In the blink of an eye

...your just over 2 year old turns into a teenager.  The Big Yam had a nightmare last night so we pulled him into bed with us at 3am.  This morning, as we were battling our first-day-back-at-work blues and getting up to an alarm, he was splayed out horizontally on our bed, face down, out COLD when we'd been up for over an hour.  We had the light on in the room and everything, and he couldn't be roused.  When I finally nudged him awake he got all super-dramatic about it, thrashing around and moaning and telling me that it was too bright and to "turn light off!"

There have been insane linguistic advances lately.  He's gone from announcing his desires with only nouns to constant, "I want"/"I don't want" (usually followed by a please).  We're also into a "What's that Mama/Baba?" phase that we can see is going to lead into the incessant "Why?" territory soon, because he's doing it already with stuff he knows.  Also, in the last week he got super into tea parties, to the point where too much hard play with our actual tea cups resulted in the necessity of a tea set purchase.  For the record: he likes his tea with at least 5 spoons of sugar, and he likes it hot (he'll put it in the oven for you if it's not hot enough).

We had mild cases of the Sunday blues last night.  It was rough going to bed at 9:30 and setting an alarm when we'd been used to staying up late and sleeping in.  But this morning, I put on my GAP skinnies, pulled on my blazer, rolled my cuffs,  put on my booties at work and felt like a BOSS.  I can't help it - I just love working and I love my job.  I feel so fulfilled.  Tore through my vacation inbox gleefully and put things in motion and felt GOOD.

So.  New year.  I don't usually do resolutions, but if I was to try to be conscious of something it would be to be try to up my positivity and not be such a negative b***h, letting idiots and people who bug me send me into a time-sucking rage (over usually, very small things).  I would also try to be conscious of trying to be more relaxed and less control-freak and most importantly, making an attempt to humor people (like, my mum) instead of always trying to make sure the record is accurate.  Trying to make sure things are accurate is like, a huge fault of mine.  It makes it hard to let things go.  This is made difficult by the following:

1) I believe in informed choice
2) I believe in accuracy (and indeed, my job is basically to be an arbiter of reliable, accurate, and current information)
3) I have the memory of an elephant

Most people do NOT have my elephantine-like memory, which makes it difficult for me when I'm like, "100% this happened," and they remember it differently.  On the one hand, I can't HELP the fact that I have near-total recall.  On the other hand, I gotta learn to pick my battles and like, let it go sometimes.

It suits my narrative to think that people find me prickly because I'm loud, sure, confident, and an industrious pig with an elephant's memory.  I can construct the resistance to me as being anti-feminist and the fact that people like a woman who is more chill and laid back and less forceful.  I can recognize that this is a convenient narrative for me that obscures my need to look more closely at myself and try to attenuate my responses to situations so that they don't engender such a strong response in turn.  BUT (you knew there was going to be a giant but, there, didn't you?), I think a lot of the problem people have has to do with feminism and the anti-feminist need for women to be and act or express their opinions in a certain way.

This basically means that I'm not going to back down when the Dotytron's like, aunts and uncles espouse uneducated, simplistic, and sometimes downright offensive racist or anti-union opinions on a public forum like Facebook.  I'M PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE, DOTYTRON AUNTIES AND UNCLES!!!  I HAVE THE FACTS ON MY SIDE!!! Hahaha.

I'm currently reading this collection of essays called The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore and there's a section on birth control and child-rearing that talks about Margaret Sanger (who you will likely know as one of the most vocal proponents for birth control access).  She published an 8 page monthly newsletter called The Woman Rebel (YES!) and in one issue exhorted her readers to:

"look the whole world in the face with a go-to-hell look in the eye."

To which I say a hearty, YES, GUY.

These are our breakfast and dinners lately:

Sour cream pancakes & English bacon

 Turkey dinner with stuffing, brussels sprouts salad, cumin roasted cauliflower, roasted garlic mash, for Dr. Rei, Hanbo, the Roomie, and L'Armi

 Sweet potato pecan pie for the same turkey dinner.  I cut back on the sugar in the sweet potato layer and it made it very potato-y.  I won't make that mistake again!

Turkey soup with dilled matzoh balls - leftovers from the turkey dinner put to good use as the Dotytron is feeling sick.

Not pictured: the baked whole wheat penne with tomato sauce, ricotta, and meatballs, covered with a thick, gooey, browned, chewy lid of mozzarella that we had for Sunday blues dinner last night, alongside caesar salad.  All I've been craving lately is like, red-sauce Italian-American food and plenty of it - fettuccine alfredo, chicken marsala, veal parmesan and heavily dressed caesar salads.  Yum.

Fin.

You'll have to excuse me...

I'm not at my best.

So, it turns out the Big Yam gave me the hand, foot, and mouth disease.  NOT to be confused with foot and mouth disease, which is what cows and other cloven-hoofed animals get (so like, goats and horses and Tim Curry in Legend).  This has been a lesson in poor parenting.  Last week the Big Yam was waking up crying in the middle of the night so we brought him into our bed for a bunch of what we call "Sleep Away Camp" and I was kind of stressing because I thought he was just getting into the habit of it and didn't want to sleep in his own bed.  THEN he got this weird speckly rash on his butt.  THEN he had pretty bad cold symptoms (cough and runny nose) and he probably had a fever but we didn't check because we're the worst.  THEN he complained about having a "boo boo mouth" but I totally told him he was faking.

BEST MAMA EVER.  LOL!  So the worst.  On Friday, when I discovered I had FIVE cankers in my mouth, I naturally assumed that I had mouth cancer and hypochondriac me was already tearing up thinking of the Dotytron raising the Big Yam alone and how I was going to control their lives from heaven or hell.  Then I realized I'd had a stressful week (I had a job interview on Tuesday for a job I REALLY REALLY REALLY want but so does like, everyone in Canada and will most likely not get, meaning this will be my 3rd consecutive failed job interview) so that was probably it, but I was still like, that's kind cray because I usually handle stress well.  I also started getting weird blisters on my feet so I was like, "I should stop wearing stockings and kicks."  Anyway, I dragged Dr. Rei EVERYWHERE on Friday during lunch looking for Listerine to gargle with which burned the hell out of my mouth and gave me temporary relief.

Then on Friday night we had S & P over for dinner and suddenly I got these pin-prick blisters on the palms of my hands and more blisters on my feet so I started freaking out.  I went to the walk-in clinic that my doctor's office holds for patients (by the way: super hooray for the Family Health Team model, province of Ontario!) and the doctor was like, 100% hand foot and mouth.  By the way, at this point, my tongue is like 30% ulcerated and I'm in constant pain and talk like I'm brushing my teeth all the time.  The good news is: the virus clears up by itself in about a week.  The bad news is: there's not a lot they can give you for the fact that your mouth is on fire.  She told me about this juju Doctor's Book of Home Remedies bulls**t that consists of rinsing your mouth with equal parts Benadryl and milk of magnesia but that barely works.

In summary, my kid had hand, foot, and mouth and we did the following:

a) ignored him
b) told him he was faking
c) stressed about how we were going to "wean" him off of his only source of comfort (Sleep Away Camp)
d) sent him to daycare

BEST!  Apparently only kids and babies get this virus but occasionally it makes the jump to immune compromised adult humans (so in addition to not getting the job, the stress from the interview gave me s**t mouth, great).

I spent the weekend starting The Vampire Diaries which is pretty bad but also good because it features the signature teenaged Karl-Lagerfeld plot bait that is "the-bad-guy-who-falls-in-love-with-the-heroine-and-is-somewhat-but-not-fully-reformed-of-his-sexy-brooding-misunderstood-badness" (see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, EVERY HARLEQUIN ROMANCE EVER).

Then on Sunday we went to Canadian Tire to pick up Christmas lights for the front of Lil' Ugmo and I basically had a melt down and LEFT before paying to sit in the car in fulminating, sullen, tear-filled silence while the Dotytron paid for the purchases with the Big Yam.  Here is the context: EVERY YEAR the Dotytron complains about how we don't have a plan for our lights and how he doesn't like them.  Every year, I've put them up.  So this year I was like, let's do it up proper.  We go, and the Dotytron did this thing that he does where he gets all weird and super-unhappy about shopping for anything that's not a pick-up for his Tele or like, vintage records, and was all abdicating responsibility for the decision-making and I got super-frustrated and then gave up and had a meltdown which resulted in: leaving the Big Yam and the Dotytron in line to pay for our purchases to sit in stony silence in the car, followed by tears and lots of f-bombs at the house.  IT WAS CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON ME.  BUT ALSO CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON DOTYTRON.  Because I'm the one dealing with both families and making sure that people get presents and making sure that things get made for his family's various holiday potlucks and also getting stuff for the Big Yam and making sure that he gets a special holiday.  So yeah.  All the equality stuff I was rhapsodizing about in the previous post goes out the windows during the holidays through a combination of: being a psycho, lack of delegating, lack of communication, and internalized martyrdom.  Anyway, in order to mitigate that stuff I'm going to put him in charge of contributing something for the Doty family Christmas.  And otherwise delegate stuff out so that I'm not the only one responsible for the MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.  I hate myself for even talking about that right now.

Related: I find it weird when grown adults get amped about presents.  I just can't wrap my head around it.  It's so not me.  I'm of the school where if you want something, you go out and get it your own damn self.  I guess there is the case to be made for stuff that you want but will never get for yourself?  But I dunno...all the things I want, I'll get.  The notable exception being: one of these head massager thingies

which totally feel amazing and that I totally want but can never justify getting for some reason.  Although last Friday while I was dragging Dr. Rei around everywhere, she was like, "It's $5. TREAT YO' SELF."  So I did.  See how simple that process was?  I get that it's one thing when someone sees something in some Moroccan bazaar that is PERFECT for that other person and that other person is never going to be there to get it themselves and so they buy it as a present.  I totally get that.  Or when it's motivated by you seeing something thoughtful and going and grabbing it in the moment.  I just don't like the whole, birthday and Xmas need to produce manufactured pressure.  I just took a look at my own list of "stuff I want" and yup, I plan on getting all that stuff someday.  I'm trying to think of what I would want someone to secretly surprise me with and I can't think of a single g-d thing.  What can I say, I'm a self-reliant, endlessly practical person.  

I served P & S this gorgeous pork & poblano stew from the slow cooker - we destroyed it.  I served it with salsas, corn chips, and shredded cabbage.  There was supposed to be avocado too, but stupid Chinatown bargain basement avocadoes were mad bargain basement.  

For dessert: coconut tres leches.

Saturday night's dinner was similarly divine (though it doesn't look like much). Turkey tetrazzini - turkey and egg noodles and mushrooms with leftover gravy-jumped bechamel and leftover brussels sprouts folded in, baked with a crispy panko topping.  Casserole love!  

Served with bacon roasted carrots and parsnips.

Last night's dinner was inspired by April Bloomfield's cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig.  I made us ribeye with chimichurri, roasted broccoli with lemon & garlic, duck fat roasted potatoes (!!!!!) and sautéed mushrooms.

Tonight I get to dine with SMckay!

Fin.

Three Legged Pig

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


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


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

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

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

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


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

Cousins holding hands.

Country mouse kicking back.

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

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

This is a portion of my haul:

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

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

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

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

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

So that was me.  How was your weekend?

Fin.

fall blahs

i know. what the crap am i on about? i LOVE fall. but when i woke up this morning it was so grey and dark and misty and cold and the bed was so smushy and soft and warm and accommodating that it was difficult to shake the fog off and gird up the loins for another day in the trenches.

it was a humdinger of a weekend, too. friday was insane. up at the usual time, squeezing in grocery shopping, then a massage, and then home to bake a pineapple upside down cake, and then meeting my friend H at the clothing show, and then home just in time to grab the cake, whip some cream, and head to S & A's house for dinner (the most delicious sag paneer, grilled yoghurt-marinated chicken thighs, and rice ever!), and then from dinner to the lula lounge for an old skool jungle party. so epic! i can't believe i managed it.

being preggos at the club was mostly worth it - the first dj was playing all this steppy kind of source direct photek stuff which was putting the crowd to sleep, to be honest. the next dj stepped it up a bit with some ragga tunes, and then we left before seeing c64 & frankie gunns spin. it was a blast from the past though. mad o-g crew inside the ride, most of whom were gobsmacked at my present state - high school peeps, old promoters, the usual scene - it was fun to be out and about. if i wasn't so knackered we would've stayed past 1 but were were both dead tired and sleep had never seemed so good. don't worry, old skool jungle, i'll be back in your loving embrace in no time, and i'll leave the ball and chain at home! the dotytron was super-paro about me being there, making sure that i tell him if the fatburger started freaking out and not wanting me to put my glass of water down IN CASE I GOT ROOFIED. lol!

friday was made all the worse by the fact that i had to wake up a 8:30am after getting home at around 2am, to truck my butt the 1.5 hours to york campus for school. then i had to leave school 3 hours early to truck back downtown to get to K's wedding, hauling my laptop and all my life's possessions in my jansport lumberjack plaid knapsack and then doing a quick change like superman in the bathroom of the royal conservatory (which, incidentally, is a lovely place for a wedding). the dress i had elected to wear turned out to be slightly scandalously short when stretched over the belly. whoops. preggos skank at the wedding much?

the wedding was absolutely lovely and sweet and beautiful. K looked gorgeous and her mum was a freakin' hoot. the food, catered by daniel et daniel was so freakin' good i tottered out of there stuffed...and the speeches from the bride and groom were so sweet. i really admire people who are able to realize when a moment requires sincerity and can make a speech for their loved one that doesn't involve taking the piss and being an a**hole. i've yet to perfect that art.

sunday we headed up to markham to hang out with my sis and outlaw bro and the kids - it's the last time we'll be seeing them before my sis and i pop. they won't be coming up for thanksgiving because of the nearness of our respective due dates. we went to this place on main street unionville, the old country inn [note: for those who click the link - i have no idea where that statue of beethoven (?) is, but my mission next time is to find it for sure] for german food (i had krainer wurst and the dotytron had schnitzel). then we trucked the kids to glow in the dark mini-putt which is really a euphemism for ill-behaved children and instant migraines in a venue that smells like the ball room at charles e. cheese, aka like dirty kid sock feet.

after that, we went home to my mum & big d's place and k.o'd and said our goodbyes. my sweet sis started crying when we left and then it got ME started crying and then i basically cried all the way home in the car. my sis was sad because she won't be able to be here for me when i pop and i was sad that i wouldn't have my sis with me when i pop. i hadn't really thought about who i would want to have around for labour support until i went to the homebirth info night and heard about people who had their friends and mums around. i had kind of always envisioned it just being me and the dotytron, but then i realized it might be nice to have someone else there to give support or to give the dotytron a break. but when i thought about it, my options are kind of limited. i mean, my mum would be of absolutely no help as labour support - if anything she'd be the opposite of helpful. i think it's a lot to ask of any friend, even your bestie, to be massaging you constantly and to bear your grunting and cussing all naked and oozy and (potentially) pukey and (potentially) poo-y. but if i was to have someone else there, my sister would definitely top the list.

the dotytron and i were there just minutes after she gave birth to my niece and one of the things that got me motivated to get the heck out of the restaurant industry was not being able to be with her when she had to have an emergency c-section with my nephew - having to wait until there was a lull in service until i could sneak off and call her and make sure everything was okay. i didn't want to have that life anymore because i knew i would NEVER have been able to forgive myself if what usually happens with prolapsed cord babies had happened to little ze and my sister and i wasn't there for her, or had to find out well after the fact.

i love my sister because she wants to be there for me. because she is one of the most selfless, loving, kind, smart, and funny people i know. because she's so upset that she won't be able to meet the little fatburger right away that she'll start to cry and then make me cry. because i know i could ask her anything and she would do it and more importantly, because i know i've let her down before but she has an unfathomable (to me) capacity for giving and love.

after the big boo-hoo fest we arrived back at lil' ugmo and basically finished setting up spumante bambino's part of the room, which is also probably adding to my general level of blah. i'm freaked out, guys. i don't know what i'm doing or what's coming down the pipeline or how i'm going to handle it and how our lives are going to change and whether i'm going to be the same person when i come out the other end. there are just too many unknowns and i feel really unprepared and seeing the room basically set up feels both jinxy AND stressful because there is going to be someone pretty needy occupying that room and something's going to have to give and i'm afraid that it's going to be some essential part of me that's going to make me not me anymore, or make me and the dotytron not us anymore. there's this weird mix of anticipation and trepidation in the air and it's not helped by the dark mornings and darkening evenings and increased time spent indoors.

i wish things weren't so busy right now. i wish i could carve out a bit more time to enjoy and luxuriate in having a household of 2 - i wish lesson planning and grad school readings and life wasn't getting in the way as much. hmmmmm...as i write this, i'm thinking that maybe i should take a bigger chunk of time off before my due date.

last night i whipped up a frugal/CSA busting meal of swiss chard, genoa salami and pesto bowtie pasta. the fancy pasta was given to me as a birthday present from my colleague T.

tonight i made us roasted tomato soup with a hot artichoke dip for dipping bagel chips and leftover cracker-y things from our shower in. i also made a big batch of tomato sauce. i'm trying to double up on meals and freeze things for later - the roomie jokingly said that her shower gift for me would be use of her freezer for all the meals i'm putting away and that's actually THE BEST GIFT IDEA EVER. i'm going to need it.

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

creamy hot artichoke dip

not sure how many this serves - maybe 6-8 as a appetizer dip? it makes enough to fill a 9" pie plate - adapted from bon appetit

1 8 oz. package cream cheese
2 1/2 T. sour cream
2 T. mayonnaise
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1 T. prepared mustard
1 clove of garlic minced (approx)
1 t. worcestershire sauce
1 t. hot sauce

1 c. grated mozzarella cheese

- using a mixer or the food processor, blend together the first 8 ingredients, then fold in (or pulse) the artichokes and mozzarella cheese
- transfer to a suitably sized baking dish
- bake in a preheated 400F oven until dip is bubbling and brown on top.
- serve hot

note: the original recipe called for green onions and minced seeded jalepeno to be folded in - i didn't have those things and didn't do it and it still tasted fine. obviously, this recipe has a lot of flexibility. you could also add canned crab for a hot crab and artichoke dip or a package of thawed, drained, and chopped frozen spinach for a hot spinach and artichoke dip. you could also add asiago cheese or grated parm as well.


fin.

guys, i sound like an ungrateful jerk

griping about my stupid registry.

i'm sorry.

i came into work today super-pumped to be wearing my lady-boots from last year only to find that they're so tight they not only gave me a blister but ALSO aggressively drilled a hole through my favorite pair of grey cotton tights in the process. and the blister hurts so much that i can't wear any of my work flats in the boots' stead.

so now i have to get the dotytron to meet me at work with the box of work shoes that i had put in the car and which he, in his infinite oblivious wisdom, has neglected to take out of the car (despite my repeated exhortations to do so) for the past week, so that i can retrieve my birkenstock clogs out of there and limp my way to book club.

the hurty-ness of the blister coupled with my latent fear that these lady-boots that i only bought LAST WINTER might never fit again because my feet might be fulfilling their pregnancy imperative and turning into canoe paddles has made me a right grump.

gifts are gifts and i'm a lucky button to have so many people in my life who want to show their love to the fatburger. and that means that i'm ever so grateful for the generosity of spirit exhibited by those near and dear to my heart.

fin.

in which the spirit of the season

escapes us (but is regained)

flash back to early last week - dinner is made, a stack of 50-odd xmas cards sits on the table, envelopes at the ready, return address labels printed at the UPS store, the annual newsletter obligingly waiting to be folded. i summoned the dotytron to sign and stuff cards. the dotytron: much aggrieved because we had just finished sending out the last of our thank you cards from the performance. as we plodded our way through them, tempers began to run short, glib phrases eluded us, we were forced to retreat to the comforting, bland pablum of stock holiday well wishes. "i don't know what to write!" the dotytron exclaimed, throwing down the pen in frustration. "just write SOMETHING" i hissed (need i tell you dear reader that i was well into what the dotytron calls, "monster mode"?), those are for our B-list friends ANYWAY." at which point the dotytron looked at me and the ironic weight of that statement settled into the vacuum of our ill-humour. lol!

the dotytron also said this past week, "they're not friends, they're just PEOPLE." ha!

the holiday concert dog and pony show is another thing that's turning us into miserable scrooges. poor dotytron's pedagogical philosophies and praxis are being trampled in the wake of turning miscreants into a cherub choir with non stop rehearsals and drills - all in the name of appeasing doting parents.

all i really want to do is be in my flannels and drink hot chocolate and mulled apple cider and eat warm cookies and hearty winter foods with my feet in sheepskin slippers and a ball of yarn by my side. the one thing the "where the wild things are" movie got right was how delightful it is to sleep in a pile.

so...s-dawg has been pestering us for the past few weeks to go see "the blind side." - every time we talked about what movie we were going to see, either over the holidays or at that particular convergence of the siblings, he was always pushing for "the blind side" while we were saying anything else: "up in the air" "the fantastic mr. fox" "sherlock holmes" "avatar" - thus, when i opened my email inbox yesterday morning the first thing i was confronted with was an accusatory email from s-dawg with a link trumpeting "the blind side"'s sleeper overtaking of "twilight: new moon" at the box office this past weekend and how we were all basically the worst people on earth for not trusting his sound advice! ha!

the xmas cards have been mailed...i've got 99.9% of my shopping done - i just have to wrap the last few presents. after this weekend both holiday parties with the dotytron's maternal and paternal extended families will be in the can and i can just REEELAX. my baking is 80% done...i just have to do a batch of salted caramels and a batch of cream cheese brownies and make 2 dips on saturday to bring to the party. i feel like i can relax. i'm going to put our new flannelette sheets on the bed tonight and our new duvet cover and i'm hoping i can coax the dotytron to go out skating after dinner so we can come home and drink hot chocolate and watch tv in the blinking glow of our xmas tree. i'm feeling pretty good! so the spirit of the holidays has been restored, as it always is, by the peaceful restful period that always follows in the wake of "monster mode." a little bit of (shrill) (tense) (snippy) pre-holiday pain for a lot of gain.

the moral of the story is: most of life's problems can be solved with the right bedding (and lists and preparation and sheer, iron-willed resolve and determination.) i'm a bedding junkie. i want as many outfits for my bed as i do for myself.

so i started a book club at work. the first book we read was joseph boyden's "three day road." this was a lovely, moving, deep, rich book - a perfect book club pick because it's the kind of book where as you start talking about the book, you pull a thread that connects to a theme and the whole story starts to tangle and unravel and wind itself in densely woven allegories and motifs that become available and knowable only through the discussion.

it's the story of two aboriginal boys, close enough to be brothers, one of whom returns from world war II, heavily addicted to morphine and is met by his aunt, who takes him on a 3 day canoe ride back to their home. on the trip, recollections of the war and his aunt's history are alternated and gradually laid out, trapping within the net of the narrative a greater examination of the residential school system, racism, the affects of war, humanity. it's a beautifully written literary novel - at once savage and sparse, meaty and elegant. i usually shy away from serious canadian fiction - the "canada reads" kind - not generally my cup of tea. come to think of it, heavy literary novels haven't been my cup of tea since like, undergrad. that's the good thing about a book club - it forces you to read things you might not otherwise.

after delving headlong into Serious Fiction...i ran out and grabbed sarah dessen's latest, "along for the ride" practically on the day it came out. what to say about a new sarah dessen that i haven't already said about her other works? this one was good, not as good as my two favorites, "this lullaby" and "just listen" and not as bad as the ones i don't like, "that summer" "dreamland" - it falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. by now there's a fairly predictable formula - over a summer, teenage girl going through Serious Stuff meets a boy who helps her deal with her ish, open up to her vulnerabilities, expand her horizons - they fall for each other, minor misunderstanding ensues, they resolve issues in the end with a greater understanding of kinship, friendship, family.

i know it sounds trite and predictable and pat. in the hands of a lesser author, it might very well be. but somehow sarah just gets the balance just right. it's moral and ethically sound but not preachy, cool without being totally outrageous and sensationalist like gossip girl, safe but not cliché, real without being too "this is the diary of a teenage drug addict." it's beach reading of the highest order.

the next book club book was andre dubus III's "the garden of last days." he also wrote "the house of sand and fog" which went on to become a film that was lauded in Serious Film Circles. this title was recommended by a woman in the group who abruptly left the group days before the group was supposed to meet - the way it works is the person suggesting takes "ownership" of the work and agrees to come up with some discussion questions, so we were a little loss leadered. this was okay. i found it a bit of a trial to get through. it documents the lives of variously seedy/lost drifter types of characters whose lives are vaguely interconnected because they orbit around a strip club frequented by one of the men who would go on to participate in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

i mean, intellectually, I GET IT. depraved americans, for whom you feel pity and at once respect their earnest, blundering, well-intentioned ways. the humanizing of the terrorist, the way our lives are just babel-crash-amores peros - we're just fragile little beings so distant from each other, separated by race, history, culture, not knowing how alike we are in our futile, scrabbling, frantic, brief existences on this planet. i found it hard to sympathize with any of the characters and thus, to care. as the book club talked it out, we teased out what the author might have been getting at, but overall, it didn't go over very well.

by this point, we were well into my summer reading, and the next few definitely show it.

i couldn't get my hands on the newest installment in e. lockhart's ruby oliver series fast enough. i LOVE e. lockhart. sarah dessen is kind of a "good girl" writer. she writes about pretty typical experiences, the protagonists are nearly always tall, willowy white girls from solid middle class families, and it's the kooky best friend who is ever even remotely alt. e. lockhart writes about a more relatable high school experience from the true underdog's point of view - i can see myself in her high school more than in the ultra whitebread american one of sarah dessen's world. this book is like candy. i love how lockhart writes about ruby's parents, her friends, her reactions. i love ruby's pop-culture obsession and how she's so neurotic and flawed and imperfect and messed up and has really crackpot reactions to situations that make total sense if you've ever been a teenage girl. i love the footnotes - they're funny and not at all pretentious. i'm already salivating for roo number 4, titled "real live boyfriends"

okay that's enough reviewing for me today. the next ones coming up are doozies and then i went into a solid fall comic book phase which i'm only just now getting myself out of.


tonight for dinner we had perogies with onions and bacon and a spinach salad with avocado, shallots, toasted pumpkin seeds, and a maple-balsamic vinaigrette.

roll call of awesome:

the grain edit blog makes me beyond happy. i'm in love with everything on it. the current holiday giveaway they're sponsoring hepped me to all these amazing graphic artists/illustrators/designers.

the everything okay poster by mine. from the site: "This poster is the first in our series of art prints dedicated to exploring the OK-ness of things. It features 67 thoughtfully conceived pie graphs, each depicting a different statistic which may (or may not) be OK." the colours would go perfect in the living room, above my chrome rocker.

this print from wonder thunder. can you tell i'm super into acid yellow right now???


jez burrows work.

the "visible robot" print by brian flynn.

dora drimalas' work makes me yearn for infinite wall space.

lumadessa's whimsical, charming, graphic, blocky bird prints.


christopher lee's collection of beast prints.

this adorable print from christopher bettig/the mountain label - etsy shop here.

the "things i like" print from skinny ships/richard perez printed at valhalla studios, the same people who tad carpenter (designer of my cute hi! whale print) is associated with.

that's enough eye candy for one day! in another world, where i am rich and have miles of walls, i will have all of these.

fin.