#Views

The other night I had a really hilarious dream about Drake.  I'm not generally into his music.  I've been unmoved by most of what I've heard.

In the dream, I was supposed to be arranging pick up of an item I had purchased off one of those Facebook buy and sell groups.  Then when I finally meet the guy, it's DRAKE.  And in my dream, him being Drake means the same thing as it would IRL, except it's strangely not a big deal, but he's still very famous and very sought after and kind of a beta male.  Anyway, we're talking and I notice he's wearing like, 5 t-shirts layered on top of each other, and I'm gently chiding him about it, and it comes out that he's super self-conscious about his body?!  So the next time I come over, he's wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, and he's very self conscious about it, and his body is okay...like it's fine...he's not overweight or anything but everything is kind of lacking definition in a way that I now know (after a quick - and satisfying! - Google image search) it is not IRL, and in the dream I was trying to be supportive and comforting him and then it turned into FULL MAKE-OUT TIMES AT UNLIKELY PAIRINGS HIGH.  Like, I basically woke up out of making out with Drake.

Maybe this means I'm softening my stance a bit?  Dr. Rei basically curated a list of (two) recent Drake tunes that she said I should listen to and the ones she recommended ARE the ones I'm the most likely to be into...but I didn't think it was enough to send me headlong into Drake apologist mode.

Whereas, listening to The Life of Pablo put me right back into Kanye apologist mode and I was ready to fight anyone who says he's not a musical genius.  The Life of Pablo is so so so good, you guys.  So good.  Singing 'Ye is the best 'Ye.

I've seen two great documentaries this week.

On Monday the Dotytron and I went to see When Two Worlds Collide.  This was a documentary that took 9 years to make.  It follows indigenous Peruvian people living in the Peruvian Amazon who call for the repeal of laws that threaten the land they have traditionally used and occupied.  The laws were introduced by a government that is courting progress in the form of allowing transnational oil and gas interests to set up camp in the Amazon rainforest.  The indigenous people form a coalition and their coalition has a president, Alberto Pizango who is their spokesperson and leader.  The indigenous people start a protest that sees them blocking roads and surrounding oil infrastructure.  The protests are peaceful, but after a sham legislative debate that sees the government refuse to consider repealing the laws, the government sends armed police in to break up the protests and things turn violent.  Indigenous people and police die.  I came away from this doc feeling really bad about capitalism and how capitalism is so relentless - forcing people to submit, whether they want to or not.  

It also made me check my own assumptions and terrible biases and ignorance on indigenous Canadian issues and how we're doing the same thing, here.  I sometimes find myself thinking, "well, why do you even want to live in Attiwapiskat anyway?" and then I realize that this has been their home and that part of living in a just and liberal society is allowing people to live how they choose and honoring those agreements and histories.  It's not for us to decide what's the best way for people to live.  And they predate the f**k out of us.  So how can we make this work?  How can we bridge capitalism and indigenous ways of life?  

I also went to see Sour Grapes with JJ.  This was about the rise of wine auctions during the dot-com boom and this mysterious figure, Rudy Kurniawan who becomes a player in the wine scene and is known for his palate.  He ends up making $35 million from auctioning rare wines from his collection and it turns out that he might have been counterfeiting them.  He basically would bid on wines, drive up the price, and then a month later, auction the same wines at an even more inflated price (parallels to Wall Street malfeasance!)  Well, poor Bill Koch (of the Koch brothers) suspects that some of his wine might be counterfeit and hires a private investigator and things start to close in around Rudy.  Rudy ends up going to jail for 10 years, and his defense attorneys are like, this is ridiculous.  We've seen mobsters with bodies in the ground not serve time like that.  After the lights came on, I turned to JJ and said, "I'm on team Rudy!  I like his entrepreneurial spirit! And are we REALLY supposed to feel bad for one of the Koch brothers?"  

Rudy made friends with Hollywood producers and got invited to these exclusive wine parties that were all white and male and super in the dick-measuring vein.  Anyway, there were interesting parallels with class and race that this film illustrated, as well as the corrupting power of money and these types of interests.  Some of Rudy's friends stay loyal to him to this day and the movie talks about the collusion between the grifter and the mark, but I found the loyalty of these doofus Hollywood, Michael Bay-types to be kind of endearing.  This was really good - I highly recommend it.

I've got two more documentaries this week and then Hot Docs 2016 will be done.  There are so many things going on!  Our May calendar is like a solid block of colour but I'm enjoying every minute of it.  I love all the cultural things we're getting to do and the people I'm seeing.  A talk, raving, Hot Docs, dinners out, the Comic Arts Festival all in the same month?!  That's soul satisfying stuff, my friends.

We watched Beyoncé's "visual album" (aka music videos strung together), Lemonade last night and...well...I have thoughts.  I will say that I'm not a member of the Beyhive - BUT! - I know that people are going crazy for it because as she matures in her career, we're seeing Bey start to take ownership and exercise creative control and try stuff in a way she hasn't before.  So yeah, that's cool.  But also, at the end of the day, it's not THAT cool?  I mean, it's a bunch of music videos strung together and there are some arresting images, but it's not like, high art.  Also, the songs are almost all pretty bad, but I just don't like her music, so fine, I get that.  I like that she goes in different directions and there was maybe 2 or 3 songs that I enjoyed. 

The most important element was how she's using her platform to shine a spotlight on black women artists and black artists in general.  That's incredible and that in an of itself is laudable.  I'm so glad that Warsan Shire is in my life now.  I wish I had watched Lemonade first, in a way.  But Bey is NO Warsan Shire and once you hear Warsan Shire recite her own poetry, then Beyoncé's affected, almost Miss Universe delivery just falls real short.  You can see how hard Bey is trying to be something great and I applaud her, but you can also see the effort and true greatness - you don't see the effort, mang.  So yeah, it did the thing it was supposed to do, which is cause a big hubub on the internet, inspire a lot of gossipy speculation, result in lots of think pieces, and then made Bey and Jigga s boatload of money.  Cool story, bruh.  

I almost think the brouhaha about the who "Becky with the good hair" is was a misstep and a silly distraction.  If Bey wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, fanning those flames was unnecessary and really takes away from her central message - which is that she's too awesome to be trifled with.  Ultimately, that's a message I can get behind, but it's delivered in a forgettable manner.  This ain't no Purple Rain, sons.

Last weekend we went on this amazing nature walk that really made you feel removed from the city.  I loved it.

We also went out dancing and it was incredible, though we barely made it through Sunday by the skin of our teeth.  We were cranky AF and the poor kids suffered.  It was worth the one day's aftermath of hell for the pleasure of feeling like a person again.

Of course our recovery day was rainy and miserable so we took the kids to Pacific Mall and ate a million of those puffy pancake things and some overcooked, hand-pulled noodles.  

Here are things we've eaten lately:

The aforementioned hand-pulled, overcooked noodles

Quickie weeknight freezer meal: meatballs from the freezer, tomato sauce from the freezer, garlic bread and green beans.  Basically the Dotytron-Lagerfeld tots' Platonic ideal.

A rhubarb browned butter pie that I pretty much ended up eating all to myself?  

Squash soup and cheddar sage biscuits

Bacon, squash, and kale risotto with a poached egg

Leftover risotto turned into fresh mozzarella stuffed arancini with tomato sauce, German onion sausages, and zucchini fritters

Banana chocolate chip pancakes and English bacon for a Sunday breakkie

This AMAZING poundcake with the most delectable browned butter glaze.  From this recipe here: Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Browned Butter Glaze. The only thing I think I would change is to omit the cinnamon swirl.  I thought it detracted from the overall butteriness.  I think what I"m after is a basic, bundt or pound cake and that delicious glaze.

Orzo made Spanish rice style with chicken thighs and peas.

Chai-spiced creme brulee.  A throwback dessert.  It's so delicious though!  Why don't people make creme brulee anymore?

Fin.

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Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

Serves 10-12

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, or chocolate wafer crumbs, or pretzel crumbs

3 T. sugar

1/2 cup of melted butter

- mix all together, press onto bottom and slightly up sides of a 9" springform pan.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.

Filling:

3/4 cup sugar 

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter

2 1/2 cups of heavy cream, whipped

- mix the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of  sugar on top of a double boiler until warm to the touch (keep whisking so the eggs don't cook)

- remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

- meanwhile, whisk the egg whites with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until it forms stiff peaks.  Fold into peanut mixture.

- fold whipped cream into the peanut mixture and pour into prepared crust.  Refrigerate at least overnight. 

- serve with hot fudge sauce.

Buffs'n'tings

Last weekend, I went through all three kids' clothes and did my seasonal inventory, which is an extremely boring, but necessary task where I write up a list of their needs for the season (# of t-shirts, # of long-sleeve shirts, sandals, hats, etc.).  Then I go through their drawers and see what they have that will still fit into the next season, what has to be retired, and what has already been bought or is in a hand-me-down bin and cross-reference with that list so that I only buy what I need (I always end up buying a little bit more, but because I have a giant and twins, they all get used eventually).  It is mind-numbing work and I'm really glad I have two Master's degrees and also: guys are useless in this department, although if there are any cis males who DO do this work, then please message me because you should be sent for study at a highly acclaimed research facility on gender equality in the domestic sphere.

ANYWAY, I had already bought the Big Yam this tshirt below, but hadn't opened the package yet:

Cut to - a couple of night's ago, him asking me when we were chilling, "Can you get me a shirt that has a skull and crossbones on it so I can be a pirate?" and me saying, evenly, "OK, we'll see."  

Cut to - last night, me showing it to the Big Yam with much fanfare and him being the MOST jazzed of life.  

Cut to - this morning, 6:15am, me in the kitchen starting the daily routine and the Dotytron eating his breakfast in the living room when the Big Yam comes down the stairs, and announces, "Hi Baba, I already dressed and brushed my teeth" and I was like, "What the - ?!" and he's standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing all his clothes for the day, with that proud/shy expression on his face that slays me dead.  Usually, it is a FIGHT getting him to change out of his jammies (he doesn't like putting on cold clothes), and he waits until the very last possible minute, and there's a series of escalating (in tenor and volume) reminders for him to brush his teeth.  But today!  Today he stood at the bottom of the stairs and was dressed (even his socks!!!) and had brushed his teeth all because he was so pumped to wear a $10 t-shirt with skulls on it, and he broke and simultaneously mended my heart.  He's such a fearful kid and he's generally afraid to do the wrong thing, so it really shows when he's self-conscious.  That mix of shyness and pride that he sees you noticing him doing something is so eternally sweet, I can't handle it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was holding strong and refused to let the kids watch a show on a Saturday morning, because sometimes I like to make my weekends as torturous and masochistic as possible.  They were in the basement being maniacs, and finally I had enough and said, "Fine. You can watch one show before breakfast," and from the basement I heard Twin A screaming, "ONE SHOW!!!" like he was a civil defense siren in a little wisp of a body and it makes me laugh to this day.  

As of today, I'm on vacation for the next week!  Huzzah!  We have some laid back, fun, staycationing times ahead of us and I couldn't be happier about it.

Edit: picking up this post mid-way through my staycation, which so far has been anything BUT laid back and/or fun.

UGH.  My Friday before going on vacation was so stressful.  And I got called into work yesterday to deal with work stuff and it was so not fun and I had heartburn all last night as a result and I had to field work-related calls while at the sugar bush with my kids today and that was also very NOT fun.

Our latest obsession is watching American Crime Story: The People Vs. OJ Simpson which, I know, I was as surprised as anyone that it is THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION RIGHT NOW.  And look: I make it a habit of watching the very best curated television.  There were SO MANY strikes against this, coming out of the gate (mixed sports metaphor, say what!): a Ryan Murphy pedigree (I've never liked anything he's done), stunt casting, a story that we already know, from every angle, and that could so easily be played for lurid, grotesque, People magazine-like titillation.

The thing is: it doesn't do any of those things.  It is that perfect mix of staying on the tasteful side of camp and so incredibly entertaining, while framing this ground-breaking case within the paradigm-shifting intellectual/cultural context.  It is because of this that we have reality television.  I went back and checked, Survivor debuted almost 10 years after this trial.  We have the birth of the Kardashians as an entity.  We have racial politics playing out in a very visible way in the courtroom - and by the way, nothing has changed!  We have the 24 hour media cycle elevating ordinary people to the level of celebrity, we have tabloid culture, racial dynamics, feminism...it has everything.  The casting is PERFECT.  Like, the most perfect.  David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian is everything.  Sarah Paulson is perfection.  John Travolta as Bob Shapiro is the role of a lifetime and he is NAILING IT.

I seriously want to go back to grad school so I can write a million papers about this.  It is so ripe for a densely layered reading.  Anyway, the episode "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" that focused on Marcia Clark was so real from a feminist, working mom perspective.

This was made very real for me when things blew up at work and I got called in yesterday and was putting out a fire.  I was like, YES MARCIA, I GET YOU.  When I was methodically going through all the kids clothes, I was like, YES MARCIA, THIS WOMAN'S WORK IS HARD STUFF.

We were debriefing about my no good, terrible, very bad day yesterday and the Dotytron made a solid observation about how the amount of training you receive on a job counterintuitively gets less the more professional and important your job is.  It's so true.  He was like, "It's like, when you're a teenager they're like, 'this is how you cut a bagel - no, not that way! - this way - ," and no one trains him on anything to do with being a teacher.  You're just expected to learn on the job.  Which I get in terms of the minutae of how you do your actual job...but I feel like people don't get training on process, or administrative procedures either?  Which is totally weird.  When I was a cashier at Loblaws, I had to go to Loblaws central and I was tested on PLU (produce) codes for like, 2 days, before I stepped foot in the store.

I'm also obsessed with this seasons of Girls (which I have been watching from day one because I am a good quasi-Millennial, but which really picked up for me in season 5 and now I legit love it), and Broad City, and anything to do with the Duplass brothers.  I LOVE ME SOME DUPLASS BROTHERS.  I want to be the meat in a Duplass brothers sandwich.

They are so smart and funny and they were seminal in the development of "mumblecore" movies and they care.  They executive produced Tangerine, which is about trans women in downtown LA.  Jay Duplass is in Transparent, which is another current favorite show.  Mark Duplass is a good actor and they're just amazing.  We started watching their show Togetherness which makes really astute observations about (heteronormative) relationships at a certain point.  I just love them.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, work was stressful.  March Break has been semi-fun, and semi-stressful and by Tuesday mid-day I was like, that was the LONGEST day and a quarter of my LIFE.  Yesterday was a write-off, but the Dotytron and I did manage to go out to eat (more on that later).  Today we took the kids to Bruce's Mill Conservation Area to go to their maple syrup festival.  It was actually really fun.

We've had some pretty low key weekends which is good - we're sticking to one day of socializing and keeping Sundays for nature walks and being chill, even if it does result in Twin B complaining, "I don't want to go for nature walks!" on the regular.  Haha.  We had an epic snowball fight at the Brickworks on the last snowy day.  The Dotytron took the Big Yam to a birthday party at Laserquest and was the only adult to participate and came in second place (proudly) (at a 7 year old's birthday party).

I also made the kids these double-sided fall/spring neckwarmers and they've been a big hit.  It was nice to get back to sewing - I've taken a long sewing hiatus over the winter.  My goal is to make Twin B his quilt before he turns three!  Then the one after that is a big quilt (queen sized, minimum), for me.  Then I'll probably start all over again with quilts for the kids as the Big Yam is already outgrowing his crib sized one.

Formation

By now, everyone and their mother has seen Beyoncé's Formation video.  The think piece cottage industry has dutifully performed its reactionary function with assiduous alacrity, SNL has done a spoof, we've almost (but not quite) gotten to the inevitable backlash.

My immediate reaction to the video was a deep understanding of why black social media was so enthusiastically embracing this recognition from their self-anointed Queen coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism about Beyoncé's sudden political awakening.  I had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Rei about it, where we discussed whether this piece was "for" a non-black audience and who gets to say whether Bey is "authentic" or not, and I've had some time to marinate in this and absorb some thoughts from people much smarter than I, enough to formulate a tenuous, hopefully reflexive response, with the caveat that, as regular and faithful readers of this blurg now, I have not now, or ever been a member of the Bey-hive.

1) I made peace with the authenticity of Bey's strategically timed-political awakening (the timing, not necessarily the authenticity as a whole).  If she wants to get overtly political in her work now, then she's a grown a** woman, making her way in a workaday world, so if she wants to address this head-on now, then by all means, go for it.  And if it makes her basic white girl fans take a minute to contemplate the larger issues and systemic oppression of black bodies in contemporary North American society, all the better for it.

2) I would argue that the imagery of the video, the aestheticization of the black experience and the signifiers of southern blackness that she/the director (and for the purposes of this writing, Bey herself will stand in for the choices of the director) are invoking, the heavy hand with which these are put into play, diminishes the affect and meaning.  There are real bodies that drowned in New Orleans.  Creating that stylized aesthetic distance is somewhat problematic, but I'm not sure where I stand on that, only that I have misgivings.

And because I am now, and forever more rooted in a Marxist understanding of class and cultural studies, I would argue that the substitution of Bey's body for those real people, is a semiotic leap I cannot, in good faith, take.  The class privileges afforded to Bey separate her from those bodies.  Those people drowned not just because they were black, but perhaps moreso because they were poor, and the collusion between those two lines is impossible to untangle.  If Bey was actually in Katrina, there is no way that George W. Bush himself wouldn't have sent Air Force One to lift her out.

I get what she's getting at, but despite her southern black roots, I feel like the association has been severed.  You can't be BFFs with Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, possibly the personification of clueless white/class privilege and then think that your black female body can be inserted into that symbolic narrative.

Or can you?  I don't think so.  I am also suspect of the invocation of Katrina, over 10 years after the fact.  But who am I to say?  Am I allowed to talk about this?  Do identity politics and resistance necessarily entail a zero-sum game where we have to pick which of our identities we privilege - why does Bey have to choose whether shes' identifying as a woman, black, or rich?

Post-colonial studies taught me about strategic essentialism as a tool for working around the homogenizing effects of global capitalism.  Is that what Bey is doing?

3) I think it's important to divorce the reception of the video and read that as a separate thing.  There's the video itself, the audience, the constructs that make the production of such a video possible (music industry), the author of the video, and meaning is constructed in the spaces between all of these forces/actors.  I think the fact that for the most part, black social media lauded the video and wanted to see this mass-market representation of a particular black experience reflected is in itself, a worthy by-product and its own discussion.  Who is the audience for this video?  Is it white America?  Is it black America?  Is it a primer for white America to understand black America?  Does this hunger for reflection trump the more problematic, perhaps (and I say, perhaps) exploitative elements of the imagery?

I haven't come to a conclusion on this, but these considerations, this nuance, is all a necessary part of the conversation.

Less controversial - Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau's cringe-inducing number at an MLK event:

I showed this to Academic Book Club last week.  When I showed it to the Dotytron, I was like, "Isn't this the worst?!" and he's like, "Totally, she white-lines it through 9 different key changes in that last line!" which I think misses the point, but is so endearingly Dotytron.

Pretty low-key weekend up ahead for us, for which I am extremely grateful.

Fin.

Too Many Interests...Too Little Time

Squeezing out a little bit of time to update this dusty corner of ye olde interwebs, in between weighing in on, among other things: Jian Ghomeshi, the municipal election here in Toronto, and Cyrus Beene's hair situation on Scandal.  I wish I had more time to spend here, because I HAVE ALL THE THOUGHTS AND ALL THE FEELINGS.  I haven't even had a chance to record for posterity how I feel about the whole, "Hello Kitty is not a cat" Sanrio bombshell.  WHAT HAS MY LIFE BECOME?!

Guys, I am STRETCHED.  I wake up at 5:30am so I can put a proper breakfast out for my goon squad and have a proper dinner to come home to.  I want to knit, and see movies, and catch-up on the news, and have time to read, and work on crafts, and think about FREAKIN' XMAS (which I hate with the fieriness of a million suns), and make quilts, and keep a clean house, and figure out all the stupid renovation stuff, and see my friends, and make sure the Big Yam sees HIS friends, and make sure that the babies see enough of my face full-on (as in, I'm looking at them and they're not just getting the weird side-angle of my face with the computer screen/my phone casting its pall on my complexion), that they don't imprint on our caregiver or, the cats.  I fall asleep at 10pm and it is the exhausted sleep of the damned, filled with mundane dreams where I "escape" to such flights of subconscious as, "my family is coming over for dinner and my brother brings nothing to contribute" or "the basement underpin has started and the shared driveway has a giant pile of dirt in it" (real, actual dreams I've had lately.  I'm the worst).  This basically says to me that I'm not nurturing my interior life enough.

First things first: the whole Jian thing.  I am SHOCKED at how many defenders he has/had!  In the grand tradition of me being right about stuff without knowing anything detailed about them and going only on my superficial assumptions (which I could teach a graduate-level course in, quite frankly), I WAS SO RIGHT ABOUT JIAN.  I've thought he was so gross from even BEFORE Dr. Rei hipped me to the XO Jane "blind" item.  Then, while on maternity leave and driving the babies around to their various medical appointments, I actually heard his show.  HE'S NOT THAT GOOD, GUYS.  After an event of particular cultural import, he would always do these little op-ed monologue "essays" over washy, synth pads and his thoughts were SO BANAL.  SO TRITE.  Like, more banal than Stuart McLean (aka Garrison Keillor for all my American readers).  Did you ever think such a thing was possible?  To my mind, Jian became famous because of the Billy Bob Thornton thing, and really, that's basically becoming famous and well-known because you were on the receiving end of a notable jerk being a notable jerk.  La-di-dah.

Anyway, there's nothing about Jian that doesn't scream "I'm a gross pig."  The hair!  The look!  The general douchebaggy way he presents himself (I totally feel like Jian is a douchebag, which refutes the contention of this widely-circulated article, that "douchebag" always refers to a white person.  Tiger Woods?  Total douchebag).   Even if, as the Dotytron contends, I consider "Eeks. Totes diff vibes from yest" an indictable offense and would support locking someone behind bars for that alone, I think the way he's handled this whole thing shows that painting him with broad "disgusting pig-dog" strokes wasn't off base in the least.  Let's also talk about the PR firm he hired, Navigator.  They took him as a client, they must have signed off on that sad, pathetic, and TMI Facebook post Jian wrote, and then, when more and more women started coming forward, they dropped him.  Way to do your due diligence, you idiots.  I should charge them as a consultant to sit in a room when they're entertaining new clients so they don't have to be in the position of taking on and then subsequently dropping sick f**kwads.  HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW, NAVIGATOR?!?

I sometimes wish I could just apply for jobs with a CV that states all the times I was right about stuff ahead of the curve.  Granted, most of the times it has to do with pop culture, but still!  That's got to count for something, somewhere, right?

We need a palate cleanser after the unpleasantness of talking about Jian.  This photo has been making my heart sing, lately:

I love everyone's face in this photo - from the Big Yam's cheesy smile to Lenny's wide-faced muppet-mouthed grin.  

The above photo was taken on a Don Valley nature walk we did to take in the fall colours.  It was one of those perfect Sundays that happens about twice a year for us - a leisurely, laid back Sunday where we had an attainable amount of household chores on the docket, but we got to go out and do something outside that was enjoyable for all members of the family, and still had enough time left that I got to lie on the couch under a blanket and read for a good chunk of the afternoon and tuck into a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  Like seriously, could you imagine a more perfect fall Sunday?  I need more of those in my life, to center me and make me a reasonable person again.

This past weekend was the antithesis of that halcyon one.  Here's something no one tells you about Halloween before you become a parent: IT IS THE LONGEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.  I always take Halloween off from work to mitigate how much of a frenzied dash it is when kids are knocking on your door and you're trying to get the pumpkin carved/lit/out and finishing up dinner and bundling up your kids (because inevitably, Halloween is on the rainiest, coldest day in a week otherwise filled with temperate, sun-filled fall days) for the trek.  

It's always worth it, in the end.  For this:

and this:

This year everyone asked me what I did about limiting the Big Yam's candy consumption and if I had ever heard about the "Switch Witch" which is yet another new newfangled parenting thing n00b parents do because they can't tell their kids no?  The Switch Witch comes and takes all your Halloween candy in the night and leaves a book or something instead.  I've found we don't have to do anything that requires me to go out and get ANOTHER thing in addition to all the regular Halloween crap.  I made him sort his candy (what you see above) and then because he's 4, I told him he could have 4 pieces of his choosing.  He was fine with that.  He's basically forgotten all about it and I've just been using the Halloween candy as an incentive for him to do his "homework" after school.  I am very, very luck though, that the Big Yam is such a sweet, agreeable little guy.  He's so amenable.  I was able to do drop-off on Friday and ran into another parent who told me that the Big Yam sat with her when she chaperoned the field trip and she wanted to tell me what a good, smart, sweet little boy he is.  Apparently he spent the entire bus ride talking and telling them all kinds of facts and describing/explaining stuff and she kept reiterating how intelligent and well behaved and pleasant he was to be around.  

That kind of unsolicited feedback is the stuff of dreams.  I told the Dotytron and we both teared up.  I felt so proud of the Big Yam for representing himself so well and making us look good.  I don't know what role, if any, we played in how he's developed.  I know we set high expectations and we're very strict, but who knows if that works?  I can tell you that already, Lenny and the Quincess are completely different in their general approach to life.  Lenny is an Evil Knievel, daredevil, classic baby type of baby.  He climbs things, he gets into stuff, he puts food in his mouth.  He's like your textbook baby.  The Quincess is a sweet-faced, observant, cerebral, very funny baby.  I always say that Lenny is baby-funny, but the Quincess is legit, regular person funny.  He has a very wry sense of humour, and I'm continually flabbergasted by the fact that I can ascertain that and he is ONLY SIXTEEN MONTHS OLD.  

The babies have a lot of words right now, relative to their age (based on the feedback I got from their neo-natal follow up appointment).  To date, this is their tally:

- ball (their first word)
- baba
- book
- this
- that
- mama
- dung-dung (Cantonese for light)
- hot
- "moo"
- "woof"
- "down"
- "naai naai" (Cantonese for milk, but Lenny uses it generally for food)
- nana (banana)
- bot (robot)
- "poh poh" (Cantonese for "pick me up")
- elephant sound
- monkey sound
- lion sound
- "brown bear" (we're pretty sure Quincess says it, and he also reads "Brown Bear" to himself with this funny little cadence that I have to make a point of catching on video
- more/please (sign language)
- all done (sign language)

The rest of the weekend was a blur of social engagements.  We had a neighbour Halloween party on Saturday, then saw Dr. Rei and Hanbo and Big Al for dinner that night, then on Sunday we had Friendsgiving.  This all took place under the wider of umbrella of me stressing to the point of a huge eczema flare up (on my face!  OF COURSE!) about the underpinning, which is supposed to start imminently, at which point, our family of 5 will be without laundry for the duration.

Enough of my whinging on that front!  Let's see some basement renovation/finishing mood boards, shall we?  

The colour palette is light neutrals.  White, brass, grey, with blue and orange accents.  Because it's a basement, and doesn't get a lot (any) natural light, I want it to feel as airy as possible.  

  

Definitely some kind of light to medium-toned, possibly variegated laminate flooring.  A graphic, patterend rug, definitely the George Nelson bubble lamp and some brass sconces like this:

This Ikea sectional:

I found a company online that does special legs for Ikea furniture, which is a brilliant idea.  They're called Prettypegs.  We will probably need a round coffee table to offset the blocky, rectangular proportions of the main room.  I love the Ikea fauxdenza hack I've seen everywhere, and we will likely do that as a TV/entertainment centre:

We want to nest our speakers inside the credenza, so I think we'd try to get two cabinet doors with a glass inset, and then replace the glass with aluminum decorative radiator grills, spray-painted white, to allow the sound through, but still protect the speakers from Lenny's tweeter-poking fingers.  There are also plans afoot to upgrade to a king sized bed, since it's a tight fit at the moment when everyone is piled in.  

My top secret crafting project is finally out of the bag.  I made Big Al a quilt:

The back is flannel with a Bay stripe offset down the length because as is the trend when I quilt, the technical aspects of the math almost broke me, and I didn't calculate the right length/width of the batting.  I based the design off something I saw online.  The stripes are made up of 2.5" blocks made up of alternating horizontal and vertical strips of fabric.  Again, the math almost killed me and all the blue blocks and the yellow blocks were about 1/2" too small, so I had to cut a million little 1/2" pieces and sew them on when I thought I was onto the piecing stage.  I love the striped border of the binding (not my idea, again ripped off of the one I saw online) and this is my biggest quilt to date.  I did a big chunk of it when we were at my ED's cottage this summer.  It was overall a very pleasurable experience making it and I can't wait for Big Al to be big enough so that I can tell him about it, or that I can read him stories with it tucked up around our legs.  

Here's what our dinners have been like, lately:

Teriyaki salmon, with steamed brown rice and breaded zucchini "fries" I made using this recipe as a base (pretty standard, flour, egg wash, panko/parmesan crust, baked on a rack in the oven.  My notes: DON'T FORGET TO SPRAY/OIL THE RACK!  Otherwise, you end up with the crust sticking to the rack and not in your belly.  Sadface).  I feel like teriyaki salmon is SUCH a mom dish, in the "Good Housekeeping" sense of the word mom.  

Salted caramel swirl pumpkin cheesecake bars.  I based these on this recipe, but made quite a few changes (recipe below).  The best part of these bars was the crust, which was all chewy and caramely from the brown sugar.

The aforementioned spaghetti and meatballs

I made a lentil soup but followed Serious Eats' suggestion and added some gremolata, which elevated the dish considerably.  We had this with cheddar-apple melted toasts on Tiller's bread.

I can (and did) eat an ungodly amount of this shepherd's pie that night.  Alongside roasted cauliflower - cauliflower, cut into thick steaks, tossed with oil and za'atar and salt and pepper and roasted at high heat until it's covered in crisp edges.

Kale and kimchi fried rice topped with fried eggs.  Eaten at 8pm, while I was frantically making salted browned butter rice krispie ghosts to take to the Big Yam's classroom Halloween party.  I also made (assembled) a dip for the drop-in centre Halloween party and honestly guys, next year, tell me to save myself the trouble.  NO ONE CARES.  NO ONE.  

Last week I hung out with Dr. Rei and we went to The Federal.  It's a cute, cozy, tiny little brunch spot.  I had a breakfast sandwich there that immediately consumed me.  It featured: scrambled eggs, bacon, mayo, cheddar cheese, and the kicker, sliced pickle, on an English muffin. It's like a breakfast Big Mac.  Amazing.  I recreated it on the weekend, and made a roasted garlic mayo and it was divine.

New chocolate babka rolled out!  I used Smitten's revamped recipe and did find it relatively easy to execute and more restrained, without any diminished flavour/indulgence returns.  Y'all know I loves me some chocolate babka.  I'm going to make more this weekend.  The only tweak I did was to add some chopped chocolate to the melted chocolate smear.  Mine might actually be *too* chocolatey, but honestly, I haven't been mad at it when I eat my obligatory slice in front of the TV before bed.

Last night's dinner was arroz con pollo with a wackload of steamed green beans.

Fin.


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Salted Caramel Swirl Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
makes 12 bars

Crust:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted
2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T cornstarch
pinch salt

Filling

2  egg
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 c. pumpkin puree
2 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice (I just do my own version with 3 parts cinnamon to 2 parts ginger and 1 part clove, allspice, nutmeg)
2 T. flour
1/4 c. salted caramel sauce

- mix all the crust ingredients together and press onto the bottom of a 9" square baking pan (bottom lined with parchment, helps)
- bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10 minutes.  Take the pan out and leave the oven on.
- beat all the filling ingredients together (minus the salted caramel sauce) until smooth.  Pour into the pan and drop the salted caramel sauce on top of the filling and swirl with a knife.  Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the filling is set with just a slight wobbliness in the very middle.  A knife inserted into the centre should come out dry and not wet and streaky.  Let cool in the fridge, slice into bars and serve.