Germane

Germane is the bane of my existence lately, but I will say that getting my work edited is definitely making me a better government writer.  I'm not known for my brevity.  I'm an over-explainer to the max (she says, stating the obvious, in a blog that's been running for almost 8 years, brimming with posts that are decidedly NOT on the short side).  

What follows is the kind of kitchen-sink blog post that is filled with the non-germane.  Jermaine Jackson did NOT sign off on this.  Nor did Jermaine Dupri.  I need another Jermaine to fulfill the rules of 3, but I'm coming up empty.

1) I don't care about Lip Sync Battles.  I find them funny for about .001 second and then I'm over it.  I don't get it.  It's a made-up thing.

2) Shad (the person, not the fish) is another made-up thing.  Like, when the internet and quasi-hipsters (for lack of a better word) on my social media started freaking because he (?) was named the new host of Q, I was like, "...da f**k?"  Shad the fish is legit.  I can get behind that.  Shad the person?  Total made-up thing.

3) When we were in Geneseo, before the Mouse Always Wins Disney Tour 2015 started, the Dotytron was party to a hilarious convo between the Big Yam and Little Little Cuz.

Big Yam: "Baba, how many people have died since people existed?"

Dotytron: "Ummm, I don't know.  A lot.  Like, more than a billion."

Little Little Cuz: "And a police officer at my mom's work.  He died."

Dotytron: "That's sad."

Little Little Cuz: "I was like, whatever." 

LOL!!!  Little Little Cuz is FOUR by the way, and apparently already shows a callous disregard for human life.  

4) This was my Easter:

That smattering of snow (seems so long ago now, after the recent run of two - TWO! - warm, sun-filled spring-like days in a row) really put a damper on the street Easter egg hunt, which usually heralds the beginning of "Norman Rockwell Season" on Lil' Ugmo Avenue.  The Easter egg hunt marks the turning point when the denizens of Lil' Ugmo Avenue emerge from winter hibernation with kids that have suddenly grown a foot taller over the winter.  It's when we start to spend the bulk of our pre-and-post-dinner time outside, chatting while our kids roam between houses like a roving pack of semi-feral beasts.  It's the best.

5)  The other day the Big Yam turned to me and asked, "When I grow up, are you going to marry me and Baba?" We've hit a rather sweet age - 4 is wonderful.  The tumult inside their little bodies seems to quiet a little, and their language acquisition seems to keep pace with the rush of thoughts inside their brains.  We get a lot of unprompted "I love yous" and out of nowhere, I'll turn around and find him planting a soft kiss on my arm.  It's very sweet.  We had to explain to him that the love you feel for your parents (and that we feel for him) is different from the kind of love you feel for the person you marry.  He seemed concerned about wanting to stay a part of our family, so we pitched it as finding someone you want to start a new branch of the family with.

I was kicking around this working thesis that the love you have for your children is beast of a different stripe than the love you have for your partner.  "OBVI" I can hear you muttering.  I had this whole riff on how you don't bring any baggage to the love you have for your kids, and then I realized that was a load of hooey.  Does anyone ever travel without baggage?  I don't think so.  Highly unlikely.  It's different baggage, but the love I have for my kids is coloured by my own upbringing, the way I relate to my parents, my siblings, my sense of self as it was forged in fiery pits of Mordor, I mean, Markham.  

Last weekend we threw a birthday party for Momma D.  The Dotytron and EhmDo put in so much work making the party a success for their mum.  There was a Coronation Street-themed cake and a photo album that had everyone welling up, and they performed a number of Momma D personal favorites.  

Big Yellow Taxi

Landslide

They changed the words to the Beatles' song "You Never Give Me Your Money" to "You Always Give Me Your Money"  - it was a huge hit!

As I sat with Lindsay on my lap, listening to the joy and love elicited by these talented, beautiful people in my life, I had a minor epiphany.  Maybe epiphany is too strong a word.  I was filled with gratitude and inwardly chided myself for taking the musical gifts of my outlaw family for granted sometimes.  I've been known to vocally discourage a career in the arts for my children.  Is it so wrong that I would like some kind of silicon valley venture capitalist?  Fine, maybe not a venture capitalist, but more like a Warren Buffet Berkshire-type.  Someone who will treat their parents right, ya know? Actually, if I really want a career for my kids that will result in them venerating their ma', then I should wish that they become like, Asian-Canadian Drakes or Kanye-types.   I realized as I listened, and as my kids (mainly Lindsay and the Big Yam) have requested Big Yellow Taxi every night a billion times, that I don't want to rob them of this particular form of aesthetic creation/appreciation.    They are so lucky to be steeped in this love for musical expression.  I only hope they can do that and do stupid abstract Singaporean math problems.

I had another thought, as I watched Momma D beaming with pride for her kids' prodigious talent.  I'm always vaguely discomfited by seeing parents demonstrably proud of their children.  It's just not something Chinese people do.  The concept of beaming with pride over your children is pretty foreign to me.  The Chinese way is to talk about your children's accomplishments "Ai ya!  Melody only got into Stanford-ah!  But not Harvard!  It's terrible-ah!  I told her to work harder!" where you're bragging but only in so far as their academic/professional achievements reflect on the parent.  Being proud of your kid's talents in the arts?  Not a thing.  Like, maybe if they're playing Carnegie Hall, but anything less just doesn't compute.  

I'd like to strike some kind of middle ground and break out of my cultural conditioning.  The babies are signed up for a toddler & caregiver art class that our caregiver brings them to.  I'm not proud of them for the work that they do, per se...more I find it hilarious and kind of "Awwwwww" when I see all their "art" and when our caregiver sends us photos of them in their class.  Less overflowing with pride than "what little cute weird butts."  

What we've eaten, lately:

Spicy grain soup and Smitten Kitchen's gruyere and caramelized onion biscuits.  The biscuits were pretty tasty, but not as tasty as the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits I made from the Red Lobster-sanctioned box mix.

A porchetta sandwich and a shrimp sandwich from a new sandwich shop in the 'hood.  I enjoyed these, but found the service incredibly slow, and they were good, but not great.  Unlike Porchetta & Co, where I've been dreaming about their buffalo fried chicken parmesan and porchetta sandwiches for weeks. 

Last time I was in the States, I bought a pack of scrapple, which we pan fried and ate with eggs.

The Texas sheet cake from Baked: Celebrations cook book.  I've had success with 3 of the 4 recipes I've tried.  This is a moist chocolate cake topped with a salted-peanut topped peanut butter and icing sugar frosting.  Deadly tasty.  

Braised veal breast with gremolata and my new favorite side, kung pao brussel sprouts (recipe below).  

Leftover bacon, kale, and squash risotto turned into arancini.  Anything fried topped with aioli = magic.

Freezer chili and cornbread.

Carnitas

A pear and almond tart.  This was delicious.  From Dorie Greenspan's book.  A very simple recipe of sauteed pears baked in a sweet, short crust, topped with a crispy almond-meringue.  I didn't take down the recipe, but it's pretty easy.  I think the topping was just a few egg whites, mixed with confectioner's sugar (I think about 1/2 cup?) and a cup of sliced almonds.

Freezer meatloaf with freezer broccoli cheddar rice casserole.  I love me a broccoli cheddar rice casserole.  I wish I had two more in the freezer.

Bouillabaisse with rouille

Spaghetti and meatballs

Tourtiere with tomato jam and braised red cabbage and appales

The Red Lobster biscuits.  Basically grated cheddar dumped into some kind of biscuit mix, and then brushed with butter mixed with garlic-salt.  So good.

I made my family a porchetta for Easter dinner.  I bought it from my go-to Italian butcher, who gave the Dotytron my pre-ordered meat with the not-so-encouraging, "I've never done this before!" (Really?  A porchetta?  From an Italian butcher that's been in business for 60 years?)  It turned out AMAZING.  So easy!  You just let it go.  I ate leftovers for weeks and weeks.

Trying very hard to resume a more regular posting schedule.  I have so many thoughts and all the feels (as per usual).

Fin.

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Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts

Not adapted at all, really from Bon Appetit

Allegedly serves 6 as a side, but we eat a LOT of brussels sprouts

2 lbs brussels sprouts , stems trimmed and halved 

4 T olive oil

1 T. cornstarch

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 T. peeled ginger, minced

2 T. sambal oelek

1/2 c. soy sauce

1 1/2 T. sugar

2 t. unseasoned rice vinegar

1/2 c. chopped salted peanuts or cashews

- toss the brussels sprouts in 3 T. of the oil and season with salt and pepper.  Roast in a 425F oven until dark and crispy and soft
- meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 T. of oil in a small pan.  Add the minced ginger and garlic to the cold oil and slowly heat.  When the ginger and garlic are fragrant and starting to brown just a bit, add the soy, the sugar, the sambal, the rice vinegar, and 1/2 c. of cold water.  Stir and taste for seasoning (I reduced the sugar from the original recipe, so you might want to add more).
- Take the 1 T. of cornstarch and stir with a 1-2 T. of water to make a thin slurry.  Stir this slurry into your soy mixture and heat to boiling.  When the sauce is thickened, pour over your roasted brussels sprouts and top with the chopped nuts.

*Note: I find this recipe made twice as much sauce as I needed, so I tend to reduce all ingredients by half, but obviously this is a moving target based on your amount of brussels sprouts.

weirdest and yet most topical dream ever

so last night i had a dream that the dotytron and i were in new delhi staying with these friends of big d's sister. i don't remember much about the place we were staying, except that my dream state must have conflated it with our friend pingy's actual apartment in brooklyn where we stayed in the spring (in the real-deal flesh world, not in dream world). there was one room with soaring ceilings (in dream world) and suspended at various levels on fishing line were these 3 dimensional, wooden owl cutouts that were quite beautiful.

another room had 360 degree views and was built suspended over a cliff overlooking the new delhi landscape (i know new delhi is a city - i've never been there, but in my dream world, the room looked out over mountains that panorama'd into forests). in this room was a toilet. next to the toilet was this thing stuck into the ground that looked like the end of a trumpet (the end the sound comes out of). the long and short of the dream was: i chonged the toilet. lol!!! and evidence of said chonging was made apparent to my own, growing, dream world horror, when water slowly started spilling out of the trumpet thing in the carpet, and seeping across the floor. imagine how embarrassed i was!!! to chong the toilet of hosts that were practically strangers to me! and ruin their carpet!!!

then the dream featured angelina jolie and brad pitt somehow. then i woke up.

the reason this dream is hilarious and topical is because i'm notorious for chonging our home toilet. and then making the dotytron plunger it. and in exchange, in payment for me not having to deal with the disgustingness that is touching the plunger, we struck a deal where each time he performed the service, i would buy him a jar of artisanal honey. we recently changed the deal to make it that each time he had to unclog the toilet, i would pay him $10 towards his gujin (that obscure chinese instrument he covets).

that was probably TMI, but if you're reading this, then you know me, and if you know me, you know that there's nothing i won't blab (over share) about.

ANYWAY. in other random ephemera, on sunday, we were doing our grocery shopping at the big carrot, and the dotytron picked up a new shower scrubby...you know, one of the ones that look like this:

these things have been around for at least like, 15 years, so i technically didn't even have to post that picture, but whatevs.

we're checking out, and the cashier, takes the scrubby, scans it, and then says, "oh! this is one of those things for exfoliating, right?" *mimes exfoliating his face with the scrubby* we're like, "uh, yeah" (thinking to ourselves, "where the crap has this guy been that he doesn't know what a shower scrubby is/does?") then he CONTINUES to mime scrubbing at his face (and the scrubby is practically rubbing up against his sallow, gaunt cheek) and says, "they're supposed to be really good at getting rid of dead skin" and we're like, "uhhh, yeah" and then, STILL MIMING, he goes, "i bet they REALLY do a good job!" and finally stops and we finish the transaction and grab our stuff and leave. as soon as we were out of earshot i turned to the dotytron and said, "i could have used about 150% less of that guy rubbing his junk with the shower scrubby" and the dotytron started like, dry-heaving. it was so gross (and yet, funny, considering how traumatized the dotytron was at the defiling of his shower scrubby.)

on monday for dinner i made us a tater tot turkey casserole, which is as DELICIOUS and trashy as the name implies. cream of mushroom soup mix, defrosted thanksgiving turkey chunks, mayo, onions, mushrooms, celery, all topped with tater tots that i coaxed into oven-baked crispiness by tossing with oil, salt and pepper before strewing on the casserole. it was hella good:

 

tuesday night was an off day - and by "off" i mean "wendy's" - i had a double bacon mushroom melt combo AND a spicy chicken sandwich. oy.

here's a shot of the banana walnut upside down cake:

 

tonight i did some more freezer busting (i need that space for xmas cookies, yo!) and reheated up a fig, arugala and gorgonzola quiche i had tucked away. with it i made a baby spinach salad with toasted pecans and a warm bacon-mustard vinaigrette:

 

on tuesday we tried putting the boobla khan in his crib to sleep. he's been napping in there periodically as i've moved my base camp back upstairs after being ensconced like jabba the hut on the living room couch for the past month. last night was the first night he started the night's sleep in the crib. but then i got all sadface about it. about him growing up. about how your days when your little baby can sleep in bed with you and you can fall asleep with the sound of their sweet breathing in your ear are limited. how he's not going to be so soft and cute and squishable forever. so as soon as he woke up for his middle of the night feeding, i hustled him back into our room and our bed. i'm a total co-sleeper! what happened to my ideals? but i defy you not to smuggle this cargo into your bed either:



here's a bonus shot of master T, featuring cute little baby toes:

buh. my defenses are useless against that level of artillery.

fin.

3 for 3

an hour of yoga every day for the past 3 days! what! well, if i'm to be honest with you (and if i can't be honest with you, dear reader, than it's pretty much all gone to the s**tter), it's been hovering more at the 45 minute mark. but i don't do shivasana, which always takes like 10 minutes, so i figure i'm pretty on.

not much to report...i've fallen head over heels for this YA fantasy-ish novel that's consuming all my spare time not spent averting my eyes in terror at dexter season 4 (the trinity killer season!) the novel is SOOOOO good. i almost missed my stop yesterday on the way to work and back because i was so deeply burrowed in it. the dotytron is itching to get his hands on it. it's kind of like a feminist lord of the rings. he was all like, "i want to read it after you." and i was like, "really?" and he's like, "dude. have you met me?" which is true, because FEW people in the world love their falcor and fantasy as much as that guy.

that guy was also enormously proud of his cheeky self for handing me this burned DVD:


tonight for dinner i went super simple and made us one of my cheap, quick, dinnertime standbys, linguine with clam sauce. so easy...doesn't even warrant a recipe but i'll post one anyway at the end of the post. i jazzed it up by throwing in 1/2 a can of drained diced tomatoes i had left over in the fridge from the chilaquiles last night. i served it with chopped romaine tossed with the last of my caesar salad dressing and that was that. ate it one-handed while my nose was buried in my book propped up with the other hand - eating solo because the dotytron was giving a guitar lesson.

these are the lemon bars i made the other night...i think i mentioned it before but i wasn't happy with how much crust there was...i prefer a higher filling to crust ratio, but with a small bit of tweaking, these would be perfect. super puckery, bright, lemon filling with a good amount of set from the egg whites. the other things on the plate were gifts for the dotytron from T at work...there are little meringue-y pecan "cookies" that are kind of like southern divinity - little crunchy-chewy puffs studded with the toasty goodness of nuts. the round cookies are fresh mint cookies that she dipped in chocolate and white chocolate. i'm telling you, T is CRAZY. WHO DIPS COOKIES DURING THE WORK WEEK?!? you will never catch me doing a rolled AND dipped cookie, EVER. i hate rolled cookies as is. so fussy with the rolling and the cutting. and then decorating them? get outta here.

our buddy jewfro S came over for a quick visit with his jewfro completely out of control. it's insane.

now i'm going to quietly, regretfully finish my book and then be sad that the next thing i read won't be half as good.

fin.


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linguine with clam sauce
serves 4, main course

1lb box of linguine (i exclusively buy di cecco or barilla)
3 T. unsalted butter
3 T. olive oil
1 large spanish onion, diced
2 heaping T. of minced garlic
a splash of white wine (like, 1/2 c?)
2 cans of canned clams, drained and rinsed
1 bottle of clam juice
chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

- in a big, wide, pan large enough to toss the pasta in, melt the butter and olive oil together over medium heat
- add the onion and garlic and cook, without allowing it to colour, until translucent and fragrant
- add the white wine, allow to reduce until it's almost gone
- add the clams and the clam juice and simmer on low heat until the liquid is gone by about half (not a big deal). season with salt and pepper
- meanwhile, cook the pasta as per package directions until al dente, drain, and toss with the clam sauce and chopped parsley

in which the spirit of the season

escapes us (but is regained)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

roll call of awesome:

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

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

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


jez burrows work.

the "visible robot" print by brian flynn.

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

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


christopher lee's collection of beast prints.

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

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

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

fin.

odds and sods

- i have successfully answered two final jeopardy questions in a row. tuesday night's was ridiculously easy...wednesday night required a bit more deductive reasoning, and i wasn't confident, but it ended up being right in the end.

- my mug of milk last night smelled strangely and inexplicably of human b.o., but because i'm a creature of habit and because i believe strongly in the sanctity of the union between sweet cakes and milk, i doggedly kept at it - i have to admit, it wasn't entirely unpleasant. i think the source might be that the roomie does the dish washing in our house and not only insists on natural (read: ineffectual) dish washing detergent, but also won't wear rubber dish washing gloves, which means that - lacking the insulating protection that the gloves offer - she ends up washing our dishes in lukewarm water. it's kind of gross and sometimes i have to put dishes that still have a greasy film back into the sink for a second go around.

- i applied for a gold visa with my bank online because i wanted something with no annual fee, that had collision damage waiver insurance for when we rent a car (CDW ends up doubling the cost of a car rental.) when i didn't hear back, i called visa and found out i got declined. this was VERY troubling for someone like me who prides herself on her fiscal responsibility, unnaturally high osap repayments, and fastidiously prepares a monthly budget months in advance, leaving myself a spending allowance of like, $50 every week because i'm crazy like that. i went into the bank and tried to figure it out and immediately reverted to kid-in-the-prinicpal's office demeanor, desperately trying to decode the customer service rep's body language to figure out why i was declined and shamelessly prostrating myself for assurances that i was in good standing with the bank (i am, i ended up getting approved, i probably filled out the form wrong.) i'm not going to lie, it was quite an unbecoming display of neediness - whatever the financial institution equivalent is of grade grubbing. i wanted good credit rating gold stars and i was willing to stop at nothing debasing myself to get them.

- faithful readers of this blog know how insane i am about sorting and vigorously maintaining the cleanliness and appearance of my garbage, recycling, and the receptacles that store the aforementioned.  nothing stresses me out more than having a dirty green bin, and at that, nothing makes me more distraught then when the raccoons get into the green bin, knock it over, and the first thing i face when i leave the house to go to work is a pile of rotting vegetable ends strewn about our walkway.  it guts me.  to this end, i've devised a system whereby we encircle the green bin with heavy things on all sides so it can't get knocked over, and then weigh down the lid with no less than 3 bricks so that they can't open it up. the emphasis isn't unintentional. for some reason, toronto raccoons have such brute strength at their disposal that the odd times when the dotytron or the roomie only stacks 2 bricks on top, we're inevitably met with food waste armageddon the next day. to this end, i've developed the saying: "2 bricks are an invitation, 3 are a deterrent!" which i repeat like some daft, urban detritus sage as a reminder when the green stuff goes out. i'm crazy. I'VE DEVELOPED A SAYING ABOUT BRICKS ON MY GREEN BIN.

tonight for dinner we had leftover spicy grain and black bean soup (frozen and defrosted) with cheddar cheese quesadillas and salsa and sour cream. super simple, super easy. the dotytron is having no less than 50 stress related meltdowns a minute. poor little guy. the antidote for that is a long weekend spent in upstate new york watchimg M-TOD, playing with the kiddies, and making your colon asplode at brian's u.s.a diner (my sister is freaking out because they've been advertising for cooks in the penny saver - i say: bring on the penny saver talent!!!)

because we're being fiscally responsible, we don't TRULY get the benefit of the long weekend and my FOUR DAY WEEKEND because the dotytron has to work on saturday. this is HELLA bogus but it's the right thing to do considering he missed a couple of days of teaching when he had the flu. i'm a little gutted about it...i'm not gonna lie.

the watchmen is INCREDIBLE. a game-changing comic that is a dark, swirling, thick and sludgy descent into the depths of pessimism, cynicism, and cold war tension. alan moore is kind of a notorious brilliant curmudgeon in the comics world, and no wonder...the dude looks like this:

the watchmen is DENSE. there are about 4-5 different parallels stories that are interspersed within the main narrative, one featuring a comic a periphery character is reading, a treatise on owls written by the night owl (the second), journal entries from rorshach, letters, an autobiography - and the world is so vividly realized that it's hard to see the connection between the standard comic parts and these collage elements. it has a mystery type main narrative arc, following a group of former vigilantes in a united states that has banned masked vigilanteeism and is continually teetering on the brink of nuclear apocalypse with russia. the psychology of the characters is twisted, real, and conveys a certain tired, gritty world-weariness. this is not the fantastical, glittering metropolis that meets superman and spiderman with open arms. this is a dirty, seething, roiling, troubled nihilistic world beset with decadence and deviance and the watchmen all have different answers to the problem (ranging from dr. manhattan's quantum physics, the contemporaneousness of the past/present/future approach, to rorshach's absolutist violence, to the night owl's everyman idealism.)

i can't recommend it enough. it's rich, satisfying, laden with intertextual references, and captures the moment when it was written (mid 80s). i'm worried that the film won't be able to do it justice...i can't imagine that it will. bringing something like that to the big screen and satisfying the core fans is a herculean task. it's also not something that franchises well...i'm not sure hollywood and the director (the dude who did 300) is up to the task. we'll see. the viral marketing campaign is off the chains though.

k, that's enough out of me for one day.  i can't believe i don't have to go back to work until tuesday!  can i say again that my earn-day off is THE BOMB?!???

roll call of awesome:


it's really wrong to love a chair as much as this...but the herman miller eames recliner with ottoman is a touchstone of design. it's like visual opium - so soothing, so warm, so clean.  

fin.