Time Flies

...when you're hustling like a mofo.  Which I am, all the time.  It is exhausting and leaves little time for other stuff.

Lots of irons in the fire and I'm seeing some payoff for my preparation and drive, which is good, but it might lead to some hard choices, which is not bad, per se, but fraught.

WAS THAT VAGUE ENOUGH FOR ALL Y'ALL???

The past few weeks and the next few weeks until the end of June are pretty much bananas.  But it's okay, I've made my peace with it.

We spent the May 2/4 weekend in Cleveland with H & A and their kid, Danger.  We managed a 5+ hour drive there and back without having to resort to screens in the car, but we almost broke down (and by "we" I mean, obviously, "the Dotytron" who is ready to unleash the screens-in-the-car-kraken at the slightest provocation) on the way home.  The kids were cranky and overtired and I was driving and it was a bad combination.  I just gotta say: when I'm riding shotgun, I KILL the kid distraction game.  The Dotytron's methodology is very strange.  It involves near-instant capitulation, turning up his own music in the car VERY LOUD, playing one half-hearted game of "Eye Spy" and then asking why we can't turn on Eddie VAN Halen's DVD player.  At the end of the day, the point is: we made it.  My tips for longish car rides with kids success:

1) PACK SNACKS.  SO MANY SNACKS.  I have an emergency stash of snacks in the car, and before we go, I pack a snack container of a mix of goodies for each kid.  Each kid also has their own bottle of water

2) Try to do the driving around bedtime, if at all possible.  We'v gotten burned before thinking that if we leave the city at 3 or 3:30pm, then we'll "beat" rush hour traffic heading out of the city.  THAT IS A G-D LIE!  All you do is pick up rush hour traffic.  Basically, you leave the city by 2pm, or not until 6:30 or 7pm.  So, we eat dinner at home, get the kids into their jammies, and then pack up and roll out with the aforementioned snacks.

3) Depending on your kids' interests, pack some appropriate, portable, no small pieces entertainment gear.  The Big Yam gets some crayons and markers and a big pad of paper.  The twins get to hold a foam sword, conducting baton, or one of those magna doodle boards.

4) Bring music your kids like.  We have a Spotify playlist of all their favorite tunes, so when they get tired of being quiet, we play that for an hour until they invariably pass out.

And that's it.  We've never driven for longer than 6 hours.

We basically just chilled out, ate some food, hung out with their friends.  Went to some playgrounds and their Museum of Natural History.  It was very low-key.  Some snaps from our time there:

LOL at my cautious Big Yam struggling on this thing.

Three amigos

I made that toffee bundt cake from Baked Occasions but this time put a brown butter glaze on it.  It was MURDERATION

They took us to Eddie's Grill, which is this cute, old-timey place that serves chili dogs and fries and hamburgers along lake Erie.  I have to say though, Americans have no idea how to cottage.  They're clueless.

We tried Michael Symon's new BBQ joint, Mabels.  The brisket was delicious.  The lamb ribs were way too fatty.  The pig's tail was in this super-spicy, vinegary, buffalo-type sauce which was super-addiction.  Baked beans and slaw were good.  As was the spaetzle side and the beet salad.  It was tasty, but kind of expensive.  Not sure if I would go back.  Portion sizes were kind of weak.


Whenever we travel, we always come back and get Vietnamese takeout from our local.  It's a tradition.  We came back late on Sunday of the long weekend, which meant we had all of Monday to relax.  We spent the morning doing chores/laundry, and then grabbed takeout and spent the afternoon at Cherry Beach.  It was the perfect long weekend day.

This past weekend was lovely.  On Saturday, the Dotytron was at the Discening Coyote's bachelor party, and our caregiver invited my kids to her son's 12th birthday party at her house, I was on my own on Saturday night which was SO NICE.  I went shopping for a dress (in a REAL. LIVE. STORE.) for my brother's wedding, and then met up with Lolly and we had dinner at Lamesa, which is a modern Filipino restaurant on Queen West.  The irony is not lost on me that my kids were chowing down on home-cooked Filipino food and I was eating an upscale version.  The food was delicious, though.

Our appetizers, a crispy pork belly with papaya slaw and sawsawan reduction, and a tuna/avocado poke-type thing with shrimp chips for scooping.

Our mains: octopus and crispy polenta; chicken adobo with garlic rice (so good!); a charred eggplanta caponata thing with creme fraiche; and this DELICIOUS grilled zucchini with coconut zabaglione, and foam and housemade ricotta.

I really loved the vegetable dishes in particular.  There's nothing bad about a super-charred eggplant dish and the zucchini was delectable.  The coconut was so rich and light and the lightly grilled zucchini played so well with the ricotta.  I would definitely go back and it was a fantastic choice for gluten intolerant people.  We lucked out because it was a walk-by situation.

Then I came home and had my buddy M over to watch a movie as part of this half-assed Marxist film.

Sunday the Dotytron was pretty wrecked so we took it easy and kept it local.  We went to the farmer's market and hung with people we saw there, then came home and had dinner with Momma D, freshly returned from Iceland.  I made pizzas on the grill, which were good, but not great.  I need to get my grill hotter!  I don't know how to do it. They were still tasty, but the pizzas need a minute or two under the broiler to get the top browned (the bottom cooks before the top crust can get really burnished).

In other news, this actually happened to me the other week at lunch with my homies KD and G.  We were at Burrito Bandidos and because I'm really making a concerted effort to shape up, I got a "wrapperless" burito bowl.  I ate half of it and the rest was in my styrofoam container that I had closed up because I was planning on saving the rest for lunch the next day.  While we were sitting there, an indigent man had come into the restaurant, and rifled through the garbage next to our table, looking for something to eat.  He came to our table and asked if he could have my container of food.  I hesitated, probably longer than was decent (because I really wanted to eat the rest!), but after a pause, I said he could have it.  He opened up the container, looked at the mess that was inside (a wrapperless shrimp burrito bowl will never win any plating awards), and then shook his head and handed it back to me.  LOL!  It was kind of hilarious that he was hungry but not THAT hungry.  But also sad.  But also good that people maintain their humanity and always have standards?

I've been on this pretty disciplined weight loss regimen for the past two months and I've actually seen results.  I'm about 4 lbs off from my pre-twins pregnancy weight.  I run about 5km 3 or 4 times a week, getting up buttf**k early in the morning to do so (I'm up and around before 6am, ideally).  And I do gross things like start my day with a green smoothie and exercise portion control and log everything I eat.  I feel like I do this every summer, but this is the first time I've seen marked results, and I think I can chalk the success down to this: being kind to yourself.  That was the breakthrough for me.  So, if I have a bad day where I go off the rails on what I eat?  It's no biggie.  I try again the next day.  I don't sweat, or stress, or beat myself up over it.  Which means that the shame/guilt spiral of excessive overeating that used to accompany previous lapses doesn't happen.  Same with the exercise.  If I feel like not doing the full run, I don't do it.  I don't beat myself up over it.  It's working for me, this whole being kind thing, and I kind of like it.  If I know I want to eat ice cream for dessert (which for me, is I KNOW IT), then I just dial back on dinner a bit.  Not hating myself for enjoying myself makes a big difference, I've found.  It's just easier to dust yourself off and try again (try again).

I can't believe the twins are almost 3!  THIS IS UNREAL.  They're such little people now.  So much talking and being ridiculous between the two of them.  I love their little butts so much.  This week, Quincess woke up and barfed a few times.  He wasn't feeling well.  When Lindsay (Twin B) heard, he scuttled down to the basement to get their toy doctor's kit, and was talking to himself the whole time about how he knew what to do.  He then struggled to get the doctor's kit up the basement stairs.  He was so determined!  I was in the kitchen futzing around and Twin A (Quincess) was in his high chair and all I could hear was him screaming, "LEAVE ME ALONE!!! LEAVE!!! ME!!! ALONE!!!" as Twin B advanced on him with a plastic syringe.  So cute.

This video shows the cute little gasps that Lindsay does when he's excited about something.  He's such an enthusiastic little dervish.  He's been all over his "ice lollies" lately (that's a Peppa Pig reference).

Lindsay talking about his "snow cones."

This guy's morning hair

 

At one of our new favorite playgrounds

Outside all day, erryday.

Twin A is so funny.  He has this belly-laugh chortle which is so adorable coming out of his wee little body.  He also gives major teenage-style attitude.  "Line up your shoes on the mat!" Response: "I diiiiiiiiiid" and then he throws his head back and drags his body around like Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer:

He also gets very teenager-y when he wants something and drags all the words into one moany-sentence.  I'm trying to capture it on video.  It's so good:

So. Much. 'Tude.

For all my friends who still have the option of avoiding this fate: don't drop off your kids/pick them up at school.  I don't have the stomach to watch schoolyard dynamics play out.  The other day, I went back to watch the Big Yam surreptitiously from the side after dropping him off.  He ran up to a friend of his, and playfully grabbed his friend's baseball cap off his head.  His friend whipped around, annoyed, and ripped the hat out of the Big Yam's hands and hit the Big Yam with it.  Then the kid turned around and continued talking to this other kid.  I watched the Big Yam stand there, kind of chastened, his arms akimbo, all awkward-like, and then you could see him trying to recover, so he asked his friend, "Are you Iron Man?" and his friend ignored him.  The Big Yam stood there for a bit more, before running off to play with other kids, and my heart hurt for the rest of the day.  I could barely stand it.  

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

I know that I can't protect him.  I just don't have the heart to watch this stuff happen.  He is a very sweet, gentle, weird kid.  He's not great at reading social cues.  I mean, he's okay at it, and he likes other kids, but he's also very content to play in his own interior world.  Like, if all the other kids are doing a game of hide and go seek, the Big Yam will frequently just go off and do his own thing...he's not the one to succumb to the group propulsion to do what everyone else is doing.  These are all beautiful, lovely attributes.  I just want him to be safe in who he is.

This sweet little butt.

I also know that a lot of the time the view from outside is way worse.  That I'm likely projecting a lot of my adult psychological baggage and nuances onto his social interactions...it doesn't make it easier.  Can I just like, never drop him off and pick him up?  

I've been gently probing during our dinner time conversations, because I want to know about other stuff happening that might be bothering him.  I feel like we don't know very much about what happens during his day.  The other night, I asked, "Did anything happen that made you sad, or mad today?" He thought for a moment, and then his whole sweet face brightened up and he said, "Something made me so happy! Our butterflies hatched!" And then he went on a long, rambling description of the butterflies hatching.  Never change, Big Yam, you sweet little soul.

Dinners around here lately:

Oven roasted kalbi and bi bim bap rice with fried egg

Leftover almond toffee from making the bundt cake with maple bacon ice cream and mercury espresso ice cream (I have a bit of an ice cream problem at the moment)

Stew oxtail, squash, and spinach with a double

Quickie weeknight meal - brisket in the freezer, King's Hawaiian rolls, and broccoli

Soft shell season!  Breaded soft-shell po' boys with bacon and homemade remoulade

A veggie-heavy meal - tater tots (fried, of course), roasted aspargus, poached eggs, proscuitto and hollandaise.

Fin.

Let's get physical

I had my physical yesterday.  Let me tell you: NOBODY gets more out of their health tax dollars than me.  I grilled my doctor!  My agenda:

1) my suspicions about the new guidelines that moved pap screenings from yearly to every three years (if you've had 3 normal paps in a row)
2) how I'd only lost 5lbs from last year even though I'd taken up running 5km 3 times a week and bike 12km 5 days a week
3) the associated risks with CT scans
4) the results of my blood work (my cholesterol is a blip higher than they like to see, but my good cholesterol is higher than my bad cholesterol and my bad cholesterol is well within the normal range, as is the ratio between good and bad
5) assorted lady parts questions
6) assorted questions relating to hypochondriac fears about cancer
7) how the colon is another name for the long intestine

It was epic.  I basically stretched a 45 minute visit into an hour and a half.  But I really like my doctor.  He's super nice and he likes me and is a big proponent of informed consent.

So...I reached my goal of 5km in 30 minutes.  It was kind of anti-climatic since I continue to hate running with every fibre of my being.  Good thing the running has been made slightly more bearable by the cool weather we had this past week.

I got an opportunity to work on a project for a group at work that I could see myself moving to someday (and it's why I got the degree).  I don't know if they envision me joining them, but there's nothing I can do about that.  It's been consuming a lot of my time and resulted in me taking work home a lot this week.  I finally got the project done so I feel so much lighter!  I also feel kind of exposed because the Manager of the branch is going to be editing it and I don't want him (or whoever in the office who is going to be looking at it) to be all like, "Hey Dummy! Why'd you write such a dum-dum dummy paper? Dummy."  Ugh.

Now I just have to finish a wee little 10 page paper next week and I'll be DONE MY DEGREE!!!  WOWEE ZOWEE!!!

So, we've been getting contractors to come by and quote us on jobs.  We've had about 4 quotes back so far  that have been in the 4-5gs range.  I get a quote from this one guy, which is TWENTY THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  I was like, "Is you tweaking?!?"  So I wrote him this email where I'm like, "IS YOU TWEAKING?!?" Just kidding, yo.  But I did get all stern-mom on him and was like, uhhh, just so you know, this is about $18,000 more than the other quotes we've received so I think you're misjudging your work, your audience (ie. he came to see our house, it's not like we're living in Forest Hill) and my knowledge of the cost of materials and labour.  So he got all apologetic and is going to come back with his partner to re-quote the job.  LOL!

Tuesday night's dinner was amazing.  I made that rapini (blanched, then sautéed with oil and garlic), fresh mozzarella, and spicy tomato jam panini.  Obsessed!

Tonight we had a lentil, bacon, spinach salad with fried goat's cheese and toast.

I took tomorrow off.  Four day weekend say what.  Although a good portion of it will be spent cleaning our house, which needs an enema of a cleaning.

Somebody thinks they're hilarious.

Fin.

Chuffed

Kinda chuffed guys.  I ran my first 5km (in life) today!  In 33 minutes, no stopping!  That's pretty dece, I think? My motivation was our impromptu Pizzeria Libretto dinner last night.  And the Ed's Real Scoop ice cream chaser.  And the three mini-bags of chips that I broke down and bought from the work cafeteria yesterday when I was getting all stressed out with my question workload and how I had to once again break it to someone that there is NO MAGIC GIANT DATABASE IN THE SKY WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ALL CAPTURED USING THE EXACT SAME METHODOLOGY IN IT.

Thank goodness that magic database doesn't exist, because if it did, while my job would be easier, I probably wouldn't have a job anymore.

Phew.  Let's take a little conspicuous consumption breather, shall we?  I WANT THIS DRESS:

I want it SOOOOO bad.  Because I love a gentle A-line shape.  Because I love a cute military button detail.  And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colours!  Will I break down and buy said dress?  No one knows.  I WANT I WANT I WANT, though!

So yeah, last night was a bit of a tosser.  But we did have a lovely impromptu dinner out which was made all the more lovely by the fact that it was impromptu.  We have a serious Libretto fixation going on right now - we're going again on Sunday with our Supper Club.  That will make it the fourth time in about a month for me, but it's so nice being able to eat there and have it be chill and not all Ossington-strip-y.  You can make a reso!  For a big party!  Yes!  I still love Queen Margherita, but I like the apps at Libretto more and right now, I'm more into the toppings at Libretto, which are applied a bit more generously than at Margherita, which is very classic, Naples, all-about-the-crust-ville.

We have a busy few nights ahead of us.  Me and the Yam tonight, riding solo.  I'm starting to become a bit of a parenting freak.  I looked up parent and tot Mandarin classes today and I think we're going to sign up for Fall 2012.  Then yesterday I was going on about how we should do structured number and letter recognition activities every day for like, 15 minutes or half an hour.  And now I'm wondering whether to put him in French Immersion or not.  I'm also worried about his fine motor skill development and how I don't do enough visual arts based activities with him.  And finally, I started stressing that his toys and play are too gendered.  LOL!  This came about when Momma D was over the other night and I was telling her how much he loves his book with trucks and is super-obsessed with buses and stuff and she said, "See! It just goes to show you that there's something innate in them [meaning boys]" and I was like, "Well, I don't think it's innate because trucks haven't been around for that long culturally, so there's no evolutionary reason why boys would be into trucks."  I also backed it up with anecdotal evidence from neighbs with daughters and other mum friends that their girls are also obsessed with trucks and buses.

At any rate, he doesn't get much (any) TV so he's not really victim to the gender-based marketing that's so insidious.  But it's still hard to fight!  We know someone who basically dolls up their 3 year old for "photo shoots" that consist of lipstick, plastic high heels, pink everything, nail polish, pearls, bracelets and it's very Toddlers and Tiaras.  It makes me want to retch, personally.  So do bikinis on babies, but you already know how I feel about that.  So today I gave him a baby doll and an old plastic Medela baby bottle and asked him if he wanted to feed the baby and he did it for a bit and made those kissy sucking noises and also gave the baby lots of kisses.  Honestly, it's worth doing just to hear him say the word "baby" - he pronounces it really cute:

Tonight for dinner we had this eggplant romesco pasta and a salad.  Back to healthy eating!  Back to making my stupid running worth it!

Tomorrow we're having my friend H over for dinner.  Then the weekend starts - it's the first weekend of Hot Docs so it's gonna be crazy!

Fin.

When you find yourself in times of trouble...

the answer to lifting your spirits is usually amigurumi.  You know, those super-cute, wee, Japanese crocheted or knitted stuffies.  The ultimate in spirit-lifting would logically be the entire main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in amigurumi form, obviously!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  *dies*  Whoever made these came to the sound decision to do late-series bearded Riker.  Also, Data's eyes are the best.  The best episodes were all the holodeck Sherlock Holmes ones, followed closely by anything involving the Borg.

Uhhhhh...yeah.  I'm done being a giant nerdliner, thanks.

Actually, not quite.  So I went to see The Hunger Games a second time with Dr. Rei which was obviously the hardest thing in the world for me to do because the movie doesn't hold up to repeat viewings.  Just kidding!  April Fool's!  Opposite day lasted for just the preceding sentence!  IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME THE SECOND TIME AROUND.  The best was getting to hash it out with Dr. Rei after, when she said that, "the one major complaint I have, and I know it's a small one, is that they didn't focus on the FOOD enough!"  LOL!  So then we started talking about the lamb stew with plums that Katniss loved so much and Dr. Rei was talking about the "pearly grains of polished rice" that I didn't even remember but that apparently made a huge impression on her.  So funny.  I love that girl.

Soooooooo...we got an iPad.  I know, I know.  We're not even like, app-y people.  But I'm semi-addicted to the nerdiest game ever (STILL not done being a giant nerdlinger!), which is this spelling/word jumble game called Word Warp.  On Saturday, before the movie, I think I managed to get Dr. Rei hooked on it as well, resulting in her saying (when Word Warp refused to accept a perfectly legitimate word), "this has the paws of Word Mole [a word game on the Blackberry] all over it!"  LOL!!!  We like letting the Big Yam play sneaky learning games on it.  It's kind of blowing his mind that his favorite app, I Hear Ewe (where you touch cartoon pictures of animals and this disjointed, supremely disaffected male voice says, "This is the sound a rhinoceros [raccoon, zebra, frog, etc] makes" followed by a real life recording of the animal sound), is so much bigger than it is on the Ipod touch.  He's loving life.  As an aside: zebras make CRAZY sounds.  Like, if you were to imagine what a zebra sound liked, you'd think horselike, right?  WRONG!  They kind of make these weird, keening, "yip yip!" noises.  It's bizarre.  Knowledge I wouldn't have without I Hear Ewe.  I'm loving life because I get to spend my before-reading bed time playing Word Warp times a billion.  And because now I can get the iPad-only version of Gourmet magazine.  That's basically all I use it for.  The Dotytron has been obsessed with playing this learn Cantonese game that I downloaded for the Big Yam.  It's super-cute.  He gets SO MAD when he doesn't get it right and he's SO HAPPY when he does get a few in a row right and they let you pick one of the "stickers" to put on the sticker page.

We've been talking about getting one forever and when we finally decided to pull the trigger, the Dotytron was asking me what we should get engraved on the back (if anything) and I immediately said: "San Dimas High School Football Rules" and he paused and said, "I knew there was a reason I married you."  LOL!

Ta-da!

Okay.  I think I'm done nerdlinger-ing out.  The other thing that totally raised my spirits today was going for a Kenzo Ramen lunch with MHui, G, and Dr. Rei.  Mmmmm...tonkotsu ramen with gyoza and takoyaki (fried octopus balls).

Other things that make me happy?  The other day, the Big Yam was in his high chair and we were in the kitchen getting breakfast put away.  We always make a point of kissing each other in front of him and then saying, "See? Mama and Baba love each other."  So we stood in the doorway of the kitchen and I called out to the Boobla, "Hey Master T!  Look!  Mama and Baba love each other." and we gave each other a smooch and we turned to look at him and he was sitting there, with both hands holding the far edge of the tray like he was bracing himself, and BEAMING at us with this big, silly, stupid, pleased grin on his face.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.  

I went for a run today.  DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN.  I'm getting semi-serious about success.  And by success I mean getting back into a regular routine of yoga, and running so that my heart doesn't explode during softball.  I still hate running.  I think I always will.  If it wasn't for old skool jungle mixes on the Toronto Rave Mixtape archive, I wouldn't last a second.  I have very very modest goals - 5 km in 30 minutes.  And if I don't meet that goal, I will be negative 10 trillion degrees upset.  See?  Reach for the stars!  Or reach for the closest piece of fried chicken!  Whatever floats your boat.

Work continues to be buzaaaay.  My colleagues be wigging.  Me?  I like being busy...and I like feeling the presh.  It's good.  I'm falling behind on school work...but it's still all good.  Getting so excited for my long weekend of fun (please, Captain Save-a-Ho...don't break down on us!)

Tonight E came over for dinner.  We had mulligatawny soup with red lentils and brown rice and coconut milk, and samosas from Bombay Chowpatty, this place close to us that specializes in chaat.

Fin.

Roll out those...

lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer indeed. Once again, my heart is full to bursting after all the lovely time spent this past weekend.

As it turns out - I'm NOT the worst player on our softball team! Wahoo!!! I caught a pop fly and felt really good about it...but my problem is I have to remember that unlike dodgeball, where a certain degree of showboating is forgivable (or so I like to think), in softball, hooting and hollering when you catch a pop fly isn't the best strategy, because as my teammate said, your opponents "keep running." So I got to check that impulse and instead complete the play. In this case, it was fine, but for future reference, don't ya know. I also took a line drive to the shin and was a total tough guy about it, but it hurt like a mother. I was playing second and the Dotytron, who was on third, was laughing later about how when it happened, he saw the ball smack dead onto the bone of my shin, saw me grimace for a second with an "oh that smarts" expression on my face (somewhat akin to Sideshow Bob's expression getting hit in the face with a rake in the "Cape Feare" episode of the Simpsons), take a deep breath, and then pick up the offending ball resignedly and complete the play. LOL! I'm still laughing about how it must have looked from the outside because it was a bit of a doozy.

I kind of feel sorry for people who don't use fans to cool their house. I find something so soothing about the rhythmic whirring of an oscillating fan. On Friday, the Big Yam was being a bit of a fuss in the afternoon so I took him up to our room and nursed him while I read on my Kindle. Our room gets beautiful light during the day, diffused slightly by our sheer curtains, and with the sound of the fan the only other noise punctuating his contented nursing at my boob, it was perhaps 20 of the most relaxing, perfectly content minutes of my life. Especially when it was punctuated with the Big Yam detaching himself with a breathy sigh and falling asleep looking like this:

That face!!! I love his face in repose. I love his little hand on his stomach all happy and relaxed. I love thinking about what happy dreams he's having, lulled by the sun, a belly full of milk, and the metronomic regularity of the fan.

Friday night I made us a white pizza on homemade pizza dough of ricotta, mozzarella, baby arugala, and proscuitto:

Saturday morning we took my mum and Poh Poh out to lunch at Phoenix. I ordered the ox tongue on fried rice with cream sauce and black pepper sauce:

We also had the spicy ground pork Korean rice bowl:

Saturday I handed over the Big Yam to the Dotytron so I could finish my assignment for school, which I managed to do! And I submitted it 3 days early! Yay! Then we met up with R & R at the Ceili Cottage for cask-conditioned ales and oysters and kettle chips and mac'n'cheese and a whinging, whiny, yelly Big Yam disturbing the dining experiences of an entire patio. Ugh. Some madness compelled me to invite R & R over to our (uncleaned!) house and give them a tour of what $350,000 will buy you in Leslieville (which I think effectively scared them off from ever moving - the piles of dirty laundry are an effective deterrent). On the bike ride home I was frantically shouting instructions to the Dotytron: "Okay, when you get home. Put the Big Yam to bed and then rip the Slanket off the couch!!! Wipe off the coffee table!!! Sweep and vacuum the floor!!!" and then I realized the madness of trying to accomplish any of that (did I mention that R & R were driving from Ceili Cottage?) and said, "You know what? This is stupid. We like these guys. They're just going to have to see us warts and all." So instead we plied them with scotch until (hopefully) the state of lil' ugmo blurred into the edges of a warm, fuzzy, single-malt buzz.

Sunday we hit the newly launched Leslieville Farmer's Market (upwardly mobile urban parent check 1!), after grabbing the Dotytron a coffee from the best coffee shop in town, Voulez-Vous Café (upwardly mobile urban parent check 2!), which was deemed thus by our rabidly coffee obsessed/food snob neighbour. Then we came home, set up our window unit a/c (which works so unbelievably well that I am not even batting an eye at the projected heat wave to come mid-week. Seriously. We closed the door and turned it on for 15 minutes and when we went in, the room was a meat locker), cleaned the house, and took the Big Yam to Withrow Park for some catch and swings.

In case you were wondering if the Big Yam looks ADORABLE in his helmet riding in the Chariot, I'll let you decide for yourself with the following photographic evidence:

The kid loves a good swing more than anything. He's always found the near/far thing hilarious, so whenever you put him in a swing, you get the following reaction:

He's also recently discovered his tongue and is always sticking it out/touching the tip of his tongue to his upper lip which is freaking hilarious (and a precursor to being able to make "l" sounds, methinks?) He's been a bit of a mega fuss lately and he's been gnawing on anything in sight, so I think more teeth are imminent. I'm going to miss the just-the-bottom-two action because it's so freakin' cute...but I suppose I can't relegate my child to a life of gumming food for my personal amusement. Besides, what's cute in childhood is faces-of-meth in adulthood.

Sunday was a perfect day. It was the first day in a loooooooooooong time (maybe all year) when we could set our own schedule, do things on our own time, where we didn't have school/work-related stuff that we HAD to do occupying our time. And it was STILL productive! (C'mon, you didn't really think there could be a perfect day without SOME productivity, do you?) We still cleaned the house and got dinner ready and set up the a/c - but it was our choice when/how these things were accomplished. And it was interspersed with big stretches of being together and enjoying ourselves and leisure. The perfect balance, seriously. I don't really get how people who DON'T have work they bring home or who AREN'T doing a Master's degree on their maternity leave have any excuses not to get shiz done.

We had Lolly over for dinner and I made us a mezes meal of: fattoush salad, baba ghanouj, fried haloumi, charmoula-spiced beef strips, warmed pitas, and purchased crab, asiago & wasabi dip from Leslieville Cheese Market. Delicious!

For dessert I made us a coconut-lime semifreddo, which was easy and delicious (I'll post the recipe at the end). So good! My only quibble is that I found it a little too sweet, so I might reduce the condensed milk by half. I'll reproduce the recipe as I found it - since I haven't tried reducing the condensed milk and can't vouch for how that might affect the texture - it was cool, creamy, spiked with lime's brightness with chewy bites of toasted coconut for texture. Soooo good:

Today the plan is to take the Big Yam to the drop-in centre, get some school work done, and make us a tasty dinner. I went for a run this morning and I'm going to follow it up with yoga in the afternoon and maybe some catch tonight in the dusk. The Dotytron and I have a new plan to keep us on track, fitness wise...we're fake boot camping. We're basically going to put the money we would have spent on boot camp in a pot and just make sure we work out for the same amount of time (3 hours/week) pushing ourselves but doing our own activities (ie. I'm not into circuit training, so I'm going to do a mix of cardio and yoga), and if we keep it up all summer we're going to spend that money on something we want. We'll see how this goes!

Fin.

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

Coconut Lime Semifreddo

adapted from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine

serves around 8-10

1 can of coconut milk

1 can of condensed milk

zest of 2 limes

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 c. of cold whipping cream

1 c. of unsweetened, shredded coconut

- line a loaf pan with plastic wrap, making sure there is overhang on all sides

- toast the coconut in a 375F degree oven for 10 minutes, or until evenly golden brown, stirring every 3 minutes or so to make sure it toasts evenly

- heat the coconut milk and condensed milk in a pot over medium heat until it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes or until thickened

- remove the milk mixture, stir in the lime zest, and about 1/2 c. of the toasted coconut, and set aside until cool and no longer warm to the touch (you can stick it in the fridge)

- whip the whipping cream until stiff peaks form, and then fold in the cooled coconut mixture until pretty evenly mixed

- pour the mixture into the prepared loaf pan, sprinkle the top with the remaining 1/2 c. of toasted coconut and wrap the top with plastic wrap.

- freeze for 6 hours or overnight until firm.

- before serving, take it out to room temperature for 20 minutes, unmold onto a platter, slice and serve

lunging our way to success

i forgot to mention a particularly funny anecdote from saturday that A referenced in his comments on my last post. L's boyfriend T was talking about someone he knew in college or university, who wiped his butt after a deuce from BACK TO FRONT. which of course, due to the unnecessary complexity of such an endeavor, resulted in much hilariousness and the coining of the term "s**tnut" or "s**tballs" (the obvious by-product of such an action.) it was pretty funny.

almost as funny as the sight of the dotytron and i, going for a run last weekend, early in the morning, doing some warm-up lunges on the sidewalk, as per my little bro chova's instructions (chova has a body fat ratio of negative 10.) when we heard a commotion coming from a neighbour's house and saw workmen walking in and out with piles of lathe and dumping them in one of those rented dumpsters, we wanted to investigate, but didn't want to seem to bait up about snooping. so we LUNGED OUR WAY OVER TO THE PERSON'S HOUSE AND GAWKED (WHILE STILL LUNGING.) !!!!!!!!! imagine the dotytron, in all his 6'4" glory, LUNGING. it's funny in and of itself. then imagine us, in our wackadoo running gear (where we end up looking like twins because we have identical MEC fleece zippies), lunging our way down the street. hilarious.

this is last night's dinner. i took leftover corned beef and hand sliced it thinly. then piled it on rye bread with some sauerkraut and swiss cheese, buttered the outsides, and threw it in the panini, making a bastardized reuben of sorts. i served it with old fashioned potato cakes made with leftover champ mixed with the creamed cabbage and then fried. it was pretty effin' tasty.

we polished off the last of the lemon chiffon pie for dessert. we had the roomie over for dinner - it was nice. we're baby-sitting her while l'army is away.

some things that blew my mind today:

1) i read in business week (and apologies for being a n00b) that people actually have to pay for "extras" like a plum tree and whatnot when they play those stupid games that nobody cares about on facebook like mafia wars or farmville. WTF?!? playing those games already makes you appear to be a colossal loser of the highest order. finding out you PAY for that dubious privilege just blows you out of the water, imo.

2) uhhh, that's it, really.

tonight was "takeout night" so we ate wendy's big bacon classics (doubled) and i ordered my first ever fresca under duress. we were sitting in the drive through lane and i didn't want anything super sugary so i was asking if they had diet root beer and then the guy misunderstood my question and started rattling off the drinks and i just went all tourette's and shouted "fresca!" and that's the story of my first fresca. i kinda like it. it's zingy! like, more citric than sprite or 7up. do they even MAKE 7up anymore?!?

here's the thing with being with someone for 9 years: you kind of start to become the same person. there's a lot of "get out of my head" moments. one of the things we do when we can't decide what to do/buy etc. is we do a "on the count of 3, say what (paint colour/birthday gift/restaurant) you want" and then count to three and shout out whatever our choices are. the number of times that we're shouting the exact same thing is running at like, 98% so in order to decide on where to eat last night, we had two "on the count of 3s" - 1 for a fast food chain, and 1 for a non-chain restaurant. we both shouted wendy's and we both shouted square boy as our non-chain. it kind of streamlines the decision making process but it's also hella creepy.

fin.

still runnin'

3km yesterday in about 20 minutes, with a couple of minutes of stitch-induced walking thrown in. i think if i'm working up to anything, my max will be 5km...or basically whatever i can do in 20 minutes which seems to be the outer limits of my interest in non-competitive athletic activities. BUT THIS IS BORING. i knows. i'm just compulsive about documenting my life. sorry!

on monday night my bro came over for dinner unexpectedly. he was quite content to eat leftovers and loudly spoiler-alert us in chinglish to upcoming twists and turns on "lost" that weren't yet revealed. i served pouding chomeurrrrr for dessert:

with a bit of vanilla ice cream. fact: maybe as a by-product of my running regimen and training but i haven't really had a taste for sweets lately. like, i EAT it, knowing intellectually that heretofore i've been a dessert hound and i like things like sticky toffee pudding and pouding chomeurrrrrr but my heart's not in it. i don't enjoy it the way i have. maybe this is just signaling that it's time to turn to less wintery desserts and embrace the light, chilled, fruity desserts of spring and summer.


last night we had the roomie over for dinner. i made capellini with broccoli and chickpeas in herbed butter (oregano, parsley, thyme, lemon zest mixed with softened unsalted butter). i actually hate capellini. it's such a beast to work with unless you're dealing with something extra saucy. i had to add quite a few glugs of olive oil to loosen up the fine strands. the salad was romaine hearts in a ceasar-y vinaigrette with croutons and crumbled strips of extra-crispy bacon that the dotytron didn't think were fit for our breakfast sammie on sunday. actual bacon bits in a salad was a BIG TREAT. we NEVER do that.

tonight i went for a massage and then negated all that tenderizing by schlepping my butt to the library to pick up a billion pounds of books that i then carried home lopsidedly over my shoulder in a flimsy bag.

for dinner i made a broiled feta, grape tomato, olive, poached egg and sage dish, served with toasted slices of ace focaccia. the recipe is here. my only deviation is to take some grape tomatoes and toss them with garlic and olive oil and a bit of chopped rosemary and broil them first until they start to burst and get jammy. then i add the olives and feta and sage to the dish and broil again, top with the egg and eat with an intense gusto.

okay, so the latest book that i've read lately to make me go MENTAL was "graceling" by kristin cashore. i turned into a slavering, instant-graceling acolyte, preaching its glories from on high for all who would pay me any mind. it's SO GOOD. it's in the young adult fantasy type demographic, but as usual, i think that genre designation does the work a great disservice - i can tell - you're already raising your eyebrows and your mind has gone into: "DISREGARD!" mode. DON'T. the themes are mature, the characters leap off the page and come to life, the story is engrossing - if you could read harry potter, you can read this. you will LOVE this. it's like the best of tolkein, but with an a**-kickingly strong, intelligent, independent FEMALE heroine for a change. that's right, frodo, you and all your male-centric homoeroticism can take a back seat and let the ladies have the action, adventure, and be the driving force of the story.

wow. i only WISH this type of novel had been around when i was a kid - it's so progressive! the story centres around katsa, a woman born graced, which means that she has eyes of two different colours and has a special skill. gracelings, as they are known, can have useful skills (mind-reading, sword fighting, the ability to divine water, the ability to make people laugh) or random ones (the ability to stand on one's head for long stretches, to hold one's breath, etc.) katsa's grace is killing people and she's been raised by her uncle, the king, as a torture/bullying vehicle for his power machinations. that's only the tip of the iceberg...the story unfolds from there with thrumming dialogue, action, adventure, and a wee bit of a love story...but a forward thinking one - katsa isn't the type of heroine to give up her life and spend her days idly waiting to be rescued/cosseted by her partner.

it's SO GOOD. gah. one worth owning for suresies. i couldn't get enough of it. i'd read it walking to the streetcar, on the streetcar - wishing i could feign ignorance and ride to the end of the line for just a few more minutes with the book, i'd eat with the book propped up before me, and my last companion at night.

i'm not saying it's going to be for everyone. but if you can get over your initial irrational mistrust of all things fantasy and young adult, your open-mindedness will be well rewarded. trust me, i see a mass-market fiction book with a woman in silver skirts and a heaving bosom riding a dragon and wielding a scimitar and i get all skeptical, too. this isn't really even fantasy. think of it as more medieval lit.

anyway, no wonder it's won a tonne of awards and shown up on countless best-of lists.

fin.

this and that

the rest of the weekend consisted of me playing dodgeball and our team being SUPER short on people. like, there were 4 of us (normally you have 6 people on the court) and we only lost by 5 games! bwahahahaha...the offshoot of this is: my muscles got owned. i'm so stiff! i can barely cross my legs.

so kdubs J is doing this 4x4 challenge where she goes to hot yoga 4 times a week for 4 weeks (you get a sticker each time you go). it sounded like a pretty good idea so i think for the month of february, i'm going to do my own 4x4 challenge, of doing at least 1 hour of yoga, 4 times a week, for 4 weeks. it'll probably be a combination of classes and my own home practice - i don't know how people squeeze in going to the gym or going to yoga after work and a) eating a home cooked meal, or b) getting any post-work activities in before bed. i've been feeling like i've been sleep-deprived lately so the plan for this week (and as a general monday-thursday rule) is to be in bed by 10pm for some reading before (hopefully) being asleep by 11pm. this means that the miles davis' autobiography read-a-longs have been moved up. lol!

i have no idea if my weeks are especially crazy or if everyone's life is like this...but this is how it's shaping up:

monday: juice monster over for dinner
tuesday: john carpenter appreciation film club meeting (i'm bailing on this because the person hosting is a stranger) OR TND with dr. rei and her TND crew (i'm bailing on this because i want to make chilaquiles)
wednesday: nothing
thursday: after work drinks with colleagues, then book club, then (hopefully)dodgeball
friday: ultimate fryer dinner with J & S and L
saturday: saturday night supper club
sunday: dodgeball! superbowl sunday! and birthday drinks for the dotytron's sister

WHAT THE WHAT. if i wasn't bailing on john carpenter film club night, that'd be only 2 nights that i didn't have an outing planned. how the heck is someone supposed to fit in tv watching/paperwork/skating/yoga/crafting/home improvements around that kind of a schedule? can you imagine throwing a BABY into the mix?

i had my mum, aka the juice monster, over for dinner last night because she had a board meeting downtown. she's a TOTAL juice monster. my sister has to stock up on juice before she comes down to geneseo. technically, she's a juice and magazine monster. so you also have to stock up on magazines, too. i was instructed in no short terms to "leave all current issues of magazines on the coffee table." i'm probably going to regret this, but my mum has her own key to our place. going to our house isn't the funnest for her because a) we don't drink juice and only keep one 1 L. carton of tropicana on hand (i have a glass of o.j. with my breakfast and that's it) and b) i only subscribe to food and wine and entertainment weekly - my sister's house totally trumps mine on both those fronts.


i made us my ultimate mac'n'cheese with thyme breadcrumbs and that radicchio salad with anchovy vinaigrette and egg. i didn't bother sieving the egg over the salad this time...there was no point in making a mess of the sieve - i just did a rough chop and tossed it in. i can't BELIEVE this is ONLY the first time this winter that i've made ultimate mac'n'cheese (or, not-so-ultimate: in my mum's opinion "it's not cheesy enough." she also slapped the dotytron's hand away from the plate of lemon bars i put out for dessert because she wanted to take the rest home. LOL!) i'm already stressing about the imminent onset of spring and how that's going to strike winter foods off the menu. i haven't made: prime rib, pot roast, short ribs, chili, lamb shanks, goose, ham and countless other cold weather foods yet and time is running short!!!

i'm ditching john carpenter film appreciation night because a) it's the newest of my film clubs and b) i'm only barely acquaintances with the person whose idea it was to have this film club and the person who is hosting i don't know at all and H & that guy and sweet baby D only *barely* know the host. i dunno...i feel weird having someone who's basically a stranger make dinner for like, 8 people, more than half of whom she barely knows. i'd prefer it if someone i knew was hosting and then i could meet her and then the NEXT TIME, she could host and i wouldn't feel like it's imposing. plus i need a night AT HOME. is that weird? i just feel like making dinner for 8 people is a LOT of work under most circumstances and a big imposition unless you're a freak like me who thrives on that. also dr. rei invited us to crash tuesday night dinners (TND) at her pad and rather than have to ditch one outing for another - i'm opting out.


i'm also craving home-cooked, REAL food after my tummy upset this weekend, which is another reason why i bowed out of the unknown that is someone else hosting for dinner tonight. i feel like my body just needs a general recalibration - so i made us vegetarian chilaquiles...usually i throw in some chorizo but i just made this with kidney beans instead and topped the dried-chili tomato bean sauce mixture with a fried egg, crushed up tortilla chips, scallions, sour cream and guacamole.

as an aside...do you know how loves their supernanny more than anything? the dotytron. seriously, he rogers-on-demands that shiz like you wouldn't believe. he's hot for jo frost and her sensible disciplinarian parenting advice!

so, apparently people who weren't invited to the performance, or who we dickishly invited and then UNinvited, want to see all the photos from the big day...so here they be, in facebook album form:

tied to the hitching post

the thing i'm gladdest about is that we got to take individual portraits with EVERYONE who was there which is kind of the point of wedding photography, imo. i want photos of us with our family and friends...not a billion photos of us when we have albums and albums of a billion photos of us looking probably better than we did that day and in funnier scenarios (possibly) (that's a roundabout way of saying that i regret wearing my hair down). we still have to take the tapes of the actual ceremony in to be digitized and then we'll edit them into a movie for yous and then it'll (hopefully) catch youtube by storm and then we can be famous and get a million mom hits and then be in people magazine as one of the dreaded (imo) regular, non-celebrity people featured in people magazine.

i "read" or listened to, michael chabon's "manhood for amateurs" for this bookclub my friend J has started. again, J is the only person i know in the club. yikes! i'm sure it'll be fine. i'm a little worried about being the youngest/only person in the book club without kids...but there's clearly nothing i can do about that.

ANYWAY, this book was quite good. chabon did the reading himself for the audiobook and i listened to it while i pieced blocks of my quilt. it's a set of short, non-fiction, memoir pieces on manhood, parenthood, and masculinity. i've never read his work before (i guess i missed the whole "adventures of cavalier and klay" thing) and he's quite extraordinary. the essays run the gamut from chabon's experience losing his virginity, to his reactions to his mother's boyfriend, to reflections on his relationship(s) to his brother, his wife, and his kids. the writing is confessional, conversational, nostalgic and elegiac in tone. what struck me the most was chabon's dexterity with metaphor, allusion, and simile - the phrases he turns and the images he conjures are fantastically present and visceral. it was nice to read ruminations on masculinity - to receive a break from the female perspective for a change - it made a particularly fitting follow-up to tropper's "this is where i leave you." there is ultimately something universal about chabon's experiences, an intangible thread that speaks to the mortality fears, anxieties, and sorrowful love that's in us all. the incomplete and yet ever present primordial certainty that things used to be better...in a different time and a different place, when kids could roam free and wild and get lost and bike at night. i think it should be required reading for all parents or soon-to-be parents.

fin.

living a lifetime

i feel like i've lived super-long days lately. this would because i decided to take up the suggestion of a colleague and GET UP AT 6AM TO GO FOR MY RUN. it's been suspiciously easy getting up a full hour before my usual wakening time and exerting myself physically. the pros: it's cooler, i can run farther, get it done, show up at work earlier, shower. the cons: none, other than the easily rectifiable one where i've been eating loads of cookies and cake and sweets everyday and undermining my own determination.

i'm so ready for the weekend! even though we don't have much planned - probably going out for drinks tonight with B & G and crew. tomorrow i'm futzing around getting ready to host people for an alfresco fry party, then going to a jungle jam. on sunday we're free all day with some contingent plans to have dinner at the roomie's new pad. i also want to lay down the first coat of paint on my telephone tables.

yesterday we had grilled salmon with cucumber-mint yoghurt on curried couscous with yellow squash, red peppers, and grated carrot. i'll upload with photos tonight. then, after recovering from the shock of michael jackson's untimely death (wtf?) we went with the dotytron's sister to drop off something we sold on craigslist and pick up something she bought on craigslist at the same time.

the torrential mid-afternoon rains we got yesterday washed away all the heat and dust and created optimal bike-riding conditions, so we set off on a dusk ride with the eventual goal being an inaugural visit to jah cold stone creamery. riding your bike at dusk when the air smells clean and your heat-tired skin is rejuvenated with the benediction of a cool, peony-scented breeze and you have your partner by your side makes bike riding and by extension life, worth doing. we rode up to pottery road and paid a visit to the dairy queen at the corner of broadview and pottery, that has a teeny little patio area that overlooks the don valley, where you can watch the sun set with the majesty of the don spread out before you and feel emboldened like those first toronto city planners must have, when they stood on the banks and imagined a sinuous artery of the fordist age, part of a network that would cover the city in a concrete filigree. sorry, i got caught up in my own literary excesses. the point is: the patio on that particular DQ is lovely.

from there we zig-zagged our way until we arrived at our destination. jah cold stone creamery is in the tim horton's on the corner of logan and the danforth. i was a little skeptical, because said tim horton's also used to house the danforth and vicinity's only wendy's, before they closed it up and i was left smoky bacon mushroom melt bereft. as with most american franchises/ideas transplanted onto canadian soil (target! beware! be ye not so stupid! don't mess with a good thing!) - jah cold stone creamery was a bit of a bust. due to the limitations of physics, the marble slab ice cream phenomena is not conducive to speed or efficiency. the server takes a glob of ice cream and massages it on a chilled slab with two gelato paddles, folding in whatever monstrous and unholy combination of "mixin's" your heart desires. this takes time. especially when you're dealing with the soft, atrophied muscles of today's disaffected low-wage teenage ice cream parlour workforce. add to that that this particular jah cold stone creamery counter has been frankensteined onto the end of a tim horton's counter and you have a gothic nightmare waiting to happen. the employees are tim horton's employees temporarily drafted from their large double-double and french cruller duties to manipulate ice cream before your rapt gaze like some kind of north pole benihana. it's a mistake. tim horton's custies suffer and jah cold stone creamery custies suffer. i doubt we'll go back. plus, the dotytron had serious issues with their chocolate ice cream.

in the defense of marble slab ice cream everywhere, the stuff i had in the states from jah cold stone creamery was way better. and the belgian chocolate ice cream at the marble slab creamery in markham was bitter and dark and velveteen. the dotytron's base ice cream tasted like frozen chocolate milk. not good.

tonight for dinner i'm making grilled pizzas. either thrown directly on the grill or on the pizza stone temporarily residing on the grill. haven't made up my mind yet. one is going to be a margherita, the other is going to probably be a roasted garlic and lardo pizza with olive oil and sea salt. we're going to have this with grilled asparagus. hopefully eaten outside if the rain holds off and out.

i'm also going to do some patch-priming on some areas the dotytron missed on the second telephone table. he kind of did a poor job but you can't hire good free help these days.

in other news...by the time this day is done we're probably going to be the proud owners of a car. a 2002 mazda protegé 5, in fact. let's hope we didn't just blow money we didn't have on a lemon! can i just say that we are haemorraghing money right now? eeks.

i'm also going to do some yoga tonight because i haven't stretched at all lately and i can feel my hamstrings seizing up in protest at the new torture i'm inflicting upon them.

lastly, i would be remiss if i didn't give a big fat RIP to poor MJ. i'm sorry we did this to you. well, us and joe jackson. joe jackson started it and we finished it by turning the poor guy into the favorite object of our morbid and grotesque fascination and rabid excesses. the king of pop indeed - his musical legacy deserves better than what became of him. the dotytron and i played "favorite MJ song" last night while riding.

here are our picks:

finally, best week ever did it again with "the greatest MJ move of all time"

fin.