Moving On Up

...and over, laterally, under.

Things are moving and shaking at Casa Dotytron and Lagerfeld.

Move #1 - the Big Yam.  After going through the rigmarole of applying for Optional Attendance to a desired, but outside of our catchment area school, setting the Big Yam up in his new classroom, with all new homies and a slightly longer commute, he was happily settled.  Until, that is, the dreaded September reorganization happened.  The dreaded September reorganization for people who don't have school-aged children is when the school rejigs things based on actual enrollment, versus the projected enrollment that forms the basis for class placement at the end of the previous school year.  As a result of the shuffle, the Big Yam was moved from his 2nd floor, beautiful kindergarten classroom, to a dank and depressing basement class taught by a newly-minted teacher (who had been the ECE in his old classroom).

We were actually fine with everything, because the important thing for us is that the Big Yam was moving with his homies, and he did.  Until the parents of his homies went BALLISTIC about the dank and depressing basement classroom and went full-on mental (let's just say, there was a feature on Global News about it).  Don't get me wrong, the new classroom wasn't ideal - there are only a couple of small windows, the bathroom is outside the classroom through a dingy and dank storage closet, and there isn't any running water so hand-washing is an issue - but our main concern was that the Big Yam adjusted socially.  He was also totally fine with the transition - new teacher, new classroom, losing some homies (more on that later), because outside of our home, he is the most unflappable, easygoing kid in the free world.  Inside our home, it's a totally different story, but fine, whatever, he continues to make us look good in public, I'll take it.  Anyway, some parents went apeshiz and pulled their kids into the Catholic system because they were so upset about this classroom situation.

I actually went by the classroom yesterday to check it out, and the TDSB had BUSTED THROUGH THE CONCRETE WALL and framed a doorway so that now the kids have direct access to the bathroom.  They cleared all the gym equipment out of it, had repainted, had a sink roughed in...it was incredible.  Which goes to show that when there's political pressure to make things happen, you can cut quickly through the central services facilities backlog and get prioritized.  The weird thing is, that it was thanks to the efforts of the parents who ended up leaving the school that this got done, and now they don't even get to see the fruits of their labours.

Move #2 - New job for me.  I had back to back to back interviews the week after Labour Day and it damned near killed me, but the result was I received two job offers.  I ended up taking a promotion at my home position and I start right after Thanksgiving.  It was a tough decision to make and it involved me talking the poor ears off of my life decision sounding boards: the Dotytron, Dr. Rei, the Roomie and constructing a decision matrix with weighted scores.  YOU GUYS. DECISION MATRICES ARE THE BEST.  I seriously couldn't have made the choice without one.  Even if one of the categories was "Lync" which is the Microsoft-instant messaging system that people in the public service use.  We use it at my home position, but the firewalls mean that I can't communicate with people outside of the organization.  Anyway, the point is, being able to Lync with Dr. Rei has improved my employee engagement by about 10000%.  IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE WORKING, GUYS.  Anyway, the Roomie and the Dotytron were very dismissive of my ability to IM Dr. Rei showing up on the decision matrix, but I weighted it the lowest, and seriously, I can't tell you how awesome it is being able to chat with your BFF while at work, and IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE WORKING.

My new job comes at a cost of the awesome people I've met while on secondment and the loss of opportunity to continue to build my professional reputation in the public service.  I was finally feeling very engaged and energized where I was and saw lots of movement and opportunity ahead - it's hard to think that I might be letting that go taking on this position.  I think that's always going to happen whenever you make a change, though.  So I'm trying not to get too worked up about it.

Move #3 - Lindsay Lou Lou is moving around each G-D night after we put him to bed and thrashing his room like he's all the members of Motley Crue.  He takes all the clothes out of the dresser, he climbs on top of stuff to chuck all the books off the book shelves, he tugs on the blinds until they snap up and can't be brought down again, all while Quincess watches from his jail/crib and conscientiously objects, "Noooo! 'Top it! Lenny! 'Top it!" His little voice wailing is the most heart-breaking thing.  His distress is compounded by the fact that like every child in the free world, he wants to be sleeping in our bed.  We don't know what to do.  Lindsay isn't angry or anything.  He just goes on a systematic tear.  The odd time I've opened the door and he's just working at the easel and greets me with a raised eyebrow, mid chalk-stroke.  The rest of the time he hustles his fat bubble butt to his bed post-haste but resumes his thrashing as soon as you leave again.  We've had a small measure of success the past two nights by lying on the floor of their room until they're near-drowsy.  We also got drawer guards so he can't open the dresser drawers.  I don't really care about him thrashing the room, but I am worried more about him climbing the dresser and bringing it down on top of himself, and then poor Quincess having to pay silent witness to that on top of it all.

My friend JJ referred to Lindsay as "Bam Bam" and it's so apt.  He is such a Bam Bam.

I love these little nutters but two 2 year olds is hectic.  And yet.  And yet I go around exhausted at the end of the night ("end of the night" = 9pm, when I'm at the drop-down point of the day, stumbling around the house in a haze), and I go to hang up a little vest and I feel the pockets heavy with something and I empty them out to find this:

20-something "corn-eggs" tucked into a pocket for saving.  C'MON.

We have been terrible parents lately.  Dropping balls everywhere.  We forgot to send the Big Yam to school with his "1 item related to fall" today.  We forgot that Monday was picture day and he looked like a scrub.  But!  I was a rebellious parent and sent him in for his birthday with homemade cupcakes and I asked him how it went and he said, "Everyone. FREAKED. OUT."  LOL!!!  They were a hit, apparently!

Quincess' "handsome face"

They're moving out of a phase where they were obsessed with Disney's Cinderella.  I put hats on them like Cinderella does to her mice and started calling Lindsay "Gus-Gus" and Quincess "Jaq-Jaq" and they wouldn't take the hats off.  I like this photo cuz they look like stoners in the common room in residence in undergrad

So yeah.  They're friggin' adorable and I love their trying little butts.  I put Quincess in our bed the other night in this misguided attempt to show Lindsay that if he doesn't thrash his room, he gets privileges.  Quincess hunkered down immediately, the covers pulled up under his nose, and I turned off the lights, told him I would be back, and he was just so thrilled to be in our bed that he poked his little head up just enough for me to see his teeth flashing in the moonlight in this ultra-pleased grin.  It was the cutest thing.

Last Friday, we were all piled in the basement, watching Peter and the Wolf and goofing off and the Dotytron turned to me and said, "You ever have those times when you're just so high on your family? This is one of those nights." A family can come in many forms.  The Dotytron and I were a family long before the goon squad came along, and yet, adding to your family is a magical thing. I like the idea that there are more people to bear witness to the quirks and trials and tribulations that make up the idiosyncrasies of our family, and more people to contribute to them in the intimate way that goes along with living under the same roof.

We've been making a point of availing ourselves to urban nature exploration.  We did a tiny portion of the Humber River trail last weekend, and before that, Highland Creek.  It's pretty awesome.  Exploring the watershed is amazing and honestly, what else am I supposed to do on weekends now that I have a pair of Blundstones?  Are you even allowed to live in the city, work for the government, bike to work, wear Blundstones and like, NOT do urban nature hikes?  Probably not, amirite?

Here's what we've been eating lately:

Taco Tuesday one night was chilaquiles

A torched salmon sushi rice bowl where I thinly sliced raw wild salmon and then torched it slightly with a blowtorch, to give it the aburi sushi taste that I like

I got ambitious one weekend and made blintzes

We've been going hard on the Sunday suppers.  This was ginger-pear glazed ham, smashed potatoes, grilled zucchini, and the ever present green beans

The Big Yam kept pestering me for "pumpkin pie with a cherry in the middle" and so I made pumpkin pie, and I suspected, he had no idea what he was requesting and didn't eat a single bite of it.  However, one night I put Lindsay to bed and noticed that his hands smelled strangely of cinnamon.  Then, I came downstairs and found that the slice of pie I had cut on the counter looked like it had been compromised.

Sunday Supper - Rosh Hashanah edition.  Braised brisket, latkes, broccoli patties, and the ever present green beans

Mushroom pappardelle.  Killer stuff.

Coconut browned butter cookies

Quickie weeknight dinner - bacon, mushroom, spinach, and cheddar quiche and zucchini patties

Fin.

Running the Gauntlet

What a week.

It's cool and drizzly out and I can't tell you how much I'm loving the Saturday we've had so far.  We were under the impression that the Big Yam was starting Chinese school so we hauled a** to get out of the house and to the school in time, only to find that the mad scramble was in vain and we were a week early.  Is there anything worse, when you're a parent, than a mad scramble for naught?  Not really.  So much wasted coordination and energy.

Faced with an unexpectedly free Saturday, we did our grocery shopping, hung around in the park, then we had quiet time and I started Roxane Gay's already-excellent Bad Feminist and died a few deaths at how good it is (to give you an idea of JUSTHOWVERYGOODITIS I'm only halfway through the introduction).  The heat has broken, it is easy to believe that we're slowly slouching into fall, and the rain means that you don't feel guilty for cozying up at home.  The best thing about fall and winter is cozying up at home.  Luxuriating in your home and your family.

I wasn't one of those kids who imagined what my adult life would be like.  Like, I had lofty goals about maybe being a writer, or an academic, or a perhaps some high-powered 80s lady, but the idea of having a family of my own didn't register.  Remember: for a long, long time, I didn't think I was going to have kids.  I associated having kids with some kind of betrayal of radical feminism.  When we decided to start a family, I still didn't spend time trying to picture what that might be like.  I never imagined how much I would covet and enjoy an insular weekend afternoon spent with my own family.  How an open afternoon with nothing pressing to do, perhaps making dinner, definitely lying on the couch reading while my boys careened around me, would be so fulfilling.   How I could so enjoy seeing just these 4 faces engaged in the mundane.

Edit: fast-forward to Monday evening - I reveled so much in my free afternoon that I abandoned blogging

Summer ended in a roar of activity and culminated in last week's insanity.  We hit summer, HARD, and we're wringing out every last drop of goodness.  We went to the CNE, we went to the beach, had one more glorious swim in the outdoor pool, and hit up some nature walks with some of the people we love best.

 These two photos make me laugh because you can see various stages of Quincess trying to scale that log.  He's trying so hard!

Big Yam didn't want to sit in the front because he wasn't sure how he would "drive" this thing

School started last week and chaos of the first day was given a thematic supporting assist from some truly hellish weather.  I dropped the Big Yam off at his new school and it was hot, humid, muggy, oppressive.  His new school made the tactical error of letting the parents into the kindergarten area to drop off their kids which obviously resulted in a smaller-scale recreation of that Civil War scene from Gone With the Wind.  There were people strewn about the halls, widespread pandemonium, tears.  The Big Yam had been on board with me up to that point but when he walked into his classroom, he went AWOL on me.  Flipped right out.  I tried everything.  I spoke calmly, I was upbeat, I tried distractions.  He was having none of it.  Finally, I had to do something I'm not proud of - which was to shame him into snapping into it.  "I've been very nice and calm with you up to now, and you're leaving me no choice.  I'm going to have to get stern with you and cross.  Do you want me to get stern and cross in front of all your new friends?"  I re-live that moment and squirm inside every time.  But you know what?  IT F**KING WORKED, okay?  And there's a small part of me that doesn't regret the fact that I was able to deposit my kid in the system and get to work *only* an hour late.  You do what you gotta do, desperate times, etc., etc.

  

 This guy's ridiculous, crooked-mouth, old man, elvish face kills me

Sunday we intended to do a hike in the Rouge Valley Conservation area, but it was raining so we skipped to the city's first ever Kothu fest.  We picked up Kothu and supplemented with Babu for the kids.  It was a bit of a bust, but we wanted to show our support for kothu and Scarborough.

Also, every other day since then has been beyond fine.  He's found himself some homies, he's adjusting well, this new school - first day tactical error notwithstanding - has been head and shoulders above the previous one.  They just have their s**t together and are inspiring a great deal of confidence in us.  We're happy with the transition over all.

I mean, it probably wasn't helped by the fact that  I had three consecutive interviews last week.  By the time the week ended we were all DONE.  So the lazy Saturday described above was exactly the reset we needed.

I'm hoping that one of those interviews results in something, but even if it doesn't, I'm happy with my current job, I'm happy with my home position - so I think I'm in a pretty good spot, overall.  All the preparation and work that went into the interview process was harrowing, but it's behind me, and I think I know better now than to sign up for back-to-back-to-back interviews again.  Although knowing me, and the my masochistic need to put myself in the line of fire, I wouldn't put it past me.

Every day, I come home from work, put away my bike, take off my shoes and bag and put the finishing touches on dinner.  Within 10-15 minutes of me being home, the Wonder Twins cotton on to the fact that I'm in the building, and they clamber up the stairs and I get this exact same greeting:

Every. Single. Day.  "Hi, mama."  It kills me.

We started watching the new Netflix series, Narcos on the weekend and blew through 6 episodes.  I didn't think I'd like it.  I'm only so-so into drug movies.  They can get kind of repetitive after a while - the tropes, the delivery.  This series has a killer first episode, but I do recall wondering how they were going to sustain it for 9 more.  For me, they don't do a good job of delivering.  This is "history comes to life" type of watching.  It relies on some narrative clichés and some clunky exposition, but it's anchored by a compelling score and charismatic performances.  Like, how do I end up having the hots for Pablo Escobar?  Granted, he's a bawss.  But he's also a really, really, really bad person?  That does terrible, terrible things?  Yet when you watch him, as embodied by Wagner Moura, you can see how you fall under his thrall.  It's good for watching while you're knitting (*raises hand*), but I only half pay attention.

Quincess has been using the placeholder, "Ummm..." before he answers a question.  It's friggin' adorable.  Lindsay doesn't have time for placeholders, because he's too busy aiming at my head with a baseball bat and saying, "shoot mama?" "No, we don't shoot people."  "Shoot baba?" (and so on, until we go through the entire list of everyone he knows, who he's NOT allowed to shoot), or trying to wrestle a giant couch cushion, UP the stairs.  

End of summer means blueberry pudding cake.  Blueberry pudding cake means blueberry pudding cake and whipped cream breakfasts, with a boiled egg for respectability.

Smitten's hazlenut plum tart.  Which I may have talked about already?  I doubled the hazlenuts but would reduce the butter and omit the custard filling, so all you have is toasted hazlenuts, crunchy around a thin layer of plums turned jammy in the oven.  

Meal templates to the rescue of busy week/school days!  Taco Tuesday: salad edition

A pound of zucchini, thinly sliced, fried in olive oil with minced garlic, some sliced basil, and tossed with artisanal pasta, topped with grated ricotta salata and a fried egg

We hung onto summer hard this past weekend - lobster rolls on buttered brioche buns, fried pickles, and this roasted cabbage salad that I've been obsessed with, ever since Dr. Rei made it at the cottage.  Thinly sliced cabbage, tossed with oil, roasted and turned every now and then at high heat in the oven until crispy, tossed with a spicy mayo dressing.

Smitten's crispy peach cobbler.  This was a HUGE hit.  You sprinkle a generous amount of sugar on top of the cobbler topping and then sprinkle that with water.  It makes a shellac that bakes up in the oven until it shatters.  A nice mix of textures against some fresh, juicy, yielding peaches.

The textbook Lagerfeld late-summer pasta - fried eggplant cubes, cooked with minced garlic, some grape tomatoes thrown in and cooked in the pan with the lid on until they burst, with some kalamata olives and basil, tossed with pasta.

Fin.

Childhood

We've had a series of very chill weekends of late - weekends that have found us lazing on the couch after Saturday's Big Yam AM activity glut has abated, watching TV.  Some grocery shopping, some minor visiting, trips to the hill for sledding, being cozy and insular.

We watched the film Boyhood recently, which is tied with Grand Budapest Hotel for my pick as the most deserving best picture nominee.  My film friend at work, D, claims you can never take into account the project or context for a film in your assessment - he's of the opinion that each film has to be based on what you see in front of you.  I think with Boyhood, it's too difficult to disentangle the scope of the project from what you're seeing - the collapse of time, the rumination on memory, on what makes a life, the creation of something that suggests epic in the mundane banality of childhood giving way to nascent adulthood - they're all invoked and evoked in this film.  I'm not generally a huge Richard Linklater fan, but this is an extraordinary film.  To me, it veered ever-so-slightly into melodrama (more than I would have liked), but the performances are outstanding, and the ability for this shambling series of vignettes to conjure what it means to be a kid, growing up, is incredibly, powerfully, affecting.

The film is called Boyhood, but it is just as much about the growing of all the central characters - the boy, his sister, the mom, the dad.  They all grow and change and morph on screen.  The 12 years encapsulated by the film passing by in a series of discrete non-events - the way lives are lived and remembered.  Patricia Arquette's breakdown when she realizes her son is leaving home really hit home (keep in mind, the Big Yam is my child who is closest to university-age and he's four).  I just really empathized with her state of mind.  I am going to be a WRECK when they leave home.  A wreck!  You spend 20 years of your life growing this kid and then they're supposed to go off and be independent?!  AND FORGET YOU?!?  Nuh-uh.  My heart hurts just to think of it.  Like, how can I hold onto Lindsay's awe at what happens when you crack an egg, forever?

I hope this never leaves me.  Classic Quincess with his little cocked head, observing and thinking, thinking, thinking always.

Lindsay's vocabulary has skyrocketed in recent days.  He says "pancake" and "binky" and holds up his hands when he doesn't know where something is.  He likes to enter a room and say, "Hello!" and is always good for a reaction in the vein of what you saw above.  He can do a version of the "Happy Birthday" song that is pretty recognizable.  He's a treasure.  The Quincess' latest tip has been to get a lot of epic nosebleeds in the night (Must. Remember. To. Turn. On. Humidifier).  They both understand so much!  I will never get over the sight of Quincess, the little homunculus, being a tiny walker, moving from room to room with something in his hand.

He suddenly got a fever on Sunday night and was a lethargic little homunculus hot water bottle.  Sitting dazed on the Dotytron for hours.  I'd been talking to Dr. Rei who is in a measles, anti-vax spiral and I got all freaked out Monday morning and made our caregiver bring the babies back from the drop-in centre.  She said he looked "lonely in the eyes" all day, but he seemed to recover by Tuesday.  No more fever, 78% less eye-lonely.  All good signs.

We met up with some Markham crew and drove up in a bonafide snowstorm to experience our first ever escape room.  Uhhh, those things are hella fun.  Why haven't I spent my whole life doing this?  There was a lot of back and forth and we ended up in the "easiest" room.  Despite being told, repeatedly, not to over-think things, we totally overthought things and got owned.  It was a crushing defeat:

The upside was that I got to take the gang to Phoenix and spent about $40 on 4 dishes of food for me and the Dotytron and expose everyone to my favorite restaurant.

We also celebrated Ehmdo's birthday and I made this ombré cake that was quite delicious, though a touch labour intensive.

It's a dark chocolate cake with a mint buttercream frosting and a mint ganache.  I was worried it would be too minty but it was delicious.  Kind of peppy and fresh and worth the hassle in the end.  I've attached the recipe at the end of this post.  The Baked guys tend to favour a buttercream that's akin to the roux-based buttercream that I use on my classic Hershey's chocolate cake.  I actually think I prefer that cake recipe to this one.  The buttercream quality was indistinguishable from the one the Baked guys use.  I would make this again.

We watched Episode 4 with the Big Yam, with frequent pauses so he could understand and process what he was seeing.  He still calls Obi Wan "the old man" and Han Solo "the pilot" and is weirdly fixated on the death stuff, but he's working that out at the moment and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.  I feel like his questions about death are his own personal journey he's undertaking at the moment.

We went mid-week to see the Dotyron play in this school board wide band that mixes teachers and students.  He was playing the bass clarinet.  Guys, having instruments around is FUN.  I can't wait to get a piano!

I ate my weight's worth in the crispy browned cheese on top of my skillet lasagne

I tried my hand at making Jamaican stew oxtail.  It was lacking.  The oxtail was tender, but it wasn't as full-bodied as I would like.  Most of the recipes I encountered had you adding in some kind of all purpose "brown sauce" or "gravy" agent and that's just not my bag.  We served it with mashed squash and brown rice.

A lot of my time has been taken up with a fundraiser I'm organizing - a family dance for a local non-profit that's also kind of a city agency.  It's complicated (the City pays for 1-2 staff positions and the rest are matched by fundraising and government grants).  I'm on the revenue generation committee and I floated the idea for the dance so I'm spearheading the coordination.  Anna and Elsa from Frozen will be in attendance.  The Dotytron will be DJing.  There will be face painting and treats.  It should be a good time!  I hope it's successful.  I sent the poster I put together to a local mom who maintains a mailing list and she kind of shamed me, "Want to put together the same thing for [Big Yam's School]?  He still goes there, you know."  

I was like, B***H, please!  How dare you?  I sat on parent council for about 3 meetings before bailing.  I joined with a very specific purpose, to fundraise to improve the music programming.  Picture the most mind-numbingly circular, redundant, namby-pamby work meeting you've ever had to sit through, and then multiply it by a factor of 50.  That was it.  No decisions, no movement, a lot of talk and opinions.  A lot of older (I'm so ageist, I know), one-and-done, stay at home moms who were freaking tits about weird stuff.  Their financials were a mess.  I couldn't read the sheets at all.  It was a nightmare.  When they decided they didn't want to put money towards what I was interested in, I bailed.  But seriously?  Why do I have to defend how I choose to be philanthropic and give to the community to YOU, SAHM?  I didn't see YOU at any of the meetings?  It was infuriating.  PS, my kid was one of the top fundraisers for his grade at the Walkathon, so SHADDUP!    

It's beyond aggravating.  

Stuff like that is the reason why I don't want to go to any of your "parent socials."  In fact, I brought up that very thing at one of the parent council meetings I attended.  I was like, "um, if I'm going to the trouble of arranging babysitting, I kind of want to hang out with my own friends."  I got some nods of understanding and some people were like, "well, I consider the other parents my friends."  WHICH IS SO REVEALING, NO?!?  If all your friends are parents?  Worst!  I was asking at my book club last month, "Are you supposed to be friends with your kid's friends' parents?" and most of the women there, who are generally about 5-8 years up on me, and have kids who are older than mine, were like, "NO."  Phew!  That just seems exhausting.

Like, if it happens organically, then fine.  But also, people are jack a**es.  Like, mean and small and socially awkward.  It's the worst.  If you go to the playground for drop-off and pick-up, there are full-on cliques happening!  All the people who are kind of "like me" (the vaguely hipster, but weathered, parent) cluster together and don't make an effort to reach out beyond people "like them."  No one talks to the South Asian parents, or the parents who clearly aren't "in the know" and don't work from home, or don't have that weird fantasy work set-up that allows them to do pick up and drop off EVERY DAY and be totally integrated into their kids' lives.  My neighbour (who has become a friend), was saying that she went with her daughter to a schoolmate's birthday party and it was so cliquey and no one was talking to her, because the other parents already knew each other.

People suck.  Like seriously?  Just try to be a nice, normal human being and reach out.  If the person happens to be a recluse introvert who doesn't know how to connect, fine, at least you can say you gave it ye olde college trye.  Excluding people because you're too scared and fragile, as someone in your 30s, to be decent and expose yourself and all you want to stick with what you know, is not a good MO.  And I say this as someone, who is a champion grumbler, who probably needs a "No new friends" t-shirt the most.

Rant over (for now).  I've also been feeling particularly rant-y because of the whole vaccine thing making the rounds.  The Dotytron's cousin, who is a chiropractor (I know, I know), posted this stupid article critiquing vaccines (from a nephrologist, of course).  When I pointed out that none of the sources referenced by the author were peer reviewed, she linked to all the sources and pointed out they were reputable journals (Journal of Pediatrics, etc.)  What she didn't know (because reading comprehension, what?) was that all the peer-reviewed citations were for quotes, that Dr. Kook was REFUTING.

My manager sent me this photo recently and it basically applies to our world, all the time, but especially anti-vax moms in the western world who have no idea how to read, use a computer, do research, be critical.  Like, they're functionally illiterate and IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THAT?!

This photo is my life right now.

I've also been mildly obsessing about the kerfuffle with Kanye at the Grammys.  I am a well-documented Kanye apologist.  I can't help it.  I think hating on 'Ye is hating on someone who is putting themselves out there, all the time, and that people who slag on him just can't read the nuances.  He's sublime.  He is self-aware and oblivious at the same time.  He tries so hard!  He's the person who said on network television that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."  When has Jigga or Beyoncé, with their carefully constructed personas, ever put themselves on the line and opened themselves up to potential ridicule?  Never, because they're robots.  I don't GET the Beygency.  Anyway, never forget:

The fact that anyone would bother caring about how Kanye "disrespected" Beck, or Taylor Swift is so funny to me.  It's the Grammys.  Like, you actually care?  You actually have an opinion on that other than "let's see what people are wearing and hear the performances, okay it's a bunch of people that only basic people care about, k thx bye"?  Like, we're going to talk about how "rude" it is when Kanye interrupted Swifty?  So bizarre.  I'm sorry, I didn't read the etiquette guide for appropriate behaviour at MTV VMAs.  

"No, Kanye" forever.  This is the first time they've seemed not like robots.

“Well first of all, Beck is one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game. So, there’s nothing that I will want to do as a fellow musician to disrespect him in any way,” Kanye said on the air. “And the weird thing is like, and I don’t feel like I have the right to take away from people’s moments, but the reality of it is — and case in point by who came up to me right afterwards — is it’s almost like a chiropractor. You know, you just get a little crook out like, ‘Wow, this crook has been there!’ It’s just a little jolt of truth, right? And then you know, everyone feels better after the fact, or everyone is way more famous after the fact, or everyone sells way more albums after the fact, and then Kanye just goes on being an a**hole to everyone.”

Realness.

Lagerfeld OUT.

Fin.



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Baked Wintermint Cake
not adapted at all from Baked Celebrations
serves 18-20 people

Classic Chocolate Cake:

3⁄4 cup dark cocoa powder

1 1⁄4 cups hot water

2⁄3 cup sour cream

2 2⁄3 cups flour, plus more for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

3⁄4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1⁄2 cup unflavored shortening

1 1⁄2 cups sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla

Peppermint Buttercream:

1 1⁄2 cups sugar

1⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1 ⁄2 cups milk

1⁄3 cup heavy cream

1 1⁄2 cups unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into small pieces

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

Mint Chocolate Ganache:

6 oz dark chocolate (60–72%), chopped coarsely

1⁄2 cup heavy cream

1⁄2 teaspoon peppermint extract

For the Classic Chocolate Cake, preheat oven to 325° degrees.

- Butter and flour 3 cake pans, line with parchment, and butter the parchment

- Mix cocoa powder, hot water, and sour cream together and set aside to cool.

- Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.

- Beat butter and shortening together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add sugars beat until light and fluffy, about 5 more minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then vanilla, and beat until incorporated. Then, slowly add the dry mixture and cocoa mixture to the batter, alternating the 2 kinds and ending with dry.

- Divide batter between 3 pans and spread evenly. Bake for 35–40 minutes (rotate the pans halfway through) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Then cool for 20 minutes then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

For the Peppermint Buttercream

-  In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk sugar and flour together. Then add milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until mixture comes to a boil and has thickened. This will take about 10–15 minutes.

- Transfer mixture to bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high until cool, which will take about 7–9 minutes of mixing. Tip: Speed up the process by pressing bags of frozen berries or frozen corn against the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.

- Reduce speed to low and add butter. Mix until incorporated.

- Increase to medium-high and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, about 1–2 minutes.

- Add vanilla and peppermint extract and continue mixing until combined. If frosting is too soft, put bowl in refrigerator to chill slightly, then beat again until it is proper consistency. If frosting is too firm, set bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat with a wooden spoon until it is the proper consistency.

For the Mint Chocolate Ganache

- In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring cream just to a boil.  Turn off the heat, add the chocolate.  Let it sit for a few minutes and then whisk together until the ganache is smooth.

eat and pour over bowl of chocolate. Then, let ganache come to room temperature.

To assemble the Wintermint Cake

- place 1 cake layer on a serving platter. Use an offset spatula to spread about 1⁄4 cup of ganache on top only. Let set for 1 minute in refrigerator.  Spread approximately 11⁄4 cups of buttercream on top of ganache.

Repeat with following 2 layers.

Crumb coat cake and refrigerate briefly, for around 15 minutes.

Frost sides and top of cake with remaining buttercream.

Alternative School Parents Are The Worst

...but most other parents are also brutal.  You can't convince me otherwise.  Last week we had curriculum night at our school, which is basically an opportunity for the parents to come with the kids and check out their kid's classroom and find out what the overall objectives are for the year.

Our school shares a space with this alternative school, which is filled with 99% entitled white kids who think they are special stars (that's not me being racist, that's a legit observation - lack of diversity in the alternative school has been identified by all parties and they're trying to step up their "recruitment" as a result).  The schools share a principal, who takes great pains at every opportunity to tell you that he's the principal of two very busy, very active schools, the subtext of which is: "don't bother me."  This all means that during his presentation at curriculum night, the alternative school kids were running amok and being loud and he didn't try to have the room in control before starting his short presentation, so you couldn't hear anything and the audience was bananas.  It was a gong-show.  The alternative school is tiny, like maybe a hundred kids, max in total, but their parents are apparently very demanding.  As the Dotytron has astutely noted, why is funding going towards that?!  Why don't we have an autism school, or something equivalent that is desperately needed in the province?  Instead, our alternative school has the kids call their teachers by their first names, and they sit outside a bunch and it's supposed to teach the "whole child" (as opposed to regular school, where they only teach the kid's armpits?)

This is what you learn when you become a parent of a school-aged chld in downtown Toronto: OTHER PARENTS ARE CRAY.  The investment, outrage, and entitlement that people feel engaging with a public system is laughable, almost.  It's where a failure of the imagination, ego, misunderstanding of redistribution and community, and the zero-sum game that is modern, urban, educated elite parenting swirl together in a seething mass of bristling ignorance.  The same women who would stop me during my maternity leave and marvel at the fact that I had the guts to leave the house with a 3 year old and twin infants in tow, are the SAME PEOPLE who expect a teacher to personally shepherd their child to the bathroom, each time they have to go pee, in a class of TWENTY FOUR other students!  Mom who is wigging that the FREE SNACK provided was a yoghurt tube and not whatever the f**k tasteless brick of coconut oil and flax flour you wanted to make, here's a pro tip: ABSTAIN FROM THE FREE SNACK.  Or, better yet, JUNIOR KINDERGARTEN IS OPTIONAL, PULL YOUR KID OUT!  People basically just want to create little private schools without paying a single extra cent.  It's mind-boggling, really.

Here's the seedy underside of this: IT MAKES YOU CRAY, TOO.  Or it does me at any rate.  When you're caught up in a nattering maelstrom of helicopter, attachment-parenting types it's easy to lose your centre and get swept up in madness.  The Dotytron is really good at staying above the fray and putting things in perspective.  Last night after curriculum night he said look, at the end of the day, does the Big Yam feel safe?  Does he feel supported and comfortable?  If those requirements are being met we are lucky in that we can fill the other potential gaps in his education on our own, if need be.  The Big Yam has made a little friend and they are super-cute together:

Also, we have a new principal who is making classic new principal mistakes and kow-towing to the demands of the crazy parents.  I emailed the principal about them losing the Big Yam, because I thought the communication (mainly from the administration) wasn't great.  So I went early late last week to meet with him and the the Big Yam's teacher and he TOTALLY THREW THE TEACHER UNDER THE BUS!  He turned to her during the meeting and was like, "What are YOU going to do so that this doesn't happen again?"  and I was like, "wait, whaaaat?  That s**t ain't right, son."  To me, that's crappy management.  I was there with the express purpose of working WITH them to figure out what we might need to change from an operational standpoint so that you don't lose a kid on the first day, maybe.  I've talked to some teacher friends, and the consensus is that usually what happens in these meetings, is the teacher and the principal work together BEFORE the parent shows up, come up with a plan, and then the principal says during the meeting, "we are going to do x, y, z" and the teacher says, "uh huh" and then boom, it's done.  The way he handled this seriously made me think he was a giant a-hole.  Then, he threw her under the bus AGAIN, privately, when he pulled me into the office and assured me that what she did was unacceptable, and he took it seriously.  I intellectually know what happened.  He thought I was one of those cray helicopter parents and was going to like, sue the school or something.  Uh, no.  I get that it can happen, no biggie.  What I'm less impressed with is you undermining your staff member in front of me and hanging them out to dry.

Is our kindergarten teacher the greatest?  No.  I'm not like, stoked to have her and I don't think I would want the Big Yam in her class next year, if we decide to stay.  But, she hasn't done anything so far that makes me outraged.  She seems kind of checked out, but she's 24 years into her career.  I don't blame her.  I'm certainly not wigging the way one of the other parents is, because her daughter had an accident at recess and so the teacher sent her daughter in with an SK buddy to go get changed in the cubby area, and at the end of the day, her daughter's dirty clothes were strewn in the cubby area.  Mom is all like, "where was the follow through?  Isn't that a safety issue?"  And I'm like, uh, why don't you talk to your kid about putting their dirty clothes back in their bag after?  Do you expect teacher to personally shepherd your kid to get changed?  And what, leave the other 13 kids out front during recess by themselves?  How does that make sense?  Of course, mom felt the need to take that to the principal (?!?)

Anyway, I can't handle that shiz.  When I can, I do the drop off and pick-up (like on my days off, or even on days like today, when I'm home sick), because cray-cray parents would have you believe that that's when you get the "scoop" and "gossip."  But to me, it's not worth it.  My friends who dump their kids at daycare in the morning and then pickup from daycare are blissfully removed from the s**tstorm of crazy and I'd rather be in with them.

In the interests of transparency, I feel like I owe it to you to be truthful and say that after touting the systems we've developed to ease our transition, week 2 was a bit rough.  The Big Yam was crying every day wanting me to take him to school and not understanding that I have to go to work.  Last week I got stuck on public transit for an hour coming home and wasn't prepared and by the time I came home they had all eaten dinner without me.   Last Friday, our nanny called in sick so the Dotytron and I had to do the whole 6am/staredown/decide who is going to bite the bullet thing.  Thankfully, things seem to have settled this week.  I think the Big Yam gets that this is his new reality and seems to be adjusting fine.  He's such a laid back kid.  We are lucky, although I will say that based purely on anecdotal evidence, laid back parents tend to have laid back kids.  One mom of a classmate of the Big Yam's keeps sending histrionic texts about how her anxiety is at "through the roof" levels because teacher has been off sick for the past few days and they've had a couple of different supply teachers in.  Really?  There are some people who have real problems.  Remember that.

I feel like they finally seem like real babies.  The Quincess has bulked up like whoa.

Quincess pose - LOL!

Weeknight dinners: a smoke gouda, potato, bacon, and kale quiche

Shrimp and salmon corn chowder with cheddar sage biscuits

Pot roast & root vegetable mash

Breaded tilapia, homemade tartar sauce, salted heirlooms, and buffalo fried cauliflower, which is AMAZING.

Fin.