So yesterday on FB I posted about how I'm embarrassingly into "Call Me Maybe." BTW: The Dotytron? - so not getting the appeal. But as I explained it to him when I played it for him last night: "It's like the perfect mix between vapid and stabs." He said I was right. Anyway, a friend on FB was all like, "Have you seen the video?" and I have, kinda. I mean, I skimmed through it and got to the part where the big reveal is that the guy she's into is actually gay. BUT I LIED ABOUT IT ON FB. LOL! BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT REACTION SHE WAS LOOKING FOR. So I went and did a little fishing: "is the video bad?" but all she came back with was: "I'll just let you watch it." SO FRUSTRATING! I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the video?!??! Is it supposed to be hilarious (it's not), shocking (it's not), offensive (I don't think so)? GAH! WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO CRYPTIC?!?!!
On the topic of shame, and kid shame in particular, I'm like, super-sensitive to it. One of the scenes from that doc, Made In China is like, seared into my memory and makes me cringe every time I replay it in my head (which is more often than you'd think, but that's how deeply I'm affected by kid shame.) Anyway, this couple working in the sweatshop with their daughter also have their like, 11 year old nephew with them, also working. The scene opens with the Aunt talking loudly at her neighbour, "So he runs away? I just told him his work was no good. It's like I'm not allowed to criticize him anymore? He's so emotional!" Cut to a new scene of the Uncle bringing the kid back to the sweatshop. Aunt asks the Uncle: "where did you find him?" and Uncle says, "at an internet cafe." Aunt assiduously IGNORES the kid, who is standing just to the side of her sewing machine, chastised, but still defiant in that way that kids can be, but not knowing what to do with himself. The camera stays on this scene for like, 3 minutes, of the kid standing there, wanting to be acknowledged, but not knowing how to navigate and the Aunt doesn't say boo to him and it like, KILLS ME. Later on you see the kid in the worker's dormitory (which is just a room, with steel bunk beds - no mattresses - and a circa 1980s TV) not looking at the camera and his cousin (the daughter) is saying, "Don't cry, it's okay," and giving him the "parents just don't understand" speech while he wipes tears away surreptitiously because he doesn't want the camera to see. WORST! I don't know why it gets me so bad but it totally does. I guess I've totally been there - having done something bad and feeling sorry but your parents are like, dragging it out and you basically just want a hug. That's what's so effective about Nanny 911's time out methods. She always ends with a big hug and kiss and an "I love you" to the kid. I dunno - I guess I'm just really attuned to kid pride.
Speaking of that, the Dotytron was telling me about this presentation this kid was doing on Eminem where he referred to Tupac as "Pac-too" and was like, "This song is by Eminem....and it features this other guy 'Pac-too' who's old and doesn't make music any more." and there was a pause and some other kid was like, "do you mean Tupac?" So I asked the Dotytron what he said and he was like, "I didn't say anything because he [the kid presenting] seemed kind of embarrassed already." AWWWWWWWWWWWW. So cute! Poor little Sri Lankan kid who's never heard of Tupac. Gah!
Then he was telling me about how, in relation to another presentation on rock music, the Dotytron was telling another group of kids about how his parents were hippies. And he's all like, "Well, I guess it'd be your grandparents, but were any of you parents hippies?" And there's a long pause, and then this one kid says, "We're Chinese." LOL!!! So gold.
Dinner was a bust. So we ended up having breakfast for dinner (two strips of bacon on toast w/ poached eggs). Ugh. I hate bust dinners.
Fin.
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Friday, May 11, 2012
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Ch-ch-ch-changes
...turn and face the strange, indeed! The Dotytron has accepted a new job as the band leader for a middle school (grades 7 & 8)! This school sounds like it has a lot more going for it in the music department - they have regular band AND a strings-only band and there's a separate parent council for music and they do a pretty good job fundraising. So this is a good step in the direction of the Dotytron's eventual goal of teaching high school music - the students will know what's what, the parents will be more demanding, etc.
3) Some of you may know that I've been actively campaigning for an e-reader for like, a whole year. I read A LOT. And it's nice to have a billion books on one thing that's small and portable for travel and whatnot. Anyway, I'd dropped mad hints (ie. overt statements) that I wanted an e-reader at Christmas to no avail. So I've been jokingly dropping mad hints about wanting one for Mother's Day on the Dotytron's Facebook wall. Then today I turned to him and said, "Don't buy me an e-reader, it probably makes more sense for us to buy each other a tablet at Christmas and then get an e-reader app for it" to which he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Okay. But what if I already got you an e-reader?" AWWWWWW! What a cute little muffin! He said it's from him and the Big Yam. I was like, "what money did you use?" "The only money I have right now: credit" LOL! So it looks like I'm getting a Kindle! Wahoo! I was torn at the last minute because I thought a Kobo might be better (it takes the epub format instead of Kindle's proprietary .azw) - but if we end up going with my tablet plan, we can always get a Kobo app for that and cover all our bases. I married a very sweet giraffe-with-the-head-of-the-squirrel-that-looks-like-Abraham-Lincoln-from-the-Simpson's indeed. Although now I've shot myself in the food because I don't know what to get him!
The bad part is: it's still only a 0.5! This is why the TDSB is messed up. At this stage in the hiring process, the Dotytron CANNOT apply for another 0.5 to make a full-time gig. He can only QUIT his current 0.5 and go pick up a new one. So dumb. Which means that even though he LOVES the school that he's currently employed at and loves the admin and loves the ghetto Scarberian kids he teaches (new school is still in Scarborough, but a slightly better part, where when you show the kids an instrument or try to discipline them they're not like: *blank stare* "wha gwaaan?"), he can't pick up this new 0.5 to make a full day of teaching. So the only thing he can do is wait and see if he can apply (in the third round of postings) for his current job, which will be posted for the 2nd round, and if it doesn't get filled, apply and make up a full day that way. So arcane!!! Also, there's a weird seniority thing where a teacher who has been working X number of years has access to a SECRET round of postings and can just cherry pick their job without having to interview at all. Random! Right now, there's still some flexibility with his new job in terms of scheduling, so we're going to look at where the majority of postings want a half time person (either in the morning or afternoon) and decide his schedule based on that and we're crossing our fingers that his current school won't find someone suitable and will hire him back on a half-time basis and then he can FINALLY be working full time (albeit at 2 different schools, which will be stressful).
A random assortment of funny stories from our life:
1) The Dotytron was feeding the Big Yam the other day and picked him up out of the high chair to clean him up. "Ugh dude, your legs are all filthy!" Turning to me, noticing that I had a washcloth in my hand, the Dotytron says, "Can you do me a favor and whack this guy off for me?" *long beat* LOL! He meant scrape down the Boobla's legs with the washcloth - but hilariously inappropriate nonetheless.
2) Our dodgeball game got cancelled last night so we had a free night. The Dotytron went upstairs to practice his guitar and I was downstairs doing some computer work. After 2 hours of separateness, he comes downstairs and sees me sitting at my laptop. "What are you doing?" Me: "Looking at this picture of Bill Gates" *turns laptop around*
Dotytron: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"
3) Some of you may know that I've been actively campaigning for an e-reader for like, a whole year. I read A LOT. And it's nice to have a billion books on one thing that's small and portable for travel and whatnot. Anyway, I'd dropped mad hints (ie. overt statements) that I wanted an e-reader at Christmas to no avail. So I've been jokingly dropping mad hints about wanting one for Mother's Day on the Dotytron's Facebook wall. Then today I turned to him and said, "Don't buy me an e-reader, it probably makes more sense for us to buy each other a tablet at Christmas and then get an e-reader app for it" to which he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Okay. But what if I already got you an e-reader?" AWWWWWW! What a cute little muffin! He said it's from him and the Big Yam. I was like, "what money did you use?" "The only money I have right now: credit" LOL! So it looks like I'm getting a Kindle! Wahoo! I was torn at the last minute because I thought a Kobo might be better (it takes the epub format instead of Kindle's proprietary .azw) - but if we end up going with my tablet plan, we can always get a Kobo app for that and cover all our bases. I married a very sweet giraffe-with-the-head-of-the-squirrel-that-looks-like-Abraham-Lincoln-from-the-Simpson's indeed. Although now I've shot myself in the food because I don't know what to get him!
Last night's beef burrito bowl was deeelicious. Brown rice & black beans cooked in a guajillo chile-tomato sauce flavoured with cumin and coriander and Mexican oregano, topped with sliced sirloin steak and a tomato-scallion-avocado-lime salsa with sour cream dabbed on top. I'm loving my rice bowls lately.
I went for my first real run today - ran (the word is used loosely) for just under 3km and didn't stop to walk once. It's the new me! So breakfast this morning was healthytimes - a bowl of steel cut oatmeal with a blackberry and rhubarb compote:
Tonight I'm going to this resident information session for the park at the end of my street. There are some plans to revamp the skating rink and modernize the space that I'm soooo happy about. Right now, we have a hockey rink with boards and an open free skate rink that's roughly the same size right next to it. They're going to cover over the hockey rink (first covered outdoor rink in Toronto!) and scrap the free skate rink, instead turning the free skate area into a figure 8 skate path with trees and other greenery planted around it. They're also updating the change rooms - putting in a community use room, a family change room, and shrinking down the male and female change rooms a bit (right now they're ginormous and kind of gross). YAY! So pleased that this park is right at the bottom of our street and is getting so much love!
For dinner I'm making us asparagus and proscuitto tartines (French open-faced sandwiches of stuff on bread) topped with a poached egg and shaved parm. With a side salad.
Fin.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
scandalousness!
so i've told you before about how much we love reading "governing ourselves" aka the blue pages aka us magazine for teachers aka the section where the ontario federation of teachers publishes the disciplinary hearings and investigations into their members. we got the latest issues yesterday and it was rife with hilarious examples of teachers on the edge exercising bad judgement.
par example:
- one teacher was "admonished" (their terminology) for writing a poem to a female staff member where he used the words "juicy" and "orgasmic" for letters in her name. (me, howling with laughter: "you realize that that means that the poem was an ACROSTIC?!?)
- another teacher who was "reprimanded" for, among other things, writing comments such as "you suck" "you're lousy" and "you're a reject" on work submitted by ELEMENTARY STUDENTS (!!!!!)
- a teacher who was also "reprimanded" for referring to a colleague as a slut, which he "finger spelled".
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! do you know how long it would take to finger spell the word slut?!?? can you imagine the poor woman, standing there, waiting for him to finish the word, all the while knowing full well what the word was? too too funny. and also sad. they make teachers jump through hoops to get board jobs, and this is who they let in.
my weekend was really fun. dinner with new friends R & R on friday was super hilarious and a fantastic first-time-meeting-up hang. we're slowly building a cadre of crew in york region, which is nice. saturday was a whirlwind of errands before we got together at the roomie's for dinner with our beloved pingy. sunday was an all day recording extravaganza of recording with the dotytron family, which ended in outlaw sis ehmdo laughing so hard she spit out a mouthful of tea on the dining room table. it also resulted in the usual hilarious from momma d, including the assertion that she and poppa d might have been the first people to EVER WALK DOWN THE AISLE TO PACHELBEL'S CANON IN D. lol!!!!!!!!! that statement is typical momma d.
on sunday night we ordered indian food from amaya express. so good! dinner for 4, which could easily feed 6 with leftovers, costs $80 something, delivered. you get the chef's choice appetizers (delicious pakoras with a mint chutney, tamarind sauce, and mango chutney for dipping), the choice of FOUR meat dishes, and the choice of 2 vegetables, 2 basmati rice AND naan. everything was so flavourful and each curry was distinct. the vegetables were fresh tasting and there were some dishes you don't usually see, such as a sweet and sour eggplant and a lime lamb dish. i would definitely order from them again.
on monday dr. rei came over for a big walk and then leftover indian food and a screening of "eat pray love" which was GARBAGE. zomg it was insufferable...i don't really understand how people could have enjoyed the book (my sis, whose taste i trust implicitly, loathed it). first of all, the movie is boring. second of all, that woman doesn't have problems. what she does have is a huge ego and a bad case of whinging. ohhhh, i'm SO SORRY you have no more zest for life. boo hoo. i'm so sorry that you got to take a year off to "find yourself" travelling to italy, india and mothereffin' BALI. crikey. it was terrible, terrible, insulting dreck.
this was much better. a semi-realistic portrait of marriage. i'm the annette bening character - the high achieving, work obsessed, wrangy person the in marriage (hey, we all have a role to play). i wasn't happy that one of the lesbians ends up having a sexual relationship with mark ruffalo's rakish, rangy, cool-dad character (although, who could resist mark ruffalo's scruffy charms?) it definitely detracts from the legitimacy of the lesbian relationship - i mean, i'm all for a spectrum of of human sexual preference, but at the same time, functional lesbian relationships in film (portrayed by big deal hollywood actresses, no less) are somewhat rare, so it's unfortunate that as the dotytron said, "all lesbians want is a deep d**king" (he was joking!) i thought the strength of the movie was in the natural performances from the kids and in showing how marriage is a long, long, slog - filled with many moments, some tender, some contented, some where you're just passively there because that's where you've been for a time. the performances were all really dialed in, especially from the two actors playing the kids and there were some quietly funny moments. i'd recommend it.
today is a day of research for my paper, feeding the chicken boo, heading out to open up an RESP for him, finishing my secret santa shopping, and going to class. it's REALLY about just counting down the hours until we leave for geneseo tomorrow night to spend the weekend with my sis & family and s-dawg and his gf. so excited! i can't believe i haven't seen my sis and rico and my niece and nephews (!) in TWO MONTHS! that's the longest stretch evers! can't freakin' wait to hang out with those guys in one of my favorite places in the world and for master T to meet little big cuz.
fin.
par example:
- one teacher was "admonished" (their terminology) for writing a poem to a female staff member where he used the words "juicy" and "orgasmic" for letters in her name. (me, howling with laughter: "you realize that that means that the poem was an ACROSTIC?!?)
- another teacher who was "reprimanded" for, among other things, writing comments such as "you suck" "you're lousy" and "you're a reject" on work submitted by ELEMENTARY STUDENTS (!!!!!)
- a teacher who was also "reprimanded" for referring to a colleague as a slut, which he "finger spelled".
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! do you know how long it would take to finger spell the word slut?!?? can you imagine the poor woman, standing there, waiting for him to finish the word, all the while knowing full well what the word was? too too funny. and also sad. they make teachers jump through hoops to get board jobs, and this is who they let in.
my weekend was really fun. dinner with new friends R & R on friday was super hilarious and a fantastic first-time-meeting-up hang. we're slowly building a cadre of crew in york region, which is nice. saturday was a whirlwind of errands before we got together at the roomie's for dinner with our beloved pingy. sunday was an all day recording extravaganza of recording with the dotytron family, which ended in outlaw sis ehmdo laughing so hard she spit out a mouthful of tea on the dining room table. it also resulted in the usual hilarious from momma d, including the assertion that she and poppa d might have been the first people to EVER WALK DOWN THE AISLE TO PACHELBEL'S CANON IN D. lol!!!!!!!!! that statement is typical momma d.
on sunday night we ordered indian food from amaya express. so good! dinner for 4, which could easily feed 6 with leftovers, costs $80 something, delivered. you get the chef's choice appetizers (delicious pakoras with a mint chutney, tamarind sauce, and mango chutney for dipping), the choice of FOUR meat dishes, and the choice of 2 vegetables, 2 basmati rice AND naan. everything was so flavourful and each curry was distinct. the vegetables were fresh tasting and there were some dishes you don't usually see, such as a sweet and sour eggplant and a lime lamb dish. i would definitely order from them again.
on monday dr. rei came over for a big walk and then leftover indian food and a screening of "eat pray love" which was GARBAGE. zomg it was insufferable...i don't really understand how people could have enjoyed the book (my sis, whose taste i trust implicitly, loathed it). first of all, the movie is boring. second of all, that woman doesn't have problems. what she does have is a huge ego and a bad case of whinging. ohhhh, i'm SO SORRY you have no more zest for life. boo hoo. i'm so sorry that you got to take a year off to "find yourself" travelling to italy, india and mothereffin' BALI. crikey. it was terrible, terrible, insulting dreck. 
this was much better. a semi-realistic portrait of marriage. i'm the annette bening character - the high achieving, work obsessed, wrangy person the in marriage (hey, we all have a role to play). i wasn't happy that one of the lesbians ends up having a sexual relationship with mark ruffalo's rakish, rangy, cool-dad character (although, who could resist mark ruffalo's scruffy charms?) it definitely detracts from the legitimacy of the lesbian relationship - i mean, i'm all for a spectrum of of human sexual preference, but at the same time, functional lesbian relationships in film (portrayed by big deal hollywood actresses, no less) are somewhat rare, so it's unfortunate that as the dotytron said, "all lesbians want is a deep d**king" (he was joking!) i thought the strength of the movie was in the natural performances from the kids and in showing how marriage is a long, long, slog - filled with many moments, some tender, some contented, some where you're just passively there because that's where you've been for a time. the performances were all really dialed in, especially from the two actors playing the kids and there were some quietly funny moments. i'd recommend it. today is a day of research for my paper, feeding the chicken boo, heading out to open up an RESP for him, finishing my secret santa shopping, and going to class. it's REALLY about just counting down the hours until we leave for geneseo tomorrow night to spend the weekend with my sis & family and s-dawg and his gf. so excited! i can't believe i haven't seen my sis and rico and my niece and nephews (!) in TWO MONTHS! that's the longest stretch evers! can't freakin' wait to hang out with those guys in one of my favorite places in the world and for master T to meet little big cuz.
fin.
Monday, July 05, 2010
ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!
THIS DAY HAS BEEN SO CRAY-CRAY!!!
zomg! a zillion different things going on and trying to schedule a zillion different things in the too-limited time we have left this summer. oy oy oy! my to-do list and to-see list is mega!
*deep breath*
first things first, the dotytron just might very well have a job in the TORONTO DISTRICT MOTHER-EFFIN' SCHOOL BOARD, A-HOLES! wooooooooooooo!!! it's only a 0.5 but that's still so so so good! so now he's trying to see if he can do that in the afternoon and keep his private school gig teaching music in the mornings. but worse comes to worse, the principal said that he can usually pick up supply teaching mornings in the school where his contract would be. wa wa wee wa!
i had an epic phone convo with dr. rei at lunch just trying to figure everything out for this summer into september. we got so much going on this summer! heck, we got so much going on THIS WEEK! pingy is still in town so we want to have a night in with her and then our friend A comes into town from his sojourns in NYC doing his masters in music composition and he's playing some shows that we should see and also just see him and catch up. dr. rei is itching to have us over for dinner so we're trying to fit that in somewheres. we're having AYCE sushi with goosetang & lolly on friday night followed up with a viewing of "eclipse", on saturday we're having going to see a wu-tang documentary with the kdubsguelph crew and then a picnic in high park, and on sunday our supper club was supposed to meet but i think we have to cut that out in favour of going to lounge in hanbo's parents' pool. the dotytron's parents are also trying to have us over to clean out their basement. phew! it's exhausting/exhilarating/gratifying having so many good peoples in our lives. we're such lucky pigs.
and to re-cap: so much sun this weekend! this was probably the first weekend where i felt impeded by being a vessel for the fatburger. the combination of the sun, playing outfield during kick/whiffle ball, and the squirmy bean meant that i got yelled at alot by s-dawg for doing a bad job playing outfield. basically he just sits there and screams "LAGERFELD!!!! JESUS F**KING CHRIST!!!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!?" while i half-heartedly tried to chase the kickball into the outfield.
on friday i went shopping with the roomie and our montreal friend I. we hit my favorite grocery store clothes, joe, AND winners where i managed to snag some suitably bump-friendly clothing that should take me into fall. i got a dress, 2 pairs of leggings, 1 blouse, and 3 button down shirts for about $125. pretty good, overall, i'd say. on the way up to markham for the big grandparents' s**tshow i was driving and the dotytron and i were singing in the car. we basically only sing extreme's "more than words" but last summer, when we were practicing our vows and taking all those road trips to geneseo, i seem to remember us having more in our repertoire. so the dotytron was like, "don't we sing any other songs?" and as a joke, i was like, "yeah, don't you remember how we used to harmonize to 'anna is a speed freak'?" which got a round of LOLs. in case you forgot the early 90s, "anna is a speed freak" goes like this:
ahahahhaahahahaha!!! then we flipped through the radio and the dotytron was like, "all i want to hear is 'runaway train' right now" and seriously made a concerted effort to find a call-in request show so that he could request it. we were close with 97.3fm, but i forgot the last digit of the phone number so that was a bit of a fail. in the end we dredged up the lyrics from our respective drug-addled youths and managed to cobble together a pretty solid rendition.
saturday we went for AYCE japanese and managed to break free from the loafing forces of suburbia to wrangle everyone downtown to the beach. it was LOVELY. although i have to say, the toronto beaches is a big, ol' cocktease. YOU CAN'T GO IN THE WATER?!?!! we laid out in the sun and then my sis and i took the kids to the donald d. summerville public pool, which is right at the beach. it's pretty awesome. it has an olympic sized swimming pool, a kiddie pool, AND a diving pool all in the same complex. we followed that up with the kids getting nice and sandy and the boys going to challenge some super-asians to a series of beach volleyball games that they lost.
we also made an important discovery - THERE IS SOMEONE WHO SELLS FUNNEL CAKES AT THE BEACHES! FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOU PAY AT WONDERLAND. this was a BIG deal! this means that i'm a 5 minute bike ride away from funnel cakes ALL SUMMER LONG.
we posseyed up and then headed to big mouth kee for a textbook big d's big day at big mouth kee meal. s-dawg had this plan to see the UFC fight at bo-pie with some friends. the outlaw bro, chova and the dotytron were obviously in for drinking and carousing so they went. this is how my sister and i watch UFC fights. we show up at bo-pie. order 2 glasses of water. order a brownie sunday and their chocolate explosion. eat dessert. leave before the fight begins. rent "valentine's day." i can't comment on the movie because i basically passed out from BOREDOM to the sounds of my sister complaining about how they can't write a decent romantic comedy any more and how implausible EVERY SINGLE PLOT POINT was and how shrill all the female characters are. good times. i will say that the fatburger was going BUCK during the UFC pre-fight stuff. i think he wanted to fight his in utero cousin.
on sunday me, my mum, and my sis went to this nearby nail place to get a pedicure. guys, i was BRUTALISED at that session. i'm not kidding you. the lady was ROUGH with me. doesn't she know that pedis are supposed to feel GOOD?! she had false nails and so she kept pinching the flesh on each toe between her talons and she made me bleed when she was working my cuticles. alls i gotta say is: if i end up with a staph infection or find out that i was paula abdul'ed , kathy's nails, i'm coming for ya.
we then met up with my grandparents at dim sum brunch at chili secrets. whereby my grandma dropped the BIG BOMB that she dislikes the dotytron? basically my grandpa was ribbing chova about why he and his ex gf broke up. then grandpa said that they didn't really seem compatible. then i asked out loud, somewhat rhetorically, "are the dotytron and i suited?" and my grandma, totally frowned, and shook her head, "no"!!!!! i was like, DID ANYONE JUST SEE THAT?!!!??? my grandma is like, evil incarnate so i'm not taking it seriously, but dayum. p.s. the dotytron was sitting right there. awwww, poor dotytron!
we fought the MSG AGAIN and managed to take the kids to a splash pad in this fairly awesome-for-suburbia park in richmond hill which had a playground, a splash pad, a basketball court, and like, 2 soccer fields. it was pretty fun, even if it was a little dirty. i don't think suburbanites understand that you're supposed to PUT GARBAGE IN THE GARBAGE RECEPTACLES PROVIDED. it's like a mystery to them or something. they probably expect their nannies to do the cleaning up. the next time i'm going to call the town of markham and complain just before we go up so it's all tidy. the kids had a good time and when my niece started whinging we set up a game of my sis, s-dawg and myself versus team whitey (outlaw bro and dotytron) at kickball/whiffle ball (we alternated innings). it was pretty hilarious and fun. mostly because we were using my niece's skipping rope to mark third base and when she asked to use it to go skipping WE WOULDN'T LET HER. lol!!!
so she threw a fuss and didn't want to play and basically sulked and cried for like 20 minutes. when she had calmed down she then asked to join our team when we were up at bat, WE WOULDN'T LET HER. we told her to that she COULDN'T JOIN THE BATTING ORDER MID-INNING and would be able to join once we flipped to playing outfield. LOL!!! i keep thinking about how those two events would go over with the super-research-y and super-liberal parenting types i know and i can already hear them calling CAS on us. lol!!!
after being a giant piggerton all weekend, i resumed regular low/good carb eating today. for dinner we had a salmon, corn & bacon chowder with a spinach salad with strawberries, toasted salted pumpkin seeds, and red peppers in a lime-honey dressing.
i also did the lane swim thing. things the dotytron likes about my swimming attire: i wear pretty skimpy bikinis, almost exclusively. things the dotytron DOESN'T like about my swimming attire: i top said bikinis with a speedo swimming cap which is probably too small AND mistakenly purchased CHILD-SIZED speedo swimming goggles (also too small) so it's party on the bottom and immigrant aquaman on top. pure sex.
fin.
saturday we went for AYCE japanese and managed to break free from the loafing forces of suburbia to wrangle everyone downtown to the beach. it was LOVELY. although i have to say, the toronto beaches is a big, ol' cocktease. YOU CAN'T GO IN THE WATER?!?!! we laid out in the sun and then my sis and i took the kids to the donald d. summerville public pool, which is right at the beach. it's pretty awesome. it has an olympic sized swimming pool, a kiddie pool, AND a diving pool all in the same complex. we followed that up with the kids getting nice and sandy and the boys going to challenge some super-asians to a series of beach volleyball games that they lost.
we also made an important discovery - THERE IS SOMEONE WHO SELLS FUNNEL CAKES AT THE BEACHES! FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOU PAY AT WONDERLAND. this was a BIG deal! this means that i'm a 5 minute bike ride away from funnel cakes ALL SUMMER LONG.
we posseyed up and then headed to big mouth kee for a textbook big d's big day at big mouth kee meal. s-dawg had this plan to see the UFC fight at bo-pie with some friends. the outlaw bro, chova and the dotytron were obviously in for drinking and carousing so they went. this is how my sister and i watch UFC fights. we show up at bo-pie. order 2 glasses of water. order a brownie sunday and their chocolate explosion. eat dessert. leave before the fight begins. rent "valentine's day." i can't comment on the movie because i basically passed out from BOREDOM to the sounds of my sister complaining about how they can't write a decent romantic comedy any more and how implausible EVERY SINGLE PLOT POINT was and how shrill all the female characters are. good times. i will say that the fatburger was going BUCK during the UFC pre-fight stuff. i think he wanted to fight his in utero cousin.
on sunday me, my mum, and my sis went to this nearby nail place to get a pedicure. guys, i was BRUTALISED at that session. i'm not kidding you. the lady was ROUGH with me. doesn't she know that pedis are supposed to feel GOOD?! she had false nails and so she kept pinching the flesh on each toe between her talons and she made me bleed when she was working my cuticles. alls i gotta say is: if i end up with a staph infection or find out that i was paula abdul'ed , kathy's nails, i'm coming for ya.
we then met up with my grandparents at dim sum brunch at chili secrets. whereby my grandma dropped the BIG BOMB that she dislikes the dotytron? basically my grandpa was ribbing chova about why he and his ex gf broke up. then grandpa said that they didn't really seem compatible. then i asked out loud, somewhat rhetorically, "are the dotytron and i suited?" and my grandma, totally frowned, and shook her head, "no"!!!!! i was like, DID ANYONE JUST SEE THAT?!!!??? my grandma is like, evil incarnate so i'm not taking it seriously, but dayum. p.s. the dotytron was sitting right there. awwww, poor dotytron!
we fought the MSG AGAIN and managed to take the kids to a splash pad in this fairly awesome-for-suburbia park in richmond hill which had a playground, a splash pad, a basketball court, and like, 2 soccer fields. it was pretty fun, even if it was a little dirty. i don't think suburbanites understand that you're supposed to PUT GARBAGE IN THE GARBAGE RECEPTACLES PROVIDED. it's like a mystery to them or something. they probably expect their nannies to do the cleaning up. the next time i'm going to call the town of markham and complain just before we go up so it's all tidy. the kids had a good time and when my niece started whinging we set up a game of my sis, s-dawg and myself versus team whitey (outlaw bro and dotytron) at kickball/whiffle ball (we alternated innings). it was pretty hilarious and fun. mostly because we were using my niece's skipping rope to mark third base and when she asked to use it to go skipping WE WOULDN'T LET HER. lol!!!
so she threw a fuss and didn't want to play and basically sulked and cried for like 20 minutes. when she had calmed down she then asked to join our team when we were up at bat, WE WOULDN'T LET HER. we told her to that she COULDN'T JOIN THE BATTING ORDER MID-INNING and would be able to join once we flipped to playing outfield. LOL!!! i keep thinking about how those two events would go over with the super-research-y and super-liberal parenting types i know and i can already hear them calling CAS on us. lol!!!
after being a giant piggerton all weekend, i resumed regular low/good carb eating today. for dinner we had a salmon, corn & bacon chowder with a spinach salad with strawberries, toasted salted pumpkin seeds, and red peppers in a lime-honey dressing.
i also did the lane swim thing. things the dotytron likes about my swimming attire: i wear pretty skimpy bikinis, almost exclusively. things the dotytron DOESN'T like about my swimming attire: i top said bikinis with a speedo swimming cap which is probably too small AND mistakenly purchased CHILD-SIZED speedo swimming goggles (also too small) so it's party on the bottom and immigrant aquaman on top. pure sex.
fin.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
in utero
le sigh. yesterday was a tumultuous day. the postings for the toronto board for those on the eligible-to-hire list came out (those are jobs for people who don't have existing contracts or are already hired covering mat leaves and such) and of the 50 or so jobs the dotytron applied to the 4 or 5 music ones he was eligible for. about five minutes after submitting he got a call from one of the schools asking him to come in for an interview in an HOUR AND A HALF! so we were all like, "woohoo!" because seriously, how could you NOT meet the dotytron and realize he's the best freakin' teacher ever? how?!??!! he's actually ENGAGED WITH HIS PROFESSION AS A PROFESSION and NOT in it for the stupid pension and union and because he doesn't have any other options. like, he is actually an AMAZING, patient, creative, gifted teacher and parents and kids instantly fall in love with him.
so he went to the interview and he said he did okay, but that the principal and the vice principal seemed a little detached and flat and non-expressive and disengaged. then he came home and found out that he didn't get it. which all leads me to believe that they already had a candidate they wanted (the toronto board is ALL about who you know) and just interviewed him to make sure they were fulfilling the minimum hiring requirements. i'm not kidding you and i'm seriously NOT being biased when i say that the dotytron is a top-notch teacher.
the annoying thing is that the arcane hiring practices of the toronto board require eligible teachers to do silly things like get all their additional qualifications to teach special ed, or teach french just to get INTO the system, and to me, that's really stupid. because then you have people with NO INVESTMENT in that particular sub-discipline teaching it just to get in so that they can suckle at the union teat and have their pension as the goal. so dumb. i hate it.
ultimately, the point is that he's lucky that he's teaching and he's at a private school that loves him and values him and challenges him.
the dotytron has implemented in utero listening sessions for the fatburger. there have been numerous studies that show that sounds and music that bambinos are exposed to in utero make them more amenable to them once they're out of the womb. like babies born of classical musicians have a predisposition to like classical music, etc. so the dotytron has the fatburger on this graduated listening curriculum. we were supposed to start last night but he couldn't get his ipod loaded so it began this morning with a barely awake me holding his sennheiser headphones flattened to my belly while he cranked the first two songs on the playlist.
one of them was a guqin number. what, you mean you've never heard of the guqin? that's because the dotytron is one of, like, a thousand people IN THE WORLD who know this instrument and are keeping it alive. it's an ancient chinese instrument that apparently was almost wiped out during the cultural revolution...so there's only a handful of people that play it and of this select few the dotytron aspires to be one. it's a stringed instrument, like a zither. the wikipedia article above has some links.
the second piece on spumante's listening odyssey was the beginning part of john coltrane's "a love supreme." all i could picture in my head during this 1/2 hour exercise was the fatburger flailing around in there, all startled, being all, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING HERE?!??! COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN, PLEASE??!!!!" which is pretty funny if you think about the little blobkin getting jolted from a peaceful slumber to ancient chinese music and the coltrane. i think the next stage is to introduce some sense of rhythmic complexity into the fatburger's life.
so i'm supposed to be able to feel the fatburger moving around now, getting stronger in the coming weeks. sometimes i feel a little flutter down there, but i'm not sure if that's it. there was an earthquake in toronto yesterday, of which i was completely oblivious, which begs the question that if i don't notice a 5.5 on the richter scale earthquake, how the crap am i going to notice something the size of a banana?
last night for dinner we had a tomato, cucumber, roasted pepper and olive panzanella with rosemary focaccia croutons and fresh basil. i topped it with squid grilled a la plancha, which basically means in the spanish style on a very hot flat-top (or in my case, my cast-iron pan). it was a good (low carb!) dinner.
tomorrow is a day off! my work is closed because of the g20. i'm meeting my old supervisor T to explore bloor west village (which i've never done before, can you imagine?) and go to this cheese store she loves which sells burrata. mmmmmmmmm burrata.
fin.
so he went to the interview and he said he did okay, but that the principal and the vice principal seemed a little detached and flat and non-expressive and disengaged. then he came home and found out that he didn't get it. which all leads me to believe that they already had a candidate they wanted (the toronto board is ALL about who you know) and just interviewed him to make sure they were fulfilling the minimum hiring requirements. i'm not kidding you and i'm seriously NOT being biased when i say that the dotytron is a top-notch teacher.
the annoying thing is that the arcane hiring practices of the toronto board require eligible teachers to do silly things like get all their additional qualifications to teach special ed, or teach french just to get INTO the system, and to me, that's really stupid. because then you have people with NO INVESTMENT in that particular sub-discipline teaching it just to get in so that they can suckle at the union teat and have their pension as the goal. so dumb. i hate it.
ultimately, the point is that he's lucky that he's teaching and he's at a private school that loves him and values him and challenges him.
the dotytron has implemented in utero listening sessions for the fatburger. there have been numerous studies that show that sounds and music that bambinos are exposed to in utero make them more amenable to them once they're out of the womb. like babies born of classical musicians have a predisposition to like classical music, etc. so the dotytron has the fatburger on this graduated listening curriculum. we were supposed to start last night but he couldn't get his ipod loaded so it began this morning with a barely awake me holding his sennheiser headphones flattened to my belly while he cranked the first two songs on the playlist.
one of them was a guqin number. what, you mean you've never heard of the guqin? that's because the dotytron is one of, like, a thousand people IN THE WORLD who know this instrument and are keeping it alive. it's an ancient chinese instrument that apparently was almost wiped out during the cultural revolution...so there's only a handful of people that play it and of this select few the dotytron aspires to be one. it's a stringed instrument, like a zither. the wikipedia article above has some links.
the second piece on spumante's listening odyssey was the beginning part of john coltrane's "a love supreme." all i could picture in my head during this 1/2 hour exercise was the fatburger flailing around in there, all startled, being all, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING HERE?!??! COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN, PLEASE??!!!!" which is pretty funny if you think about the little blobkin getting jolted from a peaceful slumber to ancient chinese music and the coltrane. i think the next stage is to introduce some sense of rhythmic complexity into the fatburger's life.
so i'm supposed to be able to feel the fatburger moving around now, getting stronger in the coming weeks. sometimes i feel a little flutter down there, but i'm not sure if that's it. there was an earthquake in toronto yesterday, of which i was completely oblivious, which begs the question that if i don't notice a 5.5 on the richter scale earthquake, how the crap am i going to notice something the size of a banana?
last night for dinner we had a tomato, cucumber, roasted pepper and olive panzanella with rosemary focaccia croutons and fresh basil. i topped it with squid grilled a la plancha, which basically means in the spanish style on a very hot flat-top (or in my case, my cast-iron pan). it was a good (low carb!) dinner.
tomorrow is a day off! my work is closed because of the g20. i'm meeting my old supervisor T to explore bloor west village (which i've never done before, can you imagine?) and go to this cheese store she loves which sells burrata. mmmmmmmmm burrata.
fin.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
people and their messed up kids
fact: it is impossible to get up to the bridle path area in toronto (the playground and living room of the fantastically rich and fabulous) via the ttc without getting thoroughly confused and disoriented. people there just don't TAKE public transit, so what piecemeal service there is, runs like, every 30 minutes, making us poor plebes late.
the concept for the dotytron's spring concert at the private school that he really likes was "time warp", with each grade doing songs from a different decade and strung together with interludes about time scientists who kidnap this kid and take him to the different time periods. i admittedly give the dotytron a hard time, a lot of the time, because i don't think he does real work (lol!) and then i question why he comes home so zonked. last night was a great experience for the both of us - for me, it allowed me to see all the hours of hard work and the culmination of months of stress and wrangling and blood, sweat, and tears on his part; for him, because me having my epiphany means that i'm going to go a lot easier on him for the next little bit. lol!
the concert was THE CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. i missed the 50s number, but all i gotta say is the kindergarten class did the 80s. they sang "shout" by tears for fears and the little boys were dressed all 80s hair metal with fake tattoos, ripped jeans, etc and the little girls were straight early 80s madonna - with super high ponytails, banana clips, pink streaks, tutus and fingerless gloves. ZOMG. the best shiz ever. parents were losing their minds.
that school has a really high proportion of special needs kids - developmental delays, behavioural issues, autism, asperger's syndrome, etc and seeing the special needs kids singing and dancing brought tears to my eyes and made my heart explode with rainbows. i was sitting in the audience so i had the unique vantage point of overhearing parents say stuff like, "__ has NEVER sung that much at a school concert, ever" and it made me so proud of the dotytron and all his hard work and made me realize how much love parents have for their messed up kids.
i think one of the fears you have as someone who's contemplating parenthood, is that, nevermind the stuff you can screen for (nintendo ds, open neural tube defects, etc.), there's the stuff you can't imagine and fathom that might make your child's life really, really hard - stuff like autism, or asperger's or whathaveyou. that's definitely been one of my fears and a constant, niggling worry throughout this process of gestating the fatburger. but sitting in that room last night, watching parents of ALL the kids, videotaping rapturously, grinning from ear to ear, waving ecstatically at their kids mumbling and fidgeting and yelling into the microphone and talking AWAY from the audience, it really made me realize the power of parental love. parents LOVE their mucker kids with a fierceness that can bring tears to your eyes with the intensity and purity of it. heck, **I** love their mucker kids and that was the first time i'd seen some of them. they were so freakin' cute. granted, i always have been and always will be a champion of the underdog, but the deaf, severely physically and mentally challenged kid banging on the snare drum during the band's performance of the star wars theme was the BEST shiz i've ever seen in my life, hands down.
dr. rei took me out to lunch yesterday for all you can eat indian buffet, where we stuffed our faces and then stewed in a sag paneer and carb purgatory afterwards. i'm so lucky. every day i'm reminded of how lucky i am to have such loving, giving, generous, bright, and funny friends and family.
today i had an appointment with my audiologist. my hearing has IMPROVED since last year somehow, and i had near-perfect hearing - he said i don't have to come back for five years, or unless i notice something amiss. now i'm going to try to squeeze in a final coat of white paint on the one wall and finish packing and sorting out my stuff for my trip to nyc. i can't believe we're going! 5 glorious days away, with pingy and count chocula and my cook friends, and xtina and buns in one of the best cities in the world. i can't wait.
have a wonderful long weekend everyone.
fin.
the concept for the dotytron's spring concert at the private school that he really likes was "time warp", with each grade doing songs from a different decade and strung together with interludes about time scientists who kidnap this kid and take him to the different time periods. i admittedly give the dotytron a hard time, a lot of the time, because i don't think he does real work (lol!) and then i question why he comes home so zonked. last night was a great experience for the both of us - for me, it allowed me to see all the hours of hard work and the culmination of months of stress and wrangling and blood, sweat, and tears on his part; for him, because me having my epiphany means that i'm going to go a lot easier on him for the next little bit. lol!
the concert was THE CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. i missed the 50s number, but all i gotta say is the kindergarten class did the 80s. they sang "shout" by tears for fears and the little boys were dressed all 80s hair metal with fake tattoos, ripped jeans, etc and the little girls were straight early 80s madonna - with super high ponytails, banana clips, pink streaks, tutus and fingerless gloves. ZOMG. the best shiz ever. parents were losing their minds.
that school has a really high proportion of special needs kids - developmental delays, behavioural issues, autism, asperger's syndrome, etc and seeing the special needs kids singing and dancing brought tears to my eyes and made my heart explode with rainbows. i was sitting in the audience so i had the unique vantage point of overhearing parents say stuff like, "__ has NEVER sung that much at a school concert, ever" and it made me so proud of the dotytron and all his hard work and made me realize how much love parents have for their messed up kids.
i think one of the fears you have as someone who's contemplating parenthood, is that, nevermind the stuff you can screen for (nintendo ds, open neural tube defects, etc.), there's the stuff you can't imagine and fathom that might make your child's life really, really hard - stuff like autism, or asperger's or whathaveyou. that's definitely been one of my fears and a constant, niggling worry throughout this process of gestating the fatburger. but sitting in that room last night, watching parents of ALL the kids, videotaping rapturously, grinning from ear to ear, waving ecstatically at their kids mumbling and fidgeting and yelling into the microphone and talking AWAY from the audience, it really made me realize the power of parental love. parents LOVE their mucker kids with a fierceness that can bring tears to your eyes with the intensity and purity of it. heck, **I** love their mucker kids and that was the first time i'd seen some of them. they were so freakin' cute. granted, i always have been and always will be a champion of the underdog, but the deaf, severely physically and mentally challenged kid banging on the snare drum during the band's performance of the star wars theme was the BEST shiz i've ever seen in my life, hands down.
dr. rei took me out to lunch yesterday for all you can eat indian buffet, where we stuffed our faces and then stewed in a sag paneer and carb purgatory afterwards. i'm so lucky. every day i'm reminded of how lucky i am to have such loving, giving, generous, bright, and funny friends and family.
today i had an appointment with my audiologist. my hearing has IMPROVED since last year somehow, and i had near-perfect hearing - he said i don't have to come back for five years, or unless i notice something amiss. now i'm going to try to squeeze in a final coat of white paint on the one wall and finish packing and sorting out my stuff for my trip to nyc. i can't believe we're going! 5 glorious days away, with pingy and count chocula and my cook friends, and xtina and buns in one of the best cities in the world. i can't wait.
have a wonderful long weekend everyone.
fin.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
she dreamed a dream of time gone by...
we didn't get to go skating last night because of stupid xmas concerts of doom sapping all of the dotytron's energy and vim. but we had a good night nonetheless.
tonight is xmas concert #1 of 2. so as of friday evening, i have my regularly scheduled dotytron back in my life. we picked out his outfits last night. he was a bit of a nervous nelly this morning. luckily, i had a funny dream to recount.
edit: so i text the dotytron during the day today to recount my streetcar ride into work with our shared wall neighbour [male], hereinafter to be referred to as wall-yM, who is totally awesome and cool btw - even if my toto-loving sensibilities and his indie rock music sensibilities don't quite match up. ANYWAY i received this terse text message in reply: "all i have to say is: grade 6 lice outbreak - the day of the concert"
over the summer i read jane and michael stern's "two for the road" - they're the couple that used to write my HANDS DOWN favorite segment in gourmet magazine (r.i.p.), "road food" which was about precisely that - regional, local, americana. stuff like friday night fish fry, and hoagies and grinders, and the best steaks or the beset onion rings or fried chicken or ribs or shoofly pie. stuff that speaks to an elemental part of me. this book tells the story of how they got their start and how they lucked into my dream job - criss-crossing the US for road food and writing about it. bliss! the food writing is top-notch. at least, i think it is. i mean, they can describe the food so that my tummy growls when i read it and i notch the pages and file them away for future reference - but i suspect a simple menu description of the food itself would do that. that's how much i love bbq and friend chicken and muffulettas and the rest. my food prof friend J said that she hates the sterns because she thinks they hate (or capitalize or fetishize) poor people. i'm usually pretty sensitive to that kind of cultural capital trading so i'm surprised i never picked up on it. i wonder if my love of the food blinds me to it?
john green's "paper towns" is one of the best books i've ever read. young adult, adult, whatever. genre does not apply. this is writing that is at once deeply intelligent and deeply understanding of the human condition. it's funny, winsome, smart, wistful - i can't say enough good things about john green! i'm obsessed! the book is ostensibly about quentin, a nerdish, bookish high schooler nearing the end of his senior year, and his difficult, distant, removed relationship with his neighbour, margot - also a senior in high school - but in direct contrast to him, she's the popular, dramatic, charismatic girl that every high school has - the one that everyone in high school knows, even if she's not the stereotypical high school queen bee. so i say that it's about these two, and you think it's a romance - but it's not. it's about the connectivities between people - it references walt whitman and physics and woody guthrie all in the service of different ways in which people connect and come to be who they are, how people come to grow and inhabit their own skin and how we live simultaneously through and for others. it's about relationships and the maturation of them - that coming of age that you do in high school where old divisions fall away and as you near graduation, lines get blurred in a bittersweet nostalgia for what you've been through together. i can't capture it in words. i made the dotytron read it immediately after me so that we could discuss it - it's so good. like, a touchstone piece of young adult fiction.
this is john green's blog: sparksflyup
he also does a video blog with his brother hank which is a triumph of all things erudite and nerdy: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
he's brilliant.
edit: i KNEW i shouldn't have written that twitter update this morning crowing about how this was going to be a good day. all day long i was looking forward to the moment when i could come home, heat up chicken kiev, and eat it with a spinach salad, then change into my jammies and work on my felted wreath. FAIL. i got locked out of my house tonight! NOT BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE KEY, but because my stupid lock sticks out just a little, teeny, tiny bit and then WON'T open, even though it's "unlocked." all this on the COLDEST NIGHT of life. so i called the momma and poppa d - no answer. the roomie - no answer. i used wall-yM's bathroom then felt bad about imposing even though they graciously offered me dinner and a warm place to stay. i asked monster truck neighbour on the other side to help me out but he couldn't do it. so i biked in the FREEZING cold and in my WORK CLOTHES [imagine: i had been SO pleased with my outfit today. it was nice. but NOT MEANT FOR BIKING IN] to H and J and sweet baby D's place where they graciously put me up and fed me yummy pasta. i almost got blown off my bike. the dotytron came to get me at 10pm. i KNEW IT. i knew even as my fingers hovered over the "g" key for "good day" that i was tempting the fates - BUT I DID IT ANYWAY LIKE A FOOL. never again!
fin.
tonight is xmas concert #1 of 2. so as of friday evening, i have my regularly scheduled dotytron back in my life. we picked out his outfits last night. he was a bit of a nervous nelly this morning. luckily, i had a funny dream to recount.
edit: so i text the dotytron during the day today to recount my streetcar ride into work with our shared wall neighbour [male], hereinafter to be referred to as wall-yM, who is totally awesome and cool btw - even if my toto-loving sensibilities and his indie rock music sensibilities don't quite match up. ANYWAY i received this terse text message in reply: "all i have to say is: grade 6 lice outbreak - the day of the concert"
laughing, laughing, laughing, out loud.
last night i dreamed that i was at my alma matter, trent university, to see some dude i know speak. the dude i know is some guy who was friends with the old roomie - he, montreal I and old roomie were a team and i met them in my first year, their second year. he was really cool, super into entomology, and kind of koo-koo *does universal pantomime for loco* ANYWAY, also attending that conference was a grade school friend of mine, E (who i lost touch with in late high school.) and i was asking E if there were any cute guys in her program, and she said no, but there was LES WIZ. p.s. LES WIZ was a person. apparently a really flamboyant, possibly gay dude. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! i woke up howling. the fact that "LES WIZ" was a PERSON is infinitely funny to me. also, the fact that there was an entity called "LES WIZ" is making me laugh out loud. i told the dotytron he should do a musical production of "les wiz" at his school - just like "the wiz" but with many wizesesseseszz.
speaking of musicals (tangentially) - my colleague at work has JUST discovered susan boyle. it's kind of the best, actually. so the past few nights after work is "officially" closed she's asked my permission to play susan boyle. and it's always the youtube clip of boyle on "britain's got talent" - over and over! so best! last night we saw a little entertainment show segment that boyle has sold over a million cds in just 2 weeks - making it one of the best selling cds of 2009. the dotytron turns to me and says, "can you believe this whole susan boyle thing? i hope at least she's been kissed by now." awwwwwwww - isn't he the cutest? although, the awwww factor is probably mitigated by the fact that he followed up that heart-warming sentiment with, "i mean, even if you were a total fame groupie, you'd have to be pretty hurting to hit up some boyle." lol! (which i disagree with, by the way - i told him that being a recording star has probably put her amongst a wider sphere of potential boyfriends than she had in her village).
tonight i totally bogarted the leftover chicken kiev and ate it with leftover spinach salad.
over the summer i read jane and michael stern's "two for the road" - they're the couple that used to write my HANDS DOWN favorite segment in gourmet magazine (r.i.p.), "road food" which was about precisely that - regional, local, americana. stuff like friday night fish fry, and hoagies and grinders, and the best steaks or the beset onion rings or fried chicken or ribs or shoofly pie. stuff that speaks to an elemental part of me. this book tells the story of how they got their start and how they lucked into my dream job - criss-crossing the US for road food and writing about it. bliss! the food writing is top-notch. at least, i think it is. i mean, they can describe the food so that my tummy growls when i read it and i notch the pages and file them away for future reference - but i suspect a simple menu description of the food itself would do that. that's how much i love bbq and friend chicken and muffulettas and the rest. my food prof friend J said that she hates the sterns because she thinks they hate (or capitalize or fetishize) poor people. i'm usually pretty sensitive to that kind of cultural capital trading so i'm surprised i never picked up on it. i wonder if my love of the food blinds me to it?
john green's "paper towns" is one of the best books i've ever read. young adult, adult, whatever. genre does not apply. this is writing that is at once deeply intelligent and deeply understanding of the human condition. it's funny, winsome, smart, wistful - i can't say enough good things about john green! i'm obsessed! the book is ostensibly about quentin, a nerdish, bookish high schooler nearing the end of his senior year, and his difficult, distant, removed relationship with his neighbour, margot - also a senior in high school - but in direct contrast to him, she's the popular, dramatic, charismatic girl that every high school has - the one that everyone in high school knows, even if she's not the stereotypical high school queen bee. so i say that it's about these two, and you think it's a romance - but it's not. it's about the connectivities between people - it references walt whitman and physics and woody guthrie all in the service of different ways in which people connect and come to be who they are, how people come to grow and inhabit their own skin and how we live simultaneously through and for others. it's about relationships and the maturation of them - that coming of age that you do in high school where old divisions fall away and as you near graduation, lines get blurred in a bittersweet nostalgia for what you've been through together. i can't capture it in words. i made the dotytron read it immediately after me so that we could discuss it - it's so good. like, a touchstone piece of young adult fiction. this is john green's blog: sparksflyup
he also does a video blog with his brother hank which is a triumph of all things erudite and nerdy: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
he's brilliant.
edit: i KNEW i shouldn't have written that twitter update this morning crowing about how this was going to be a good day. all day long i was looking forward to the moment when i could come home, heat up chicken kiev, and eat it with a spinach salad, then change into my jammies and work on my felted wreath. FAIL. i got locked out of my house tonight! NOT BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE KEY, but because my stupid lock sticks out just a little, teeny, tiny bit and then WON'T open, even though it's "unlocked." all this on the COLDEST NIGHT of life. so i called the momma and poppa d - no answer. the roomie - no answer. i used wall-yM's bathroom then felt bad about imposing even though they graciously offered me dinner and a warm place to stay. i asked monster truck neighbour on the other side to help me out but he couldn't do it. so i biked in the FREEZING cold and in my WORK CLOTHES [imagine: i had been SO pleased with my outfit today. it was nice. but NOT MEANT FOR BIKING IN] to H and J and sweet baby D's place where they graciously put me up and fed me yummy pasta. i almost got blown off my bike. the dotytron came to get me at 10pm. i KNEW IT. i knew even as my fingers hovered over the "g" key for "good day" that i was tempting the fates - BUT I DID IT ANYWAY LIKE A FOOL. never again!
fin.
Friday, December 04, 2009
yay day off!
so the month of december is going to be buck. we (the royal we) knew that. is it ever anything but? this week has been/will be insane. i entertained twice already! S came over on wednesday night for dinner and a visit. i had planned on making a cream of cauliflower soup with paninis, came home, walked up to the fridge, pulled out the head of cauliflower ... only to discover that it was ROTTEN TO THE CORE. gross! i was mortified. i also didn't have a backup plan, so i was floundering and then S swept in and made a quickie indian "kraft dinner" - a bean and potato curry that we had with steamed white rice, a dollop of my ridiculously expensive and ever-so-dear sheep's milk yoghurt (which is AMAZING with curry), and a squeeze of lemon juice.
as i told her later, it's a measure of how comfortable i am with her that i only lost 4 hours of sleep stewing over my bad hostessing that night. i've been flagellating myself over it ever since. it's just SO NOT ME. it was a very hearty vegetarian meal though, and i was grateful. thank goodness i had tonnes of extra mini-cupcakes to offer. S said it was indian karma because i refused to let her bring anything. lol!
we also marveled at the strange and unsettling sight of the two ugly jonas brothers (round-face jonas and flat-iron jonas) introducing cute jonas (that's nick jonas to the most of us) who then sang a song BY HIMSELF. we were totally weirded out. this was during the grammy nominations live concert. luckily, S fired off an email to her 14 year old sister who set us straight, stat.
that night we also had an unexpected drop-by from the dotytron's sis and her friend. full house!
here are some shots of the open house:
p.s. that's only a fraction of the food. T goes NUTS! i made only a fraction of the food (aren't my mini-cupcakes [top photo] cute?) i was telling people that when i used to work in professional catering, we would NEVER make this staggering variety of items...because it MAKES NO SENSE (but tastes so good). i was working the night shift on tuesday night and stayed til 10pm and basically ate a dinner of cookies and punch. l'chaim!
last night we fired off the rest of our xmas cards and i started cutting out the pattern for my quilted tree skirt. yes, you read that right. today involves: getting up, baking off cookies for my massage therapist, a massage, baking smckay's b-day cake for tonight, frosting said cake, making a charlotte a la russe for tomorrow's russian dr. zhivago fest, making a batch of fake english almond toffee, making drapes for the dotytron's room, making my quilted tree skirt, making my felt wreath, and hopefully doing some knitting and making my festive garland. also making time to do a small round of grocery shopping and re-upping on xmas cards because we RAN OUT. holy cats!
this weekend is gangbusters. tonight i'm going to smckay's b-day jam in guelph. then tomorrow morning i'm meeting my mum for breakkie and then we're going to this t-fal warehouse sale. then i'm coming home and hosting dr. rei, hanbo, and architect L for dinner (russian-themed). then we may or may not watch dr. zhivago. there's also our friend O's 30th birthday party. AND we were invited to another holiday mixer at another friend's house that we have to bail on. sunday morning we're going to see my friend C's adopted baby (incidentally, the people hosting live in dr. rei and hanbo's building! which obviously means that an early morning nicky nicky nine doorsing is in order) then we have to get our xmas lights, our tree lights, tree stand, and tree and set that up. then we rest.
phew!
which basically means that i have to get cracking NOW.
p.s. last night we watched "autism: the musical" a documentary about a program run by a woman in california - she takes autistic kids (her own son is severely autistic) for 20 weeks and produces a variety show, with songs and skits. it's crazy. it was really moving to see the effect that having an autistic child can have on the family dynamics and a marriage. a lot of marriages didn't seem to survive. the kids ran across the whole spectrum. there was one kid that i kept insisting was just eccentric but that the dotytron claimed didn't have the cognitive abilities to be able to function autonomously. the other kids though you could totally tell had some kind of disorder. did you know that stills' (of crosby, stills and nash) son has aspbergers? he's in the documentary. the rest of the night consisted of me trying to make the case that some people we know were autism spectrum and getting the dotytron to agree with me. one of my principal arguments for this one dude was because "he doesn't know when he's boring people" lol!
the rest of the night was spent reading the "blue pages" out of the ontario teacher's magazine, or as the dotytron calls it, "us magazine for teachers" - it basically lists all the charges or people who've been put up for disciplinary action and what the outcome was. it was HILARIOUS. one of the teachers was charged for repeatedly (over a 10 year span) touching the buttocks of colleagues, which he blamed on his "poor eyesight" LOL!!!!!!!
fin.
as i told her later, it's a measure of how comfortable i am with her that i only lost 4 hours of sleep stewing over my bad hostessing that night. i've been flagellating myself over it ever since. it's just SO NOT ME. it was a very hearty vegetarian meal though, and i was grateful. thank goodness i had tonnes of extra mini-cupcakes to offer. S said it was indian karma because i refused to let her bring anything. lol!we also marveled at the strange and unsettling sight of the two ugly jonas brothers (round-face jonas and flat-iron jonas) introducing cute jonas (that's nick jonas to the most of us) who then sang a song BY HIMSELF. we were totally weirded out. this was during the grammy nominations live concert. luckily, S fired off an email to her 14 year old sister who set us straight, stat.
that night we also had an unexpected drop-by from the dotytron's sis and her friend. full house!
here are some shots of the open house:
p.s. that's only a fraction of the food. T goes NUTS! i made only a fraction of the food (aren't my mini-cupcakes [top photo] cute?) i was telling people that when i used to work in professional catering, we would NEVER make this staggering variety of items...because it MAKES NO SENSE (but tastes so good). i was working the night shift on tuesday night and stayed til 10pm and basically ate a dinner of cookies and punch. l'chaim!last night we fired off the rest of our xmas cards and i started cutting out the pattern for my quilted tree skirt. yes, you read that right. today involves: getting up, baking off cookies for my massage therapist, a massage, baking smckay's b-day cake for tonight, frosting said cake, making a charlotte a la russe for tomorrow's russian dr. zhivago fest, making a batch of fake english almond toffee, making drapes for the dotytron's room, making my quilted tree skirt, making my felt wreath, and hopefully doing some knitting and making my festive garland. also making time to do a small round of grocery shopping and re-upping on xmas cards because we RAN OUT. holy cats!
this weekend is gangbusters. tonight i'm going to smckay's b-day jam in guelph. then tomorrow morning i'm meeting my mum for breakkie and then we're going to this t-fal warehouse sale. then i'm coming home and hosting dr. rei, hanbo, and architect L for dinner (russian-themed). then we may or may not watch dr. zhivago. there's also our friend O's 30th birthday party. AND we were invited to another holiday mixer at another friend's house that we have to bail on. sunday morning we're going to see my friend C's adopted baby (incidentally, the people hosting live in dr. rei and hanbo's building! which obviously means that an early morning nicky nicky nine doorsing is in order) then we have to get our xmas lights, our tree lights, tree stand, and tree and set that up. then we rest.
phew!
which basically means that i have to get cracking NOW.
p.s. last night we watched "autism: the musical" a documentary about a program run by a woman in california - she takes autistic kids (her own son is severely autistic) for 20 weeks and produces a variety show, with songs and skits. it's crazy. it was really moving to see the effect that having an autistic child can have on the family dynamics and a marriage. a lot of marriages didn't seem to survive. the kids ran across the whole spectrum. there was one kid that i kept insisting was just eccentric but that the dotytron claimed didn't have the cognitive abilities to be able to function autonomously. the other kids though you could totally tell had some kind of disorder. did you know that stills' (of crosby, stills and nash) son has aspbergers? he's in the documentary. the rest of the night consisted of me trying to make the case that some people we know were autism spectrum and getting the dotytron to agree with me. one of my principal arguments for this one dude was because "he doesn't know when he's boring people" lol!
the rest of the night was spent reading the "blue pages" out of the ontario teacher's magazine, or as the dotytron calls it, "us magazine for teachers" - it basically lists all the charges or people who've been put up for disciplinary action and what the outcome was. it was HILARIOUS. one of the teachers was charged for repeatedly (over a 10 year span) touching the buttocks of colleagues, which he blamed on his "poor eyesight" LOL!!!!!!!
fin.
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