lean back

so glad for the weekend! things picked up like crazy near the end of the week and all of a sudden i have like, 7 questions at work and all this extra stuff to do.

we were going to see "the class" tonight but the dotytron wasn't feeling up to it.

my old supervisor T and i were doing our usual, friday "what are you cooking this weekend?" exchange and i was listing off the meals i had planned when she said to me, "you really like themes, don't you?" DO I!!!!!! i LOVE thematically appropriate meals and i have to say it would totally stress me out to have a moroccan tagine with a ceasar salad or something. that's not to say that i can't think outside of the box - i can...and i think i can be a playful, creative cook sometimes, but more often than not i like to revisit what works. so tonight's meal was a night in poland/austria. we had pork schnitzel with butter-sauteed mushrooms, topped with a fried egg and a squeeze of lemon. on the side we had boiled yukon gold potatoes tossed in sour cream with chives and dill, sauteed red cabbage with some red wine vinegar, and pickled beets. after a meal like that, on a cold night like tonight, you can see why we opted out of bundling ourselves up to brave the cold to see a film. we can always go next week.

even though we're not supposed to be having dessert during the week...i had leftover tapioca pudding so i warmed that up and thinned it out with some more milk. i LUB tapioca pudding! i'll post the recipe below. it's so easy.

roll call of awesome:

les miserables (the musical - the book is good, but hella long and wicked expository) when i was a kid, ever-pliable to the pop culture influence of my sister, i went to a bunch of musicals (this was the era when andrew lloyd weber kind of owned broadway for a while.) i saw miss saigon, les miz, phantom, aida...all the big guns. i had seen cats, joseph's amazing technicolor dreamcoat, the one about rollerskating in the future (found it: starlight express), and had been lulled to sleep over many a family car ride to the tunes from jesus christ superstar. my family was one of like, 10 that actually WATCHED the tony's. then musicals became overwhelmingly uncool and i kind of left that part of my life behind.

about 3 years ago, my brother was driving us back from visiting my sister at some ungodly hour of the morning. it was 6 am, we were bleary-eyed, crammed like sleep-deprived anchovies into his yaris. it was winter. my brother got into the driver's seat, put on his winter gloves, slowly and carefully deposited a cold mountain dew into the driver's drink caddy, started the car, placed a cd into the cd player, and proceeded to sing the entire les miserables soundtrack all the way home (all parts sung by the s-dawg.) it was glorious, it was hilarious, it was the most surreal early morning drive i've ever witnessed. this past winter, bwong showed up and we went out for dinner somewhere and he drove us home blasting the soundtrack from his souped audio system in his car. les mis came up again at the farm, when we were treated to J and B's recreation of the dramatic confrontation between javert and jean valjean.

the dotytron went out and bought the original broadway cast recording, and it's effin' awesome. les miz is actually one of the only ones to truly stand the test of time. we've been listening to it while we make dinner and singing along. i've managed to cull untold humour from calling gavroche a chav, every time the little bastard pops up on the scene.

the dream is, that for the 10 year anniversary of the dotytron's annual christmas cd, we're going to assemble all our les miz-obsessed friends and family to recreate the entire musical. how awesome would that be?!??? what an opus!!!!!!


roll call of bunk:

the whole hipster/crafty fake mustache thing has gotten out of hand. i think that H's friend D is the first person i know who started sporting a curlicued mustache from the days of yore. this was at least 5 years ago. now they're everywhere! i'm not trying to suggest that D is ground zero for hip mustache appreciation except that maybe i am. also! H and M (who is incidentally, D's sister) have had a "mustache dance" since i've known them. dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

fin.

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tapioca pudding

serves 4-6 generously (4 you get a 1 c. portion approximately, with 6 you get 3/4 c. portions)

2 c. milk
1/2 c. sugar
1 can of coconut milk
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (optional)
6 T. pearl tapioca (not the quick cooking kind)

- bring the milk, sugar, coconut milk to a boil in a saucepan
- add the vanilla and tapioca, stirring
- reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 20-30 minutes until the tapioca is cooked through. stir occasionally so that the tapioca doesn't burn and clump up.
- serve warm, or pour into dishes and refrigerate (put plastic wrap directly on the surface if you don't want it to get the pudding skin. i'm a pudding skin fan)
- if you're reheating it, put it back into a pot and thin with a little milk to desired consistency.

i'm not gonna lie...

i kind of have a gift. it's the gift of style and shopping and finding the right thing for the right person. i'm pretty chuffed about the fact that i found my best friend her wedding gown. you just kind of know.

we didn't have appointments at any of the places we went to (who knew that people needed appointments?!?) so we walked in and pawed through gowns and took some pictures of some stuff that was kind of sort of what dr. rei had in mind but not really. one store we went to had an off-the-rack offshoot a bit further down that was basically being mobbed by crazy a** b***hes going buck, with about a billion people in each changeroom. there was one thing that was kind of okay so we figured we'd put our names on the list to see if we could try it on (if a 2 second window became available.) we milled around and waited a bit and then i suggested we pull a jack astor's, leave our cell phone numbers, and then get them to call us when/if a room became available.

at that point, we wandered across the street to this store called vogue sposa, which wasn't even initially on our radar. we figured we'd go because it's on the danforth. it looked even MORE intimidating because it's this 2 floor, glass and steel extravaganza. when we first started poking around we were approached by this older lady who asked us if we had an appointment. we said no and she firmly told us that she wouldn't be able to accommodate us because they were booked solid.

as i was leafing through the racks (sidenote: wedding dresses are HEAVY AS F**K) i saw one and i turned to rei, pointed at it, and i said: "i like this one" and she said, "oh, yeah?" and i became firmer, "yeah. i REALLY like this one." and the more we looked at it, the more and more i loved it. it is very unique, unstructured, body skimming, absolutely gorgeous, in her size, and under $600. we pulled it out and i took pictures of it and we kind of milled around and kept staring and talking about the details. i turned to approach another fitting room lady, to ask if we could please please please just nip into a change room and quickly try it on, when she beat me to the punch - she looked at me kindly and said, "if you give me 2 minutes, i'll put you in a change room. i'm not supposed to, but i will." KISMET! so we waited around some more and dr. rei put it on, and i got goosebumps and i started to well up and it was amazing! it fits like a dream and it's so HER. i'm so happy! it seemed like such a fluke that she would find the dress on the first day. plus there was total pressure to buy it outright - before her mum could see it, because it was the last one of its' kind, she had to take it, in case someone came while she waited and snapped it out from under her nose. i was totally confident that she should do it. i had no doubts at all. she was hesitating a bit (in case there were other dresses out there, in case her mom didn't like it) but seriously, if she hadn't have bought it, i think i would have bought it FOR her i was so very sure.

it's like when i walked into cabaret and picked up my performance dress. i wasn't 2 feet in the store before i looked up at the wall, pointed at it, and said, "i like that one." and it fit like a dream! going dress shopping was useful for me too...i guess because i had settled on something unconventional, there was a part of me that wondered if i had made the right decision - that maybe deep down in some vestigial part of me, there was someone who longed to be in a vision in a structured, princess gown in ivory, or a goddess gown, or a shimmering sheath. accompanying dr. rei, i rapidly realized that my dress(es) are so me. and so right for me. i couldn't picture myself in any of the gowns we saw, doing the kind of performance we're having. none of them appealed to me (except dr. rei's...if i had gone the traditional route, i think i would have been swayed by that little beaut.) it was nice to have the confirmation that i had made the right choice.

one day, when i want to give up the bibliotheque biz, maybe i'll become a stylist. or personal shopper. although i don't really have the patience for people who won't submit to my good taste. i get frustrated when people dither about buying something that OBVIOUSLY looks good on them. i'd probably need my clients to sign a waiver saying that they'd be okay with a tongue lashing.

last night was so much fun! we stayed out wicked late. we didn't end up going out dancing. it was the perfect night, really. we ate some yummy italian food and hung out and gabbed and played games and over-shared. i think there has yet to be a night when i've hung with kdubsguelphtdot crew where we haven't talked about 2 girls 1 cup (for the uninitiated: a) what are you doing on the internet? and b) DON'T GOOGLE THAT.) one of the girls in the crew, E, is probably the sweetest, kindest, most generous person i've ever met in my life. i get this and i've seriously only hung out with her like, under 10 times. she's just so KIND. anyway, it came up that one of things J regrets is showing E 2 girls 1 cup. and then S piped in that her new year's resolution is to be half as kind as E. so of course, my initial reaction is to respond, "E is totally the nicest, but i don't think i'd want to be as kind and nice as E, if it meant i shouldn't see 2 girls 1 cup. i'm just putting that out there." which basically solidifies me as the spawn of satan!

it's like the other night, when i was at my boyfriend's house post-game, and we were giving our teammate P the gears about his sister (apparently the running joke is that P's sister is hot and the more you talk about it, the more upset P gets.) which of course, i saw as an opportunity to spit out, "dude, she's probably a hood rat" (i had just learned that expression that very day, while listening closely to one of the tunes on the the rub 93 hip hop mixes) which made P shake his head at me, appalled, and say, "you're worse than any guy i've ever met." lol!!!

this morning for sunday breakkie, i made us yeasted waffles with peameal bacon. tasty tasty. we ate it while listening to "ready to die" by biggie. i'm preparing for the goosetang friday night "notorious" session. i'm pumped! sunday breakfast with biggie is what i would name the sunday editions of my sandwich shop/restaurant/cafe (the name of the restaurant is "hoagie carmichael's") that i'm going to open when i retire from the bibliotheque biz and do my personal styling on the side.

here's my steve gotlib list for today:
- cover letter revisin' (dotytron's)
- snow shovellin'
- dodgeballin'
- shopper's drug martin'
- dinner makin' (butternut squash and mascarpone canneloni with a parmesan bechamel and kale on the side)
- weddin' plannin'/deadline settin'
- tv on computer watchin'
- knittin'
- readin'


does anyone know what this font is? or can anyone find me a free d/l version of something similar? i'm quite smitten with it, even though it's starting to get a lot of play in the design world, and it might be a fad. i like the 70s, valley of the dolls feel to it.

roll call of bunk  (a new blog installment. i figured if i'm giving daps in the roll call of awesome, i should also give the opposite of daps, too):

the helvetica credo pillow. this is profoundly obnoxious and reeks of smug entitlement.


History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo i found this boring. i also found the graphics and voice over (and really, the whole thing) impossibly twee. i wanted to give it a kick in the shins.

sleeping on the opportunity to join the writing team at best week ever. even though i have negative photo shopping skills, i totally should have cobbled something together. i'm an IDIOT! bogus.

indie rock. past and present. i was ranting about interpol yesterday, and dr. rei played me a tune of theirs that she liked, and she said, "the reason why i like them is because they remind me of the 90s stuff. did you like any of the more indie 90s stuff?" and i can honestly say: NO. if you're not stone temple pilots, get the hell outta my 90s. seriously, sonic unyon, dinosaur jr. and anything that's washy, indeterminate, fuzzy, monotone rock-pop has like, negative impact on me. the thing is: the GENRE HASN'T CHANGED! i don't think i'm missing out. i seriously can't tell one belle and sebastian tune from another, or distinguish them from interpol, stars, or any of those other bands. me and indie (in the current articulation of the term, like, not INDEPENDENT music as a whole) have never seen eye to eye.

fin.