Snooziest of snoozies

The Dotytron and I are still battling the cold of doom so it's been a boring few days.  I basically spend my days in a fog of cotton-ball-brain (I seriously had to place FOUR follow-up calls to a client to negotiate their request because I was too mind-fuzzy to figure it out and ask the right questions the first three times) experiencing chills at work, then I stumble home, get it together enough to be able to play with the Big Yam (who has been absolutely lovely these past few nights) and then pass out at 9pm.  All I want to do is sleeeeeeeep.  I also want to be in top form for NYC.  Which means top form for Uniqlo!  And Shake Shack!  And BBQ!  And buying cool clothes for the Big Yam!  And the Cindy Sherman exhibit at MOMA!  And visiting with Pingy & A and my cook-friends!


I'm having issues finding summer footwear for the Big Yam's cabbage roll feet.  For some reason, mainstream kids shoe designers think it's okay to make little kids wear ugly, tourista dad sandals.  It's the worst!  Look at these things:

BRAF!  As I said on FB, I didn't go to the trouble of having a mixed-race kid in a vibrant multi-cultural urban metropolis to have him prancing around looking like that little brat above.  Gross!  And my other options?  Forget it:

FRAB!  Seriously?!?  How is that even a shoe that anyone would want to put on?  BTW, Geox sandals (the brand pictured immediately above) cost SIXTY DOLLARS.  Soooo uggie!  I find them offensive on so many levels.  

The thing is, I know like, Kanye has a source but I'm not gonna spend $250 on BAPE shoes for my kid.  There's like, no middle ground of affordable yet stylish sandals for boy toddlers that will not make me want to beat them up but will still mitigate the summer stink foot factor.  I guess my only choice are like, Crocs.  Which is muy depressing.

These are the only dece ones I've been able to find, and they don't have 'em in the Big Yam's size:

Maybe the problem presents a paradox.  You can't dress your kid cool AND still have him wear sandals.  Does 'Ye wear sandals?  Probably not.  Does like, Kid Cudi wear sandals?  No.  So it's an irreconcilable difference.  You know what brother does wear sandals?  The black guy from Hootie and the Blowfish, that's who.  And we all know what an outlier he is.  

In the end, I might just have to sooth my aggrieved footwear aesthetic with a pair (or two) of Creative Recreation high tops for the little lad (which cost $30, by the way, make sense of THAT.)  

I've gotten to a depressing part in my cancer biography (yes, there are parts of it that are more depressing than others) and so I'm injecting a little levity into my life with some comics reading.  I'm midway through Adrien Tomine's Scenes from an Impending Marriage and it is precisely the antidote to beautifully-written-but-unencouraging-treatises-on-cancer-mortality-and-the-politicization-of-cancer-treatment-and-research.  

Tonight we repurposed leftover chilaquiles mix and leftover (frozen) carnitas and merged them into one, unholy and delicious tostada.  Topped with the de rigeur sour cream, avocado, scallions, etc.  

Tonight was also my second night in a row of doing yoga.  I'm not gonna say that I've basically transformed my body, except I just did.

Fin.

3 for 3

an hour of yoga every day for the past 3 days! what! well, if i'm to be honest with you (and if i can't be honest with you, dear reader, than it's pretty much all gone to the s**tter), it's been hovering more at the 45 minute mark. but i don't do shivasana, which always takes like 10 minutes, so i figure i'm pretty on.

not much to report...i've fallen head over heels for this YA fantasy-ish novel that's consuming all my spare time not spent averting my eyes in terror at dexter season 4 (the trinity killer season!) the novel is SOOOOO good. i almost missed my stop yesterday on the way to work and back because i was so deeply burrowed in it. the dotytron is itching to get his hands on it. it's kind of like a feminist lord of the rings. he was all like, "i want to read it after you." and i was like, "really?" and he's like, "dude. have you met me?" which is true, because FEW people in the world love their falcor and fantasy as much as that guy.

that guy was also enormously proud of his cheeky self for handing me this burned DVD:


tonight for dinner i went super simple and made us one of my cheap, quick, dinnertime standbys, linguine with clam sauce. so easy...doesn't even warrant a recipe but i'll post one anyway at the end of the post. i jazzed it up by throwing in 1/2 a can of drained diced tomatoes i had left over in the fridge from the chilaquiles last night. i served it with chopped romaine tossed with the last of my caesar salad dressing and that was that. ate it one-handed while my nose was buried in my book propped up with the other hand - eating solo because the dotytron was giving a guitar lesson.

these are the lemon bars i made the other night...i think i mentioned it before but i wasn't happy with how much crust there was...i prefer a higher filling to crust ratio, but with a small bit of tweaking, these would be perfect. super puckery, bright, lemon filling with a good amount of set from the egg whites. the other things on the plate were gifts for the dotytron from T at work...there are little meringue-y pecan "cookies" that are kind of like southern divinity - little crunchy-chewy puffs studded with the toasty goodness of nuts. the round cookies are fresh mint cookies that she dipped in chocolate and white chocolate. i'm telling you, T is CRAZY. WHO DIPS COOKIES DURING THE WORK WEEK?!? you will never catch me doing a rolled AND dipped cookie, EVER. i hate rolled cookies as is. so fussy with the rolling and the cutting. and then decorating them? get outta here.

our buddy jewfro S came over for a quick visit with his jewfro completely out of control. it's insane.

now i'm going to quietly, regretfully finish my book and then be sad that the next thing i read won't be half as good.

fin.


------------------------------------------------------

linguine with clam sauce
serves 4, main course

1lb box of linguine (i exclusively buy di cecco or barilla)
3 T. unsalted butter
3 T. olive oil
1 large spanish onion, diced
2 heaping T. of minced garlic
a splash of white wine (like, 1/2 c?)
2 cans of canned clams, drained and rinsed
1 bottle of clam juice
chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

- in a big, wide, pan large enough to toss the pasta in, melt the butter and olive oil together over medium heat
- add the onion and garlic and cook, without allowing it to colour, until translucent and fragrant
- add the white wine, allow to reduce until it's almost gone
- add the clams and the clam juice and simmer on low heat until the liquid is gone by about half (not a big deal). season with salt and pepper
- meanwhile, cook the pasta as per package directions until al dente, drain, and toss with the clam sauce and chopped parsley

this and that

the rest of the weekend consisted of me playing dodgeball and our team being SUPER short on people. like, there were 4 of us (normally you have 6 people on the court) and we only lost by 5 games! bwahahahaha...the offshoot of this is: my muscles got owned. i'm so stiff! i can barely cross my legs.

so kdubs J is doing this 4x4 challenge where she goes to hot yoga 4 times a week for 4 weeks (you get a sticker each time you go). it sounded like a pretty good idea so i think for the month of february, i'm going to do my own 4x4 challenge, of doing at least 1 hour of yoga, 4 times a week, for 4 weeks. it'll probably be a combination of classes and my own home practice - i don't know how people squeeze in going to the gym or going to yoga after work and a) eating a home cooked meal, or b) getting any post-work activities in before bed. i've been feeling like i've been sleep-deprived lately so the plan for this week (and as a general monday-thursday rule) is to be in bed by 10pm for some reading before (hopefully) being asleep by 11pm. this means that the miles davis' autobiography read-a-longs have been moved up. lol!

i have no idea if my weeks are especially crazy or if everyone's life is like this...but this is how it's shaping up:

monday: juice monster over for dinner
tuesday: john carpenter appreciation film club meeting (i'm bailing on this because the person hosting is a stranger) OR TND with dr. rei and her TND crew (i'm bailing on this because i want to make chilaquiles)
wednesday: nothing
thursday: after work drinks with colleagues, then book club, then (hopefully)dodgeball
friday: ultimate fryer dinner with J & S and L
saturday: saturday night supper club
sunday: dodgeball! superbowl sunday! and birthday drinks for the dotytron's sister

WHAT THE WHAT. if i wasn't bailing on john carpenter film club night, that'd be only 2 nights that i didn't have an outing planned. how the heck is someone supposed to fit in tv watching/paperwork/skating/yoga/crafting/home improvements around that kind of a schedule? can you imagine throwing a BABY into the mix?

i had my mum, aka the juice monster, over for dinner last night because she had a board meeting downtown. she's a TOTAL juice monster. my sister has to stock up on juice before she comes down to geneseo. technically, she's a juice and magazine monster. so you also have to stock up on magazines, too. i was instructed in no short terms to "leave all current issues of magazines on the coffee table." i'm probably going to regret this, but my mum has her own key to our place. going to our house isn't the funnest for her because a) we don't drink juice and only keep one 1 L. carton of tropicana on hand (i have a glass of o.j. with my breakfast and that's it) and b) i only subscribe to food and wine and entertainment weekly - my sister's house totally trumps mine on both those fronts.


i made us my ultimate mac'n'cheese with thyme breadcrumbs and that radicchio salad with anchovy vinaigrette and egg. i didn't bother sieving the egg over the salad this time...there was no point in making a mess of the sieve - i just did a rough chop and tossed it in. i can't BELIEVE this is ONLY the first time this winter that i've made ultimate mac'n'cheese (or, not-so-ultimate: in my mum's opinion "it's not cheesy enough." she also slapped the dotytron's hand away from the plate of lemon bars i put out for dessert because she wanted to take the rest home. LOL!) i'm already stressing about the imminent onset of spring and how that's going to strike winter foods off the menu. i haven't made: prime rib, pot roast, short ribs, chili, lamb shanks, goose, ham and countless other cold weather foods yet and time is running short!!!

i'm ditching john carpenter film appreciation night because a) it's the newest of my film clubs and b) i'm only barely acquaintances with the person whose idea it was to have this film club and the person who is hosting i don't know at all and H & that guy and sweet baby D only *barely* know the host. i dunno...i feel weird having someone who's basically a stranger make dinner for like, 8 people, more than half of whom she barely knows. i'd prefer it if someone i knew was hosting and then i could meet her and then the NEXT TIME, she could host and i wouldn't feel like it's imposing. plus i need a night AT HOME. is that weird? i just feel like making dinner for 8 people is a LOT of work under most circumstances and a big imposition unless you're a freak like me who thrives on that. also dr. rei invited us to crash tuesday night dinners (TND) at her pad and rather than have to ditch one outing for another - i'm opting out.


i'm also craving home-cooked, REAL food after my tummy upset this weekend, which is another reason why i bowed out of the unknown that is someone else hosting for dinner tonight. i feel like my body just needs a general recalibration - so i made us vegetarian chilaquiles...usually i throw in some chorizo but i just made this with kidney beans instead and topped the dried-chili tomato bean sauce mixture with a fried egg, crushed up tortilla chips, scallions, sour cream and guacamole.

as an aside...do you know how loves their supernanny more than anything? the dotytron. seriously, he rogers-on-demands that shiz like you wouldn't believe. he's hot for jo frost and her sensible disciplinarian parenting advice!

so, apparently people who weren't invited to the performance, or who we dickishly invited and then UNinvited, want to see all the photos from the big day...so here they be, in facebook album form:

tied to the hitching post

the thing i'm gladdest about is that we got to take individual portraits with EVERYONE who was there which is kind of the point of wedding photography, imo. i want photos of us with our family and friends...not a billion photos of us when we have albums and albums of a billion photos of us looking probably better than we did that day and in funnier scenarios (possibly) (that's a roundabout way of saying that i regret wearing my hair down). we still have to take the tapes of the actual ceremony in to be digitized and then we'll edit them into a movie for yous and then it'll (hopefully) catch youtube by storm and then we can be famous and get a million mom hits and then be in people magazine as one of the dreaded (imo) regular, non-celebrity people featured in people magazine.

i "read" or listened to, michael chabon's "manhood for amateurs" for this bookclub my friend J has started. again, J is the only person i know in the club. yikes! i'm sure it'll be fine. i'm a little worried about being the youngest/only person in the book club without kids...but there's clearly nothing i can do about that.

ANYWAY, this book was quite good. chabon did the reading himself for the audiobook and i listened to it while i pieced blocks of my quilt. it's a set of short, non-fiction, memoir pieces on manhood, parenthood, and masculinity. i've never read his work before (i guess i missed the whole "adventures of cavalier and klay" thing) and he's quite extraordinary. the essays run the gamut from chabon's experience losing his virginity, to his reactions to his mother's boyfriend, to reflections on his relationship(s) to his brother, his wife, and his kids. the writing is confessional, conversational, nostalgic and elegiac in tone. what struck me the most was chabon's dexterity with metaphor, allusion, and simile - the phrases he turns and the images he conjures are fantastically present and visceral. it was nice to read ruminations on masculinity - to receive a break from the female perspective for a change - it made a particularly fitting follow-up to tropper's "this is where i leave you." there is ultimately something universal about chabon's experiences, an intangible thread that speaks to the mortality fears, anxieties, and sorrowful love that's in us all. the incomplete and yet ever present primordial certainty that things used to be better...in a different time and a different place, when kids could roam free and wild and get lost and bike at night. i think it should be required reading for all parents or soon-to-be parents.

fin.