Charles in charge.

It's very non chill being misrepresented in a professional capacity because, in part, I suspect that guys have the tendency to focus all their aggression on a woman, even if a woman and a man are saying the EXACT SAME THING.  

Am I loud?  Yes.  Am I outspoken?  Yes.  Have I been that way since pretty much birth?  Yes.  Am I confident in my brains and my professional judgment?  Yes.  Do I feel this is something I should apologize for, or curb?  AW HELL NO.  

I've had a very trying time, the past week and a half.  But there have been bright spots.  

Like: Dr. Rei and I hatching a plan for an awesome project together, and by extension, me being continuously nourished and sustained by this beautiful, strong, funny, smart woman's counsel, commiseration, and support.

 Like: we had my mum over for a birthday celebration for her and ate Sukho Thai takeout and I presented her with a coconut bundt cake that she didn't care for.  

Like: we took the kids to the Zoo on Friday.  We had a really fun time and it was all around splendid. At the gorilla enclosure one of the male gorillas, Sadiki, was standing right at the glass and I met his eyes for a solid 30 seconds, and I don't know what happened...but I started welling up.  He just held my gaze and the meaning behind his eyes was so primordial, still, and all-knowing...it triggered the Romantic sublime in me, and I just felt overcome.  It's like that scene in Mulholland Drive where the women are are sitting in the theatre and listening to a woman singing a Spanish (?) version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and one of the women watching just starts to cry and cry, tears spilling silently down her face.  It was such a deep moment, and after, I felt so calm, and centred.  

The other night we were watching Broad City and I had one of my mortality moments and I felt my blood pressure skyrocket and that panicky, IDON'TWANTTODIEEVER feeling in the pit of my chest, which is usually how it goes when I think about dying.  After staring into the eyes of the gorilla though, I was acutely aware that the feeling I had when he assessed my soul, were I to think about my own mortality and death (which I did, immediately thereafter - Romantic sublime again), would carry over and I would feel peace and that maybe this is what people feel like when they're about to die.  Maybe if the conditions are right, you're not filled with panic and dread, but you tap into the ancient gorilla-gaze that lies dormant in the deepest recesses of your brain and soul.

Carrying on.

Like: we went to Barque for brunch with the kids on Sunday morning and hit the Jamie Bell adventure playground to burn off some kid steam right before.  It was such a nice morning and Barque is so kid friendly.  Like, I knew they were kid friendly because we had gone there when the Big Yam was young, but kid-friendly enough to handle a table of 5 featuring three kids to two adults is like, next level kid friendly.  They have little mini packs of play-doh for each kid!    Anyway, the kid's menu had scrambled eggs or pancakes (and some other stuff that were non-options for my guys).  I ordered pancakes for the Twins, and I asked the Big Yam what he wanted.  "Scrambled eggs."  "Are you sure?  You don't usually like scrambled eggs when I make them at home."  "Scrambled eggs."  "You're sure you don't want pancakes?" "Yes, I want scrambled eggs."  

Scrambled eggs are placed in front of him.  He glances at his brothers' pancake plates and his face crumples in abject dejection and he wails, "Awww...I should've ordered pancakes!" and then he buries his face in the Dotytron's chest and cries, "Now I wish I didn't order scrambled eggs!" and maybe there's something wrong with me, but the crushing realization of his own error in judgment was very hilarious.

Like: Twin A's new deep-throated belly laugh.

Like: Twin A's singing along to his auntie's song in his little wispy voice.

Like: Twin B's standard greeting of "Hell-lo" when you enter the room.  As well as his new thing of saying, "aww" in this funny, aggressive kind of way.  And also saying, "alright" to agree with you.

Like: the Dotytron and I getting a night out for ourselves, midweek, thanks to the babysitting services of one Momma D.  We went to Imanishi Japanese Kitchen, a new Japanese izakaya-type place.  The space is really pretty - kind of serene Japanese-rustic...like we were in a tavern in the Japanese countryside.  I think it's run by ex Kinka (née Guu) dudes.  The food was good, but not great, and while I liked eating izakaya-type food in a quiet, adult space, I thought the execution at Kinka is much better - the fish carpaccios are more inventive and the flavours make more sense at Kinka.  The standout dish at Imanishi was the corn tempura, and everything else was okay, but not as satisfying as the Kinka experience.

This was grilled sting ray fin with a dipping sauce.  This dish was a flop.  It was chewy and lightly charred but the texture was off and the flavour was vaguely funky, but not in a good way.  

You can't go wrong with fried oysters.

I didn't take a picture of every dish, but we got the beef carpaccio, and the whitefish crudo, the aforementioned corn tempura (so lacy and salty and addictive), and perfectly cooked octopus balanced against the crunchy brightness of celery.  

That's a good summary of my bright spots.  Friends, family, and food.  Pretty on-brand, I'd say.

Fin.

Buffs'n'tings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, YOU'RE spamming ME.

OK.  For real, I'm back this time.  I came back from my work trip and things were mental with my timelines and extra commitments but I just submitted the thing that's been consuming me for the past three weeks and I'm free for the time being.

It has been a SLOG.  Travelling for work involved grueling days - up at 6am, in meetings all day from 8am to 5pm, then packing up, going to the airport, hopping on our tiny charter plane and then going to the next destination, checking into the hotel around 8pm.  I didn't really get the hang of how to travel with this group until mid-week, at which point, after consecutive nights of indigestion from eating dinner at 9pm, I came up with a quasi-solution that involved wolfing down my lunch in 15 minutes, then going for a walk so that I might grab something I could eat on the plane and then have a reasonable digestion window before going to bed.  Travelling with my clients meant that I had to be on all day, every day, and even though my threshold for being "on" is high - I am, after all, master of the inane questions-based small talk - being in anonymous hotel rooms without the benefit or "your" stuff or "your" people wears on you.

I did get to do some fun things.  Like:

Win $20 at blackjack at the casino in Windsor.  UGH! Gambling is so FUN!  Why is it so fun?!?  My heart was racing and I had to make a decided effort not to spend my whole night there. 

  Marvel at how Robo-Cop-y Detroit looked across the river.

Order $20 worth of Johnny Rockets and eat it in my bed in my pajamas uninterrupted.

I wanted to try this restaurant called the Hoito in Thunder Bay - it's the oldest restaurant in Thunder Bay and sells Finnish pancakes.  My colleague told me to "just call an Uber," there were "so many" when he was in "Tiny Tom," Ontario (in retrospect, totally a made up, place!)  so I woke up at 6am, got ready, and opened the Uber app on my phone.  Radio silence.  I called a cab and misunderstood the distance AND cab rates in Northern Ontario.  I ended up paying $30 EACH WAY for this $10 breakfast.  It was good, but not $70 good.  I was a proper city-girl n00b and I deserved the taxi fare pwnage I received.

Northern Ontario is a mess.  After sitting through a bunch of deputations, I totally get why everyone hates Toronto and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.  The discrepancies between infrastructure funding up there versus down here are appalling.  First Nations communities who are the potato in the hot potato game between the various levels of government, high unemployment, high addiction and homelessness issues, sectors with razor thin margins that are being pushed beyond the limit.  I felt for these companies and industries, who are trying to create jobs, being squeezed by pressures from well-intentioned labour and environmental policies.  It's really a conundrum - there are no easy answers at all.  But I do think it's important to at least attempt to view things through a rural/Northern lens when we're developing public policy.  In the same way that I think it's important for urban advocates to understand and journey to the outer reaches of our city (and don't give me the whole, "I don't travel north of Bloor" parsimony) before they go ahead and propose policies that work against people who can't bike to work and don't want to.  This myopic tendency is a thing, and it's a thing that we have to work against, in order to build and nurture the relationships that are going to create the impetus for change.

After my eye-opening week abroad (I also got into green smoothies while I was away - so for real: travel does change you), I came back to work and have just been in head-down, beast mode trying to summarize over 300 oral and written submissions and then turn that into a draft report, after two days of local hearings.  It's been a sedentary marathon.  My butt's been glued to my desk chair and my muscles have definitely atrophied, but my deadline is insane and this is just what you gotta do to facilitate the democratic process, 'naw mean?

In the midst of all this I was contending with that fundraiser family dance I'm organizing (done this past weekend - YES!), and my parent council commitments, and dealing with static from weirdoes in the service of my parent council commitments.  Like, people are cray.  There's no way around it.  I'm the "volunteer coordinator" which means that I signed up for this new role and got no direction.  Fine, I can deal with that.  I set up this spreadsheet and aggregated volunteer names but the list isn't robust because at the Big Yam's school, parents in charge of certain activities are very proprietary about "their" lists of volunteers.  Which is weird, but okay, I can deal with that, too, I guess?

Anyway, someone wanted me to send out an email to ask for volunteers.  I do, with a nice italicized message underneath my name saying that if you don't want to be on the list, just email me.  This broad emails me and tells me she never asked to be on the list and that according to Canada's new anti-spam legislation I can't email people who haven't asked to be emailed, blah blah blah and then she links the Anti-Spam FAQ in the email. Da fuuuuuuuuq?!?  I research for a living, you b!  Don't test me!  So I fire back an email and say, no problem, I'll remove you from the list, sorry for the inconvenience,  I don't think that calling for volunteers constitutes the "commercial activity" the legislation is referencing.  Warm regards, me. Then she WRITES BACK.  BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CRAY (remember how I told you that?  Still true.)  "Regardless of what the legislation says I still don't want to be on the list."  Oooookay.  I didn't respond to that email (BECAUSE I'M NOT A PSYCHO).  THEN!  Four days later, she emails me AGAIN!  She forwards me this thing and says, "I checked and you're right, requests for volunteers aren't considered spam. I still don't think anyone should be on this email list unless they requested it." (Italics mine).  At this point, I'm like, YOU'RE spamming ME!  Why can't you just shut up?!  Why do you care about having the last word with the volunteer coordinator for our kids' school?  Are you seriously so inept that you don't know how to ignore and/or delete the one email a month (at most) you're getting from me?!?!  I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULL!

I just can't.

Leftover picture from when we went to Lolly's farm over the holidays.

Sick Twin B

Throughout this time I've gone through my usual whirlwind of micro-obsessions.  I have many many thoughts on Beyoncé's Formation video.  The Big Yam has started saying, "Excuse-me moi" to preface his points and it is amazing.

So we watched the movie Dope on the weekend, which is a fun, awesome movie that speaks to everything I'm into.  I'm super into teen caper movies (teen comes into ill begotten gains, uses it to their own advantage to shine on some adults, hilarity/wisecracking ensues) which I'm convinced is a genre, but when pressed by the Dotytron, I couldn't think of any other examples (The Secret of My Success)?  I'm almost positive this is a thing.  I'm totally obsessed with all the style in the film, but particularly, Diggy's (the girl on the right, above).  Her outfits were amazing and if I were 20 years younger, I would totally go for it.  The costume designer went for an overtly 90s aesthetic, so if I were 20 years younger, I would have been period-appropriate, though I don't think I had the style sense or body confidence to put things together with half as much panache.  The movie is like Attack the Block - teens, of a very particular type (in this case, geeks, in Attack the Block they were chavs), get in over their heads and meet some characters as they hustle.  I loved it.

THIS. BOOK. OBSESSED.  Remember Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl?  In that book, the protagonist wrote fanfic (that was peppered throughout the novel) about these two characters, Simon (a mage) and Baz (a vampire and mage), who were from this Harry Potter-like series written by a fictional author in the Fangirl world.  Well, Rainbow Rowell, being the amazing creature that she is, took those characters and wrote a book about them, in her own voice, and it was SO FREAKIN' GOOD.  I squee'd my way through the whole thing, savouring pages with gay romance and kissing and quips, and then as soon as I finished it, picked it up and read it right through again.  A book that should have taken me 2 nights to read, I stretched over a week (twice!) because I loved it so.  The characters were fully-realized and the dynamic between Simon and Baz is the perfect antagonistic stuff of teen-beat dreams.  It's like Buffy and Spike, Riggins and Layla, Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls.  There's a strong female friend, Penelope, who is even better than Hermione because she's got more of a sense of humour and is more overtly misanthropic.  People have dismissed the world of Carry On as Harry Potter fanfic, but I disagree.  It's its own thing, which is what makes it so addictive.  The story is self-contained and the narrative is compelling - it falls a part a bit near the end - I'm not clear on what we're supposed to think of the principle villain, but notwithstanding my love of British magician boarding school tales (and make no mistake: Rowell knows what makes for good British magician boarding school tales [read: she includes a lot of food descriptions]), I would have read a single volume for each year of Simon Snow at Watford (their Hogwart's).  The modern world is acknowledged (they have cell phones), and all in all, the romance was delightful and the supporting characters are fantastic and feel real.

I've read a few gay romances and they never did anything for me, and I was beginning to worry that I was too heteronormative to handle it, but based on the HOURS I spent looking up Simon and Baz fan art and additional fanfic, I can report that I was just waiting for the right story and the right characters and Rainbow Rowell served them up to me on a platter.  I can't recommend this enough.  One of my top books of 2015/16 (it was released in 2015) for sure.

Dead. Seriously. So hot.

I can't even.  Thank you, teenage girls everywhere for pouring all your frothing, hormonal, tentative sexual energies into making Simon and Baz fanart/fanfic.  You are treasures, the lot of you.  

I went from reading that (twice!) to tackling Jonathan Franzen's Purity (for academic book club, obviously) and seriously?  Like, what is this?  Is this white privilege in book form?  Because that's how it feels to me.  I can't even (in the bad way).  Now I'm at the 20% mark and am somewhat committed to seeing it through.  UGH.

After a long week and a weekend that felt even longer, I warmed up a coconut bun and put it on the dining room table.  I went to supervise the Big Yam practicing piano for about 1 minute, and when I came back to retrieve my treat, I saw that Twin A had stuffed the ENTIRE thing into his mouth.  He looked up at me, and through a mouth full of ill begotten gains, said, "I ate it all."  This is kind of what it sounded like, but his cute, soft voice was even cuter muffled through a coconut bun filter.

Here's what we've been eating for dinner, lately:

Bi bim bap.  I bought the thinly sliced ribeye that's in the freezer section of Chinese grocery stores (for hot pot) and mixed it with purchased kalbi marinade, stir fried it, and then added thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and snowpeas with a touch more marinade and piled this on top of rice.  Topped with a fried egg and sesame seeds, this was a very budget-friendly weeknight dinner (total cost was about $20!)

More budget weeknight dinners - French onion soup and croque hermaphrodites (ham and swiss with a fried egg on top)

Sunday supper a few weeks ago was meatloaf - sauteed brussels sprouts (which Twin B strangely loves), and a sweet potato-cauliflower-yukon gold mash.  Things my kids hate: mashed potatoes.  I don't get it.  

Another budget weeknight meal - sausage and peppers (sear Italian sausages, then bake on a tray with sliced peppers, onions, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and chili flakes) served up with soft mascarpone polenta (done in the slow cooker), and sauteed rapini.  My kids hated this meal, but I loved it.

Lately I've been craving retro 90s, 2000s desserts like creme brulee and molten chocolate cakes.  I don't know why molten chocolate cakes fell out of favour, but there's really no reason why?  Who doesn't like an underbaked, warm, gooey brownie topped with ice cream and salted caramel sauce?  Clearly not me, judging by my nightly consumption of one such dessert.

Budget weeknight dinners: Hawaii edition.  Steamed rice, topped with fried spam, a fried egg, with canned gravy on top = moco loco.  Hawaiian people are geniuses.

I was all inspired by my Discerning Coyote friend so I pulled my 9 year old (!) sourdough starter out of the freezer where it's been for 3 years (!) and brought it back to life.  I made two ugly loaves that tasted pretty good, all things considered (all things being: I was rushed, I subbed wheat bran for wheat germ, my starter is sluggish, I didn't have a razor blade to cut the tops, and I was rushing like whoa).

Yesterday was pancake Tuesday, so we had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves and maple syrup and bacon from the Mennonites, which is the very best bacon in the world.

Fin.

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.