Funny Snippets

Yo, can you believe that with a demanding job, 3 kids, and many interests and hobbies, that I don't have much time to blog no more??? CAN YOU???  ANSWER ME!!!

Here are some funny bon mots, one-liners, quips, and happenings from our world, lately.

We figured out a decent plan at the last few Micelli Mondays of summer 2016, which entailed going to a different pool (one with a water slide!), doing ridiculous poses on said slide (to the deadpan bemusement of the teenage lifeguards), swimming, then packing up and ensconcing ourselves at one of the picnic tables by the fenced-in playground, and me engaging in protracted negotiations to convince the good people at Domino's Pizza to deliver our pizza order to the closest park intersection, instead of an actual street address.  At our very last Micelli of the summer, we were finishing up our pizza, watching the kids play barefoot in the playground, when we heard the P.A. system of the pool click on, followed by:

"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....ttention, the pool will be closing in five minutes. Repeat: the pool will be closing in five minutes."

We DIED laughing.  The kid held the "uhhhhhhh" for SO LONG.  The commitment to the gag was pretty advanced.  It's the closest I've ever come to a legit Meatballs moment and it was a glorious way to send off summer.

Related, Dr. Rei reminded me the other day that we were referring to hot dogs as "problematic bae" at the cottage.  WHY ARE WE SO G-D FUNNY?!?

The Big Yam, after I got shouty and told him to pack up his pencil case off the dining room table, "Why are you always telling me what to do? Why can't you help a man who's six."

For a while there, when the twins didn't like what they were hearing from us/any authority figure/each other, they would say, "Don't speak those words!" (picked up from our caregiver).  "I want to watch something" "You can't" "Noooo! Don't speak those words!!!"

Quincess, sitting at the dinner table, being classic daydream believer, "Chickens come from eggs. They come from little eggs. It's vewwwy speshoul."  The way his lisping little voice has this faint Brooklyn edge - the way he rounds and extends the O sounds...kills us.

We were driving and passed by one of those houses that pop up in Toronto and are shaped like a barn.  Me: "I like those barn houses..."
Lindsay: "I want that barn house, too!"
Me: "Do you have money?"
Lindsay: "Uhhhh..." *spreads hands palms out* "No."
Quincess: "I found money!"
Me: "You did?"
Quincess: "Yeah, it was under the couch, it was golden."

For the Big Yam's birthday, he wanted to play Laser Quest with his family (!!!).  So we all posse'd up and went.  I just love my family, so damn much.  It was so funny.  You could hear S-Dawg shouting "DELETED!" each time he hit one of us. Before you go into the game zone proper, there's a holding chamber where they give you the rundown and ask you to recite the pledge.  Uncle Rico apparently knelt (a la Kaepernick) during the pledge...just ridiculous, ridiculous stuff like that.  This is where I come from.

The bird.

The plate.

The people.

The Big Yam on his birthday (!!!)

This past weekend was my mum's annual hospital fundraising gala.  The Dotytron and I don't usually go, but because this was the 20th anniversary, and our CLE fambam was coming up, we did.  What I didn't know, was that there was a Star Wars theme in the VIP room, and so, my night consisted of this:

 Almost the whole fam, plus the CLE contingent

Finally, out of nowhere, Quincess Leia has started busting out representative pictures of people and the Dotytron and I are gobsmacked.  It legit brings us to tears.  We became aware of it on Thanksgiving.  Q was working on a Magnadoodle, which Lindsay ripped out of his hands, resulting in tears, and Q slapping L upside the head.  When we revisited the Magnadoodle later, we saw a picture of a face similar to the one below, and the Dotytron went into high key CSI mode: "WHO DID THIS. WAS IT Q??? NO WAY. JUST TELL ME IF YOU DID IT." Interrogating my niece and nephews...lol!  Finally, CHova was like, "No, it was Q. He slapped Lindsay and then went over and drew it, I saw him."

 I know it doesn't look like much, but you have to understand that the Big Yam is only doing this level of representation, now.

Fin.

Things That Have Made Me Laugh, Lately.

NEW BLOGGING SCHEDULE SAY WHAT WHAT WHAT.

The Big Yam saying, "If you put a bag that says 'popcorn' in the microwave, you get magic."

The Dotytron threatening to take all the gimmicky board books away from the Wonder Twins, (gimmicks are stuff like, lift-the-flaps, really simple, non-narrative driven books) because they're too "indulgent" and "hedonistic" (!)  At one point, he pointed over at Quincess and said, "See!  Look at how gratuitous and hedonistic this is!" - cut to this scene:

Yup. So indulgent.

The Big Yam saying, "Yowza" while watching Jurassic World.  Apparently Jurassic Park franchise movies turn him into a member of Our Gang (you'll remember how he said "Goll-lee" watching the first film.)  When the Jurassic Park theme came on during the new film, ever so faintly, he said, "They have my favorite song!  How did they know it's my favorite song?" 

The Big Yam asking the other kids from the neighbourhood during our camping trip, "DOES ANYONE LIKE JOHN WILLIAMS???"

The Big Yam explaining the birds and the bees to me on the way to the grocery store: "If a woman who is a girl wants to be a mummy, she has to find a boy, tell him her name, and have birth."  [Since I straight-up never refer to mysel as "mummy" I at first he was talking about a preserved human.]

We went camping a couple of weekends ago (more on that later), and Lindsay learned a new skill - climbing out of his crib.  This lead to our return Sunday night's sleep being pretty brutal.  We were up and down all night picking him up, putting him back in the crib and telling him: "It's bedtime.  Lindsay sleeps here." Last night, as I was putting him to bed, I put a few layers of thick blankets on the ground so that if he fell, he wouldn't get hurt.  I checked in on the twins later and walked into the room to find Lindsay lying face down, head turned away from the door, one arm up over his head.  As I opened the door, he said, (without turning his head): "sleep here?"  It was so slovenly it was gold.  I was like, fine, whatever buddy...if you want to sleep on the floor you can until we sort out converting the crib to a toddler bed. 

This video of the kids slow-motion running towards some giant bubbles:

Slo-mo video in your pocket is the best thing to happen to life.  I can't wait to get it when I upgrade my phone in T-minus 8 years.

Camping, camping, camping.  Is it a surprise to anyone that I took to camping like a fiend?  We did a big car camp with our neighbours (five families - 24 people total) to the Warsaw Caves conservation area.  One of the main pros of car camping is that you can be as hedonistic (not in the Quincess quietly reading himself a book sense, in the "you can bring as much s**t as your car can take" sense) as you like.  Space and weight aren't an issue.  So we had blowup mattresses and I brought my cast-iron pan and I bought us a giant, 8 person tent which is about the same size as our living room in Lil' Ugmo, and we ate like kings.

It was a really nice long weekend.  The site was large so we weren't on top of each other, the fire pit was huge.  The good thing about our street crew is that the kids know each other so well that they can all entertain themselves and the adults can chill.  The other good thing is that we're all so used to being around each other's kids that we are all at ease with parenting (read: disciplining) each other's children.  We see each other's kids alot, in a "home from work, bra off" kind of setting, which means that a lot of the social barriers and "fear of imposing" have long gone out the window.  When you're outside after dinner as much as my street is, you rapidly get to the point where people are getting testy with their spouses and screaming at their kids with impunity.  It's easy for me to ask one of my neighbours to take the Big Yam to brush his teeth and not worry that they're going to be put out or worry about not taking his s**t.  We're also all used to monitoring a herd of small children, so whereas some of my friends are still in their "entirely focused on my one child" phase, and adding another kid into the mix would be adding to their plate unduly, with the neighbours it's effortless.

Like cottaging, camping is an extreme form of grown-up sleepovers.  Once the kids had FINALLY gone to bed we could sit around the fire and chat.  I mean, it would have been EVEN BETTER with some of my real homies.  Don't get me wrong, I'm relatively unfiltered around the neighbs but it's still gonna be different than hanging with people who've known me for 20 years.  I came home fired up with plans to do it again with our Markham crew, or maybe the Roomie et al.  This inaugural trip was all it took to open the floodgates.  I'm up for a canoe-in site.  I up for driving to Kilarney to see Ontario in all its wild, untamed, pump-up-the-volume glory.

Do I think I'm going to become one of those gear-heads who goes on a epic portages deep into the bush and dehydrates food?  Uh, no.  I don't ever want to be so constrained with having to "pack light" that I don't get to eat deliciousness and I'm eating astronaut pouches for dinner.  Part of the whole fun is setting up camp, and then cooking, because really, what else is there to do?  Food tastes better when you're outside.  We were lucky in that we had no rain...I can imagine that it sucks pretty hard when it rains the whole time, but it's still something you'll remember and that brings a family together.

So yeah, I went away a camping neophyte and came back a Griswold.

Scenes like this certainly helped:

Look, I like nature.  That's a legacy from my deadbeat dad (remember how I have a DAD?!  WHO HAS NEVER MET HIS TWIN GRANDSONS BECAUSE HE'S A GIANT REPRESSED WEIRDO PSYCHO WHO CHOSE HIS WIFE OVER HIS OWN BLOOD?!).  My dad taught me how to fish, and took us cottaging, and took us to cottage resorts when I was a kid.  I have really good memories of those experiences with my sister and Bruce Wayne.  Anyway, I like nature.  I'm a Romantic at heart - I dig my sublime, okay?

We took the kids to Bluffer's beach last Friday.  A little piece of urban paradise, a 15 minute drive from my house, deep in Scarborough.  Fine sand framed by towering rugged cliffs and warm, idyllic lake Ontario water rock-free, and knee high for a good 30 feet out.  We didn't go prepared but you better believe we will next time - set up our umbrella and laze the day away while the kids bank their sand-drenched sun sleep.  I dumped a metric tonne of sand out of water shoes on my way home (solo!  Imagine packing up 3 little ones from the beach, solo - the Dotytron broke off and went to school to set up for the year ahead), and it was one of those drives where I was frantically looking in the rearview mirror and entreating the Wonder Twins to stay with me, please please please, just stay awake and answer my inane questions about what noises animals make, until we get home so that you can serve your full nap in your own beds.

We also went on a hike through the Don Valley on Saturday, post-Evergreen Brickworks Farmers' Market.  All this was in lieu of visiting our friends S & P.  We went to our local farmer's market on Sunday, smoked 3 racks of ribs and had a feast with our friends B & G, and had a Micelli Monday on Saturday, so it was still a full, active weekend, but one where there were lulls during nap time when I could lie on my own couch and read a book and drift in and out of sleep to the sound of cicadas in the trees and the smoke from my neighbour's brush-burning fire drifting in.  It was perfect really.  I can't remember when we've had that kind of weekend in town...not since early July?

That lazy, drifty, frowsy kind of  Sunday is the exact opposite of my day today - when I took the kids to the CNE and there but for the grace of the neighbours who came with me, would probably have ended up buried under the sand sculpture, my face frozen in mid-disciplinarian "that crazy mom" shouting mode.  I made it out, but just barely.  CNE with kids is the perfect example of Einstein's theory of relativity.  TIME SLOWS DOWN THERE, AND THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN TELL ME DIFFERENT.  I lived about 10 lifetimes today.

My work hosted a "kids day" which was an employee engagement initiative spearheaded by my lovely colleague.  I would prefer my employee engagement in the form of a respectful, not-stifling work culture fostered by senior management, but maybe that's not always possible?  Heh.  The Dotytron brought the kids and it was pretty stressful because I have such a low tolerance for unacceptable behaviour and of course the kids were going buck.  Anyway, we ended up at A3 Napoli for dinner - which is a Naples-influenced street food spot brought to you by two of my Toronto favorites: Porchetta and Co and Pizzeria Libretto.  I thought it was going to be a gong show - Yelp said unequivocally "good for kids: NO" and the dining space was all those super-high bar-height tables that always have me inelegantly clambering stools like a bullrider being helped aboard an especially ungainly bull.  However!  We got there and they had two extra-tall high chairs and some colouring and the food was delicious.  We had a pizza, their gran fritto misto (which is a mixed bag of stuff from the fryer, served with pesto, mayo, and marinara).  Our fritto consisted of: fried zucchini (bliss!), fried scallions (like verdant onion rings!), fried meatballs (bogarted by Quincess!), fried arancini (oozing with cheese inside that was more cream than cheese!), calamari (as you would expect!), and frittatini (their version of macaroni and cheese, fried! Think: macaroni carbonara - then fried !!!!!).  We also had their batt, which is half a pizza fritta (touted as for one, but if you're ordering other stuff, totally enough food), which made me go in paroxysms of ecstasy.  Imagine if you will, the most perfectly thin-crisped fried, ungreasy dough edge, giving way to a Naples style pizza chew, the perfect bread-to-filling ratio giving way to the most creamy, unctuous, pure tasting essence of dairy (it's stuffed with buffalo ricotta, provola [I'm assuming provolone?] and cicciola [I had to look it up - pressed cakes of fatty pork.  OH YES].  The service was quick, they had decent beers on tap, and feeding our family of five cost about $60, which all combines to a win for me.

We went to visit my sister a few weekends ago and had a good time, (Dotytron found a bottle of rarer bourbon, we went to an indoor trampoline place, we avoided buying things because of our s**ty dollar, I taught my niece how to style her hair a la 50s rockabilly), and on our last day we hit the local veterans' food truck rodeo fundraiser thingy (they were raffling guns!).  Our crew is mostly pictured above.  As we were walking back to the car, I turned to the Dotytron, who had Quincess in his arms and the Big Yam by his side, "That was fun, do you want me to drive home?" at which point he turned to answer me, and then said, "UMMMM...WHERE'S LINDSAY?!????!!!"  S**t sons, I almost home-aloned my kid, in some village in New York State!  Thankfully the rodeo was tiny and I found the little miscreant standing under an adjacent tent to where we had been eating, shaking an open water bottle and cackling with glee.  I got lucky.  

The other night I made Marc Vetri's pappardelle with corn crema and charred scallions and it was deeeelicious.  Like the best creamed corn you've ever had.  I doubled the corn in the recipe because my kids are cornholios.  I served it with my go-to late summer salad of baby arugula, grilled peaches, and fried haloumi.  

I made Smitten Kitchen's sesame noodles (with Chinese thick wheat noodles) and served it with seared salmon (which my kids gobble up) and smashed cucumbers with tahini dressing.  Honestly, smashed cucumbers are all the rage, but I didn't think the smashing really did anything here, other than add time and effort.  

Back to school means that there's more Scarborough goodness back in my life.  Last week's takeout night was Babu.  Mutton rolls are my life.  

I made Smitten's hazlenut crumb plum tart for our dinner with B & G.  I doubled the hazlenuts because I love toasted hazlenuts, but should have upped the flour accordingly to absorb the extra fat.  My crust edges were crisp but the bottom got soggy from being too buttery (didn't know there was such a thing!).  I also would omit the custard next time and just throw in lightly sweetened plums, and perhaps more of them with a bit of something to bind the juices.  The custard got lost and the plums (I used Italian prune plums) didn't shine through against the toasty nutty strength of the hazlenuts.  I would make this again, but would tinker with it.  Hazlenuts should go in all crisps and crumbs though, as far as I'm concerned.  

Finally, the Big Yam has been OBSESSED with the concept of Taco Tuesday, so I've been trying to make that happen for him because it makes him so happy.  We had a taco salad tonight - lettuce, cabbage, leftover slaw topped with taco beef and black beans, guac, pickled onions, shredded cheddar (this is kind of a key component), sliced olives, sour cream, and salsa with some crunched up tostadas for added texture.  A very satisfying dinner salad.

Fin.

A funny thing happened...

Part 1

Two nights ago -

Me: "Ummm, we really haven't had a chance to sit down and talk about the Lance Armstrong doping admission to Oprah.  We should make some time for that."
Dotytron, not missing a beat: "Yeah, you're right, we'll have to try to get to that tonight."

LOL!  Reason #24601 why the Dotytron is the best: ability to roll with the punches.  Reason #24602 is the fact that we both know nearly all the words to Matthew Sweet's 90s classic, Sick of Myself.

I negative care about the Lance Armstrong thing.  One: because those bracelets were the worst.  Two: because I can't believe people are trying to recuperate his image after he was a cheating, weasel of a lying-face.  Three: I can't take anyone who dated Sheryl Crow seriously.

I've put the recipe for that chicken & kale casserole down below there, because it's delicious and because the Martha Stewart recipe that is the most Google-able calls for a whopping 48 OUNCES of ricotta, which to me is insane, because that's like, 3lbs.  The best thing about this casserole was the lemon zest in the mixture.  Revelation!  A little bit of citrus zest does wonders to elevate the starchy richness of a carb-laden casserole.  This might be a de rigeur step from now on.

We are battling the cold one casserole at a time.

Fin.


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicken & Kale Casserole
Serves 6-8 generously

1 pkg. whole wheat macaroni/penne/farfalle (375g)
2 T. unsalted butter
1 whole onion, chopped
minced garlic to taste
2 bunches kale, sliced thin or chopped into small pieces
3 cups cooked chopped chicken (I used turkey because that's what I had frozen)
2 containers ricotta cheese (I used the Silani Extra Smooth, 6% - which comes in smaller containers than the 454g ones you commonly see...but feel free to use 2 of the 454g containers.  More ricotta isn't a bad thing per se, but 3lbs is getting a little excessive, IMO).
zest of 2 lemons
3/4 c. grated parmesan
1 1/2 c. panko breadcrumbs
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

- cook the pasta as per package directions and then drain
- meanwhile, in a large skillet or dutch oven, heat the butter and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent.  Add the kale and cook until wilted
- add the chicken, and then turn the heat off.  Stir the pasta, the lemon zest, the ricotta, and 1/2 c. of the grated parm into the kale mixture and toss well to combine
- pour into a 9 x 13 casserole dish (or 2 8x8 baking dishes)
- mix the panko with the olive oil and the remaining 1/4 c. of parmesan cheese until the panko crumbs are thoroughly moistened.  Spread this mixture on top of the casseroles
- bake the casserole, covered with foil, for about 45 minutes at 350F-375F and then remove the foil.  Bake an additiona 15-20 minutes or until the panko topping is nice and browned.

In which I talk about two things that made me almost cry with laughter this week

1)  Some people loathe office culture.  I can see why.  Putting together a randomly assigned group of people to work on tasks for over 8 hours a day for years at a time means that the veneer of public-sphere normality that most people can maintain for short periods rapidly wears off.  People are weirdoes.  MOST PEOPLE.  A lot of other people can't deal with that.  I, on the other hand, REVEL in the banalities of office interactions.  I find it such a fascinating sociological experiment every day.  Assisting me in this is that I have an unparalleled ability to find humour in the mundane and to not get fussed when people are just being weird in a way that doesn't directly impact my life.  I can let a lot of stuff roll off my back.  This week I was taking a break with G and K at work and we were trying to remember all the student placements who have passed through our hallowed halls. At one point, one guy's name came up and G said, "oh I remember ___!  We used to call him 'The Doughnut Toucher.'"  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It makes me laugh because it is ONLY in a work environment where you could call someone "The Doughnut Toucher" and have it actually be a thing.  It is ONLY in an office where you will find yourself looking on in horror when you bring in a box of Timmy Ho's and see a fellow colleague pawing through EACH AND EVERY ONE.  LOL!!!  So funny!!!


2) My nephew, Little Ze, has had this stuffed bear named BoBo that's he's had since he was born.  The relationship has changed through the years - it started with Little Ze sleeping with him, and then sniffing BoBo's butt to get to sleep, and then stuffing BoBo down his pajama pants for reasons unfathomable to anyone but Little Ze.  It's been almost a 6 year relationship.  My sister sent an email this morning to the family with the subject line: "BoBo is dead" and the content that my poor nephew was too scared to go to the bathroom in the night, and pooped and peed in the bed, and it was "horrific" (in my sis's words) and that as a result, the BoBo decision was made to let BoBo go.  


I responded that when I first read the words: "BoBo is dead" my heart stopped a bit (given the past year or so we've had, not an unreasonable reaction), even though I know who/what BoBo is.


My bro then responded:



Seriously...let's refrain from using the D-word in the subject line of emails. *lol* 


PS  worst way to go ever.




^^^  The PS had me almost peeing my own self with laughter.  So funny!!!  Picturing poor BoBo dead by way of a poo/pee tsunami is hilarious on so many levels, not all of them scatological.  


Last night the roomie and L'Armi brought us dinner.  It was very sweet and we had a fun time.  Today is my day off - I'm doing the usual massage thing.  Followed by a dentist appointment and futzing around the house kind of stuff.  Tonight I'm having my friend E over for vegetarian food and crafting.  Wheeeee!!!  I'm making us chilaquiles with black beans and hominy and crunched up tostadas.  And churros for dessert.  The Dotytron is taking his sis out for dinner somewhere - which was our Christmas present to her.  This weekend is hectic, but fun - baby shower, art show, dinner with friends, house stuff.  The usual melange of mundane, life-propelling, life-affirming stuff.


Fin.

Feelings

Here's a tip for ya: people interviewing you for a job never want to hear about your feelings. 


Ha!  I went for a job interview last week, which is kind of remarkable considering I was still in the throes of post-traumatic stress.  But it was a hard-won interview and even though I love love love love love my job, I'm the kind of sicko who like Lisa Simpson, likes being graded and tested and so I go on job interviews (there are fewer and fewer opportunities for assessment as you get older).  Maybe it's because I miss the rush and pressure of the restaurant biz.  Who knows?  Either way, going on job interviews is good experience - it's a good fact-finding expedition, it forces you to keep your resume and cover letter current, it's good to find out how you stack up in the marketplace, and it allows you to brush up on your interviewing skills, which are good skills to have.  They're also the skills most likely to languish forgotten in the dusty recesses of your brain.


Now I did my due diligence.  I studied up on the organization's strategic priorities, did a thorough search, read the annual report, polled people to find out what their experiences had been interviewing for similar positions and practiced answers to the questions they had been asked.  Unfortunately, everything I studied - they didn't ask me about.  And instead they focused on very concrete, job-based experiences that I hadn't studied up on, and since I don't currently have that professional experience, I had nothing to draw from.  So...I ended up starting a lot of sentences with: "I feel" which is THE WORST.  I had that out-of-body experience where you can hear yourself digging an ever-deeper hole and yet you CAN'T STOP YOURSELF FROM RAMBLING ABOUT HOW YOU "FEEL" ABOUT THE SITUATION.  Worst!  "I really feel like I'd be good for the job because of x, y, z" is a horrible spot to be in.  They don't care how you feel!  People FEEL a lot of things that aren't germane!  Basically, I bombed.  Ah well.  Live and learn.  Now I know what to do next time.


The interview was epic.  2 hours long.  45 minutes to prepare a written component and then 15 minutes to study up on the interview questions before they brought you before the panel for an oral presentation of the written component and THEN the interview began.  Yikes.


Needless to say, by the time Friday rolled around I was ready to partay.  We had the roomie and L'Armi over on Friday night for some fun ice cream and cupcake eatin' and talking late into the night.  We're trying to name their baby.  It's tough.  L'Armi loves patrician sounding "family" names and the roomie likes names like "Moonbeam."  Not quite that bad, but pretty close.  It's hard trying to find a middle ground.


Sometimes it bears repeating: I am a lucky button with wonderful, smart, funny people in my life.  This weekend bore testament to that.


Saturday we chilled and did house stuff and then had dinner at J & S's house.  She made this awesome short rib-pinto bean thing and coleslaw and I made deviled eggs and mini chocolate pudding pies and she made this banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  My favorite part of the night was playing with their daughter, L.  We were peering our their window, with our heads under the shade looking for "night penguins" and then the Big Yam toddled up in his jammies and stood watch next to us and I thought my heart was going to explode.  So best!


Then we hustled home to welcome SMckay for a sleepover!!!  I LOVE SLEEPOVERS!!!  I really, really, really do.  Not for me the sanctity of the insular nuclear family.  I would still have roommates if I could live in a house big enough to afford each family their own privacy but still allowed us to lounge around together in our pjs and eat meals together.  I just like it. It's just my style.  Maybe because I don't edit myself?  That makes it easier.  I'm willing to always let it all hang out - friends or family bearing witness to the domestic strife be damned.  That's just the way it goes, naw mean?


Anyway, hanging with SMckay was obviously the bestest.  We were talking about online dating and looking up this one site that I had read was where all the hipsters go to hook up and the Dotytron made me howl, because he woke up from his slumber on the couch to inquire, "What's going on?  Are you talking about MASH?  Are we doing MASH?"  LOL!  It just makes me laugh how he was suddenly an expert at MASH and totally wanted in (that's Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House to you).  


The next morning we took SMckay to Bonjour Brioche where we ordered a giant breakfast and then went to Lolly's to help her paint her new adorable cute house.  We painted a good chunk of the day and then broke to head to Lil' Ugmo for a post-painting takeout/Family Day hangs session.  First SMckay made us stop at Sherway to go to MAC.  It was crazy so we were circling around FOREVER trying to find a parking spot.  We saw a guy standing next to a car with his back to us, so we're like, "Sweet! Is he leaving?" only to realize that he was PEEING IN THE MALL PARKING LOT.  WHAT. THE. HELL.  Who does that?!???  We all screamed and drove away so fast, completely traumatized.  


We got Chino Loco's for dinner and then basically goofed around creeping on online dating sites and profiles and had the best time ever. I laughed so hard my tummy hurt.  The Dotytron was killing me.  We were all basically group-writing messages to various suitors.  One of them messaged us accusing us (rightly) of "creeping" on his site.  To which the Dotytron had us type back: "Who is the creep?  The creep or the creep who creeps the creep?"  There was a bit more back and forth and then we were left with the task of writing a closing message to this one guy who was a bit of a dummy dud, but a nice one.  The Dotytron's suggestion?  "One last creep.  Goodnight, sweet prince."  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!!!!!!  GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE!???!!!???  I'm STILL laughing out loud about that, 2 days later.  


Monday we went to hang out with my fam-bam cuz my sis was in town with all the cousins.  She and I took the kids swimming and as we were entering the community centre, we turned around to hurry the kids and were stopped short by the overwhelming cuteness that was Miss Ramona holding the Big Yam's one hand, Little Ze holding his other hand, and also Little Big Cuz.  The four of them holding hands and walking was the CUTEST. THING. EVER.  I basically died inside.  We had dim sum lunch and then Phoenix for dinner.

The Big Yam's first dance with whipped cream straight off the beater

The Big Yam and Little Big Cuz swarming me when I pulled out a banana.  They're like banana zombies.  Instantly drop whatever they're doing and stumble over.

So in short: I basically had the awesomest Family Day weekend ever.  We had big friend laughs and love, big family laughs and love.  What more could you want?  


Today was pancake Tuesday so for dinner we had blueberry buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and a fat baby with bourbon caramel sauce and ice cream for dessert.  


Fin.

I saw the sign

and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign (life is demanding, without understanding)"


I was randomly singing those lyrics tonight during dinner and the Dotytron was all like, "What does that even mean (specifically referring to the 'life is demanding/without understanding' part)?" and then I started futzing on my computer and tuned him out while he was pondering out loud, only to tune back in to catch the phrase, "a really capitalist perspective."  So then I go, "I have no idea what you're talking about" to which he replied, testily, "I'M TALKING ABOUT THE ACE OF BASE. YOU KNOW GODDAMNED WELL WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT."  At which point, I DIED LAUGHING.  LOL!!!!!!!!  HOWLZORZ!!!  "The" Ace of Base is the best 4-word combination I've heard in recent memory.


So, I have an important fashion tip update.  The other day I rocked a pretty slamming outfit at work - my shrunken (kid's bat mitzah Value Village) blazer, my real skinnies from the Gap, and this orange patterned sleeveless blouse with this touch of black net overlay around the neck.  POP POP!  Plus I got my hair thinned by SMckay when she came over for movie night with Lolly the last Thursday before vacation ended and I had put the effort in to straighten it so I looked pretty boss.  Benetint on the cheeks + straight hair (so much easier to straighten when I have 50% less of it on mi head!) = fly.  ANYWAY, MHui gave me a good tip: ladies, don't wear your shrunken blazer with capris, otherwise you look like your clothes got sent through the dryer by accident.  It's a little too Pee Wee Herman, naw mean?  Okay good, carry on.


Speaking of the opposite of shrunken, while in the States, I went to Stride Rite to stock up on real shoes for the Big Yam, seeing as how he's walking around now and I don't want his indoor slippers getting all jacked up on concrete and whatnot (my views on indoor/outdoor shoes never the twain shall meet-ing are well known round here).  Turns out, my kid needs DOUBLE EXTRA WIDE shoes.  I liken it to stuffing a cabbage roll inside a teeny tiny miniature sneaker.  His feet are as like, as tall and wide as they are long. Not quite, but it's kind of cute...the little fat footed f**ker.


Ehmdo has some new chunes a gwanning.  She sang on this Canadian country dude, Josh Macumber's song, Tomorrow and got to be in a big, fancy video:




I kinda find that Josh guy to be...uh...not a looker, per se, but the song is catchy in a red-state kinda way and Ehmdo looks really pretty in it.  All that glamming up makes her look older than her years, though, which makes sense because they probably don't want Josh perving on some young 'un.  When I watch the video, I keep thinking to myself, "JUST COMPLETE THE PHONE CALL!" cuz the phone gets hung up so many times.  LOL!  

This is the video for the first single off her coming album (one of my favorite songs on the album):




Oh you fancy, huh?  So fancy!  I'm so proud of her.  


I took today off of work to take the Big Yam to get his 15 month shots.  He was such a trooper and we had a really nice day together.  I normally try to ditch him with his daycare provider on my days off so I can do stuff unencumbered.  Stuff like: groceries, banking, cleaning the house, etc.  But I was talking to my friend G at work and she was saying that she keeps her kids home with her on her days off, because soon they're going to be in kindergarten and she won't even have the option of taking them out to stay home and I got all guilty and totally changed my attack.  She speaks the truth!  I should cherish these days I get to spend with him...why else do I work so hard?  QT with my fam-bam and friends, that's why.  So we hung out with the roomie as well and I took him to his appointment, and we played and read books and sang songs.  It was super-cute and fun.

For dinner I made us pizzas.  Three different kinds because I'm crazy like that.  A potato, rosemary, roasted garlic oil and gorgonzola one, a proscuitto, grated parm, garlic and baby arugala one (mimicking my favorite pizza from the Magic Oven, a chain I refuse to patron because their pizza is so overpriced), and our favorite, a "spicy pig" sausage from the Sausage Partners, fresh mozzarella, roasted garlic, and caramelized onion one.  Woooeee, that last one was delicious.




So excited that tomorrow is Friday!  We thought our Cleveland friends were going to be coming into town and cleared our calendar.  As it turns out, they can't make it.  So we have an entirely free weekend, which is nice.  And as an added bonus, we can delay our top-to-bottom Chinese New Year house clean for a bit.  


Bonus shot of the Boobla rocking what we call, "The Rooster" all day:

Fin.

Deep thoughts

Here are some deep thoughts from me:


1) Remember bruschetta?  Remember how bruschetta used to be like, a thing?  Like, any restaurant you would go to, regardless of type of cuisine would have bruschetta and people saying, "I loooove bruschetta" and getting all weirdly faux-Italian with the pronunciation was a regular occurrence ("BROOOOSCHKKKETTTA")  I don't know why this came up recently, but I've been weirdly fixated on it.  Like, it was SO ubiquitous, guys!  As if chopped tomatoes with some basil on garlic on bread was the be-all and end-all.  You couldn't show up to a graduation party without it appearing.  I love it as much as the next person (in season), but I feel that the benefit of distance allows me to say that bruschetta is a b***h to eat in public.  The tomatoes get everywhere!


2) Last week we walked into Kernals to pick up some supplies for our planned Settlers of Cattan date with Dr. Rei and Hanbo.  While we were there, we met this guy who was basically the Kernals-version of Randal Graves.  Anyway, we were riffing with the guy about his job and then the Dotytron said something like, "yeah, and then 8 years later, you're still here" at which point I proceeded to die inside while the guy said, "8 years? Dude, I've only been here for 6 months."  When we left the store I was like, way to make that dude feel like he's doing a go-nowhere job for the rest of his life and he has no future.  LOL!  The Dotytron is all like, "what? Noooo...he got that it was a joke, right?" And then when the ramifications of what he had said sunk in, proceeded to feel really bad.  We realized that he picked a number that was all-too-feasible for a Kernals front-line employee.  It's really easy to meet the 8 year mark doing a gig like that.  The Dotytron should have picked like, 80 years or something to drive the joke point home.


3)  During what was a generally hilarious conversation later that same evening, the topic of the "2nd earth" (aka the Christmas Planet - worst name, EVER!  Why not just call it "unobtanium"?!?)   that had been dominating the news over the holidays came up.  Hanbo, ever the sensible one, asked, "How do they know the planet is so earth-like?" To which Dr. Rei and I, already on a spinning-each-other-up tear, responded at the same time (respectively): "They just do!" "They can see it........trails off uncomfortably"  LOL!!!  So typical us.


4) So, as some of you may know, the Dotytron and I availed ourselves of a 50% Porter seat sale to book ourselves a little 10th anniversary trip to NYC.  The big question mark was what to do with the Boobla.  My mum said no, it's a lot to ask of Momma D, and we weren't sure if we wanted to part with him anyway.  The interim solution (which allowed for maximum unfettered restauranting on my part) was going to be dropping him off with my sister so that she would take him into the daycare Little Big Cuz goes to and then picking him up.  Not bad all around (even if my heart did falter at the thought of him eating US institutional daycare food for 3 days).  Anyway, we were still up in the air about what we're going to do, until Momma D came up with the brilliant plan to come with us to NYC.  That way, she could watch the Big Yam at night while we did our own thing and all was right in the world.  So cute!  


...


Until I started getting the odd email with a food/restaurant suggestion (full disclosure: there have been 2 emails, and 1 of the restos was already on my spreadsheet).  I am such a control freak that it had never crossed my mind that in travelling with other people, THEY MIGHT NOT CEDE GASTRONOMIC CONTROL TO ME.  LOL!  Like, my family generally lets me do the meal planning, if something like that is available.  When I've traveled with other friends, it hasn't been an issue.  Either they're eaters like me that I trust implicitly, or, they're willing to cede control to me and eat weird random sandwiches on their own time (see: Dr. Rei and the Dotytron in Florence & Rome.  See: what a hard time they gave me when I refused to eat anything that wasn't on "the list").  Anyway, Momma D has been lovely about it and has as much as said that I can meal plan the entire trip but even the odd innocuous email suggestion stresses me out.  Because I'm a psycho.  LOL!  We're having to adjust our eating plans anyway to accommodate the presence of the Big Yam.   


It just goes to show you that in all things Lagerfeld, it's Lagerfeld's way or the highway.

  

Tonight for dinner we had braised squid and chickpeas with whole wheat couscous and light, simple, mixed green salad.  The braised squid was pretty terrible, I don't think I'll be making that again.


Fin.

Epic LOLs

This photo kills me. Oh, Ice Cube - wha happened to you? I wonder what Weezy is gonna look like in 20 years. The internet has been doling out mad gems lately - it's like Christmas came early or like finding yourself in Oscar the Grouch's trashcan for a day. There was also this:

Guys, Aunt Viv #1 is the ONLY Aunt Viv. She was the best. She was so 'ardcore and Aunt Viv #2 was a rank impostor. I kinda want a shirt that says Real Aunt Viv 4-ever with Aunt Viv #1's face on it or something. I came across a line on the internet: "Aunt Viv #1 is my patronus" - AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Truer words have never been spoken. This was the same day that the reports came out that Gaddafi had been taken out and the photos of his dead body were plastered all over the news. I avoided trading in that rank sensationalism by reveling in this kind of entertainment instead. It's healthier, I think. It's weird that Aunt Viv can engender such strong opinions in me but when it comes to Becky #1 or Becky #2, I have no strong preference. I might slightly prefer Becky #2 just because she was a bit easier on the eyes. Becky #1 had a touch of the Kimmy Gibbler.

There's also that site called Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses. Tuesday night, the Dotytron is brushing his teeth and readying for bed. Me, coming into the bathroom, remembering I had something really important to tell him: "Have you seen that person's site where he draws Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle heads on people's noses?" The Dotytron, laughing, "No. But I can see it already and it's awesome." The tagline for the site: "God is the artist. I just find the Ninja Turtle in his work" totally restores my faith in humanity. Is that weird? I just love living in a world where this kind of genius exists.

Last night we went to see the Ides of March. I liked it enough - the performances of all the actors are great, although I do agree that Ryan Gosling might have been miscast - he's a little too vacant in the eyes and it doesn't translate to portraying a seasoned veteran of the campaign trail. The subject of disillusionment and intrigue and political maneuvering can be extrapolated beyond the direct political sphere of the film and serve as a greater metaphor for becoming an adult, or surviving in the business world. Paul Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are fantastic - Rachel Evan Wood less so and Clooney seems to just be portraying a more reserved version of himself. I found the culminating scandal on which the plot hinges a little unnecessarily lurid - it doesn't seem necessary that it should have gone so far to enable Gosling's awakening to the murkiness of the world he moves in. I found the scandalousness so amped up that it stretched credulity and brought me out of the talky, Sorkin-y world that had otherwised engrossed me. I also found some of the character's motivations (particularly Evan Rachel Wood's) kind of implausible and there was a major plot point that I didn't understand and could have easily been reconciled with access to a line of credit (which, I would assume, all these characters should have?) It does peel back the curtain on the construction of political figures and how nobody is pure and clean in the business of politics. It's not so shocking if you have any critical engagement, but this is the kind of film you appreciate for the acting and dialogue. Not necessarily deserving of the Oscar buzz it's been getting.

I'm writing this while in the SNOOZIEST class of all time. Instead f tackling a 60 page major research paper, I elected to take the course called "Topics" where you're taught how to do "research" but the paper is only supposed to be 25 pages long. The class is THE WORST! She's teaching us how to differentiate what a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal looks like !!! Worst! Sample quote: "it's rectangular...the text is very dense, the pages are printed with many lines..."

^^^ This is why I need stuff like funny .gifs of Aunt Viv #1 in my life.

Today is Supper Club Friendsgiving! I made sweet potato pecan pie. We're sleeping over in Markham and then taking the Big Yam swimming tomorrow morning.

Fin.

And we're back...

New school year, new routines, new season - the changeover all happened this weekend and we are in the thick of it now. The to-do list is long, the early mornings and nights are dark, the urge to hibernate is strong. It's going to be hard manning the fort on my own all day. I've gotten used to having that extra set of hands around to relieve me, but I'm resolving to cherish each and every moment of this last month of maternity leave and to make it count.

In 5 days the Boobla will be 11 months old. ELEVEN. MONTHS. OLD. He's been around for almost a full year! How did that happen? Where did the time go? Last night, ensconced in bed at the obscenely early hour of 9pm, there was much weepiness and tearing up and irrational wailing on my part at the prospect of being separated from the little big yam. The standard-issue, clichéd mom-issues of: "what if he loves J [his caregiver] more than me?" "what if he forgets that I'm his mama?" "why didn't I appreciate this year and savour every minute more?" "why did I take this past year for granted?" and other self-flagellating recriminations of the maternal sort. I know it gets easier. I know that there's a part of me that is actually looking forward to resuming the ranks of the full-incomed and professionally attired. For all my excitement about having uninterrupted time to use parts of my brain that have been gathering dust these past 12 months and for all my tough-guy bluster about how I'm looking forward to being an adult again...I know I'm going to be sad and it's going to be hard for the two of us.

Last night we were all eating dinner and the Dotytron kept scolding the Big Yam about not rubbing his eyes when his hands were dirty with food. The Dotytron got increasingly more stern and forceful moving the Boobla's fist away from his eye. After the last exchange, the little Boobla, started moving his fist towards his eye, and then stopped midway, looking at the Dotytron with a slightly scared, watchful expression on his face, all wide-eyed and mouth agape. The Dotytron turned to me and we both went, "awwwww" - it was painfully cute and heartbreaking at the same time. Just seeing it again in my mind's eye is enough to make my insides shut down. The Dotytron felt THE GUILTIEST! He couldn't even finish his dinner sitting next to the Boobla and made me switch seats with him, because every time the Boobla wanted to rub his eye he would stop himself and give the Dotytron that same look. What a good little kidlet! Seriously, it makes me want to cry. I don't think I've felt that mix of sad/cute so acutely before.

On Sunday we went on an epic mission to pick up batting from Fabricland. Never, ever, EVER take the Dotytron with you when you're engaging in a hobby, because he INSTANTLY decides that he's an authority and will take the first piece of advice offered by a clerk at a quilt store (for example) and then treat it as gospel. He was super-adamant that I get 80% cotton, 20% polyester batting and it was annoying-slash-hilarious. The part of Scarborough we were in we dubbed "Little America" because it's an enclave that's all big box stores with a high concentration of US-based ones: a super-giant Wal-Marts, a Lowe's, a Marshall's, Five Guys etc. We went into Marshall's and the Dotytron disappeared for 5 minutes and then came up to me wearing a ridiculous jacket that I didn't notice he had donned until after 3 minutes of conversing. When I finally did notice it, I was doubled over laughing. He thought I was trying to out-straight-face him but it's really because I take his presence for granted. LOL! The Dotytron is THE WORST-slash-the-best person to go to these kinds of stores with. The worst because he's the most impulse-driven shopper I've ever met. It's probably because he NEVER goes shopping or because he always insists that he ABSOLUTELY HAS TO HAVE the most random shiz. Like those salt lamps or a spinning glass orb that emits smoke, or kettle bells:

He's the best because you lose your mind laughing shopping with him.

Shirt c/o Auntie Lolls, shorts c/o Auntie SMckay

Last night for dinner I made us bi bim bap rice with spinach, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, and bean sprouts (topped with a fried egg, of course) and we grilled up some kalbi (marinated short ribs) that our neighbour's mom gave to us. It was a delicious meal - the kalbi were SO FREAKIN' GOOD! Our neighbour 3 doors down came outside while we were grilling because she could smell the kalbi from her house.

Today we're doing some errands and having pasta with spinach, mushrooms, gorgonzola and fontina for dinner with a salad made of stuff from our CSA.

Fin.

Mater Familias

My first mother's day! Truth be told, I don't really care about it - it has been nice to use it as an excuse to have Sunday breakkie made for me for a change, and the Dotytron is being really nice about indulging my whims and tidying the basement and telling me that I can go to Canadian Tire and buy more clear Rubbermaid bins for labelling and organizing and cataloguing stuff (aka my FAVORITEST THING IN THE WORLD!) He's also been really nice and let me do some minor furniture arranging/vacuuming/cleaning and he said he was going to clean the bathroom. AND he got me a Kindle - so he's been super-dee-duper nice to me. At the end of the day, the Kindle is just bonus - I'd be over-the-moon if he just did the other stuff (ie. let me make his precious Sunday NOT FUN by demanding that we do a billion house projects/chores/boring organizational things.) I shacked up with a really good guy. So for Father's Day, I'm going to reciprocate by letting him spend a day of leisure without putting anything on our agenda. It's a fair trade.

He made me "Eggs Do-Do" - the maiden voyage for this recipe. It's basically eggs on bacon on toast with cheese, topped with a tomato-oregano sauce - almost like breakfast pizza toast? It was really good and he spent a long time thinking/executing it and it turned out really delicious:

Yesterday we met with our caregiver. The Dotytron came up with her nickname. We were outside talking to the neighbours and enjoying a street pizza party and as we were walking back to the house to get ready to meet the daycare lady, he turned to me and said (all put out because he hates doing stuff on the weekend): "So, how long is this meeting with the ho-bag supposed to last?" LOL! Anyway, we met with the Ho-Bag, who I've gotten to know through the drop-in centre, but it was the Dotytron's first time - we both really liked her after talking to her more in-depth. She's from Chile and has 2 kids of her own, who are like, 12 and 10 or something. We met in her house and met her husband as well. She used to do non-home daycare and has a university degree in Chile in early childhood education. The thing we really liked about her is that she seems really experienced and the home daycare experience means that she's willing to accommodate you to a certain extend. She's very relaxed and calm and any questions we had her general response was "we'll work together to find a solution."

Her hours were a little worrisome at first. She works from 8-5 which I understand, is already a long day for her, and then she has to transform her house from daycare to her own home, and cook and do her own home/life stuff, but I was worried how we'd swing it. I think the Dotytron is going to do pick-up and I'll do drop off. She's also amazing because she doesn't do late penalties - unlike a lot of other daycares where it's like, a $1 a minute or something. She's very understanding that most of the time you'll be there around 8 (give or take 10 minutes) and pick up at 5 (give or take 10 minutes), but that if there's a storm, or rush hour, or something, she gets that these things happen and is accommodating and doesn't penalize you - as long as you don't make a habit out of it. I also think that while an earlier drop off and a later pickup might be nice - that's a really long day for the Big Yam to be with someone else. So if that means we have to re-jig our work schedules a bit to minimize his time in care - I'm okay with that.

The Ho-Bag was also willing to continue with cloth diapers and if we want special food, we can bring that, but otherwise she makes a healthy breakfast and lunch and takes the kids out every day. She was also willing to support our early potty training initiatives (which have been a complete failure this past week as he keeps s***ting his pants while he sleeps!) which is nice. Her rates are also really reasonable - $55/day up until 18 months and then it drops down to $50 day. She works for 2 weeks and we pay her for those 2 weeks after she's worked them. She get paid for all statutory holidays, but we can take 2 weeks vacation without paying her and she takes 2 weeks vacation where she doesn't expect to be paid, so I guess it works out to about a month off all year we don't pay. Anything about 2 weeks she expects to be paid, which is fair - it's her livelihood too. Anyway, I'm feeling really good that *knock on wood* we've got things really established and we can rest easy that the Big Yam will be in good hands.

We went to see a documentary yesterday, called The Pirate Tapes about this guy from Toronto who goes and tries to infiltrate a Somali pirate ship. It's CRAZY. The doc is really slick (funded by HBO) with a hip soundtrack (which I found a little intrusive sometimes - the music is turned up too loud in the mix) and talks about how the genesis of Somali pirating is that international fishing boats were coming in and robbing Somali villages of their livelihood by fishing the crap out of their waters. Then, international companies were also dumping illegal sewage/toxic waste in Somali waters. So the pirating was initially an attempt to fight back against the illegal practices of European and North American companies. However, as aid workers who were interviewed in the film stated, the original "Robin Hood" impetus for pirating was quickly transformed into straight greed - as they said, if pirates were really politically motivated, you would see some of that money being fed into the Somali economic system and into the villages - but you don't. There was also an allegation made that there is external funding of these pirates and that North American investors actually invest into these pirating raids. The footage was really fascinating, although I did fall asleep during some of the middle bit.

Some of the factual allegations in the film were kind of tenuous (in the Michael Moore fashion) and I also thought that the ending was rushed and that important facts/events weren't being investigated fully (the infiltrator is captured by Somali police and held and detained without contact with the outside world and then suddenly is released) and there was more there than was being revealed. This Toronto Star article alleges that there was a disagreement between the filmmakers and the subject but when pressed during the Q & A, they kind of glossed over any tension and said that everything was fine.

I will say that footage from the Somali hospitals where children were being brought in, with mysterious ailments (some of them horrific, like a small boy where half the skin on his face had loosened so that he looked like a human version of the Batman character Two Face), probably caused by exposure to toxic waste, and who all died by the time the filmmakers returned, was heartbreaking to watch. At one point the camera focuses in on a little boy, so malnourished his neck is so frail and thin and his eyes so big, who has cancer, and the little boy stares at the camera and in my head I was flashing to the Big Yam's cherubic face and rolls of skin and I just thought how lucky he is and how lucky we are to live where we live. We talked a bit about adopting and whether we would want to do that for #2 or #3. I'm willing to and I think the Dotytron is willing to as well. That all sounds altruistic, until I share with you this snippet of our conversation:

Dotytron: "But I think I would want a baby"

Me: "But that's bad! EVERYONE wants a baby and the older kids need homes too! It's like how everyone wants kittens!"

Him: "Okay, well then, how old would you go? I think I would take up to a 2 year old"

Me: "I'd go up to 5"

Him: "REALLY?" $$%!!&???!

Me: "I mean, only if it's a black kid"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL! I am a horrible, horrible person. So horrible in fact, that when we were sitting in the theatre before the doc started and a woman a few aisle overs fumbled her bag of popcorn and spilled about a third of it into the aisle, I started laughing my butt off. Silently, mind you, but uncontrollably. As I broke into laughter, I turned to see the Dotytron looking at me with a patient-but-loving-incredulous-but-ashamed expression and just silently shaking his head at me. Which only made me laugh harder as I got caught in this meta-feedback loop of: woman dropping popcorn = funny : me laughing at that and finding it so funny = funnier : the Dotytron finding himself married to someone who has such a lowbrow sense of humour = funnier still : the fact that I fancy myself so intellectual but at the end of the day finding people falling/spilling popcorn/rude fart-bodily fluid jokes/Gallagher smashing stuff beyond hilarious = funniest of all.

What is wrong with me, indeed?

We ended up scalping our other tickets and sneaking into Guu Saka Bar for an impromptu dinner. We got there at 6:20 and only had to wait like, 10 minutes to be seated. I think things get really bumping there around 6:30 and it was a nice day, so I think people were thinking patio and didn't want to eat early. Being a party of 2 helps as well.

Picked up the Big Yam from Momma and Poppa D's house to find that he'd been an insufferable, screaming-his-head-off prig most of the night. Yikes. He's starting to get all stranger-danger and when we walked through the door was crying his head off but as soon as he saw us, was all giggle-Gerber baby 2000. Super annoying!

It's a beautiful day out today so I think we're going to skip the afternoon doc and walk around instead. The Dotytron's sis was supposed to babysit for us, so maybe we'll spend the afternoon walking around with her.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Fin.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

...turn and face the strange, indeed! The Dotytron has accepted a new job as the band leader for a middle school (grades 7 & 8)! This school sounds like it has a lot more going for it in the music department - they have regular band AND a strings-only band and there's a separate parent council for music and they do a pretty good job fundraising. So this is a good step in the direction of the Dotytron's eventual goal of teaching high school music - the students will know what's what, the parents will be more demanding, etc.

The bad part is: it's still only a 0.5! This is why the TDSB is messed up. At this stage in the hiring process, the Dotytron CANNOT apply for another 0.5 to make a full-time gig. He can only QUIT his current 0.5 and go pick up a new one. So dumb. Which means that even though he LOVES the school that he's currently employed at and loves the admin and loves the ghetto Scarberian kids he teaches (new school is still in Scarborough, but a slightly better part, where when you show the kids an instrument or try to discipline them they're not like: *blank stare* "wha gwaaan?"), he can't pick up this new 0.5 to make a full day of teaching. So the only thing he can do is wait and see if he can apply (in the third round of postings) for his current job, which will be posted for the 2nd round, and if it doesn't get filled, apply and make up a full day that way. So arcane!!! Also, there's a weird seniority thing where a teacher who has been working X number of years has access to a SECRET round of postings and can just cherry pick their job without having to interview at all. Random! Right now, there's still some flexibility with his new job in terms of scheduling, so we're going to look at where the majority of postings want a half time person (either in the morning or afternoon) and decide his schedule based on that and we're crossing our fingers that his current school won't find someone suitable and will hire him back on a half-time basis and then he can FINALLY be working full time (albeit at 2 different schools, which will be stressful).

A random assortment of funny stories from our life:

1) The Dotytron was feeding the Big Yam the other day and picked him up out of the high chair to clean him up. "Ugh dude, your legs are all filthy!" Turning to me, noticing that I had a washcloth in my hand, the Dotytron says, "Can you do me a favor and whack this guy off for me?" *long beat* LOL! He meant scrape down the Boobla's legs with the washcloth - but hilariously inappropriate nonetheless.

2) Our dodgeball game got cancelled last night so we had a free night. The Dotytron went upstairs to practice his guitar and I was downstairs doing some computer work. After 2 hours of separateness, he comes downstairs and sees me sitting at my laptop. "What are you doing?" Me: "Looking at this picture of Bill Gates" *turns laptop around*

Dotytron: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"

3) Some of you may know that I've been actively campaigning for an e-reader for like, a whole year. I read A LOT. And it's nice to have a billion books on one thing that's small and portable for travel and whatnot. Anyway, I'd dropped mad hints (ie. overt statements) that I wanted an e-reader at Christmas to no avail. So I've been jokingly dropping mad hints about wanting one for Mother's Day on the Dotytron's Facebook wall. Then today I turned to him and said, "Don't buy me an e-reader, it probably makes more sense for us to buy each other a tablet at Christmas and then get an e-reader app for it" to which he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Okay. But what if I already got you an e-reader?" AWWWWWW! What a cute little muffin! He said it's from him and the Big Yam. I was like, "what money did you use?" "The only money I have right now: credit" LOL! So it looks like I'm getting a Kindle! Wahoo! I was torn at the last minute because I thought a Kobo might be better (it takes the epub format instead of Kindle's proprietary .azw) - but if we end up going with my tablet plan, we can always get a Kobo app for that and cover all our bases. I married a very sweet giraffe-with-the-head-of-the-squirrel-that-looks-like-Abraham-Lincoln-from-the-Simpson's indeed. Although now I've shot myself in the food because I don't know what to get him!

Last night's beef burrito bowl was deeelicious. Brown rice & black beans cooked in a guajillo chile-tomato sauce flavoured with cumin and coriander and Mexican oregano, topped with sliced sirloin steak and a tomato-scallion-avocado-lime salsa with sour cream dabbed on top. I'm loving my rice bowls lately.

I went for my first real run today - ran (the word is used loosely) for just under 3km and didn't stop to walk once. It's the new me! So breakfast this morning was healthytimes - a bowl of steel cut oatmeal with a blackberry and rhubarb compote:

Tonight I'm going to this resident information session for the park at the end of my street. There are some plans to revamp the skating rink and modernize the space that I'm soooo happy about. Right now, we have a hockey rink with boards and an open free skate rink that's roughly the same size right next to it. They're going to cover over the hockey rink (first covered outdoor rink in Toronto!) and scrap the free skate rink, instead turning the free skate area into a figure 8 skate path with trees and other greenery planted around it. They're also updating the change rooms - putting in a community use room, a family change room, and shrinking down the male and female change rooms a bit (right now they're ginormous and kind of gross). YAY! So pleased that this park is right at the bottom of our street and is getting so much love!

For dinner I'm making us asparagus and proscuitto tartines (French open-faced sandwiches of stuff on bread) topped with a poached egg and shaved parm. With a side salad.

Fin.