Retraction

Don't ever say that I can't admit that I'm wrong.  

I've been very vocal about my initial love affair and subsequent breakup with Zooey Deschanel as a style icon and then as a female figure in popular culture starring in a hit sitcom.  Initially, I really disliked the show New Girl because of the whole "adorkable" thing which was way too twee and infantilizing for my liking.  Well, I've come around.  We find the show pretty funny and I can admit it.  

I will say that the show has definitely taken steps to reduce the undue focus on Zooey Deschanel's character Jess, as a series of walking quirks and has taken steps to mature the other members of the cast into a really likable, funny, watchable ensemble.  The show has even addressed the criticisms of the tweeness (I'm not the only one who has said it!) head-on, most notably in a confrontation between Jess and her roommate's high-powered, very un-cute lawyer girlfriend, which included the following diatribe from Jess: "I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person. That's just weird, and it freaks me out. And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it just slightly cuter. And that doesn't mean I'm not smart and tough and strong."  Which was a little heavy-handed for my liking.  But lines like this one (Jess, bemoaning her inability to make an apology): "I hate groveling. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes in the court of the Sun King. I think about that all the time," made me LOL like a mother.

This past weekend when I was hanging with the neighbs the Big Yam was giving me guff about wearing his hat and I was telling him, "you wear a hat when you're outside!" and he took the hat off and THREW IT ON THE SIDEWALK at which point I told him that he has to listen to mama and hustled him inside while he kind of twisted and bucked in my arms like a 28lb giant Southeast Asian grub.  Later on, I took him back outside and he wasn't wearing a hat, so one of my neighbs needled me, "where's his hat?" (I forgot to put it on him) and so I said, "the important thing is not whether he's protected from the sun at all times or not.  The important thing is that he knows that if it is my will that he wear a hat, he has to wear a hat."  LOL!  I'm pretty sure they think I'm the meanest parent on the block.  I rule with an iron fist.  I went back in to tell the Dotytron and he supports me 100%.  The Boobla neither has the mental capacity (right now) or the history to understand context, therefore, it's my job as the parent to decide when he has to wear a hat or not.  But if I say, we wear a hat when we go outside, then he better do it, because my word is LAW.  

How many times have I seen a parent, obviously not happy about their kid doing something they don't want them to do, standing there, arms akimbo, earnestly saying, "Madison, can you please stop taking the sand out of the sandbox? Madison?  When you take the sand out of the sandbox, then there won't be enough sand the next time you want to play with it.  Madison, I asked you to please leave the sand in the sandbox," and on and on with their voice going up at the end and I'm like, why are you pleading with your kid?  Why are you trying to reason with them?  They don't understand the long-term ramifications of their actions!  Every day is a new day to them...they're not going to get that if they shovel all the sand out of the sandbox now, that at some date in the not-too-distant-future, the level of sand in the sandbox might decrease to the point where it will have a negative impact on their sandbox fun!  **I** barely understand that concept (see: my clothes buying habit and my credit card balance)!  It's all about conditioning them.  So yeah, maybe I treat my kid like a dog in the court of a slightly-more-strict version of the Sun King.  But at this age, they kinda ARE like dogs!  Is that wrong?  Am I not supposed to say that?  Obviously, the personality of the kid makes a huge difference too.   Some kids might not be as receptive to direction.  But maybe it's the cultural studies in me but I believe that like, 98% of the time you can mould general behavior.  That's how I learned that murdering people is wrong, right?  

So despite the individual personality of the particular kid involved, I think that it's a symbiotic relationship between the parent and the kid (within reason).   Kids who come out of the womb more sensitive can have the edges smoothed a bit by a parent who doesn't give into those sensitives, or have those edges sharpened by a parent who gives into those sensitivities.  That's why as a general thing, people have an easier time with their second child, because they're less anxious and stressed out than they were with bambino number one.  I can draw an anecdotal conclusion that the parents I know who still have babies that get up in the night repeatedly, if you ask them, "well, how long do you let them cry for?" will almost always say, "I can't bear to listen to them cry!" That being said, I'm pretty sure if we have another baby, that #2 is going to be a hellraiser of the highest order, just to shake up my world a bit.  At which point, I will post another retraction.  Stay tuned!

Tonight I have class.  It's my last Tuesday class before the summer term starts in the beginning of May.  The summer class ends on July 14th and then I will be DONE MY DEGREE!!!  THE STUPID DEGREE THAT PROBABLY WON'T ADVANCE MY CAREER PROSPECTS IN THE LEAST AND WHICH I RUINED MY MATERNITY LEAVE WITH MY FIRST CHILD FOR!  

Sigh.  

Fin.

I didn't forget about Dre.

I swear! I've been taking an extended hiatus to work reeeeaaaalllllyyy hard on finishing my LAST PAPER OF FIRST YEAR MPPAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's done done done! It's in in in! WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I'm freeeeeeeeee! Free to spend the summer with my boys and chilling out maxing relaxing all cool. Free to spend my afternoons swimming, visiting with friends, crafting, thinking about cottage fun times, cookings, farmer's marketing, bike adventuring with the Dotytron. FREE.

So my extended absence from chinotto hating land was well warranted, methinks. This does leave me with a big hodgepodge to tell you about and a recap of last weekend on the cusp of this weekend...but so what? The last weekend was delicious. We had a park picnic with kdubsguelph crew at Riverside Park in Guelph:

We played ladderball (BEST. GAME. EVER.) and the girls changed the Big Yam's diaper while I was playing catch and he was apparently quite traumatized by it - to the point of trying to crawl away from them with his bare butt in the air while they all laughed. LOL! Then we came home and were obviously pooped from a day spent outside. Sunday we had a bbq at Xtina & Buns' home to see baby H.

As Tillers puts it, leaning babies up against each other is never not funny. Look at these three hooligans! You've got H looking like a dad in his dad jeans, Big Yam looking like he's having the time of his life, and sweet mullet V looking like she's ready to cut someone:

We came home on Sunday and I was working on the computer when I saw someone coming up the shared driveway and rummaging in our neighbour's recycling bins. I wasn't sure what was going on so I watched for a bit, until the person started rummaging in our recycling bin. Then I told the Dotytron to maybe go outside and let the person know that we put out our recycling on Tuesday, so if he could come back then to collect recyclables for cash instead of showing up in our driveway, we would prefer that. So the Dotytron went out there and told him and was super nice about it, but OF COURSE the guy was an old Asian man and I immediately felt guilty for shooing him away and I started crying cuz I was all worried that he wasn't going to be okay. The Dotytron loves it when I cry over stuff like this. Mainly because he and Dr. Rei both love nothing more than when I drop my tough-guy routine. LOL! Anyway, I kept crying about it off and on all Sunday evening. To the point where on Monday, the Dotytron turned to me and said, "remember when you were weeping last night? THAT was an awkward display of humanity." LOL!

On Monday I made us a dinner of baby new potatoes tossed warm with creme fraiche, salt and pepper and chopped scallions, with roasted lemon-oregano stuffed sea bream, and a side of roasted asparagus. Didn't get a photo of it, though. Tuesday I made us lamb kofta in a harissa-kicked sauce with sweet-sour Moroccan style eggplant on top of whole wheat couscous with raisins and grated carrot. This was a big hit:


Last night we had dinner with our Discerning Coyote friend and his new ladybird, N. We went to Bairrada on College. I suggested it based on the fact that it has a gorgeous, giant patio and lured by the promise that Wednesdays are "roasted pork on a spit" night. Anticipating big hunks of juicy pork, I was chagrined to find that they saw off little wee plates of dry pork brushed with piri piri. When we saw that suckling pig was on the menu, we tried to order that, but it was sold out! Then our meals and apps took forever to arrive (they comped us an app and our second round of drinks though) and when the food did arrive, it was underwhelming. Don't think I'm actually a fan of Portuguese food, to be honest. As the Dotytron summarized, "nice patio with dry stuff." It was true: everything we had there WAS dry.

One of our favorite nighttime rituals now is on our way to bed, to go and "take a peek" at the Big Yam while he's sleeping. We tip toe into his room, peer into the crib, behold him looks all peaceful and pouty in slumber like this:



...and then turn to each other and smile all welling up with love and happiness and cute overload. It's my favorite part of the day. Seriously - how can you not love looking at that?!?

I also kind of like going into the room when he's wigging out and peering in the crib and seeing him all distressed clutching a stuffy - it's also cute with his two little (soon to be four) Chiclet teeth poking out:

The Dotytron went into work today to clear out his classroom and attend meetings. He should be home earlier in the afternoon and then we're planning on heading out to Metro Hall to hear some big band free outdoor concert thing. More likely, I'm going to splinter off and hang out with Dr. Rei while the Baba and Boobla listen to big band. Pingy comes into town tonight! Then tomorrow is a Supper Club Canada Day picnic on the Island, maybe more hanging with Pingy in the late afternoon, and then up to Markham to visit with my family because my sis is coming into town - it's Little Ze's birthday today and my Poh Poh's 89th birthday on Sunday. Yay! Family time. Fun time. Sun time. Bliss.

Fin.

Summer is a comin' in...

Busy few days around these parts...I've been working doggedly on my research paper (for a change) and expect to have it in the bag by the end of this weekend. Also, the days have been absolutely gorgeous so we've been spending a lot of time outside, going for long walks, working on the garden and visiting with friends.

The roomie came over for dinner on Monday when I had made whole wheat fusilli with canned Italian tuna, chilies, pine nuts and lemon - this dish is muy fantastico...I'll post the recipe at the end - easily made with pantry ingredients, cheap, fresh-tasting, and for those on the Baby Led Weaning tip - perfect for bambinos. He ate this right along with us and loved it - even with the little bits of chilies. Good thing he's not allergic to pine nuts. The recipe also has capers in it so it's basically the most flavourful thing he's eaten in LIFE.

Tuesday night I made that lentil and spinach salad with fried goat's cheese and toasted baguette, that's one of my favorite meal-salads:

I've been going running lately fairly regularly and we've been trying to eat healthfully and refrain from desserts as much as possible - we made an exception yesterday to have cupcakes when my friend M (from the Canoe days) came to visit. Look at this adorable photo of her and the Big Yam - doesn't he look so cute and stylish in his madras shorts and his white little cap (which is already too small for his giant noggin)?:


I'm the worst host ever. I basically made M watch as I planted stuff in my garden and reorganized our front vestibule/enclosed porch area. But oh! If you could see how nice our vestibule looks now! So tidy and neat and everything in bins and up off the floor, organized by use and with plenty of space for the bike trailer I just ordered. After doing a long and hard comparison I ended up going with the Chariot Cougar 2 in orange - they're really the best trailers on the market - made in Canada, retain their value well, safe, lots of bells and whistles, and collapsible. So I might not be getting a new bike this summer, but the Big Yam will definitely be riding in style!

I also bought the stroller and the biking attachments. The most annoying thing about the Chariot line is that you only purchase a chassis and then have to buy the separate attachments for converting it into a jogger/stroller/biking/skiing (!) vehicle on top.

For dinner I made us another BLW-friendly meal of spicy beef udon with kimchi. The Big Yam ate everything minus the kimchi in his portion, but he had a grand ol' time sucking back udon noodles and gnawing on enoki mushrooms and tofu:

Tonight is academic book club - we're discussing Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and I expect the conversation to be ripping. For dinner I'm making us French onion soup with either BLT sandwich or a BLT salad (probably salad, to keep up with the healthful eating).

I'm also over-the-moon that my dear friends Tillers & Jenny Calendar had their sweet daughter in the wee hours of Monday morning!!! She looks absolutely precious and I can't wait to go and snuggle a newborn babe. The little lady and the Big Yam are going to be as thick as thieves. So many babies!!! Xtina & Buns had their son over the Easter weekend so the Big Yam is going to have a whole posse of young padawans to mind-meld with.

Gotta go back to grinding it out.

Fin.

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

Pasta with Tuna, Pine Nuts, Lemon

serves 4-6 people with a salad

1 box of whole wheat fusilli (or you can use orecchiete, but not penne! you want nooks and crannies for the sauce to stick to)

2-3 cans of Italian tuna packed in oil

1/4 c. olive oil

1-3 t. chili flakes (or to taste)

zest of 1 lemon

2 T. capers, coarsely chopped

1/4 c. pine nuts

1 red onion, small dice

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

chopped parsley for garnish

- boil the pasta until al dente, reserve 1/2 c. of pasta cooking water

- in a wide pan, toast the pine nuts until golden brown, stirring frequently, remove from heat

- heat the olive oil and sweat the onions and garlic until fragrant, add the chili flakes and cook until the chili flakes start to colour and become fragrant

- add the tuna, the oil from the tuna cans, the capers, the lemon zest and pine nuts, and heat through, trying not to break up the tuna too much

- add the pasta, reserved pasta cooking water, and parsley and toss to combine, season to taste with salt and pepper (shouldn't need very much salt as the tuna and capers are plenty salty).

- serve hot, warm, or cold.

Students in my program

...are idiots. Control freak idiots who like to look a gift horse in the mouth. To wit: last night was the first class in my Public Sector Finance and Accounting course. I think it will be pretty interesting, if only because it will hopefully arm me with the tools to figure out HOW THE NDP PROPOSED TO PAY FOR ANY OF THE PROMISES IN THEIR PARTY PLATFORM! Don't get me wrong, I voted NDP (even if I told the nosey parker kids on my street that who I vote for was none of their business), but I found the general lack of critical discourse during this election discouraging. I heard tidbits like, "My whole family votes Conservative and I want to tell them why it's wrong, but I don't know why" - QUE?!? You don't have to look very hard to find plentiful information on why the Conservative Party is kind of the worst, but I would rather an informed vote (even if it's a vote for a party I don't support) than an uninformed adherence to dogma any day. Scary.

I feel like the Liberals and the NDP pushed their luck. Guess what? 99% of people DON'T CARE if the government is found in contempt of Parliament because Parliamentary protocol and Constitutional conventions don't mean jack shiz to your average Joe! Also, the hyper-capitalist state in which we find ourselves is not conducive to people being able to rationalize away their fear of increased taxes. I blame Apple and the clever way they disguise rampant consumerism. Of course people are going to vote Conservative because they believe the story (however erroneously) that the Conservatives are going to put more money in their pockets at the end of the day so that they can do what? BUY MORE STUFF THEY DON'T NEED! People just want increased disposable income so that they can continue to go away on expensive vacations and buy loads of crap and they are willing to sacrifice the gradual erosion of reproductive rights, government transparency, and social programs they think (however erroneously) they don't use/need. It's sickening. This coming from someone who spent a good chunk of yesterday working on an Excel spreadsheet to do some economic forecasting in the Dotytron Lagerfeld household for next year, on the assumption of full time salaries for us both, that resulted in a monthly spending money allowance for myself of $250 (the Dotytron got $270.) LOL!

That amount DOESN'T include such essential money-eaters like: clothes for me, clothes for the Big Yam, diapers, home renos etc. Ah well, we've been making do with a lot less this year so far and we've been doing okay.

Anyway, back to the original story - the prof for the course had set up the marks so that we have 3 small in-class assignments and 1 final 20 page term research paper, that's to be done in a TEAM. When you tell me that, my internal monologue/calculations go something likes this: "15-20 pages / 4 people per team = 3-5 pages per person : 3-4 hours of work MAXIMUM!" That to me, is a pretty good cost-benefit analysis especially once you factor in that this is a SUMMER COURSE. WHO WANTS TO DO WORK DURING THE SUMMER?!? Well, apparently these chuckleheads do. No sooner had the prof outlined the expectations then hands shot up with people worrying that the work distribution wouldn't be equitable and they were concerned about how to manage working collaboratively and blah blah blah. I was like, "GUESS WHAT? WORKING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR MEANS THAT 99% OF THE TIME YOU HAVE TO PRODUCE REPORTS/BUDGETS/SUMMARIES/BRIEFINGS AS PART OF A GROUP!" "P.S. DON'T YOU REALIZE THIS IS WAY LESS WORK, YOU IDIOTS?!?"

Finally it was decided that they would make the group work optional. So I got myself a group of people who are pretty blandsville and have NO concept of thinking creatively/critically. So it's going to be tough. They're kind of dummies who probably write the most boring papers of all time (case in point, out of the long list of potential topics - they wanted to research either public sector pensions or Ontario toll highways. *shoots a bowl of pudding*

There's a presentation component to this group paper, that was originally slated to be 15-20 minutes long per group. Then the class was in a tizzy because it turns out that our last class is actually a half class, followed by a cohort wide bbq up on York campus ("cohort wide bbq on York campus" is actually an anagram for "Lagerfeld dipsetting while shouting 'DEUCES!') so then the class of idiots is freaking out going, "but there won't be time for us to present wah wah wah!" and I'm like, "why don't we do an information sharing session, where each group informally talks about their research and findings for like, 5 minutes each?" and the prof liked my idea but you could tell the class was skeptical. I'm like, guys, you are way too committed to your boring, uninteresting, Power Point presentations on your boring, uninteresting, unoriginal research topics. SHEESH.

The Hollywood Complex was also a really good documentary. The premise is that every year, during the 12 or 16 weeks when television studios are shooting pilots ("pilot season"), hundreds of kids come from all across the U.S. and stay at the Oakwood short term apartments to try to audition and get cast. The Oakwood has established itself as a home-base for these displaced families (often supported by a parent at home, while another parent - usually the mother - uproots her life and accompanies the children), with classes and workshops on how to cry on cue, or meetings with Dakota Fanning's agent, etc. The film followed a few kids staying at the Oakwood during 1 pilot season and it was that perfect mix of funny, illuminating, and sad - some of these kids just had no chance in hell and it was kind of weirdly fascinating/abhorrent to watch (in the same way watching exposés on child pageant queens are). It's considered a miracle if you get a call back and like winning the lottery if you actually get a job - none of the kids did. You also saw one little girl who with her mom, is an Oakwood anomaly in that they live there year-round and have for the past 3 years been supported by a father in Missouri. It was heart-breaking when they would get rejection after rejection and finally the mom said, "what am I supposed to do? I'm going to stay because it's still better than taking her back to that 1 stoplight town in Missouri," - the American dream in all its perverse, celluloid glory in action.

Last night for dinner I made us eggplant bharta, green beans thoren and brown rice. Leftover brown rice is getting recycled tonight into a steak burrito bowl (I'm all about my rice bowls lately).

Here's a shot of Monday's black bean and spelt burgers (on our favorite bread product, Pita Break One Buns) and Baked brownie sundae (toffee bourbon sauce, vanilla ice cream) that we had while watching HBO's Game of Thrones.

Bonus photo of the Big Yam BLW himself some green beans. BLW is a messy, messy process that tries my anal-retentive cleanly soul.

Dodgeball tonight!

Fin.

in the chute

notes from the midwife appointment yesterday: the fatburger is being a smart little parker and is already head down and in position. generally, if they're head down at 34 weeks it's unlikely that he would be a jerky boy and then flip around and go breach in the last little bit. he's also not posterior, so far (posterior birth, also known as "back labour" is where the baby is head down but the back of his head is against your spine - ie. he's facing up towards your belly button - a lot of women find this creates a lot of intense lower back pain during labour and a longer labour as the baby's head has to twist and turn and get into the proper position).

my blood pressure is nice and normal and most importantly, my iron counts are really really really good. it's probably why i have so much energy. normal range for women is 120-160. i'm at 122, which is really good considering the iron depletion that happens during pregnancy - my midwife said my iron counts are better than hers.

at the visit my midwife (who is actually this new 4th year student we just met last visit who will be accompanying my primary midwife and who starts off the appointments now) was asking me about the GBS testing. she asked me if i knew what it was. and since my friends G and M had prepared me, i said, "yes, that's the double-dip" and she gives me this quizzical look and goes, "double dip?" and i said, "yeah, it's when i have stick a swab in my butt and in my vagine to test for strep b" and she was like, "ummmm...you don't have to stick it IN your anus [HATE that word!] - we ask that you swab around your vagina, the perineum, and the anus" and then she asked me if i knew what the group b strep was, and i go, "yeah, it's something that some women have in their bodies but it can sometimes be in the birth canal and then the baby eats it on the way out and can get really sick" and she gave me ANOTHER look and slowly repeated, "the baby eats it on the way out. hmmmm. well..." and then proceeded to explain the actual clinical stuff, which i kind of tuned out because i figure that my paraphrasing means that i get the gist.

only 30% of women have the GBS. they're asymptomatic and it causes no big deal. but because babies are all sterile and stuff, of the 30% of women who do have it, 1% actually pass it on to their babies during the birth (when the baby eats it on the way out), but of that 1% of babies who get it, they get REALLY sick, so if you test positive the canadian government makes you get antibiotics.

anyway, my next visit will consist of the double dip, in two weeks. and then after that it's a visit every week, one of which will consist of my midwives coming by the house and doing the home birth tour. e-freakin'-gads

in exciting grad school news, i've been tussling with the program director of my program. i found out that attendance is mandatory. and when i was like, "what are they going to do, not let you graduate?" i found out that the answer is YES. they will either withhold your degree or make you MAKE UP THAT CLASS the next time it's offered...IN A YEAR. totally stupid, right? so they've been making us sign in to class and on the saturday intensives, you have to sign in AND sign out.

on saturday, i left early because of K's wedding. i had notified the profs in the summer about this. when i showed up and informed the prof again that i would have to leave early, i found out that YOU HAVE TO ASK THE PROGRAM DIRECTOR'S PERMISSION to miss or leave a class early. like, seriously?!? there was a woman in my class who had her hair all done up to go to a wedding and she was complaining about how the program director gave her the gears for it. another person had to leave for her mom's 60th birthday and was again given a hard time. it's ridiculous. don't you think the PROGRAM DIRECTOR would have better things to do than say, "yes, you can go to a wedding, you're allowed to be in that family photo, you can be sick" ?!? it's absolutely the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

people in BOTH cohorts are naturally pretty displeased with the policy, so on monday, i emailed the program director and told him that i wasn't aware that i needed him to sign off on my early departure on saturday and was thus requesting retroactive approval and that i had noticed a lot of dissatisfaction with the mandatory attendance policy and if there was any way we could start a dialogue about it.

well! the response that i got was patronizing to say the least. he found it "very troubling" that i left class early and stated that class absences weren't fair to the other students (how does attending life events turn into an equity issue?) and that the mandatory attendance policy was made explicit in the application process, the website for the program, and at the orientation session and in writing.

so **i** fired back an email to him in response, first cutting and pasting an email he had sent me in the early summer when i was aware of being preggos and was weighing my options where the program director stated that he "firmly believes in reasonable accommodations" and i highlighted that phrase to him. then i stated that i had thoroughly checked the program website AND the supplementary AND general graduate admissions forms and found NO mention of the mandatory attendance policy. i also suggested that he might want to highlight this in the future for potential students weighing the york program against other, similar programs (like those offered at u of t and queens) where they are much more amenable to the exigencies of professional/personal requirements (they are, too - i called both faculties and checked - this is the kind of thoroughness i employ when being a s**t disturber).

i ended with a paragraph on how i was merely trying to initiate a dialogue with the program and got all lofty and moral-majority by saying that it was for the good of the program and future students and finished with a snarky, "with all due respect"

...it's been radio silence ever since from the program director. i'm pretty sure he's frantically flipping through the books to see how he can get me kicked out or not reinstate me or grant me extensions. but, my dear friends, this is york university. a place where they have transgendered bathrooms. they mess with me, i'm going to cry discrimination so loud and so fast and be on the horn to the dean of graduate studies and anyone who'll listen. as my friend S said, you have to use york's liberal craziness against them, and that i will do.

yesterday was a crazy 12 hour day. left the house at 7:30am and didn't get home until 7:30pm. i was scheduled to cover the closing shift at work and then had to stop and grab our CSA on the way home. i was zonked.

this helped, though. for dinner i made a shrimp boil - with jalepeno smoked sausages and CSA corn, and CSA potatoes, old bay, and jumbo shrimp:

as the dotytron said (he also had a 12 hour day), an omnipresent feed bag of shrimp boil would go a long way to making most of one's day-to-day trials more bearable.

tonight i have class (ugh) so i packed a cabbage roll and some CSA beets that i peeled and boiled last night and then tossed with vinegar, sour cream, and dill:

i'm starting to feel a *little* anxiety about how much i have on my plate right now and how much worse it's going to get, but i'm trying to just keep my head down and maximize every minute. wish me luck, kiddos.

fin.

oh, it's ON

things are ramping up at an exponential rate around here. bucktown! i heaved my way to class last night, my weekly wednesday night date from now until i pop. the walk wasn't that bad, only about 20 minutes, made more difficult by the fact that the fatburger is doing some kind of crazy calisthenics in there. i never find it that weird when i'm lying down or sitting still, but when you're moving and you're having an alien punching and flipping around inside your gut, it's an unsettling feeling. plus, as spumante bambino gets bigger, the motions are more and more aggressive and forceful.

the class is more intense than i thought it was going to be. assignments consist of: 1 article review, a peer review of a classmate's article review, participation (including the - ugh - *mandatory* attendance), a midterm, a research paper proposal, and then the final research paper. the prof seems stupidly intense given the length of the assignments. for example, the research paper is only supposed to be 20 pages long (double spaced), but he wants there to be a table of contents?!? how many points can you make in 20 pages?!? and he wants us to outline our methodology in the research paper proposal, but we're not taking a research methods class until NEXT term. i hate getting graded on research paper proposals. i know, i know...it's par for the course, but i write my papers the night before (maybe 3 nights, if i'm particularly inspired/on top of my game), so i hate having to reverse engineer the steaming pile of b.s. that inevitably constitutes my proposal.

the most annoying thing is that the prof stipulates that no more than 75% of our sources for the paper can come from online sources. so i asked, "do you mean online as in, government white papers and annual reports, or do you mean online as in, accessible through online journal databases?" and he's like, "we want you using the york libraries and using BOOKS." at which point i'm pretty sure the sound of my jaw dropping open was audible over the blasting a/c in the cavernous room. in case my shock and disbelief wasn't apparent enough, i felt compelled to follow up with, "are you serious?"

here's the thing: you don't make a program geared towards people who have full time jobs and then MAKE THEM GO TO YORK CAMPUS to get their stupid books. not only that, i have to go make a special trip to york campus just to GET MY STUPID LIBRARY CARD. and OF COURSE the "yu card" office isn't open on saturdays, the day i'm already there. OF COURSE THEY'RE NOT.

on tuesday night we had the roomie over for dinner. we haven't seen her in over a month! it was a lovely catch-up, even if she is terrified that she'll be on call the weekend that i go into labour and then will have to somehow be present at the birth in some kind of medical capacity. i haven't thought about ANY of that stuff, to be honest. what i want, what my expectations are, who i want to be there, how committed i am to a home or hospital birth or what levels of interventions i'm expecting. really, i don't care about that stuff. at the end of the day, i want to come out healthy and have a healthy bambino. the rest is just whatever to me. i feel like if you put too much into your "birth plan" then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment and self-recriminations over a situation that you have very little control over. what will be, will be. i want a home birth but if the pain gets too unmanageable, of course i'll opt for an epidural. it's not an ideology for me, it's a preference. we have access to pain medication for a reason - i would never consider having a leg amputated *knock on wood* without being knocked out, just to be a tough guy. at the end of the day, i just want to be okay and i want the little one to be okay and i'll be totally happy with that.

i'm not sure how we're going to manage visitors after. everything i've read has said that as a new, exhausted parent, you really have to harness visitors to get them to get shiz done for you. momma d has offered to take time off to help, but i feel like i can't be like, "momma d, please do the dishes and do the grocery shopping for me, thanks" but that's kind of the stuff that you want and need the extra hands for. i'm going to try really really really hard to wrangle my martyr, "i can do it all!" impulses and ask for that kind of nitty gritty help for those first few weeks - get people to bring meals and clean up the house and do that kind of stuff. try not to go crazy cleaning the house FOR visitors, etc.

anyway, for dinner with the roomie i made a coconut yellow split pea dhal with chopped spinach, fried paneer, brown rice, and she brought purchased saag and naan:

from the looks of the sorry state of our registry, it looks like dr. rei is going to be spending most of the time at the shower packing up food and snatching it out of people's mouths. lol! i really don't care if friends go off-list, cuz our friends know us, but i just don't get w.p.'s - THEY CAME UP WITH THE REGISTRY. it wasn't ***my*** people who did it. and then they up and decide that registries are too "impersonal" so then instead of doing the practical chinese thing (cash), or the practical w.p. thing they devised (buying stuff you registered for), they go off-list and then leave you with a bunch of crap. it's a very, very strange phenomena to me.

so last night i ended up eating leftovers at work and tonight i'm doing the same. my academic book club is meeting at frank at the AGO - it's pretty fitting. we read "loving frank" which is a fictionalized historical account of frank lloyd wright's relationship with a married woman. and even though the frank of AGO fame is gehry, not wright, and there's no relationship between them, it's still apt that the resto is named after an architect. it's our first out-of-someone's home meeting - i'm just going to get dessert or something off their small plates menu, seeing as how i'll be eating indian food at work, killing time trying to catch up on readings and working on my assignment before heading over there.

i took the day off tomorrow to do shower prep and get things in order - i've got to make 2 batches of mini cupcakes, a strata, a fruit salad, balsamic vinaigrette, 2 dips, deviled eggs, salami/bocconcini/tomato skewers, and do some final running around picking up last minute supplies and make these vellum mobiles. some of the work will be spread out on saturday after the ladies-only family shower brunch my sis and momma d are hosting in the morning.

phew! so much work to do!

fin.

catching up

so i've been m.i.a. for the last little bit. here's a capsule review of what i've been up to.

- york orientation was THE BIGGEST BUST OF ALL TIME. seriously. i had to sit through introductions of the professors and then the graduate research coordinator for my program gave a 30 minute speech about how "research is valuable" (who is saying it ISN'T?) and how you can find all sorts of wonderful ideas for research projects from reading the newspaper. i walked out after 20 minutes and was so pissed at them for wasting my time that i made the dotytron pick me up at the subway station and ferry me to dairy queen where i took out my frustrations on a oreo brownie explosion, a hot dog, and an order of onion rings.

- friday i had planned on cooking a duck to make space in our freezer and then managed to turn the whole enterprise into a rosh hashanah dinner party with our buds B, G, S, & P where we had noodle kugel (basically, an egg noodle casserole with cottage cheese, sour cream, poppy seeds, etc.), ginger-maple carrots, cucumber-dill vinegar salad:

the duck was really tasty.

i topped it all off with a pillowy, tall, fluffy, apple cake that i served with bourbon toffee sauce and whipped cream. delicious.

- saturday morning we had our first private prenatal class. we basically whittled down the entire curriculum to: labour (what IS it?), relaxation techniques, and breast feeding, meaning we got the whole thing done over 4.5 hours on saturday and sunday morning. guys, labour is kind of crazy. also, there are NO VIDEOS of labour (maybe the one i posted from the "pacing the panic room blog") that don't feature people who are giant dorklingers/possible LARPers. it's like they're diametrically opposed or something. i don't know if my immediate, gross-out visceral reaction is because of the fact that you're pushing a baby out of something the size of a quarter, or if the videos all feature people i don't want to be associated with or have anything in common with AT ALL, even the universal experience of bringing life into the world.

- we followed this up with the interment of poppa's ashes at a cemetery in oakville, where there are other dotys buried, like pharris doty (awesome name, pharris, good job). i know, prenatal class followed by ashes burial is all very:

like, the first minute of it, anyhow. i don't know WHY i wasn't expecting it to be an emotional experience...i guess i kind of thought that i'd had my crying over and done with? but then poppa d had to go and get an IRISH PIPER to play and it was the most winsome, mournful soundtrack ever (think: deck of the titanic), and i was totally blindsided by the fact that there were OLD PEOPLE from the royal canadian legion there who were SO OLD that i basically started bawling as soon as i saw them come marching up in their uniforms. they were adorable. like, hard-of-hearing, frail, adorable.

i've been looking for an outlet for some kind of volunteer work and more and more i'm coming to the realization that i should really work with old people - i'm not really sure in what capacity, or how, but i think that's where my heart lies. watch this space here for updates.

- we were SUPPOSED to spend saturday night at our friend L's housewarming/birthday party but we had a late lunch with the dotytron's family after the interment (not to be confused, by the way, with INTERNMENT, which is what we do to japanese people in the united states and canada during WWII), and it had been an emotionally draining morning so i sent along some fig frangipane bars with our friends B & G and we tendered our regrets, instead opting to try to put up the shelving in the fatburger's room and pass out at 9pm after watching 1/8th of a streaming version of "the expendables" on our tv via my laptop. streaming tv/movies technology really hasn't progressed to the point where it can satisfy my desire of size and clarity. i mean, when you blow it up so that you're watching it on your tv (and keep in mind, our tv is modest by most people's standards), you're basically looking at things the way like, robocop sees them (best case scenario, maybe the way cyberdyne systems model 101 - that's, the terminator to you - sees things).

- sunday we ate challah french toast and bacon and nectarines, bananas, and wild blueberries for breakfast:

- we followed that up with our second prenatal class whereupon i received failing marks for stating that i deal with stress/tension by yelling expletives at my partner. overall, it was pretty informative, but i am glad we skipped all the n00b icebreaker stuff from the group classes. some of the relaxation/massage techniques will probably come in handy and our instructor brought over an epidural kit so i could see the size of the needle as well as a vacuum and this portable pelvis thing with a life-size baby so you could see all the crazy behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into getting the little succubus out of you.

- then it was more errands and futzing and napping (i've been so so so tired lately) and prepping for the shower and then for dinner i raided our CSA produce and fridge leftovers and made us pan-seared steaks with chimichurri, boiled purple potatoes tossed with butter and salt, corn pudding, and sautéed mushrooms:

- speaking of shower prep, i kind of missed this whole process because we didn't register when we got hitched...but why do people go off-list and then ask me what i need for the fatburger? i don't get it. like, either you don't register at all and accept what people get you, which is totally fine, but do people think that you set up a registry as a joke? like, that there's big, fat, quotation marks around the items there? "playmat" "bassinet sheets" "bathtub"??? i dunno. when people get married and shiz i either go cash money or i get something off the registry. i don't presume to know better. and i get it, i really do. buying baby clothes and stuff is super fun and super cute and i know you probably know baby x, y, z that loved items a, b, c, but at the same time, we REALLY NEED those crib sheets and the washcloths and stuff. and it's not like we did the cray-cray thing i've seen on some wedding registries where people register for like, a $200 salt shaker. i felt i was really reasonable. like you can get us the binkies AND the outfit of your choosing and not spend more than $25. and realistically, kids don't NEED that many clothes! that's why we specified on the invites sizes greater than 6 months. like, if the kid has 15 onesies for 0-3 months, that means they're going to wear each thing a maximum of 6 times. it's insane. ultimately, i don't care if we have to buy the stuff ourselves, but i've been asked a few times if we really want the stuff on the registry, and i'm like, YES! don't you know me?!? don't you know the stock i put into list-making and researching? i think having a baby is the one time when you ACTUALLY NEED STUFF...forget getting married...especially with couples living together for years and years. anyway, the point is: i don't know who goes about making sarcastic or joke registries, but i don't get it. or at the very least, don't ask me what i want, because i've already provided you with the list!

- today we went with dr. rei to pick up food and stuff for the shower from costco. dr. rei has hilariously threatened to start packing up food and snatching hors d'oeuvres out of people's hands if she deems the gift table not up to snuff. i love that little llama - she's always looking out for me and her heart is so big. one of her biggest anxieties is having me inviting random people over for dinner and "giving all my love away" on people who don't deserve it (aka, anyone but her). i couldn't ask for a more loyal, trustworthy, and decent friend.

- for dinner i made us paninis of grilled eggplant, heirloom tomato, genoa salami, and scallion mayonnaise on ace focaccia, with leftover corn pudding:

now i'm going to try very very hard to stay up past 9pm whilst simultaneously doing kegels AND practicing my relaxation breathing. i look like i've swallowed a basketball lately. it's crazy.

wish me luck!

fin.

grad school

every time i remember that i'm starting another grad degree i'm kind of like: "wtf?" like, it somehow manages to catch me off guard more than the fact that if all goes according to plan i'm going to be welcoming the New Kid on the Block in a short little while.

seriously guys, double yew tee eff.

tonight is orientation. which is MANDATORY. as is CLASS ATTENDANCE. we've had no less than THREE emails from his royal highness the program director himself stating in no uncertain terms that attendance is compulsory. i'm like, "excuse me?" this is grad school, not kindergarten. i'm paying YOU. it's up to ME if i want to show or not.

this just leads me to believe that they have an inferiority complex about being fake grad school for working stiffs and have had attendance problems in the past because they're dealing with people WHO ALSO HAVE FULL TIME JOBS and don't have the time or patience to sit through silly lectures on "constitutional law" that are verbatim re-presenations of power point slides being projected directly behind the speaker.

i can't decide how much of a jerk i'm going to be at orientation tonight. i want to raise the issue that it's ridiculous to make class attendance mandatory at a graduate level as we're ALL responsible for our own education and this is a program geared towards working professionals so how can they possibly expect perfect attendance? in consultation with my friend K, i think the tactic i'm going to take is to broach the issue by asking what are the repercussions of you don't attend every class? like, is it i don't get my degree bad? or you just REALLY REALLY REALLY PRETTY PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU want me to be there and are using scare tactics to make that happen?

DID I MENTION THE ORIENTATION IS BEING HELD ON CAMPUS AT YORK? which happens to be IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERESVILLE?!? also, york university is totally sexual assault alley. the dotytron gave me a fox 40 whistle and a matching lanyard so that i can whistle the crap out of anyone who even looks at me funny. it's actually kind of sickening. like, york is super-lefty and cray-cray enough to have a TRANSGENDERED bathroom option but they can't make their campus safe from r-ing?

as you can see, i'm totally going into this with the right attitude. stuff is kind of bats**t insane at work right now - i have a billion projects on the go and barely enough time to get through it all. this rinky dinky degree is literally the last thing on my mind.

this is how i feel about mandatory orientation sessions:

zomg! how cute is that kid?!? "mi nah gi har nuh more milk fi put inna di cornflakes"

fin.

I HATE YORK UNIVERSITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

it was the best!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and then onward into summer!

FUN!

fin.

i won! i won!

and by that i mean, i got into the MPPAL program at york! woohoo! it's nice to know that i have enough qualifications to get into a fake grad school program for working executive n00bs. YES, GUY!

i received the email acceptance today, telling me that the paper acceptance is coming shortly. so unless this is a particularly malicious and random bot/virus, i'm going to accept the email at face value and assume that i'm in. woohoo!

so...do you guys think i can bang this out during my mat leave? it's only 1 day a week and one saturday a month...i'm kind of thinking that i can probably do it. my poor sis had to go back to work after like, 3 months. and some poorer ladies get no mat leave at all and have to go right back to work! it would be kind of awesome to get 'er done while i'm off anyway. i'll have to talk it over with the program admins and see how feasible they think it is. at the very least...i could probably do the term that starts in january or something?

i don't think there's any expectation that i'll be anything LESS than captain neglect-o-mater. case in point: last week we shelled out $5 for the first ultrasound of the fatburger. this is AFTER we agonized over whether to even shell out the coin at all, based on me having heard from somewhere ("somewhere" being "madeupsville, usa") that they cost $12 a photo. us being the thrifty parkers that we are, i kinda thought that we should use our camera to take a shot of the ultrasound machine screen and kind of cheap out that way. we are also the same people who, when i had the first inklings that i might be knocked up, waffled on whether or not to buy a pregnancy test because they cost 20 bucks a pop, and we didn't want to shell out again if the first one was too early. upon finding out that one photo only cost five bones, we shelled out, and i stuck the photo in an envelope provided by the ultrasound place and stuck it in my purse.

cut to 4 hours later, at dodgeball, when i realized that we didn't have anything to keep score on, i grabbed the envelope and a pen out of my purse and thrust it at our buddy L, who was sidelined with a bum knee. it wasn't until 6 games later that i remembered what was actually IN the envelope and thought to tell L that maybe i should take the photo out so it doesn't get all scratched up (first i asked him to "be a little careful" cuz spumante's ultrasound was in there, and then realized it was probably better to just take the photo out entirely.)

here is a photo of the o.g. hot pot crew repping 100 degrees last night (and the charnel house remains of our decimation of the place):

we call ourselves the o.g. crew because s-dawg isn't super into boiled meat, so from back in they day, it's been me, the dotytron, my mum, and chova repping the hot pot. awwwww...i love chova - he's such a good kid (i'm a chova apologist in my family - i can't help it! he's such a good kid!)


tonight for dinner i made us a kind of mezes meal of roasted garlic and eggplant dip, hummous with chili oil, and that green pea and pecorino dip - which we had with warm pitas and these flatbread crackers. i also made a quick cucumber salad with chopped mint in a lemony vinaigrette. i love mezes meals and i REALLY REALLY REALLY love my roasted garlic and eggplant dip - it's heavenly.

fin.

nothing says long weekend

like a little saturday morning sewing machine crafting flex. what what! yesterday was a short day at work made lively by a visit from G, hubby C and sweet, serious-faced baby G. so cute! G is probably the hottest mummy i've ever seen. she's positively glowing - i guess no sleep is agreeing with her!

then i came home and got a bunch of little piddly things done. like ordering my veiling and another headpiece and sorting out the rehearsal dinner and trying to get more chairs from the rental place and calling disney to sort out some details. after that, we met up with momma and poppa d and sister em of the familia dotytron at jean's vegetarian kitchen for some veggie thai food and long conversation. we missed mother's day so it was a nice opportunity to catch up. i also FINALLY got to gift the secret knitting i've been working on for the past 2 months.

i made the ishbel shawl pattern (large size) in drops alpaca for momma d. it took me FOREVER. i started off strong, but then repeated screwups which necessitated having to undo, stitch by stich, 380 odd stitches in a row, for several rows kind of slowed my resolve. i've read of some people on ravelry finishing this thing in a week. those people obviously don't do anything but knit (there's actually a seemingly disproportionate number of knitters who are also phd students - go figure.)

readers of the blog have heard me rhapsodizing about the virtues of blocking, so i'm going to offer you a little pictorial evidence of its effects. block is particularly important when you're working on lace projects because the knitting gets all kinked up and crumpled in the process. this is what the shawl looked like after i had woven in the ends and taken it off the needles:

it doesn't look much like anything, right? a brief soak in some wool wash and tepid water and after being stretched and pinned to my blocking board, the next day when i unpinned it, it looked like this:

see? keep in mind, i'm not even that good at blocking yet. but magically, through a bit of coaxing and positioning, the lacy pattern appears from that rumpled, crumpled, kinked up mess. it's kind of like magic and it makes lace knitting totally worthwhile.

i don't know what my next knitting project is going to be. we're having regular knitting club meetings on wednesdays so i'll need a steady supply of work. i'm thinking of making myself the twilight mittens or some other cabled mitten pattern that's snug like the twilight ones were. i'd like to make something for myself for a change...maybe a cardigan? who knows...i'll figure it out.

today is an odds and sods kind of a day. i'm going to do some early morning sewing, trying to bang out a couple of quickie projects and refamiliarize myself with my long-languishing and neglected sewing machine. poor little lamb. then i'm going to be real neighbourly and help H, that guy, and sweet baby D move into their new abode. which is SO SO SO close to me! i'm so happy about that! walking distance friends are the best friends to have and they're literally just across the park. love it. i might go check out this used furniture place to see if they have any credenzas worth buying then do some light grocery shopping and come home and hopefully have time to work on the performance invites and itinerary. make dinner and bake a loaf of bread and the other usual to-do has to be fit in there somehow as well.

tomorrow is even more of a gong show...we've got to get up early, eat a nice sunday breakkie, then head down to harry rosen, the bay, and the hugo boss store to see about a suit for the dotytron. i met some guy a while ago who was trying to convince me (and half succeeded) of getting a custom job done but then common sense prevailed. it would be RIDICULOUS for the dotytron to have a custom suit, considering he has to wear a suit maybe 4 times a year. plus, the dotytron hates shopping more than anything. there are witnesses! he almost had a breakdown buying BIRKENSTOCKS in italy last year while dr. rei and i giggled away at how wound up he got. we might just break up over the whole suit thing. we'll see. here's hoping. anyway, a custom job is out of the question...we'll probably just throw down for something from the boss black label or zzegna. he's got other more conventional, man suits but i think it'd be nice for him to have something a little more european in the tailoring...slim lapels, quite fitted...probably in a dark charcoal or a grey. he has a black one, he as a blue one (that needs to be upgraded, but not just yet) so i think a dark grey is the next choice. and a new pair of regular dress shoes. and a narrow tie. and possibly a vest. the crazy thing is how EXPENSIVE men's clothes are. like girls can easily find a $20 top that would be fine for work. good luck if you're a guy. it's basically never happening.

then we're going to meet up with trevor d of trevor d custom jewelery to see about the grillz. i'm a little suspect but i'm not sure if that's because i'm being classist. i'm going in thinking, if it's good enough for dank of frank'n'dank fame, it should be good enough for me, right? right? *tugs on collar* eeks.

after that, the day slides into more relaxation mode as we get together with dr. rei and hanbo and bwong for some all you can eat japanese action up in markham. once we're stuffed to the gills we're going to head back down to our pad and watch some amadeus action. sounds like a near-perfect evening, if you ask me.

in other news, i'm seriously considering getting a masters of public administration or public policy...or an mba. doing the mba means i have to do the GMAT which i think means that i probably need to brush up on my long-lost grade 10 math skills. the masters of public policy or masters of public administration doesn't require the GMAT, so i might go that route. i really want to be a research officer and secure my place in the public sector somehow...and i kind of want to advance in my field too. a two year, course based degree seems like a good insurance policy to have in the back pocket. plus, i took a look at the courses...SNOOZE fest...i could probably do it with one eye half closed and my shoelaces tied together. the major deterrent is that the programs are hella expensive. the good thing is that a lot of them are geared to working professionals so they do intensives where you only go to class one weekend a month or something. i think with my MISt and an MPA/MPP/MBA that's basically going to make me super hire-able and eligible to work in a liberal think tank. possibly.

tonight for dinner the plan is to steal another page from paul kahan's book and copy a dish i had at publican. it's going to be fried fish, fried artichokes, fried lemon with tartar sauce, arugala and shaved parm. i'm excited. we don't have smelts readily available so i'm going to use a plain white fish like tilapia or halibut instead. it really doesn't matter as long as there's something crispy and battered with something tartar sauce-y.

i don't know if i'm going to bother making a dessert or not. i've been craving dessert like mad lately but i'm not feeling inspired to actually make anything. plus we're having key lime pies on monday at the bbq/lowkey chill time hangs i'm hosting.

time to get cracking.

fin.

can't talk...

researching graduate programs to attain another degree based out of spite.  lol!  few things motivate me like pettiness, spite, and pure avariciousness. i wish that wasn't the case, but it kinda is.

i think i kind of want to a do an m.p.a (masters of public administration.) it seems the logical next step in order for me to continue in the life of a public servant. i'm doing some research on some programs now. u of t has the best looking one (read: touted as "interdisciplinary" aka bird-course lagerfeld coast-mode-ville) but it's not really geared towards working professionals. york has one that you can do entirely online, but...it's york. the u of t one is SUPER wishy washy and you get an internship out of it (writing grant applications, research papers, policy reports.) it seems like the best application of my academic skills/leanings to my increasingly capitalist philosophies (ie. wanting a house.)

we saw a couple of more places tonight. one was listed today and there's ALREADY a few offers on it. it's crazy. this market is insane.

tonight for dinner i made us pho, with a pork stock made from bones simmering with star anise, garlic, black peppercorns, and onion bits for a full 24 hours in my trusty slow cooker. i bought sliced frozen beef from the chinese grocery store, defrosted it and stuck it in the bottom of a colander. i cooked off some rice noodles in a pot of boiling water and then dumped the noodles and all the boiling water into the colander to kind of par-cook the beef a bit. i wanted to set aside some stock for maybe making ramen or for freezing, so i didn't use it all for the pho. the stuff i did use i doctored up to taste even more vietnamese with some sliced ginger, soy, fish sauce, a few pieces of bashed up lemongrass and a decent hand with salt to make up for the loss of msg. i added bean sprouts, thai basil, and lime wedges to the bowl.

it was a reasonable approximation but still not quite there. the bean sprouts were very raw, wet and basement tasting (you know how bean sprouts can taste like basement sometimes???) so they kind of overpowered the dish. i think next time i'll skip it and add a bit more salt. pretty good for a first attempt though. the stock was ace. i threw it in the fridge to make skimming the fat easier and it came out a quivering, gelatinous mass. BEST!

tomorrow we're getting up early and heading to upstate new york. i have the day off so we're heading into town to check out sites for the ceremony and we're going to see my niece's dance recital and do a mother's day thing with my mom at the conesus inn. they're known for their prime rib. i'm known for eating prime rib. it's a match made in heaven.

the dotytron and i are going to get our cross border shopping done during the day tomorrow and then hopefully brave the rough side of rochester to eat a garbage plate at nick tahou's hots and go to the great house of guitars with the dotytron. my sis it out of town during the day so we're going to the mother's day tea at my niece and nephew's nursery school. i'm super stoked to sit in little wee chairs and eat graham crackers and apple juice with all the other moms! the dotytron is pumped as well!

big weekend ahead of us...time to call it.

fin.