of winsome.  the "from the director of 'superbad'" tagline is doing it a major disservice, if you go in, as my friend N did (we talked about it today and he didn't like it) expecting a blue, raucous comedy with side-splitting laughter.

what you get instead is a fantastic gem of a coming of age, post-university, self-discovery flick that unfolds over the most portentous of youthful seasons, summer. the summer that stretches long and practically reverberates with as-yet-to-be-discovered potential when you're a teenager suddenly turns on you when you're finished university, yawning before you and encapsulating the entire rest of your life in its bottomless depths. jesse eisenberg does a great job of portraying the stuttery, nervous, teetering-on-the-edge-of-cynicism protagonist, who still has enough romantic in him to believe that he can have what he wants (columbia journalism degree) but has been burned enough from wearing his liberal arts education on his sleeve to not quite trust his own sensitive, nice guy allure.

i loved the soundtrack - it was a spot on reference of 80s cool without devolving into pastiche (no 99 luftballoons here!) i loved the way the movie was filmed, kind of gritty and without flash and sparkle, the way you remember those insignificant but portentous defining moments of your own youth when glazed with nostalgia. the camera catches the summer light just so, and the magic hour between dusk when conversations flow limpidly from one tangent to another is rendered in perfect hazy shades of midnight blue. it felt really real and you could get lost in the stories and the characters - you could feel/remember the burning thrill of furtive summer make out sessions in the back of a car, the scenes flush with tenderness even as the air turns thick with desire.

the pacing was great, the performances were well-acted and believable overall - even though kristen stewart seems to only be capable of playing one role, it's one she does well. i thought the only off moments were in the kristen wiig and bill hader roles...it almost seemed like they thought they were in a different movie. it was a little too much of a caricature and i say this even as i find kristen wiig super funny the rest of the time (hader is hit or miss with me.) i thought the film had enough funny moments without those two kind of over-playing their hand.

the film showed a deft hand for human relationships and realistic moments. i really enjoyed it and i highly recommended. in my film notebook, it gets a star in the margins.

i initiated D in her first chipotle burrito experience. it was tasty! i wish i lived closer or the AMC food court wasn't SO packed with good stuff so that my dinner options aren't always so divided. everything in that food court looks really appetizing and fresh. K and J make lovely movie company as always.

tonight was the first thursday night dodgeball game of the season. for some reason, my team signed up for the rec league and we demolished our opponents 23-3. i think they wanted to play rec so we could play against this other team that my team seems to be all weirdly buddy-buddy with. i find it kind of odd. i mean, i don't mind making friends with other teams, but playing rec when we should be intermediate just so we can play people on a team that we ALREADY play against on sundays seems wack.

another wack thing is that originally we weren't going to play this other team at all and then this dude on the other team emailed the league so that we could play against each other, which meant shifting the gym location so that it's way the hell up in east york and now MY team is talking about getting a zip car to get there (it turns out it's actually pretty accessible by bus, if you live on the east side, as i do.) but i'm like, guys...that's totally wack! i would NEVER care enough about another team to re-jig the schedule and make it MORE inconvenient and necessitate RENTING a car just to play against people we already play against. i'm a little pissed off at it. if it hadn't have worked out that i can get there easy by bus i totally wasn't going to throw in on a zip car and i would've bailed entirely.

i'm not really into unilateral team decisions being made without consultation - especially when those unilateral decisions are made for stupid reasons (because some people really want to play against another team - THAT WE ALREADY FACE OFF AGAINST ON A DIFFERENT NIGHT!) and they inconvenience people and mean we have to spend more money. that's kind of ghey, imo.

anyway, i ended up eating leftover indian food at work.

fin.

the crushing sting of defeat

so the non super bowl super bowl party totally turned into a more conventional super bowl super bowl because of the presence of one hebrew hammer who arrived at the party wearing a t-shirt that was festooned with the word "football!" AND who hasn't missed a super bowl in his whole life, and really, who am i to take that away from him?

so we watched it from beginning to end and by some lucky confluence of events, we managed to cobble together the OPTIMAL conditions for fun super bowl watching. some of the variables were planned: the food, the beer - even though i FORGOT THE CHEESE STICK AND JALEPENO POPPERS AT WORK!!!!!!! we still had way too much food though...between the nachos and the ribs, and the cupcakes, (we didn't end up touching the chili); some of the variables were completely fated: the combo of people who ended up showing up were amazing - my boyfriend, N, the hammer, and for a brief bit, aussie teammate R -; the fact that it was a really exciting, nail-biter of a game, with some historic super bowl moments and a crazy rally from the underdogs (whom we were rooting for, of course); and the fact that the hammer has this crazy knowledge of football ins and outs and trivia, and the added gift of being able to explain football to laypeople in an approachable and non-alienating way. somewhere in there, there were off-colour jokes told, discussions of newton's laws of thermodynamics, gossip, a discussion of the racist term "zipperhead" (which i had never heard before, and have since subsequently discovered through some group google that as far as the origins of racist terms go, is HELLA racist and really discomfiting), and general laughs and hijinks.

i think some of my dodgeball peeps didn't show because of some drama that went down at the game last monday, where two of my teammates walked off the court, mid-way through the game and left, due to some perceived malfeasance from our opponents. i've played quite a few games in my day and while the other team was pulling the classic "deflect-the-ball-onto-own-legs-and-not-go-out" routine (if you deflect the ball onto yourself, you're out.) it wasn't BLATANT and the two dudes on my team seem to have like, passive-aggressive issues...where they won't really stand their ground on the court and instead, complain to US about it, which does nothing but make me and N look away awkwardly and pretend we don't know what's going on. it's kind of hilarious. anyway, they walked off and left us there and then sent an email the next morning using inappropriate language in a non-reappropriating way and otherwise whinging and being babies about how they just couldn't take it, blah blah blah. so i sent a well crafted (hey, it's me!) response email basically telling them that when you walk off, you let your team down, and otherwise don't prove any point to the other team other than you got SHOOK. i just didn't have any patience for pandering to that crap. apparently then there were some sour grapes about that shiz after the fact, to other peeps on the team, even though most of the people agreed with me (but stayed silent, in a political move.) in other words, once again, the straight-talking loud mouth stick to her guns broad gets hung out to dry. le sigh.

in other news...i think i've become a pretty darn good dodgeball player. i need to work on getting my throws a little harder and more consistently accurate during the scramble, and i'm pretty middling at catching (totally have to beef up on that front...catching is the holy grail of dodgeball skills because it eliminates an opponent AND brings back a sidelined player from your team), but i've gotten good at the dodge and more than anything (and you can feel ready to insert your snickers here) i *THINK* dodgeball. in yesterday's game, i stopped play at one point when i was the last person on the court, after getting three people out in a row, and exclaimed (about myself!), "dudes, that was a SICK move!" lol!!!!!!! the amount of times i get hit out when i'm busy showboating after getting someone out is totally embarrassing but worth it for the laughs it generates.

tonight i ate leftover moroccan chickpea and squash stew with couscous and i'm treating myself to butterscotch pudding when i get home. unf unf!

this sports-heavy post has been brought to you by the word:

fin.

why saturday was the best

i forgot to mention another thing that made saturday one of the best days in forever...after the ROM, after poutine-ganza, after "twilight," and after 2.5 whoopie pies, i came home and had the BEST DREAM EVER! i dreamed that i was in high school with dave 1 from chromeo and that we were engaged in the thrilling tenderness of a blossoming high school romance. it was AMAZING! it was one of those situations where you KNOW you're dreaming but i seriously didn't want to wake up. i vaguely recall clutching at the down comforter and cocooning myself in it as a kind of poor meat-world substitute for his dream-world tender embrace. i did at least get to first base. gah!!! if ONLY i had gone to high school with dave 1 from chromeo! we both love hall and oates! it's a match made in heaven! instead i ended up with dotytron3000 from high school. i'm pretty okay with that...most days, anyway.

last night was the best! i played a really good dodgeball game (game-wise...sportsmanship wise i was terrible - yelling my head off like a meth'd up hockey dad)...i have to keep working on powering up my throws, but otherwise, i kept up the strategic, defensive play. then i came home and worked on my presentation (are you tired of hearing that yet? i am!) and ate the dhal which was super tasty. then we watched wall*e and i tried a new recipe for homemade hot cocoa. it's from pierre herme. it was good but still too sweet but not as sweet as the starbucks stuff so that was an improvement.

i effin LOVE "wall*e" i think it's a fantastic, imaginative, captivating exploration of entropy that's about a million times better than "bladerunner" (which is also about entropy and the nature of humanity - i kind of find it super-boring) (it's so cold! although i can appreciate the style of it.) wall*e is so sweet and human and inspiring/depressing. l'army found it boring, but we're diametrically opposed in terms of our movie appreciation. he didn't want to see "baby mama," and he liked "atonement" and "into the wild." we can't be movie buddies, i'm afraid. anyway...i really want to own it. it's actually laugh out loud funny and so tender and sweet and cute.

today is more fine-tuning the presentation (the tea is tomorrow! eeps!) and then dodgeball finals against a team that kinda hates us (and by us, i mean me) because i threatened to fight one of their girls once because she had no idea how to play and/or has no nerve endings because she can't feel when she gets hit with the ball and is thus, out. there's also this chubby jack black/chris farley character on the team who loves to get all angry-eyebrows WHIPTHEBALLSUPERHARD at you but i royally owned him once and so i can't get that mad at him. because the ownage was EPIC.

after dball the dotytron is picking me up with the parental automobile and we're going to fend off winter with a big bowl of hot, steaming pho at pho hung on spadina. a big big big bowl of pho (like homemade hot cocoa and marshies, and most fall/winter food, actually) on a cold day feels so good it's like a mutual hug between you and your innies. summertime sunshine feels like a hug on your skin, but wintertime rib-stickin' comfort food feels like your tummy is hugging you from inside.

can't wait!!!!!

here's a pic of last night's dinner:





fin.

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homemade hot cocoa
adapted from pierre herme, serves 2 generously

2 c. of milk
1/4 c. of water
2 T. of sugar (or to taste, the original recipe had 1/4 c, but i found 1/4 c. of sugar to be too sweet)
4 oz. high quality bittersweet chocolate

- heat all ingredients in a pot on low heat, stirring (or whisking) until the chocolate is melted (the original recipe has you pre-melt the chocolate and then add it in...but why dirty an extra bowl?) and the cocoa is smooth...try not to boil it. bring it just to the simmer and then turn the heat off and either whisk it vigorously or use an immersion blender (or pour it into a regular blender with the usual caveats and precautions of blending hot liquids) to make it extra frothy. pour into mugs. garnish with homemade marshmallows (aka manna from heaven).