So much a gwanning

I meant to post yesterday, but we were so busy with our collective ditch day that I didn't get a chance. The Big Yam had a decreased appetite on Thursday that J noticed during the day and he barely at any dinner at night was pretty sad and tired so I brought him back to our doctor, who said that one ear was definitely in ear infection mode and put him on some penicillin. He seems to be doing better already but Thursday night was a write-off. The Boobla woke up in the middle of the night inconsolable so I brought him into bed with us and he was so snuffly the Dotytron couldn't sleep and he moved down to sleep on the couch so we all got a rotten night's sleep. The Dotytron called in sick because we were having B & G and S & P over for dinner last night, and if he hadn't, with all the running around (I had a massage in the morning) carting the Big Yam to his appointment and back I would have had to cancel dinner.

So we all ditched. The Big Yam ditched daycare, the Dotytron ditched school and I kinda ditched but not really since yesterday was my day off. It was nice. I loooove ditch days. I also loooove 4 day work weeks.

Even in my bleary-eyed, sleep deprived frustration at being a human cow suckled on by a mouth breathing pint-sized zombie, the Big Yam was pretty hilarious. He got all milk drunk and started doing this drunken flop around the bed - pitching himself forward and backward, babbling silly stuff, laughing to himself, and playing with our hair like a drunk girl at a party. It was pretty funny.

On Thursday night I had my friend K over for dinner. I had made this Greek Mac'n'Cheese on Sunday (part of a whirling dervish Sunday where I cranked out 3 meals in like, 2 hours and was EXHAUSTED afterwards). The mac'n'cheese was a HUGE HUGE HUGE winner, so I've posted the recipe at the end. I doubled the recipe, which made enough for 3 square foil pans of mac'n'cheese. One for us to eat on Thursday and two frozen - one for us at a later date and one for my neighbour when she has her baby:

After dinner K and I went to see a reading put on by the Walrus as part of the International Festival of Authors. Going to IFOA makes you feel like part of the Toronto intelligentsia (which I like). We saw Elizabeth Hay read from Alone in the Classroom and Tom Perrotta read from his latest, The Leftovers, which I just finished reading about 10 minutes ago. I hadn't really been interested in Elizabeth Hay - her Giller Prize-winning novel, Late Nights on Air I had (unjustifiably) written off as "mom-lit" (in this category I put books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) - I was in it to see Perrotta. As it turns out, Hay won me over. She is a lovely, lovely reader. Her voice is smooth, subtle, soothing with a faint husk to it and the way she paces the phrases is so bewitching to listen to. I felt transported into the world of her new book and am intrigued by the salacious intimations of some bedrock-shaking scandal hinted at in the passages she read. Perrotta, by contrast, isn't as great of a reader. He also picked a weird chapter, in the middle of the novel, which required too much explanation - if I were him, I would have chosen the beginning chapter, which lays out the complicated world of the book a bit better. His voice and elocution aren't as strong as Hay's (K later told me that Hay has a radio background, which makes sense). But it was still nice to hear them both. If I had gotten my act together I would have gotten a book signed, but as it was, it was late on a Thursday and I didn't have the mustard for it.

I loved this book. The book follows the Garvey family - a small town father, mother, daughter, and son, as they each try to make sense of their lives and find meaning in the wake of what has become known as the Sudden Departure - an event 3 years before the events of the novel, where millions of people around the world suddenly disappeared, as if the Rapture had occurred. However, part of what makes characters in the book unhinged is the randomness of the Sudden Departure - the indiscriminate religious affiliations and morals of those who dissipated into thin air. They weren't all Christians, which makes it even harder for those left behind (religious and non) to accept. Stephen King, in his review of the book in the New York Times Sunday Book Review said it best: "Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism." The aftermath of the Sudden Departure finds each member of the Garvey family struggling to cope in different ways: father Kevin, now the town Mayor, gamely tries to put the uncertainty and misery behind him, longing for a return to the halcyon normalcy pre-disappearance; wife Laurie finds comfort in a cult/movement known as the Guilty Remnant - people who dress in white, take a vow of silence, and chain smoke, appearing at events and standing as visible reminders that the world cannot, and must not, slide back into its ignorant, evil ways; son Tom quits university and joins another cult headed by a charismatic figure known as "Holy Wayne" - a man whose reputation is built on his ability to absorb other's pain; and daughter Jill flounders in the wake of the abandonment (by choice) of her family - drifting without an anchor in a sea of high school bad influences.

The book is about family, it's about faith, it's about how people deal with the unexplainable - both on a large scale, and also, on a small scale. Having recently dealt with the loss of a loved one, I found Perrotta's text really spoke to the uncertainty and rootlessness one can feel when one loses someone. The mass disappearance of the Sudden Departure is but an exaggeration for the questions and purpose-defining self-examination that occur after you lose someone - with death always, no matter what, seeming random and without purpose when it touches your life. I also thought the book really brought to life how someone can turn themselves into a fanatic so slowly and how "normal" the process can be. It's something I've always wondered - on more than one occasion, I've looked across the table at the Dotytron and wondered if one day he would wake up and turn into an evangelical Christian - the way people seem to suddenly do (ahem, Kirk Cameron.) Is it a sudden shift? How does one suddenly turn their back on everything they once held dear? The book describes the process in a way that is real, subtle, and for that, all the more terrifying. It also deals with how hard it is to be young - a teenager, a college student - when these generation-defining moments turn an already turbulent, unstable time into more of a chaotic mess of fraught choices. I would highly recommend this book. I'm feeling lost as to what I'm going to read now...I've got that weird blues you get when you finish an engrossing book, the hangover or coming down off of a good read.

Me at 7am on Friday, about to put 3 racks of ribs on the smoker

Our ditch day breakfast of fried salt pork and Swedish pancakes.

Guys, Laura Ingalls doesn't lie - fried salt pork is the ill na na. It's soooo good! The fat turns puffy and translucent and airy light - it's like a cross between the most ephemeral pork rinds and the sweetest bacon. I highly recommend it (in moderation - ie. once a year).

Fridays dinner: ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread

Peach cobbler and Tahitian vanilla ice cream

Why don't I make cobbler more often? Good question. Eating the crunchy biscuits on top of the soupy, silken, just-sweet peaches was enough to make me question my own non-cobbler-making-sanity. Cobbler is for people who like biscuits (should be everyone) and peaches (should be everyone). I will post the recipe tomorrow.

Today was my ditch day. I just didn't feel like going to school after a late dinner with good friends (people didn't leave until after midnight!!) and a night spent with the Big Yam in our bed, which had the unfortunate appendix of him falling OUT of our bed and onto the floor. Ouch. I can still see myself flying out of my half-asleep daze when I heard the thump and see his outline, on our floor, on his back, in the dark and I'm still shook about it. Luckily he was fine - nothing a lot of kisses and cuddles couldn't fix...but I still feel awful about it.

We broke from our Saturday morning St. Lawrence tradition to check out the Evergreen Brickworks farmer's market instead - so nice there! It's still being held outdoors for the next week or so - it was cold, but they had steel drum fires going and there seemed to be a dios de los muertos theme happening. We got these delicious breakfast crepes from Clement's Crepes - his crepes are made with red fife flour and the one we like has egg, spinach, chunks of ham, mozzarella, and hollandaise sauce and it's SOOOO good. It's $9, which you would think is really steep for a crepe, but it's actually a very substantial meal. You get full eating it and finishing it is a bit of a chore.

Then we went to the Friends of Greenwood Park (FROG)'s annual Fall Festival - they had apples and coffee and a fire truck and a police car and face painting and a magic show...it was small but nice. I think I might join FROG and become more involved - did I tell you guys I was thinking of running for school board trustee? I figure FROG is a good way of starting...

We brought the Big Yam in his costume and it was the hands-down favorite of the people we saw, including our City Councillor, who took a picture of him and tweeted it.

I am very vocal in my bias against store-bought costumes - and I feel like the photos above show why.

Tonight we have two (!) Halloween parties that we'll be attending at the very UN-party time of like, 7pm, with the aim of being in bed by the very family-friendly time of 9pm.

Fin.

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Greek style mac'n'cheese

adapted from Saveur Magazine, makes 8-12 MASSIVE servings

3-6 slices bread, torn into smallish pieces, or I used the heels (about 3" long - both ends of the bread) from a multigrain loaf

3 T. olive oil

6 T. butter

1 lb (approx) of elbow macaroni (I used whole wheat)

1/2 c. flour

6 cups of milk

1 lb (approx) kefalotyri cheese, grated

3/4 t. ground cinnamon

1/4 t. grated nutmeg

1 x bunch scallions, sliced

3 x bags of baby spinach (or 2 of the clear salad containers)

1/2 c. chopped dill

2 c. crumbled feta cheese

- buzz the bread in a food processor until they turn into coarse crumbs. Toss with 2 T. of the olive oil, set aside.

- melt the remaining 1 T. of the olive oil with the butter over medium heat in a large pan. Whisk in the flour and cook over medium heat until it's combined and some of the raw flour flavour is cooked out, about 2 minutes or so. Slowly whisk in the cold milk. Whisk and cook over medium to medium-low heat until the sauce thickens and bubbles. Take off the heat, and whisk in the kefalotyri cheese.

- meanwhile, cook the elbow macaroni until cooked through (past al dente), drain.

- sauté the scallions and the baby spinach over medium heat in a bit of oil until the spinach is all wilted and all the moisture has been absorbed. Toss the spinach mixture with the pasta and the cheese mixture in a big bowl. Stir in the chopped dill.

- season to taste with black pepper. Additional salt won't be necessary.

- pour into a buttered casserole dish (a 9x13 pan would be probably enough, but you may have some overflow) and top with the bread crumbs and the crumbled feta.

- bake in a 400F oven covered with aluminum foil for about 30 minutes, then take the foil off and bake an additional 15-20 minutes, or until the macaroni and cheese is bubbling and the top is golden brown.

2 legit 2 quit

great burger kitchen was legit bizness, sons. as soon as we walked in there, we were assaulted with the aroma of BEEFY goodness, lending a savoriness to the air.

they have a selection of classic burgers, with various toppings, supplemented by some alternative burger offerings (a veggie patty, a portobello burger, a lamb burger, a chicken burger). the classic burger is a beefy, thick, 6 oz served with optional (for an additional price) cheese (blue, brie, swiss, cheddar) and bacon. there are a variety of free toppings and then extra toppings that cost a little bit more. there are a selection of poutines - a lot of which sounded mundane (the ontario poutine with bacon) and awesome (the mexican poutine - with salsa, guacamole, cheddar, and sour cream - aka FRIES SUPREME BUT WITH GUACAMOLE). they also sell homemade chocolate chip cookies and what looked like hello dolly bars. pretty solid. the inside is pretty decent - warm and friendly, but not a lot of seating options - and most of what's available is taken up with hungry hordes waiting for their order.

we all got the classic burger and shared an order of onion rings, a classic poutine, and a mexican poutine. i also got a side of their "GBK" sauce which is their rendition of lick's "guk" or mcdonald's big mac sauce. here's how it looked:

 

 

 

 

the taste? pretty effin' solid all around. pricing was pretty decent. the poutines were about $6-7 a piece which considering the size of the container, was fair. the fries were chubby and crispy in some places and limp in others, acceptable given the amount of toppings in there. i thought the mexican was awesome...the addition of guacamole was inspired and it tasted kind of fresh and zingy with a bit of chopped cilantro. the poutine was very tasty as well - nice gravy, not too salty, real cheese curds. the onion rings looked disappointingly pale out of the box but were so crisp! with a light, almost gossamer batter - the only quibble from the roomie is that she prefers a thicker piece of onion in there.

GBK sauce was aight - like a thin, less chunky thousand island. it tasted okay on the burger but kind of got lost in the mix. the classic comes with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, ketchup, and mustard (i think). the burger patty was thick, cooked medium well, and very tasty. could have been a little juicier, a little brawny from over handling, but that's a small quibble. in terms of the burger offerings in this neck of the woods for dedicated gourmet burger places, it blew the pants off of burger shoppe (and i would argue burger shoppe quality meats), where the burgers were kind of miserly and not worth going back for. i would definitely go back to this place.

it's still not quite as good as five guys burger and fries - i dunno what it is about these gourmet places...they just can't test that winning formula. i think they over handle the meat - plus the organic beef isn't as fatty as USDA. i'd also hazard a guess that the thicker patties aren't as satisfying as the thinner kind at five guys - more of a beef puck instead of that signature five guys crumble.

still, great burger kitchen is a fantastic addition to the neighbourhood and to a somewhat depressed strip of gerrard (which could use a little love.) so pumped that it's so close by! now all we need is for that neapolitan pizza place to open up and the west side can eat it.

today is a grocery shopping, cleaning the house, prepping for dinner party tomorrow, going for a run, doing some yoga kind of a day. then waiting for the arrival of kdubsguelph tdot to touch down! we may or may not celebrate earth hour (i'm pushing to see "hot tub time machine")

fin.

the ongoing trials and tribulations of lil' ugmo

zomg, being a homeowner is a**. even more a** than planning a wedding, because it's way more money and you're saddled with this thing for life, whereas it's a lot easier to skip out on getting hitched, either somewhere along the way TO getting hitched (à la what we ended up doing) or immediately after (aka divorce).

our second purchaser's visit went okay. we saw two contractors (one whom we've seen before but keeps forgetting us somehow). one tried to upsell us on a lot of stuff and it's really easy to get pulled in. ideally, these are the scenarios under which you want to buy a house:

a) be a millionaire, so that you can buy a NEW house in cash, outright
b) be a millionaire, so that you can buy a $400,000 house, and then spend another $200,000 gutting it and fixing it up to your specifications
c) be a millionaire, so that you can buy a plot of land and build a custom house

we don't fit into ANY of the above options (in case you didn't know). it sucks because you ended up paying for stuff to be done twice, when you don't have the money to gut it all at once. for example, you're getting the re-wiring done, right? so they put in new outlets for the kitchen, but then you're going to end up gutting the kitchen in a year anyway (best case scenario), so then you have to re-do all that work.

it's really easy to fall into the trap of: "well, while we're ALREADY pulling shiz out of your place, we might as well DO IT ALL and DO IT UP PROPER" which is a mistake borne from new home frenzy. you just (naturally) want your stuff to be set up and ready to be photographed by dwell or domino magazine. but this can lead to rapid increases in price before you've had a chance to let the dust settle.

par example, at lil' ugmo, two of the rooms share an 8" long closet, with bifold doors in each room. the placement of the doors in each room slightly overlaps. we'd like to make it so that EACH room has a self-contained closet (ie. when you open the door to the closet in the dotytron's studio, you're not looking at the stuff hanging in my craft room).

the easiest way to do that is to throw up a diagonal wall between the two closets. but one of the contractors told us that he could square up and seal up one closet and then move the door way for the other one. this is the mid-price option. the problem is: they've installed new hardwood floors in ALL the rooms. which means that you're priority number 1 is to AVOID MESSING UP THAT FLOOR AT ALL COST. because matching that little bitty piece of floor that gets messed up is going to be damned near impossible, which means that if you do mess it up, you have to replace a whole section of floor (at best) and the ENTIRE FLOOR of the room (at worst). so then his workaround was to create a built in wardrobe, like a custom piece of furniture. VERY EXPENSIVE! like, $2000! but, we could also use cheap wood and then paint it. much cheaper!

we were all caught up on that tip and had pretty much decided on squaring up the closet and then i started talking to my colleague who said, "you know what? why bother spending NOW on a closet? when you can use that money for other stuff?" and i was like, you know what, you're totally right. WHY BOTHER SPENDING MONEY ON A CLOSET? so we'll probably go the quick and dirty route and just put in the diagonal wall. each room gets a 3'5" closet of their own and yeah, it's a little odd to have a diagonal wall, but it's going to save us LOTS of money in the short term that could be better spent in other areas (like, repaying our debt). and it's not like we don't have the option in the future to square up that closet if we decide that we must absolutely have square closets or else our lives won't be worth living.

don't even get me started on the tankless hot water heater. oy vey.

last night we signed the papers with our lawyer and had a few more heart attacks when we saw how much the certified cheque we're delivering on monday has to be. it's all so tentative and dicey now and considering our last experience when we got pwned by the mortgage underwriters...i'm feeling really scared and nervous.

we had dinner with dr. rei and a nice long catch-up that was impossibly fun. i have the best best friend in the world. we can literally just sit and talk for hours and hours. we tried to come up with a processional and recessional song for her wedding. i think i came up with a pretty solid suggestion. the recessional is a toughie. it's really hard to find songs that are filled with joy. other than "ode to joy" and van halen's "jump" (the dotytron's call - solid). it also has to be played on an organ. seriously, think about it. what songs are filled with JOY and not happiness? joy's a hard one to nail down.

this morning i've been packing and organizing and labeling and showering. this precedes our attendance at a late afternoon hors d'oeuvres party for all the dotytron's mater and pater's family that didn't get invited to the hoo-ha in august, hosted by momma d and poppa d. it's really nice that we'll get to see everyone and have the opportunity to apologize profusely for being weirdos who ran off to get hitched with only 20 people in attendance. i hope i don't have to open presents in front of people. that's actually one of my least favourite things to do. i like opening presents in the privacy of my own home. is that weird? it's only fun when it's like, besties or something. but with people you don't know well i find it awkward. i know, i have social anxieties to spare!

here's hoping i don't gorge too much on bite sized foods.



...NOT!


fin.

EPIC

zomg. i came home at 3:30 last night (this morning). THREE THIRTY! that doesn't happen anymore! i'm so chuffed about it.

the past few days have been epic. let's start with friday night. got home from work and got all gussied up to take T and the dotytron out for dinner - to celebrate T being in town and the dotytron being DONE m-f'n TEACHER'S COLLEGE! i thought this day would NEVER come!

we went to tomi-kro restaurant in leslieville. it's close by and i've been meaning to try it for a long time. we also did a walk by of lil' ugmo as well (it was en route) to show T what is giving me periodic knots of anxiety in the flesh.

anyway, the meal was really lovely! we all had three courses, a bottle of wine, and one martini. here's what went down...

bread. basically warmed, pita triangles that had been brushed with an herbed oil. pretty tasty, but kind of nondescript.

lobster maki balls. bits of lobster mixed with chili mayo and avocado, encased in sushi rice which is then rolled in nori, dipped in tempura batter, and then deep fried. the lobster was barely noticeable, but i tend to be a sucker for deep fried maki. it's served with a slightly spicy wakame salad and more chili mayo on the plate. it's tasty because crispy+maki+spicy mayo is always a winning combination and this dish capitalizes on it.

at the top, foie gras brulé. a generous ramekin of foie mousse with a bruléed crispy sugar topping. served with toast and some kind of tart fruit preserve and other foie gras accoutrements. it was really really tasty. the foie mousse was whipped and airy and smooth and the bitter/sweet crunch of the bruléed sugar provided a nice texture and flavour contrast.

on the bottom, we have the miami short ribs. these were braised and then grilled and served with a vaguely asian, five-spice enhanced sauce. they were tender and delicious and generously portioned.

beet salad. huge slices of tender, chilled, beet topped with a goat-cheese cream studded with pistachios on top of greens. i loved this dish. it went over really well with a table of beet lovers.

i ordered the veal osso bucco. three tender, meaty chunks of veal shank, braised and topped with a rich, mushroom-cream infused sauce. this dish was quite heavy for summer but it was actually just what i wanted after waiting until 9pm to have dinner and walking through leslieville to find eats. the meat could have used a touch more seasoning but other than that, it was a nice take on osso bucco - extra points for a particularly huge slippery knot of marrow.

dr. rei ordered the seared salmon with tempura battered sweet peas and some kind of cole slaw type thing (or vinegary shredded stuff.) the salmon was served medium rare and had a sweet glaze going on.

T had the tuna, which came rolled in sesame seeds, seared, and served with some kind of miso sauce on edamame hummous. i didn't get to try it but T said it was yummy.

the dotytron ordered the filet of beef. it came with some kind of root mash and sauce. i was getting full at this point so even though we were going splitsies, i didn't eat as much of it as i thought i would. the meat was as tender as filet should be and cooked the requisite medium-rare.

despite my above assertions that i was approaching fullness, that didn't stop me from ordering dessert. i ordered the flourless chocolate cake, which is a silky, dense, mousse-like triangle of pure chocolate flavour, accented with whipped cream and berries.

dr. rei ordered the chocolate pudding, which came with a chocolate brownie (i found the brownie a touch dry.)

the dotytron and T had the dulce de leche cheesecake. it was also very good and and restrained with the caramel flavours, which can sometimes get too sickening and cloying.

all in all, i thought the food was really good and pretty fairly priced, for the portion size and the execution. we paid $280 including taxes and tip for four people to have 3 courses each and a bottle of decent wine and one cocktail. i would go there again.

yesterday was a loooooooong day. the roomie was moving out yesterday, so T and i hightailed it to bonjour brioche to get out of her hair. plus, i wanted to take T there because it's something a little different in the brunch department. on our way, the area that i live in now was having a massive street sale, so we walked through that. some of the prices were exorbitant and not in the spirit of yard sale-ing. for example, some dude was selling a plastic radio flyer wagon for EIGHTY DOLLARS. that's not good yard sale etiquette. do you want to get rid of the stuff or NOT? on the way back, we spotted H and baby D and H's mom J. they stopped over for a visit and showed off some of their finds from their trawl through the yard sale. H has the best yard sale/goodwill/value village luck i've ever seen.

then S came over to look at some furniture and we visited with her for a bit. it turns out all the stuff i'm getting rid of is too big for her new place so it's not going to work out. but it was nice catching up.

finally, after the cavalcade of stars, we headed out for our day of shopping. i didn't buy much. i got a straw hat for myself and a pair of shorts for the dotytron. pretty restrained considering i saw a bunch of nice stuff i wanted. i'm really into the thin, button down, breezy, rolled up shirt/dress look this summer. i think it's so crisp and clean and like, blake lively strolling through martha's vineyard on a hot summer's day.


this is kind of what i'm talking about. so nice! so breezy and crisp and still relaxed and vaguely hippie for hot climes. it's very vacationy. but i was good and didn't succumb. i'll do a trawl through the sale racks if and when i ever get some disposable coin. i definitely don't want to pay full price for that stuff.

we walked and walked and walked and had a serious case of barking dogs. we met up with the dotytron at harbord fish'n'chips and mowed down and then came back home and napped. we met up with our buddy B at the subway and headed over to our buddy M and fox's apartment in kensington where we did some pre drinking with other peeps. bwong came and met us there and was winningly insouciant as per usual. we headed out to supermarket first and were bored to death with some crappy disco-y standards ("pyt" etc.) i went up to the dj and asked if they were going to play any hip hop and requested m.o.p's "ante up" and he said he'd play it. we sat through some more indeterminate crap tunes and were just about to leave when he dropped it and the crowd went OFF. what the hell dudes, just let me program a set. then he played some more old skool hip hop but it might have been too little too late. we trooped over to thymeless but they were full (!!!) so i convinced people to go to some random jungle party at toi bar featuring the sounds of dj saigon and possibly frankie gunns.

we squeezed in just before last call and got a reduced rate. T and i bonded at trent university over le jungle, bwong is an old torontojungle.com stalwart, the dotytron and i met via jungle, and some other random friend of friend of the dotytron's high school crew who was in attendance was also a former jungle devotee. it was a BLAST. we danced our butts off to really crappy jungle and it was awesome. lol! i think my voice was hoarse from "brup"ing and "bo"ing. ahahahahaha. at one point, i started rolling up the legs of my jeans and told a (shocked) bwong that i was really going there. T had been worried about being under-dressed for supermarket but we were totally OVER dressed for jungle. ahahahahaha! so good!!! i also got hit on by a n00b. he offered to buy me a drink. i ordered a gin and soda (T's drink of choice) thinking i could pass it along to her but the bar was closed. the point is, i got hit on (i'll take what i can get) and i still got it for skeevy jungle dudes (like i said: i'll take what i can get. lol!) we kinda closed the place down. like, the lights came on. then we dip-setted out of there with bwong shouting, "quick! before the lights come on!" and then we kind of staggered out because it felt like we had all just like blacked out and fell into a time warp. it totally escalated quickly. all in all, a super fun night. can't ask for more.

i'm about to make some breakkie and get this day started.

fin.

oh gosh!

friday night was a blissful night of gabbing with the house family (the roomie was off call and around for a change!) and eating pizza from danforth pizza house and fried chicken from city fried chicken and then being crippled with remorse afterwards about how there is fat collecting in my arteries.

i seriously needed a night OFF. this weekend is another insanely social one. this morning i'm doing usual saturday morning stuff - going for a run, yoga, grocery shopping, trying to reset the regulator on my bbq, working on the garden, etc. then i'm going to meet H, baby D, and her friend M - we've all started a knitting club together as M really wants to learn how to knit so we're going to meet up on queen east, walk to the purple purl and then either head to my place or withrow park if it's as nice as it claims to be (although from the looks of the weather network it's not going to be as sunny as initially reported) and do some knitting and gabbing.

then tonight i'm going to have the goosetang clan over for dinner to celebrate dr. rei's forthcoming birthday and bwong's just passed one and to see their faces all together which hasn't happened in a while.

tomorrow morning we're getting up early and driving to kdubs to visit J & A who we haven't seen in MONTHS AND MONTHS (it feels like.) it'll be nice to visit them on their home turf for a change, as it always seems like they make the drive to the big smoke. then we're heading back early b/c the dotytron has a paper to write and i have dodgeball to go to, then we're meeting with our realtor in the late afternoon to find out what the heck a realtor does.

fun times!

danforth pizza house has been around for 40 years or something - it's old skool pizza...not quite new york style, not quite true blue naples style...more like italian in toronto style? like a red sauce joint style. like pizza pizza but a billion times better. slightly thinner charred crust with a nice bit of chew and a generous hand with toppings. it's fantastic. for whatever reason, this has been our first time going there - i'm not sure why. laziness, wariness about the dilapidated storefront, me being uncharacteristically bourgeois about my pizza establishments, who knows. the fact is, the place is pretty barebones in the toppings department - no spinach, arugala, or fancy cheeses. but for a $16 basic large pie with two toppings, it's solid. good amount of cheese on that puppy. the guy who makes the pizzas rivals only the guy who works the deli counter at masellis (mr. maselli?) for age/frailness/degree of difficulty hearing. it breaks your heart. we're going to be supporting them from now on for all our local pizza needs - we don't know how long they're going to be around for!

then we decided to make the gluttony complete by hitting city fried chicken at the same time. oy vey! you can see where the guilt was coming from/in!

so we've been practicing our performance kiss for the performance. oy vey again! the dotytron says it should last to a count of three...but that just seems unnatural to me. i like the quick kiss OR a full blown make out session (i live my life in extremes) - but this is somewhere in the middle and well, it kinda makes me feel awkward. hopefully we get it down by august but right now we have differing opinions about how it should go down. lol!

in other news...i found THE BEST old skool jungle mix online...two parts, each 30 minutes so it must be copied from a tape, but the sound quality is amazing and the tunes are all the tunes you want to hear. last night as we were driving to pick up a propane tank from home depot, we heard "under mi sensi" (the jungle version) and it gets to the 2:45 mark when the amens drop and it's like instinct - my right hand pops up with the gunshot daps. lol! it's the hypest shiz around - i've never heard another form of music that immediately makes me so blitzed and makes me feel good and makes me want to dance and makes my heart want to jump out of my chest. i was telling the dotytron that when/if i get knocked and go into labour, i kinda of want to have the soundtrack be an 8 hour jungle mix - with ragga jungle during the most intense times. it gets me so PUMPED! i think our midwife/doctor is going to be all weirded out - most people choose calming music, but i don't really get that. it's NOT calm! i want the adrenaline pulsing. we'll see how that goes. maybe i'll hire a dj and get caddy cad to mc my delivery. lol.

okay it's 8:30 and the day is running away from me. gotta flash!

fin.

sir thomas more = original badmon

so i'm frantically trying to finish a little knitted bolero for my former profs J & S's baby. i'm going to their place to decorate cupcakes for L's birthday party and to visit and it's a no presents party but i don't like showing up empty handed. i've made a LOT of headway (i'd say i'm about 60% done) and i'm steadily plowing my way through season 2 of 'tudors' as my knitting viewing accompaniment.

i don't think i'm giving anything away to say that sir thomas more just got iced because of his scruples. i remember reading 'a man for all seasons' in oac english and it had an indelible impact - what can i say, i gotta love people with integrity (atticus finch, i'm looking in your direction.) a little bit of wikipediaing revealed that sir thomas might have been a little teh creepz0rz (wearing a hair shirt, engaging in flagellation) but in the 1400s and 1500s, seriously, who WASN'T a little creepy? poor guy. i feel bad for him. i should re-read 'a man for all seasons' if only because i haven't read a play since the years long ago when i was required to.

you know what makes me feel old? the fact that it's 2009. more importantly, that raves were like TWENTY years ago (or just starting 20 years ago). an entire generation! it's a cultural historical footnote for the kids nowadays. they don't know what the crap it's about. it's weird to have lived through the life of a subcultural movement. i don't know why i'm fixated on that one in particular (probably because it defined my formative years) but still - IT'S TWO THOUSAND AND NINE! what the heck?!??? i was thinking about it yesterday but it was brought even closer to home because we started watching this british series called 'skins' which is about the scandalous lives of 16 year olds in britain. it's like a cross between 'coronation street' and 'gossip girl' with wackier characters and way more lasciviousness (i can't BELIEVE how the brits are so blasé about showing boobs AND hoo-has during prime time television!) anyway, at one point in the series (which is decent - it makes for pleasantly vacuous, mildly entertaining, but not very engrossing passive watching), the kids are at a showcase for these mcs, who are terrible, and whose equipment goes on the fritz. the crowd starts grumbling and there's about to be a major mutiny, when the dj steps in, and drops 'original nuttah' and everyone starts brucking out and the night is saved. to quote tina fey: "i want to go there." it would be kind of awesome to live in a city where 'original nuttah' is like, a retro pop song that you can drop anytime, anywhere. BEST!

so today is a pretty lowkey day taken up with a lot of knitting and trying to get this thing done. i'm using up leftover yarn from another project...i was worried that i didn't have enough so i had to cannibalize a baby sweater i had knit up ages ago but didn't have an intended recipient for. i thought it would be kind of traumatic unraveling a sweater but it surprisingly went down pretty easy. i'm making a dessert for dinner chez dr. rei and hanbo tomorrow and maybe doing some exercises and small errands on the danny. otherwise, it's me, henry viii and anne boleyn, and a pile of yarn i'm trying to wrassle into a garment.

but tonight! tonight we're going to see 'the watchmen' - if i'm not frantically trying to seam a garment tomorrow i'll post a full review. i've also read a slew of YA fiction lately and i have to review that. i've discovered a new favorite YA author (although really, i think his work transcends the oft-pejorative use of the classification), john green. he's EXTRAORDINARY. we're also having vegan shepherd's pie and beignets for dinner tonight. tasty!

fin.