Times Like This...

It was hella maudlin and trite, the way my FB feed and Twitter filled up in the hours after the US election results with statements like, "In times like this, art is more important than ever," and other similar sentiments exhorting people to write, make art, pour themselves into some creative expression of their shock, disbelief, anger, and hurt at the results.  And yet.  

Monday night I went to see Colson Whitehead interviewed by Desmond Cole at the Bluma Appel Salon.  The talk was fine.  I wasn't familiar with Whitehead's work.  The only thing of his that's crossed my radar was his Zone One book, which is about some kind of zombie apocalypse, so I just assumed that he wrote elevated genre fiction.  TURNS OUT: he's actually hella literary.  The interview was okay.  Desmond Cole (one of the Toronto Star's only saving graces) was being very earnest and Colson Whitehead was being quippy and snarky and ungenerous in the face of earnest questions, which I find somewhat unforgivable and classless.

I chased the talk by seeing Moonlight with Dr. Rei. I mean, if I had known what was coming, would I have reveled in the beauty and stillness of this film, more?  I doubt that's even possible.  I watched this movie with my heart in my throat the entire time.  This film is heartrendingly beautiful. It's a film of moments, moods, shades of stillness, timbre of gazes. Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue and written and directed by Barry Jenkins, it's a quiet look at three stages in the life of Chiron, a boy growing up impoverished with a drug addicted mother in Miami, coming to terms with his sexuality and masculinity in an unforgiving pocket of America (exceptionally unforgiving? That I can't speak to.  Maybe just standard-issue unforgiving.)

The movie is widely lauded. Perhaps overmuch?  It's hard to say.  I think after so many pinned hopes for Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation [interlude: my sister messaging me in the summer saying, "I just can't with Nate Parker after what's come out about him" and me responding, "Is it because his wife is white?" and her being like, "Uhhh, no...about the fact that he raped a woman!?!?"] to ameliorate the 2016 #oscarssowhite debacle went up in flames, Moonlight could not have been better positioned.  It's difficult to disentangle the timing of Moonlight from it's near-universal effusive reception, but I kinda DGAF - it's not perfect, but we (read: I) try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very, very good.

I watched this with my heart in my throat. It is so achingly beautiful - the bleached brittle light of Miami in the day, the humid interplay of shadows and ocean at night, black bodies lit properly. Each act of the film is a collection of tones and moods and impressions - this is not a film that bludgeons you with exposition, character development, plot.  It's a collection of moments, some so tender that I could feel my heart breaking the way glass does when you fill it with something hot...a tiny pop and then radiating hairline fissures etching fine across the surface. It's a movie about looks, the weight of what's unsaid, pauses and spaces with the mass and presence of mountains. It's about masculinity, fatherhood, parenthood, sexuality, confusion, violence, performance, class. It's about what happens to a person when external pressures cause them to fold in on themselves, when the impossibility of their material conditions renders them guarded, mistrustful, wary, fearful of betrayal.  The main character, Chiron, is so still and reserved, all his emotions in his eyes, and his small tics.  The performances are almost all uniformly great...except for Janelle Monae who is a touch stiff in her role as a surrogate mother to Chiron.  Naomie Harris is an excellent actress but her role is overdrawn and is the only one that nears-caricature.  

Considering what a giant, terrifying, saddening s**tshow the rest of the week ended up being, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to revel in something beautiful and quiet and sweet, with someone I love.

I mean, I don't know how to sum up my feelings about the election.  I have a lot of thoughts.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I feel stupid...I mean, whiteness advertises itself on a daily basis.  It tells us EXACTLY what it is...and I still thought he wouldn't win.  I thought the imperfect alternative (HRC) would prevail.  So I feel duped.  I also feel like you can't underestimate the power of economic disenfranchisement and class and the effects of smug left-leaning politics.  

The night of the election, one of the scariest things I read, was a tweet where someone said, "a lot of white people kept their heads down, their mouths shut, smiled at their neighbours, and marched into those booths and marked Trump" and the truth of that gave me goosebumps.  The insidious banality of self-interest.  How left-leaning media have engendered a situation where people know enough to hide their reptilian, base selves.  

More thoughts on this to come.

For now, there is beauty. In spite of, despite, in the face of...everything else.

Fin.

On Capitalischm...and Race

I recently watched the Dardenne brothers' Two Days, One Night, which is as straight-up a critique of capitalism as I've ever seen in a film (note: I haven't seen that many films in my life, so maybe that's not saying all that much?).  It was the first film I've ever seen by those two and if it is any indication of their work as a whole, I'm hungry for more.  There are few things that get to me more than old French Marxists, with their shocks of white hair and their solid, insouciant belief in the primacy of class.

The movie is about a woman, Sandra, played by Marion Cotillard, who is on leave from her factory job (I know, I know...as I said to my friend, "What kind of factory is this? A babe factory?!") (it turns out to be a factory making solar panels), because of her depression.  In her absence, the company finds that they can get the work done with one less body, as business is decreasing due to cheaper solar panels from...wait for it...you guessed it...China.  They take a vote, and her colleagues choose to eliminate her position so that they can split her wage in the form of a bonus instead.  Discovering this information on Friday, Sandra scrambles and the foreman agrees to re-take the vote on Monday.  The malaise of her depression threatens to make Sandra submit to her proscribed fate, but at her husband's urging, she spends the weekend methodically contacting each of her colleagues to convince them to change their vote.

This kind of story, where, as Junot Diaz says the "meta" or the "machinery" is hidden, is totally up my alley.  Sandra's depression standing in for the malaise of the prototypical factory worker under capitalism is an incredibly apt device. The "choice" her fellow workers are given, to prioritize their own material circumstances over hers, is one that capitalism asks of us, on a near-constant basis.  In fact, that choice might be intrinsic to the very construction of right-leaning capitalism.  The conflation of capitalism with democracy (the individual "vote" as the foundation for our subjectivity) is also bang-on.  As the film progresses, we meet her colleagues and understand why some of them made the choice that they did.  Some succumbed to group-think; some are seemingly amoral; some were able to make the choice in her absence, when she was an abstract construct versus when she stands before them in her subjectivity; many are in dire financial straits and the bonus is necessary - they too face difficult day-to-day choices - the Dardenne brothers understand and deftly illustrate the difficult decisions we face under this system.

Many agree to change their votes and when the final vote comes, we see Sandra emerge from her depression, smiling, proud of the "good work" she put in with her husband.  I'm not going to spoil the outcome of the vote, but the film is so smart - by actively taking a hand in her direct material reality, by taking up her agency, she is emboldened and alive.  In those two days and one night, her labour was her own.

Guys, I'm getting goosebumps just  thinking about that.  I love the power and clarity of that metaphor.  I like how tight the story is.  I love how effective the film is.

Shortly after that, the Dotytron and I went to see Zizek speak at the TIFF theatre, as part of this conference that York U (of course!) put on, called Coming to Terms With Film-Philosophy.  Not for nothing guys, but York U conferences are THE S**T.  This is who I've seen courtesy of York University: Jean Baudrillard, Gayatri Spivak, Susan Sontag, and now Zizek.  U of T has given me Bruno Latour, which was cool...but C'MON.  Zizek is a Lacanian Marxist...and well, you know how I am about such things.  I AM HERE FOR IT.  He gave this long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness, very Zizek-ian talk on film that talked about "capitalischm" (as he pronounces it) directly and indirectly.  He talked about Children of Men, a favorite of his and mine, and how he loves it because it is not about sexual productivity, there is no romance, and he lampooned the Michael Caine character for being the ideal of an aging, bourgeois, white, hippie liberal...and well, you should ALSO know how I save my most special disdain for white bourgeois liberals.  He talked about how his nightmare would be a world in which freedom is found through collectivist, democratic action.  How he would hate nothing more than to be forced to vote on everything all the time, like in a co-op, and how his dream scenario would be a world in which an invisible state apparatus took care of those mundane decisions and allowed him the time to do what he does best: write, talk, think, explore things at his leisure.

It was as you would expect a Zizek talk to be.  A little difficult to find the thread, but full of bon mots that speak to me and my praxis.

Finally, you might have noticed that I've been sour on white people lately.  I mean, I've been sour on white people (not individual white people, but white people, The Franchise...does that even have to be said?  If it does...I mean, I probably can't help you and you should likely be reading something else?) probably my whole life, but I've become more vocal about it of late.  It feels good.  There is nothing I love more than the groundswell that is destabilizing and decentering white, heteronormative hegemony.  It feels GOOD.  Let me tell you why it feels good.

Because, now, yt pipo are finally getting a taste of what it feels like to be EVERYONE ELSE, for a hot minute.  To know, however fleetingly, what it feels like to grow up as the child of immigrants, to have people stumble over your "weird" name, to feel a little uncertain that everyone doesn't celebrate Christmas, or camp, or get birthday parties, or know how to skate, or give a flying F**K about the Tragically Hip or whatever.  To know what it feels like to have your existence questioned.  Back to Junot Diaz (and have you listened to that talk yet?  If not, you should!  You really, really should), I'm glad that white people are getting a taste of their own medicine.  "I am white and therefore I am human.  You are not white and therefore I'm not sure that you are human."  To have your existence questioned.  To know the burden of POC who have to know about stupid Franchise s**t AND their own cultural idiosyncrasies at the same time.  

I spent the bulk of my life feeling like not the norm.  In retrospect, that was a gift and has made me who I am, but when I didn't think I could be attractive, when I didn't think I was seen...it was hard, man.  Ultimately, those experiences allowed me to cultivate the perspicacity that allows me to revel in the weird and the stuff that's a little outside the norm.  That makes my friends the very best people in the world.  That allows me to find my kindred spirits and love them for their ability to know what it's like to not be that.  

It's just good for the Franchise to get a taste of its own medicine, ya know?  

Basically what I'm saying is: I never need to see a white kid dabbing.  It's gross.  Please stop.

P.S. Lots of catch-up writing happening this week at the cottage!  Keep scrolling because I'm hoping to have a lot of new content up.

Fin.

Poor Long-Form Written Word

This poor, poor blog!  So few posts compared to the halcyon days of yore.  And yet, I can't stop won't stop.  I won't give up on blogging.  Not now, not ever.  I will hold true.  There is room for the long-form reflective written word and this is my space.  You can't supplant it with all the Snapchats and Instas and FBs and Twitters...you just can't.

What have I been up to?  ONLY HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE.  The weekend before this past one was literally insane in the membrane.  That's the technical designation for what I did.

Friday was my day off and I spent the day running around like a maniac.  I helped out at the book fair, went back to the Big Yam's school to do sub lunch, did mad errands, and that night I met my friend M in Kensington and then had tortas from Torteria San Cosme which were DELICIOUS.  We split the chicken milanese and the cubano, and I also bought a cochinita pibil one for home.  The sandwiches are priced at around $9, which is kind of pricey, but they're substantial and so well made and they griddle the bread, which is key.  It's a nice touch.  I'm of the belief that hot sandwiches should be served on buns that have been kissed with some kind of fat and then burnished on a flat top - it provides a texture barrier and just ups the general ante.  Anyway, the space is super-cute - it looks like a little cafeteria lunch counter with excellent floor tile work.  I'm a little in love with it.

That Friday was one of the nicest spring days we've had yet, and I was running around in my very ancient, vintage Mexican embroidered shirt that I've had for over 10 years.  The moms at the Big Yam's school were going apes**t and one of them asked me if I got it from Anthropologie.  There's been a lot about cultural appropriation in the media of late (see: Justin Bieber's dreads) and I was like, damn, am I culturally appropriating?  Should I not be wearing this shirt?  Then at Torteria San Cosme, one of the Latin American women working the grill (and it was super-amazing that the whole crew behind the counter was women - assuming they also have a say in the means of production), pointed at my shirt and mouthed the words, "I love it."  That made me feel a little bit better, but also: am I just being lazy and relying on a "native insider"?!?  WHO EVEN KNOWS ANYMORE.  The point is, those sandwiches, that I might have zero business in the world eating, were freakin' delicious.

Then we saw a Frida Kahlo documentary that was meh.  It was very "classic documentary" which meant long, still shots of the light on a wall and the sound of birds chirping.  It was about this Japanese photographer who went to Kahlo's house and took photographs of Kahlo's stuff and then they framed it by also interviewing women in Oaxaca who produce the embroidered clothing (it was just a random coincidence that I wore my shirt that day, I swear) that Kahlo wore.  I get what the documentary was trying to accomplish, linking Kahlo's embrace of her Mexican heritage and work as a woman artist with the traditionally female craft work and domesticity, but it was a bit of a slog and the thesis could have been tightened up a bit.

Saturday we played in the Regent Park playground with the Wonder Twins and then followed that up with dinner at Bar Isabel with Dr. Rei and Hanbo.  Such a fun time.  I love those guys.  My mum watched the kids and was hilarious about it.

Sunday was Mother's Day.  Mother's Day has been AMPED UP in recent years.  My FB exploded with heartfelt and sentimental tributes to all mothers...it was a bit much for me, to be honest, but the Dotytron was lovely and took the kids away for a couple of hours so I could work on a quilt.  Then we went on a nature walk, and then Momma D came over and watched the kids so we could have dinner at A3 Napoli (one of my favorite restaurants) with JJ and S and then we went to see the Noma documentary at Hot Docs, Ants on a Shrimp.  

This documentary felt like a slog, to be honest.  It's ostensibly about the time the chef, Rene Redzepi, packed up the whole restaurant and transplanted Noma to Japan, for a 3 week engagement.  What emerges is this slavering fanboy flick that doesn't critique anything.  You don't get any sense of the thought processes that go into the dishes, what they're after, how the dishes taste, what the reception of this endeavour was...basically, as a viewer, you're supposed to take it on faith that the stuff tastes good.  It was very acritical and all I got out of it was flashbacks of my time on the line.  There was also all this hyper-masculine, macho stuff: the film opens with the chef de cuisine and the sous chef charged with conceptualizing the menu, both of whom are heavily tattooed dudes, and are shown in the opening scenes of the film doing weird cross-fit type stuff like pull-ups and working on rowing machine until they get blisters.  Just, ew.  Get over yourselves, stupid macho kitchen mentality.

The Don is so magical

Comic book nerds are also magical

Some of the awesome stuff I picked up.  Love that Prince and Bitch Planet poster!

This weekend we had my friend C64 and his partner over for dinner on Friday, then on Saturday we went for a rainy walk in the Don Valley with the Wonder Twins, and hung with SMckay that night.  The Dotytron went to see Lee "Scratch" Perry and on Sunday, SMckay and I hit up the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.  I dragged the Big Yam which was, in retrospect, a bit of a mistake.  Although I was gazing longingly at some of the other parents who had children, seemingly younger than the Big Yam following them throughout the crowded halls, with their noses buried in comics.  Really want to share my nerd interests with my kids, yo.

That being said, the Big Yam has been hilarious.  A few week's ago we went to see Peppa Pig at Boston Pizza.  They were blasting Peppa Pig on the screens and Peppa came around to all the tables.  At a certain point, as she was making her way, the Big Yam craned his neck to see, and announced: "Peppa Pig is coming!  ... Jesus."  LOL!!!  He's so funny.  The other night, we had our neighbours over for dinner and were having a big conversation about wants versus needs.  I asked him, "So, can you think of something that you really need, versus just want?" and he said, "Ummm...wifi?"  Touché.  Can't really argue with that, can we?

Some snaps from around here, lately:

Sleepiest bubbies

B-b-b-b-bath time!

These two.  Finally starting to get along and be friends.  They're doing more collaborating and colluding and are frequently in cahoots.  During their increasingly fraught nap times, I'll hear Quincess test the door knob of their room (we have one of those door-knob protectors which means they can't turn the knob), and report back to Twin B, "It's locked."  So cute.

Eats around here, lately:

Company dinner: tagliatelle with radicchio and bagna cauda, with a poached egg and crispy croutons

Made a pretty kickin' chicken biryani with green beans thoren.  There are some refinements to be made, but it's definitely a good foundation.  Next time I might add some plumped raisins and will make some extra rice.

Saw some stunning artichokes so we roasted them, I made chorizo potatoes, and seared some ling cod and served everything with romesco.  GAH!  Love romesco so damn much.

Fin.

No, YOU'RE spamming ME.

OK.  For real, I'm back this time.  I came back from my work trip and things were mental with my timelines and extra commitments but I just submitted the thing that's been consuming me for the past three weeks and I'm free for the time being.

It has been a SLOG.  Travelling for work involved grueling days - up at 6am, in meetings all day from 8am to 5pm, then packing up, going to the airport, hopping on our tiny charter plane and then going to the next destination, checking into the hotel around 8pm.  I didn't really get the hang of how to travel with this group until mid-week, at which point, after consecutive nights of indigestion from eating dinner at 9pm, I came up with a quasi-solution that involved wolfing down my lunch in 15 minutes, then going for a walk so that I might grab something I could eat on the plane and then have a reasonable digestion window before going to bed.  Travelling with my clients meant that I had to be on all day, every day, and even though my threshold for being "on" is high - I am, after all, master of the inane questions-based small talk - being in anonymous hotel rooms without the benefit or "your" stuff or "your" people wears on you.

I did get to do some fun things.  Like:

Win $20 at blackjack at the casino in Windsor.  UGH! Gambling is so FUN!  Why is it so fun?!?  My heart was racing and I had to make a decided effort not to spend my whole night there. 

  Marvel at how Robo-Cop-y Detroit looked across the river.

Order $20 worth of Johnny Rockets and eat it in my bed in my pajamas uninterrupted.

I wanted to try this restaurant called the Hoito in Thunder Bay - it's the oldest restaurant in Thunder Bay and sells Finnish pancakes.  My colleague told me to "just call an Uber," there were "so many" when he was in "Tiny Tom," Ontario (in retrospect, totally a made up, place!)  so I woke up at 6am, got ready, and opened the Uber app on my phone.  Radio silence.  I called a cab and misunderstood the distance AND cab rates in Northern Ontario.  I ended up paying $30 EACH WAY for this $10 breakfast.  It was good, but not $70 good.  I was a proper city-girl n00b and I deserved the taxi fare pwnage I received.

Northern Ontario is a mess.  After sitting through a bunch of deputations, I totally get why everyone hates Toronto and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.  The discrepancies between infrastructure funding up there versus down here are appalling.  First Nations communities who are the potato in the hot potato game between the various levels of government, high unemployment, high addiction and homelessness issues, sectors with razor thin margins that are being pushed beyond the limit.  I felt for these companies and industries, who are trying to create jobs, being squeezed by pressures from well-intentioned labour and environmental policies.  It's really a conundrum - there are no easy answers at all.  But I do think it's important to at least attempt to view things through a rural/Northern lens when we're developing public policy.  In the same way that I think it's important for urban advocates to understand and journey to the outer reaches of our city (and don't give me the whole, "I don't travel north of Bloor" parsimony) before they go ahead and propose policies that work against people who can't bike to work and don't want to.  This myopic tendency is a thing, and it's a thing that we have to work against, in order to build and nurture the relationships that are going to create the impetus for change.

After my eye-opening week abroad (I also got into green smoothies while I was away - so for real: travel does change you), I came back to work and have just been in head-down, beast mode trying to summarize over 300 oral and written submissions and then turn that into a draft report, after two days of local hearings.  It's been a sedentary marathon.  My butt's been glued to my desk chair and my muscles have definitely atrophied, but my deadline is insane and this is just what you gotta do to facilitate the democratic process, 'naw mean?

In the midst of all this I was contending with that fundraiser family dance I'm organizing (done this past weekend - YES!), and my parent council commitments, and dealing with static from weirdoes in the service of my parent council commitments.  Like, people are cray.  There's no way around it.  I'm the "volunteer coordinator" which means that I signed up for this new role and got no direction.  Fine, I can deal with that.  I set up this spreadsheet and aggregated volunteer names but the list isn't robust because at the Big Yam's school, parents in charge of certain activities are very proprietary about "their" lists of volunteers.  Which is weird, but okay, I can deal with that, too, I guess?

Anyway, someone wanted me to send out an email to ask for volunteers.  I do, with a nice italicized message underneath my name saying that if you don't want to be on the list, just email me.  This broad emails me and tells me she never asked to be on the list and that according to Canada's new anti-spam legislation I can't email people who haven't asked to be emailed, blah blah blah and then she links the Anti-Spam FAQ in the email. Da fuuuuuuuuq?!?  I research for a living, you b!  Don't test me!  So I fire back an email and say, no problem, I'll remove you from the list, sorry for the inconvenience,  I don't think that calling for volunteers constitutes the "commercial activity" the legislation is referencing.  Warm regards, me. Then she WRITES BACK.  BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CRAY (remember how I told you that?  Still true.)  "Regardless of what the legislation says I still don't want to be on the list."  Oooookay.  I didn't respond to that email (BECAUSE I'M NOT A PSYCHO).  THEN!  Four days later, she emails me AGAIN!  She forwards me this thing and says, "I checked and you're right, requests for volunteers aren't considered spam. I still don't think anyone should be on this email list unless they requested it." (Italics mine).  At this point, I'm like, YOU'RE spamming ME!  Why can't you just shut up?!  Why do you care about having the last word with the volunteer coordinator for our kids' school?  Are you seriously so inept that you don't know how to ignore and/or delete the one email a month (at most) you're getting from me?!?!  I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULL!

I just can't.

Leftover picture from when we went to Lolly's farm over the holidays.

Sick Twin B

Throughout this time I've gone through my usual whirlwind of micro-obsessions.  I have many many thoughts on Beyoncé's Formation video.  The Big Yam has started saying, "Excuse-me moi" to preface his points and it is amazing.

So we watched the movie Dope on the weekend, which is a fun, awesome movie that speaks to everything I'm into.  I'm super into teen caper movies (teen comes into ill begotten gains, uses it to their own advantage to shine on some adults, hilarity/wisecracking ensues) which I'm convinced is a genre, but when pressed by the Dotytron, I couldn't think of any other examples (The Secret of My Success)?  I'm almost positive this is a thing.  I'm totally obsessed with all the style in the film, but particularly, Diggy's (the girl on the right, above).  Her outfits were amazing and if I were 20 years younger, I would totally go for it.  The costume designer went for an overtly 90s aesthetic, so if I were 20 years younger, I would have been period-appropriate, though I don't think I had the style sense or body confidence to put things together with half as much panache.  The movie is like Attack the Block - teens, of a very particular type (in this case, geeks, in Attack the Block they were chavs), get in over their heads and meet some characters as they hustle.  I loved it.

THIS. BOOK. OBSESSED.  Remember Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl?  In that book, the protagonist wrote fanfic (that was peppered throughout the novel) about these two characters, Simon (a mage) and Baz (a vampire and mage), who were from this Harry Potter-like series written by a fictional author in the Fangirl world.  Well, Rainbow Rowell, being the amazing creature that she is, took those characters and wrote a book about them, in her own voice, and it was SO FREAKIN' GOOD.  I squee'd my way through the whole thing, savouring pages with gay romance and kissing and quips, and then as soon as I finished it, picked it up and read it right through again.  A book that should have taken me 2 nights to read, I stretched over a week (twice!) because I loved it so.  The characters were fully-realized and the dynamic between Simon and Baz is the perfect antagonistic stuff of teen-beat dreams.  It's like Buffy and Spike, Riggins and Layla, Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls.  There's a strong female friend, Penelope, who is even better than Hermione because she's got more of a sense of humour and is more overtly misanthropic.  People have dismissed the world of Carry On as Harry Potter fanfic, but I disagree.  It's its own thing, which is what makes it so addictive.  The story is self-contained and the narrative is compelling - it falls a part a bit near the end - I'm not clear on what we're supposed to think of the principle villain, but notwithstanding my love of British magician boarding school tales (and make no mistake: Rowell knows what makes for good British magician boarding school tales [read: she includes a lot of food descriptions]), I would have read a single volume for each year of Simon Snow at Watford (their Hogwart's).  The modern world is acknowledged (they have cell phones), and all in all, the romance was delightful and the supporting characters are fantastic and feel real.

I've read a few gay romances and they never did anything for me, and I was beginning to worry that I was too heteronormative to handle it, but based on the HOURS I spent looking up Simon and Baz fan art and additional fanfic, I can report that I was just waiting for the right story and the right characters and Rainbow Rowell served them up to me on a platter.  I can't recommend this enough.  One of my top books of 2015/16 (it was released in 2015) for sure.

Dead. Seriously. So hot.

I can't even.  Thank you, teenage girls everywhere for pouring all your frothing, hormonal, tentative sexual energies into making Simon and Baz fanart/fanfic.  You are treasures, the lot of you.  

I went from reading that (twice!) to tackling Jonathan Franzen's Purity (for academic book club, obviously) and seriously?  Like, what is this?  Is this white privilege in book form?  Because that's how it feels to me.  I can't even (in the bad way).  Now I'm at the 20% mark and am somewhat committed to seeing it through.  UGH.

After a long week and a weekend that felt even longer, I warmed up a coconut bun and put it on the dining room table.  I went to supervise the Big Yam practicing piano for about 1 minute, and when I came back to retrieve my treat, I saw that Twin A had stuffed the ENTIRE thing into his mouth.  He looked up at me, and through a mouth full of ill begotten gains, said, "I ate it all."  This is kind of what it sounded like, but his cute, soft voice was even cuter muffled through a coconut bun filter.

Here's what we've been eating for dinner, lately:

Bi bim bap.  I bought the thinly sliced ribeye that's in the freezer section of Chinese grocery stores (for hot pot) and mixed it with purchased kalbi marinade, stir fried it, and then added thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and snowpeas with a touch more marinade and piled this on top of rice.  Topped with a fried egg and sesame seeds, this was a very budget-friendly weeknight dinner (total cost was about $20!)

More budget weeknight dinners - French onion soup and croque hermaphrodites (ham and swiss with a fried egg on top)

Sunday supper a few weeks ago was meatloaf - sauteed brussels sprouts (which Twin B strangely loves), and a sweet potato-cauliflower-yukon gold mash.  Things my kids hate: mashed potatoes.  I don't get it.  

Another budget weeknight meal - sausage and peppers (sear Italian sausages, then bake on a tray with sliced peppers, onions, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and chili flakes) served up with soft mascarpone polenta (done in the slow cooker), and sauteed rapini.  My kids hated this meal, but I loved it.

Lately I've been craving retro 90s, 2000s desserts like creme brulee and molten chocolate cakes.  I don't know why molten chocolate cakes fell out of favour, but there's really no reason why?  Who doesn't like an underbaked, warm, gooey brownie topped with ice cream and salted caramel sauce?  Clearly not me, judging by my nightly consumption of one such dessert.

Budget weeknight dinners: Hawaii edition.  Steamed rice, topped with fried spam, a fried egg, with canned gravy on top = moco loco.  Hawaiian people are geniuses.

I was all inspired by my Discerning Coyote friend so I pulled my 9 year old (!) sourdough starter out of the freezer where it's been for 3 years (!) and brought it back to life.  I made two ugly loaves that tasted pretty good, all things considered (all things being: I was rushed, I subbed wheat bran for wheat germ, my starter is sluggish, I didn't have a razor blade to cut the tops, and I was rushing like whoa).

Yesterday was pancake Tuesday, so we had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves and maple syrup and bacon from the Mennonites, which is the very best bacon in the world.

Fin.

Emerging

Back.

Twins are napping, I'm back in my pajamas, soup is simmering on the stove, matzoh balls are resting in the fridge, house is (semi) clean, taking deep breaths after a glorious 16 1/2 days off of work. I think I'm ready?  Although I truly am suited to a life of leisure.  And let's face it: there is actually NOTHING leisurely about the holidays.  {Edit: usual disclaimer about this post taking days to write.  That idyllic imagery was actually on Sunday afternoon.  We're now into Tuesday and s**t is ON.}

My two-week holiday began with a 10pm, opening-night screening of Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens.  I'm clearly the target audience for this movie, having grown up in a family of Star Wars/pop culture nerds, and having cried my way through all 59 of the theatrical trailers (domestic and international).  Someone asked me what it is about the trailers that made me cry, and I tried to explain that they were tears of anticipation...tears of hype.  We watched it for the second time today, this time with Master T, and as I periodically cried throughout the movie, I realized that the tears are also tears of joy...tears of wonder.  I was a bookish nerd as a child, and have grown into a bookish nerd adult. I grew up in a household of sentimental, enthusiastic, whole-hog siblings.  There is something about sitting in a movie theatre and being transported to a faraway land, of believing and yearning for that world to be tangible and true that is particularly piercing in this particular franchise.  I watched the Big Yam in the theatre and he believes, he loses himself, and I do too.  This is why I get covered in goosebumps, why I'm willing (and able) to talk about minute details, to invest in this universe like it's a real thing.  Because of wonder.  It wasn't a perfect movie, by any means, but I don't need it to be.  It did exactly what I wanted it to do, which is transport me and make me believe.  JJ Abrams' used CGI judiciously, and relied on scaled models, and that one scene of Daisy Ridley's Rey standing in a dessert in front of the ruined wreckage of an Imperial Star Destroyer is so perfect that I can become a kid again.  This is what I want and what I so rarely find.  This is why Harry Potter is so perfect, and why we love Miyazagi films, and why I read comics. 

Also, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Adam Driver.  And Rey.  We took the Big Yam and his friend to the Star Wars pop-up in the City TV building.  There was a little half-Asian girl, around 3 years old, who was dressed up like Rey and the Dotytron and I almost died from the cute overload. 

Say what you will about George Lucas as a director, but he wrote a kick-a** story and created an awesome world.  JJ Abrams honors the spirit of the films, and picked a perfect cast, and crafted an entertaining (if repetitive) story, and gets human, affecting performances from his actors.  I just...I just really love it, guys.

It was so good. Then we had a chill Friday night with Dr. Rei and company.  We've got this good Friday night hang system dialed in. Dr. Rei and her fam come over after work on Friday, we eat takeout, laugh about a million different things (like, Hanbo being friends with the Sexy Stabba from the PATH on LinkedIn), and then everyone goes home and the kids are all in bed at a reasonable hour.  And THIS FACE:

What a Dimples McGee.  Zoony's continued trepidation around the Big Yam is a source of angst for my poor guy.  "Zoony hates me. Zoony doesn't like me.  He used to like me."  It's two sensitive goof balls bumping up against each other.

Then we had the Dotytron's extended family xmas dealie, which was fine.  There was some talk about not giving the prevailing provincial government "a single cent more of my money in taxes" but I let it slide. I don't know if I was being baited, but  I rose above and just ignored it.  The next day we had did an escape room with extended Micelli crew and we lost, but it was hilarious and fun times and we got to catch up with good people we haven't seen in a loooong time, which is always heart embiggening:

We got takeout for dinner from this new place called Loaded Pierogi.  We tried almost all the varieties and it was kind of expensive?  Each dish consisted of about 7 or so pierogies that you could get either boiled or fried and then topped with stuff.  I am doubtful that they even make the pierogies in house and the pierogies were just standard size.  I'm kind of over that as a restaurant "concept": taking something premade and then turning it into a "bacon loaded" or "buffalo chicken" version. Do you know how many bags of pierogies I could have bought for $125?!?  A LOT.   

 

We kept our nanny on board for half days for the first three days of the holiday break.  Each day, we'd take one kid out on an errand/outing and then go out for a restaurant lunch, then back home afternoon nap/quiet time. We did this in lieu of xmas presents to each other, and it was one of the best ideas I've ever had. Our kids never get two-on-one time and it was SO EASY.  It was like, negative work being with just the one. I feel like their individual personalities bloom a bit more when they have the independent space to express themselves and we have the time and energy to pay attention.  We took the Big Yam to see the Force Awakens pop-up with his friend and then followed it with his beloved hot dog restaurant, Fancy Franks.  Twin A got to go with us to Kinton Ramen, where he ate opted for plain steamed rice.  When his little dish of rice arrived, he spooned up a bite, moved it to the side of his mouth, tilted his head, and pronounced, "it'sth good."  A real gourmand.  Twin B got to come with us to Kinkai (formerly Guu) Izakaya, where he also ate rice while we gorged ourselves on salmon tataki and donburi bowls and baked oysters.  It was so civilized.

 

We are still going hard with trying to "embrace winter" which means that whenever it's not a full work day, we try to bundle up the kids and take them out for a walk.  We reap the benefits in the form of the twins being completely knackered and up for a solid 2 hour nap and some well-deserved quiet time in the house for our own personal projects, or lazy couch times.  One of my favorite things in the world is lying on the living room couch, the room lit only by the tree, and having the Big Yam come up to me after he's hit his independent play limit and ask to lie with me.  It inevitably ends up in the two of us falling asleep and burrowing our way slightly sweaty from the sheepskins an hour later.  It's the best re-charging in the world.

I legit thought this kid would never be able to occupy himself doing crafts and behold!  He spent an hour decorating a keep sake box.

On Christmas Eve we ate takeout Congee Queen and a million cookies and watched that new David O. Russell movie, Joy, which is as terrible as the critics would have you believe.  Sanitized, Oscar-baiting David O. Russell is not a David O. Russell I need to see.  His continued need to cast Jennifer Lawrence in roles that are well beyond her years results in movies that are coasting on her charisma and there is a chuckle or two, but overall, it's all getting rather formulaic and maudlin, to boot.  

My 2016 cookie plate - from left to right: skor chocolate chip, malted milk chocolate, gingerbread, nutmeg sugar cookies, Dorie Greenspan's world peace cookies (recipe below), ginger molasses, homemade twix bars, snickerdoodles, cardamom butter cookies, and buckeyes along the bottom. I started making all the dough in November and was actually concerned on the morning of Christmas Eve that I "didn't have enough variety."  I have issues.

Obviously Momma D went crazy, again.  The Dotytron and I were pretty restrained.  We are responsible for 1/27th of this loot.  

Christmas dinner was at my MIL's and my kids were terrors.  There are a few things working against us: space, expectation of quiet, people who haven't been around young children in a looooong time, expectations of good behaviour, the fact my kids had a traditional WP turkey dinner...it's a perfect storm.  The best thing that happened was when my SIL was taking drink orders around the table, I heard Twin A lisp, "I want white wine!"  LOL!  So good.  

My sister and her brood showed up later that night and Xmas with my family (us, my sister and her family, my brother and his fiancé, and my MIL and SIL invited for dinner) was the exact opposite.  It was a bacchanalian feast.  Whereas my MIL was worried about people filling up on the hot appetizer I brought (blue-cheesed stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates) to her dinner, we pre-loaded my family up with shrimp cocktail, 60 oysters, a charcuterie board, and then went hard into porchetta, pasta bolognese, my sister's green bean casserole, peas, garlic bread, and Kool Moe Dee's magnum opus, a croquembouche:

We had started the day with scrambled eggs, french toast, bagels, chicken liver, gravlax, and pastrami smoked salmon.  Then we went to the park and basically played nonstop games.

 

This kid's face, man.  I can't even.

This kid's face.  I can't even.

Two notable events for the memory books happened over the course of that weekend. 1) Xmas 2015 will forever be known as "Chairpocalypse" about 3 different people fell out of, and/or broke chairs while sitting in them at my house.  It was very strange, but I guess the moral of the story is: we need to upgrade our dining chairs.  The second thing involved one of the Big Yam's Xmas presents.  Santa put a whoopee cushion in his stocking, which was met with great acclaim by the next generation.  All that is, except for Twin B, who self-selected himself OUT of the basement rumpus and came clambering upstairs at one point talking gibberish about "tooting" and being "'cared" of said tooting. We didn't think anything of it.  Later that afternoon,the Big Yam came running up the basement stairs bearing this news: "I need to tell you something. The WHOOPEE CUSHION. IS IN.  THE TOILET!!" Which of course made all the adults give each other the something strange is afoot at the circle K look.  Then it was revealed that Little Little Cuz had just exited the bathroom prior to Big Yam.  So we hauled up the Big Yam and Little Little Cuz for a good old fashioned, Lagerfeld-family interrogation.  

Little Little Cuz did not hold up well under scrutiny.  He definitely denied doing it, but did so while progressively shifting lower and lower in his chair and failing to meet our eyes.  The Big Yam claimed that Little Little Cuz hadn't gone into the bathroom with the cushion in hand, but it was all a stew of unreliable witnesses.  At the end, realizing we wouldn't get an admission out of either of the two 5 year-olds, we dismissed them, chalking it down to one of those times when it's just not worth the effort interrogating a child to get the answer you're expecting.  What we did come away with, with reasonable certainty, is that it is likely that Cousin M peed on the cushion in the toilet, and didn't think to mention it.  Later, the older gen discussed it at length and came to the conclusion that it was odd that the kids didn't fess up.  During dinner, we thought to ask Twin B whether he did anything to the cushion.  At first, he gave us this face, glowered a bit, and refused to say anything:

Then, finally, he said, "I flushed it."  LOL!  We died.  Imagining Twin B so terrified of the whoopee cushion that he conquered his fear just enough to try to eliminate the problem via our plumbing system (as so many before him have tried to do), is all kinds of hilariousness.

We did a lot of driving over the break.  Driving to Diana's to pick up seafood on the eve of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, where Twin B poked the eye of some Norwegian fishman with his light saber, driving to Schmaltz Appetizing to pick up pastrami-smoked salmon and gravlax, driving to Nu Bagel to pick up some proper, wood-fired everything bagels.  I was harping on the Dotytron to be careful driving and not let us get t-boned, which is my usual habit because I feel like the drivers of vehicles are always looking out for themselves, amirite?  He took a left-hand turn that was a little close for my liking, but was actually totally safe and as he did so, fake-cried out, "T-Bone Burnetttttttttt...." and I literally died laughing.  If "T-Bone Burnettttttttttt..." is the last thing I hear before getting T-Boned at the Dotytron's hand, I'd be so upset.

We had visits with our friend from Montréal, I, and the Roomie and her family.  We spent New Year's at L's farm.  It was all-around a really, really good time.  It's nice to be somewhere else on New Year's.


There was also the Dotytron's birthday, where we celebrated by engaging in some high-octane birthday parkour:

We also set up an air mattress and let the twins be very unsafe, because we are fun, but reckless parents:

In keeping with fun, but reckless, we also let the Big Yam go on his first-ever friend sleepover.  Which in hindsight, might have showed a lack of judgement?  The Dotytron spent the night kind of freaking out about it.  We gently probed Master T the next day and it didn't seem like anything sideways happened, but kids are unreliable witnesses.  After watching Spotlight, this world, man...it will sicken you.  Do I have a kid who likes to show people (always in a place where he's surrounded by family), his junk?  Yes.  Is it horrifying to think of someone taking advantage of that childhood bodily innocence and exploiting it like a monster?  Yes.

Spotlight is a really good film about print journalism, which might just be a 2-film genre consisting of itself and All the President's Men.  I'm obviously predisposed to like this genre because it's all about research and digging and libraries and old-fashioned pre-internet searching and I love s**t that romanticizes my profession.  Although, I agree with what Ty Burr says - the film doesn't lionize journalists, it just depicts them doing the at times tedious work that they do to bring issues to light.  So, I guess the film doesn't romanticize my profession, I am the one romanticizing my profession.  Can you blame me, though?  Look at all these clown steppers who think they know how to find out information.  It's the worst.  Also, people who are "internet smart."  That's where the person does a tonne of "internet research" and comes up with the most basic, predictable, opinion on stuff because they are an algorithm eating robot and not a real person.  I know someone who claims to be a "foodie" but then will slag legit-good restaurants when all he eats all day, every day at work is a bowl of broccoli steamed in a microwave.  He's the one who's always claiming really good stuff is, "overrated" and in general, his opinions are the polar opposite of what Kool Moe Dee and I think about stuff, which is fine, if you can defend it in a way that makes us believe you've actually thought about it in a considered, heartfelt way, as opposed to being a Reddit regurgitating internet smart robot.

Also: it is heinous and reprehensible what the Catholic church did.  I think the movie is solid but it's not, earth shattering or ground-breaking.  Just some solid, reliable, workhorse filmmaking that allows me and Kool Moe Dee to practice our egregious, insulting, fake-Boston accents by attempting to insert the phrase "pahk tha cahr" into every conversation for the duration of the film.  It was also gross how the institutions of Boston (including the newspaper) were implicated in the cover-up of this case.  Do spotlight-type teams exist in every newspaper?  They should.  Guys, investigative journalism is dying and it's a sad, sad, thing.  No wonder people are dummies nowadays.  There's been a lot written about the normcore clothes the protagonists wear and how accurate that is for newsrooms - it seemed pretty period-correct, to me, although I don't know why journalists wearing khakis from the Gap constitutes a news story.  Maybe people just wanted to be able to throw the normcore word around?  Who knows.  The Boston Globe has solid coverage of the history of the events that make up the core of the film.  You can find that here.

Sicario was another dudski.  It was all faux-ominous and faux-ratcheted-up-tension with this over-bearing brass-blast score and your standard take on the seedy, immoral, (yet-Hollywood alluring) drug trade.  Like, stop it Hollywood.  And don't give us the straw-man of Emily Blunt's protocol droid moral quandary.  I kind of found it sexist.  Like, it was so, "this is a MAN's world lady, and yeah, you could handle it for a bit, but you're breaking down when it comes time for MANLY MAN DRUG ILLEGAL STUFF TO HAPPEN?!?  MAN UP, LADY!"  At least, that's the subtext I got and I wasn't in for it.  The movie was totally forgettable other than for how sloppily it trades on tropes.

That pretty much brings us up to date (mostly).

This happened. 

Fin.