i bless the rains down in africa

what a holiday! santa was really good to me and gifted me with all sorts of wondrous things, like a new cuisinart, giant power bars, a carving fork, and more tights and work socks than i could ever possibly need for a year. more than that, it was a chance to do some quality time with both families and eat a tonne of food. the meeting of the families went really well and i managed to avoid watching "a christmas story" (which i hate because i think the part in the chinese restaurant at the end is racist). so score one for me! that was the christmas dinnie i made for my family, and the sticky toffee pudding with whiskey caramel sauce in which it is soaked. for the dotytron's family, i made a trifle. i subbed in pound cake for sponge cake (i hate sponge cake more than anything - soggy, texture-less, flavourless, limp thing that it is!) and layered it with a raspberry mix, lemon curd, and whipped cream. it really sang after a dinner that was comprised mostly of carbs and an aggressively cooked turkey that had no choice but to cry surrender after an inordinate amount of time in the oven. here are some things that i have learned: my off-colour, racially insensitive satiric humour plays better with some audiences (my family) than others (the dotytron's family). the dotytron's nany and poppa are probably the warmest, cutest grandparents around and love shopping with a vigour that would have warmed the cockles of adam smith and the chicago school of economic's heart. so far, the wave of tchotchkes (i spelled that right on the first try! score!) is being held at bay, but i sense that as our christmas list to santa's elves becomes by necessity shorter and shorter (the older you get, the more the stuff you want tends to cost thousands of dollars - like a mid century modern teak 8 ft dining room table), the amount of "decorative" home items is going to grow exponentially. i am not into "home" decor per se. in the sense that i have a very specific idea of what i want my person, abode, and surroundings to look like, and generally, it doesn't involve seasonal, purely decorative items like wreaths and miniature santas and the like. it's just not my style.

now i can finally show off the knitting i've been doing! the first is a scarf i knitted for my sister, out of this ridiculously expensive hand-dyed alpaca. the pattern is from the yarn harlot's blog, and i saw someone on another knitting blog do it and copied it from there. isn't it lovely? it's soft and warm and cuddly, like being wrapped in a hot dog bun, to borrow a clever metaphor from the dotytron's aunt. the next thing i made is the montego bay scarf from the interweave summer 2007 issue for the dotytron's sister. it's basically a 4 row pattern but it almost broke me. the yarn is also ridiculously expensive (it's rowan handmaiden sea silk - hand-dyed again) and i must have ripped it up at least 10 times. the last time, i had finally mastered the pattern and had knit about 3 feet of it, but the fishnet lace kept changing direction on me (i mastered the pattern at about the 2 foot mark) and it nearly broke my heart ripping it up, but i'm a perfectionist, and even though impartial judges assured me you couldn't tell, **i** could tell, deep down in my heart, and my little type A conscience wouldn't let me give something away that WASN'T perfect.

this was also my first time "blocking" a finished object (FO in knitting blog speak). blocking is a process that separates home-spun, organic looking knits from something that people would pay a lot of money for. basically, you soak the item(s) in a yarn-soap and water bath, then pat it dry, then pin it out and let it dry to the shape that you pin it out to. it kind of makes the fibres tighten up and neaten up and look all sharp and professional. it's like getting a shampoo and hair dry at the salon, instead of letting something just go au naturel. because the fibres of this scarf was so fine, i just steam blocked it with the steam setting on my iron. it made a world of difference. the lace pattern really popped.

now it's time to get my life back in order. le sigh. unpacking and sorting all the stuff from the holidays almost requires its' OWN holiday. to that end, i'm feeling lazykins and not terribly inclined to cook. i think i'll restart my life tomorrow with oatmeal and healthy, home-cooked food. tonight, in its' stead, i'll probably get takeout (it's the holidays!!!)

fin.

BUCK!

i'm going about 10 billion different kinds of buck right now, exacerbated by the fact that i left my day timer at the yarn store, so i have to journey all the way back to lettuce knit and pick it up. BOGUS.

can't talk right now! i'll post intermittently throughout my weekend festivities with the family in markham. i can't wait!!!

i think for dinner tonight we'll probably end up having noodle star or some other kind of fast, noodle-y, asian, takeout, msg-laden delight.

fin.

culture run-down

end of year edition. so i've had a lot more free time lately, in betwixt and between my onslaught of holiday craft and entertaining madness. more free time for me usually means one less then i *have* to do while simultaneously juggling 3 other tasks. so i recently finished reading david sedaris' "me talk pretty one day" which was equally as hilarious, insightful, witty, and well-written as "dress your family in cordorouy and denim". i love this man. i wish i had the perceptiveness and perspicactiy he does, and the ability to translate it into dry, sly, addictive prose like he can.

i also watched "waitress" starring kerri russell and written and directed by adrienne shelley who was tragically killed (they suspect murdered) shortly before the film was to be released. the film is bright, and candy-like with super-saturated colours and more than a hint of magic-realism-type whimsy. the characters and situations all have a slightly classic-sitcom-y, almost stage-y feel and the line delivery and dialogue maintains a similar, dream-like/fantasy tone. however, i felt that it unsuccessfully negotiated the line between whimsy and realism, as the story and subject matter were quite serious (the main character has an abusive, domineering husband). it also had a strong feminist theme, with women supporting each other throughout the film, and a willful female protagonist, but i found it off-putting because *SPOILER ALERT*



her character ends up being redeemed by becoming a mother. throughout the course of the film, she is consistently resentful and downright antigonistic towards the child she is carrying (the baby was an accident, and she considered it a parasite), and yet somehow, at the moment she gives birth, she finds the strength to emanicipate herself from her situation. i was also bummed because nathan fillion gets the shaft (he plays the married man with whom she has a passionate affair) and i was mad that they didn't get together...because if she's going to be redeemed by her child, you might as well go whole hog and have her be redeemed by a fulfilling relationship with a smart, caring person as well (ESPECIALLY if it's nathan fillion).

in other news, i called the lady at the globe and mail and turned down the job. she is SO NICE. i wish i could work for her! she's as nice as my current supervisor is now! we just get along like we've known each other forever, and she recognized immediately the strengths that i would bring to a busy environment like the globe...basically...my kitchen-honed superhero talent of never, EVER getting rattled at work by seemingly insurmountable odds and tight deadlines, and racing against the clock. she says i'm the perfect candidate because she knows that i could jump in with both feet and take up a challenge and run with it...and it's true. i'm very adaptable and highly capable. gah!!! but i feel like i have a real rapport with her so i'm going to check in with her every now and then...she's a great contact to have, and the fact that we're so copacetic makes it even better.

so i came home yesterday, and the dotytron had been a busy bee on tuesday, running errands and buying my christmas present (i'm pretty sure). so yesterday, i come home, to an empty house, and i noticed that tacked up on the door to our room, was a little note that read: "KEEP OUT! ELVES AT WORK!!!" which is pretty cute already. the cuter thing, is that the dotytron is about 1 solid foot taller than me (i'm 5'4" he's 6'4") and the note was at HIS eye level. not mine. so i would have missed it anyway if the timing had not have worked out and i came home early and i would have spoiled my own surprise prezzie by blundering into the room. i'm actually being pretty chill about NOT spoiler alerting my own christmas and his present this year (aside from the two previous foiled attempts at ipod procurement). i think it's because i've actually been too busy to try to be a ruiner and christmas totally has creeped up on me, super-fast this year.

stuff like that makes me forgive the big lug for having a sieve for a memory, remembering stuff that didn't happen, and not making the bed before he leaves the house.


fin.

*edit*

I GOT THE JOB!!!!!

i start january 2nd!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!one!!!!!elevensies!!!!!!!

day of destiny

my blood pressure skyrocketed immediately and i'm really nervous. i prepared last night for approximately 3 hours...but i'm not sure what to prepare. if they ask me a really technical question, i'm toast, because i obviously don't have that much formal reference experience.

i'm really on edge right now and i want it to be over. i hope they give me an answer this afternoon, but i doubt it...it's just not cool to drag it out after i've been through 3 weeks of up and down!

in the meantime, here are some happy pictures to take the edge off my nervousness and trepidation. i CAN'T WAIT to see these two little buggers and spend all weekend with them! if i don't get it - a weekend with my family, eating and laughing, will surely take the sting out.

tonight for dinner the dotytron is buying some jalepeno cheddar melt from wendy's for dinnie. i'm going to make another chocolate babka because i had a slice yesterday, and omg - babka PWNS. it's like chocolate-dusted challah! i love ashkenazi jewish cooking!

fin.

l'hiver!

winter has come with a vengeance! but i'm kind of worried about it because i feel like the aggressiveness of winter this year is going to make canadians feel that global warming is NOT an issue and we're going to continue our s***ty record with kyoto protocols and continue acting like giant, hypocrite douches at summits like in bali. we woke up yesterday to a winter wonderland though...dr. rei, the dotytron and i then shoveled our way out in order to get to brunch. everything was so quiet. the streets were empty, the snow muffled everything, it felt like the apocalypse (or at least, magical like harry potter). i loved it! those are some pics from the front window and backdoor. keep in mind that we had already shoveled the back path TWICE and that was about an hour later.

i LOVE winter. love love love it. i love getting warm again, and being cozy at home, cooking and eating and baking in my jammies. i also LOVE THE FACT THAT I'M DONE SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh yes. i finished my paper before dinner time last night, edited it, and it's ready to be submitted, bliss of blisses. i feel like a giant weight has been lifted off of me, and even though i'm working full time this week, it feels like i'm free! i can't believe my time is my own again. i'm going to watch movies and knit and prepare for holiday madness next week.

dinner last night was delicious. the chunks of quince were quite nice and the lamb was soft and melty. we also had a dessert of battered, fried bananas with caramel bourbon sauce and ice cream. i also tried battering and deep-frying ferrero rochers. the batter wasn't thick enough and created a nice crunchy crust on the outside...but also allowed for little leaks and it dirtied up my oil which was a real pisser.

i'm running a bit late as i have to leave extra early to make sure i'm at work on time to open. tonight's dinner will probably be leftovers as we have a massive backlog to get through before we disperse for the week. i also finished another sedaris book and watched "waitress" last night. i'll have to give a rundown tomorrow.

be safe, everyone!

fin.

success!

i hate to toot my own horn, but i'm actually really flippin' good at writing papers. i can't attest to the quality per se, but when i get into the groove, i can churn out quite a lot. so i made up for my slackery on friday night by writing TEN PAGES yesterday. that's right, 10!!! i haven't even started talking about top chef, yet! and i started at 10:00am and stopped at 4pm and gave myself a well-deserved night off. then i went berzerker and did about 10 billion things. i made gingersnap cookies, chocolate orange sandwich cookies (i started panicking that i had too many people to still give cookies too and not enough frozen dough), almond toffee, and a chocolate babka for the government library (it's all wrapped up in the picture, but i'll take a picture of it when it's sliced). the babka was surprisingly easy to do. it's a sweet bread (kind of like brioche) that gets rolled up with chocolate and sugar inside and then twisted up so all the chocolate is swirled up in its innies. i also made a bourbon caramel for my family's christmas dessert. it was so delectably productive that i almost exploded! there's a picture of the xmas cookie tin this year. i'm giving out four kinds of cookies (pecan butter, espresso shortbread, caramel spice stars, chocolate crackles, as well as cranberry chocolate hazelnut bars and pecan butter fudge). bwong and dr. rei did an admirable job making pumpkin raviolis, which turned out delicioso, although maybe i shouldn't have lazed out and used a real gourd, instead of canned pumpkin.

i also know that i don't have the patience to make lots of little things...my raviolis were total ugmos. although i'm not sure if it's because i had just written a tonne of an essay and made 4 other things. but bwong has the fingers of an angel. his look amazing! and he also has a tonne of sharp knives that make my nellas look like teh crapz0rz.

we watched "harry potter and the order of the phoenix" last night. wow. the movies just keep getting better and better. i think they could have explained a few things a bit more (like kreacher - the black's house elf, and a little more into snape's back story) instead of focusing so much on the dolores umbridge scenario. but the films are getting more and more dark and they're so entertaining...the score is haunting too. i do loves me some harry potter.

the laughs-per-minute ratio was off the chains last night. the combination of the four of us always seems to result in mayhem. one of which included playing a game we called "guess the faux-rero rocher" - see if you can do it!

today we're going for brunch at three's company on the danforth. i'm going to work on my paper, and hopefully have it edited by dinner-time, so i can spend the rest of the night watching entourage on dvd and knittig. tonight for dinner we're having a lamb and quince tagine with almonds and steamed couscous.

fin.

behind schedule

i was supposed to get five pages of my paper done last night, and then five more today and tomorrow. a very manageable schedule (assuming you have something to say). but i took some neo citran and it knocked me out, which was good because i was freed from the tyranny of my cough, but bad because i only got two pages done. which means that i now today have to complete 8 pages, which is somewhat feasible as i've left myself the next 10 hours to do it.

then comes happiness in the form of a visit from bwong and dr. rei. they're coming over to help make pumpkin raviolis. we're going to eat said pumpkin raviolis in a toasted walnut, gorgonzola and fried sage sauce. with a romaine salad with the pears and walnuts that i like so much lately. and i'm not sure what for dessert.

then we're either going to go out dancing, or stay in and watch "harry potter and the order of the phoenix" which i had the infinite foresight to snap up on my way home yesterday from errands which included dropping off some christmas cookies to my tailor/dry cleaners (mostly they're my tailors, as i never really get anything dry cleaned), whom i adore. they're so sweet and cute and nice and jokey. the only other random person i have left to give cookies to is the nice crossing guard, but i don't really see him anymore as i'm not riding my bike...he really is the world's nicest, jolliest crossing guard though. then i'm making cookies for the dotytron's family, his grandpa, my family, my landlord, and some friends at that's it. but i suspect i have to make some more cookie dough, as i also wanted to bring something into the government library. or i might make them a chocolate babka tomorrow. i made the following types of cookies this year: espresso shortbread, pecan butter cookies, chocolate crackles, and dulce de leche star sandwich cookies. i'm also making pecan butter fudge and these cranberry hazelnut chocolate bars to give out. i got all fancy and used the little paper cups and everything!

but that's all, folks. you know what i'm having for dinner, and i REALLY want to get this paper out of the way so that i can spend my vacation time blissfully knitting on the couch.

fin.

of mice and cee-lo

one of the things that characterizes the trajectory of my relationship with the roomie are our fundamental, intrinsic, core differences. we have very different ways of viewing and interacting with the world, and i love her dearly and accept this. however! one of the things that constantly arises is the roomie's incapacity to correctly read me. i am constantly being mis-interpreted and mis-read.

the roomie has an unstoppable, old-faithful-type geyser for a bleeding heart, and has difficultly sifting through my endless barrage of flippant glibness in order to tease out the kernals of humanity therein. generally, she takes me at face value, which means that no matter what i'm saying, if it carries the slightest hint of negativity, she feels that it's her solemn duty to defend to the TEETH whatever it is that i'm using as fodder for my pop culture witticisms. this has resulted in the past with her defending say, jared leto and his stupid band, 30 seconds to mars. or defending emo kids from my observational humour. EMO KIDS. and their purposefully lank and limp hair! keep this in mind: the roomie has the faintest of grasps on what an emo kid even is. it's so faint, it can't rightfully be called a grasp. it's more like her hand is gently resting open-palmed-up somewhere near the general vicinity (say, the same township) as a learned and knowledgeable comprehension of what emo is. yet, any negative opinion is automatically construed as being judgemental (to the spelling gods: i really fail to see how that "e" after the "g" in "judgement" can be considered unnecessary).

so, the dotytron got this hilarious (but well-paying) gig in this top 40 band for nye's at some jack astor's. that's right. jack astor's. as in the drinking and eating establishment (presumably) owned and operated by one jack astor. definitely number 1 with a bullet on my list of places to go on new year's eve, ESPECIALLY when i'm looking for a place with peanut shells on the floor and crayons on the table, the better to allow a person the unique pleasure of decorating one's own table setting. at any rate, the dotytron has managed to get himself dragged into some motley crew, rag-tag, boomtown gang of a band, that's going to have all of two rehearsals before playing down about 50 songs.

he showed us the list last night, and he's allowed to veto 10. the list (compiled by the vocalist) is remarkable for its stunning audacity on two fronts. a) in the utter inability for any person with a lick of sense to program a set so disjointed and strange and b) for the sheer hubris on the part of the vocalist. blondie (TWO blondie songs? in one night? is that really called for?) sits cheek-by-jowl alongside such canadian university standards as james "laid" or violent femmes "blister in the sun". being a vocalist of no small ambition, of course she feels like she can adequately tackle "respect" AND "billie jean" in the same set and do justice to both. and again, no top 40 bar night would be complete without my personal cryptonite, spirit of the west's "home for a rest"

as usual, when it comes time to whittle things down, i'm piping in with all my opinions (which mostly come down to making sure all the tragically hip is excised from the list) and making quips about can-con, rufus wainwright...how much i loathe stupid cliched university girl anthems like "brown eyed girl". i'm there going, "wow. remeber gnarls barkley? I DON'T" and the roomie, fulfilling her obligation to the eternal dichotomy between us is all like, "they had a whole album" and i'm going, "no they didn't. they're dead to me" and she's going on and on about how they *could* come back and how bedouin soundclash has another album out and blah blah blah. and it's like, you know what sister? CEE-LO IS GOING TO BE OKAY. like, you're honestly going to make a point of coming to cee-lo's defense because you're worried that somehow, somewhere, poor cee-lo is aware that i've relegated him to the one-hit wonder category? i repeat: cee-lo is going to be okay.

i'm sure when it's time for me to take my rightful place in hell, the devil will have designed a special purgatory just for me: a late 90s small-town university bar, where i'm forced to fend off the advances of thick-necked, pucca-shell bedecked neanderthals while listening to an endless two-song rotation of "cotton-eyed joe" and "home for a rest".

today my supervisor is taking me out for indian buffet and then i'm coming home early to work on my paper all day and all night. for dinnie we're having a pork and kidney bean chili with corn bread and guac and sour cream.

fin.

hiccup

in the grand tradition of me tempting the fates and the fates not taking too kindly to my flouting of fately rules and regulations, there's a little bump in the road leading to my revelation of my big big news, a bump that threatens to de-rail the big big news entirely.

it's a bit of a bummer...but thankfully the only thing i can do is keep my head down and keep on working. i did get an extension on my sociology paper until monday...which gives me all the time i need to do a good job. all day saturday and all day sunday, with enough time to have fun this weekend as if i WAS in actual fact a free little birdie.

today is an extra-long day. i usually skip out on my night class early, but i have to do a presentation (yes, on LAST CLASS OF THE TERM) and the prof is so enamoured of me and my partner's presentation topic, that he's making us go last (in a "saving the best for..." backhanded compliment). not only that, it's the class with the "cool" prof, who wants to take us all out for beers after. he's on crack. the last thing i want to do, in the middle of winter, in my last class of last term, is to go for beers with my tormentor. i mean, i've heard of stockhausen syndrome (it's stockhausen syndrome, right?) but i think i'm feisty enough that i would continue to loathe my kidnappers for a good, long, time. being the ultimate grudge holder with the memory of an extremely sharp elephant, i don't forgive and forget stuff like that.

tonight for dinner dr. rei is treating me to a sausage and poutine dinner out of one of the fleet of chip trucks lining st. george street around u of t. what a friend!

fin.

despite my adamant declarations to the contrary

i persist in being sick. it's now moved into my throat and chest and is squatting there, producing waste in the form of chest-rattling, dry coughs. i'm going into work today though...i can't miss another day. plus the fact that my room and subsequently my office have been annexed in the name of the dotytron's annual christmas cd. it's such a fun thing for him, even with all the organizing and finagling to get players, etc. this year we've got a bassoonist, a vibes player, and some horns...it's very christmas-in-vienna.

so my room has been turned into a makeshift recording studio. luckily i'll be at work for most of the day, and then i can return home, make and eat dinner, and start cracking. i'm only semi-prepared but i feel like i have enough to start with. in a remarkable confluence of lottery-winning, epic luck - BOTH books i wanted were at robarts yesterday. this is akin to the hand of god reaching down from the heavens and anointing you upon your blessed forehead with wisdom and riches beyond your years. seriously. it seems like every time i go to robarts, not only is the one book i'm looking for conspicuously absent, the entire section looks like it's been ravaged by slimer in ghostbusters 1. it's maddening. it's the desperation of a poor student and fervent procrastinator, who, rather than develop a focused search strategy, frantically takes the entire section hoping that therein lies the secret to untangle them from their own self-induced bind of incomprehension. i speak from experience. i've been there. it ain't pretty.

tonight for dinner i'm making macaroni and cheese with those toasted panko breadcrumbs and that romaine salad with walnuts, red onions, caramelized pears and red wine vinaigrette.

fin.

last throes (for real this time)

my voice is steadily making a comeback, and i've been granted another day's leave from work. it was immeasurably difficult playing dodgeball yesterday and not being able to yell encouragement and direction from the sidelines. but we won!!! so we're a third place team. we stayed and watched my brother's team play the mean team, and they won, too! the mean team also got mad lippy after the game. unfortunately i didn't hear it, otherwise i would have gladly fought them. i was looking for a fight. anyway, apparently with them being d**ks and all, they've decided that EVERY OTHER TEAM has "ruined" the game for THEM, and they're not going to play in this league again. success! what babies!

anyway, so i'm home, blogging, trying to gear up the energy to truck my ass all the way to school to get one measly book.

the party yesterday was a hoot. i witnessed some hilarious stuff. first of all, when we arrived, there were TWO filipino nannies. TWO!!! to look after a total of five children, two of whom were toddlers, a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a 9 year old. there was no introduction, and the nannies ATE IN THE BASEMENT with the two youngest toddlers. wow! talk about upstairs/downstairs dichotomy! now, my mom was a busy lawyer and my stepdad worked so for a big chunk of my upbringing (basically until my littlest brother was well into school age) we employed domestic help as well. however, our housekeeper ate with us and was certainly introduced to people. this situation (especially with the two children you never got to see) was decidedly more strange. especially cuz they kept smiling at ME, and there was a definite interesting layer of racial discrepancy, with me, being the most (only) filipino-looking one in this house of white people. it was strange when i was playing with the kids and the kids were grabbing me by the hand and trying to show me stuff. i was like, are you kids more comfortable with me because i've had exposure to kids lately and am more comfortable playing with kids, OR is it because i look the most like the dominant person in your life? this situation was exacerbated when i went to say hi to grandpa, and he said something along the lines of, "oh karl, you're here, i kept seeing the other two people they have helping out and wondering if that was you" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's understandable because grandpa is quite old, and i'm sure his vision is going, but it was approaching near-comedy-of-manners style farce.

then, i witnessed a hilarious exchange with an uncle and a 9 year old.
uncle: "so ___, how old are you, now"
response: "9"
uncle: "it's been a while, what grade does that mean you're in?"
response: "4"
uncle: "hmmm...i don't really know what that's like, i went from grade 3 to grade 5"

i'm paraphrasing a bit because i couldn't quite remember the quote, but suffice it to say, that even though i'm sure it wasn't meant that way (i'm 100% sure he was just making conversation), it came out sounding like a 50 year old man was bragging to a 9 year old about skipping grade 4. so so so awesome!!!

this all went down while we ate canapes in the living room as celine dion played discreetly in the background.

at some point, me and the dotytron go downstairs to check out the host uncle's room in the basement that he's annexed for a model train set. it's probably a generational divide, but i don't understand the appeal of model train sets. i could see them being fun for the one loop they go around, but then what? anyway, he has all these replica cars and there's all these stops on the route (hamilton, toronto, etc), and he's showing us the trains chugging along on their little tracks, and at some point (knowing we had to go to dodgeball) i whispered to the dotytron that we should keep an eye on the time. so the dotytron goes, "oh yeah, right. hey ___, what time is it?" uncle checks his watch, decides that we can't possibly be asking about the real world, and replies, "in here? it's 1957"

you can't make this s**t up.

tonight for dinner we're having a pork and longbean and tofu stirfry with steamed rice.

fin.

my voice is still gone

but on the plus side, last night's dinner was delicioso! it's so so so nice to be cooked for! and the bff's lady didn't skimp on the lasagne cheese either. i love the chewy, browned, crusty cheese edges. actually, i love edges in general. cake edges, lasagne edges, moussaka edges, scalloped potato edges. she also made a lovely caesar salad with REAL bacon bits. unfortunately i was too busy gobbling it down to get a picture, but here's an ultra-blurry and unfocused shot of my tiramisu helping. it was a nice evening all around...i really like the bff's lady. i've known the bff for 12 or 13 years now, 7 of which we were dating, and it warms the cockles of my heart that he's found such a great lady.

i really like the people in my life right now. which is a very good spot to be in, methinks. i also did some work on my paper (2 hours only!!!) but i'm feeling pretty good about it. i expect the status will experience some tumultuous fluctuations over the next few days until it's done and handed in. i also have to go to school and grab a book i need for it. i hope it's still there tomorrow! i'm reading a lot of pierre bourdieu. he's a french sociologist who studied the cultural tastes of the bourgeoisie and talks about class distinctions and how they're manifested in people's cultural affiliations and identity building. basically, my thesis with regards to top chef is that while they seemingly appeal to a very middle brow audience with their quick-fire challenges (ie. make a frozen dinner entree! make something a busy mom can microwave! use glad ware to store your ingredients in!), ultimately, the narrative arc of the competition always privileges and reifies "upper-class" (ie. "luxury" ingredients, french techniques) values and identity. to be a "top chef" in other words, you have to have a certain base of knowledge that's rooted in a particular non-populist aesthetic tradition. i'm also going to insert my own experiences working in high-end kitchens into the paper. i'm going to try to write a very personable, chatty paper (kind of like a blog entry), because one of the things i'm consciously trying to do with my academic work is re-structure the way that academic papers are written. i want the reading of the paper to be fun.

i finished my little nephew's hat. i'm a little concerned because the circumference seems rather large for a 1-2 year old...but i guess the thing with kid's is, at some point they'll grow into it. even if he is a 16-year-old. today is that potluck party during the day. i'm kind of excited to see what other people are bringing. i'm also excited to eat my own deviled eggs. so i made deviled eggs, cranberry hazelnut chocolate bars, butter pecan fudge, and smoked salmon with herbed cream cheese on crostinis. after all this mixing and cocktail eating, i have to go play dodgeball, after which we're going to go for wings with my brother's team. for whom i made a peanut butter pie (i'm the best sister EVER).

i'm also kind of looking forward to talking to the dotytron's uncle. his mom's sister is married to this dude and we tend to have holiday dinners with them (thanksgiving, christmas, etc). he's a musician who also is a buddhist. last time we got into a penetrating discussion on the nature of enlightenment, whereupon i came to the realization that i've attained enlightenment. this revelation didn't go over that well and was met by no small amount of skepticism. here's my point: if enlightenment isn't a thing and it's just a matter of being present, i think i've got that down. i also reject the notion that enlightenment is something that has to be attained through quiet introspection...that you have to get rid of the "noise" of everyday life. because if you believe that, then you've constructed a very specific idea of what constitutes enlightenment and its attributes, which i think is anathema to the very concept itself. so the point is: i've attained enlightenment, and honestly, it's not all that big a deal. it just IS.

so tonight we're having wings at duff's for dinner, and then i'm going to come home and do more research and hopefully start writing this beast tomorrow.

fin.

the jig is up! part deux

sickness is in, manifesting itself in a husky, throaty, whiskey-stained vocal delivery. now, if only someone would write me an anthemic, northern-canadian rocker tune along the lines of alannah myles' "black velvet", i'd be set! barring that, i think this is my cold in its' last throes, as i woke up feeling like a million bucks, save for the throat irritability.

last night i bailed on my work friend's bowling birthday party because i was actually feeling like ass. midway through the night (approximately 7pm) my voice just died on me. the matzoh ball soup did wonders, though, and i soldiered through to watch the first two episodes of season 1 of hbo's "rome". what is WITH hbo and their gratuitous female nudity? my radical feminist sensibilities are rarely perturbed by such things, but this was just buck. i get the point that rome was effed up (i mean, i can infer it from helen mirren frolicking about and engaging in all sorts of base activities in "caligula") but there's just too many scenes of ugly old men getting rogered by ugly women. it's gross! the series starts off pretty slow with too many characters, but it picks up by the end of the second episode with a "who's the baby-daddy?" cliffhanger. so far, marc anthony is my favorite character. he's a dashing, loyal cad.

okay, so yesterday the dotytron resurrected the ipod conversation, because apparently his work is selling 8 gig ipods (sans video) for $150 because they're trying to get rid of the old stock. and he had one on hold. since i had already ruined the surprise, he was wondering if he should buy his own. i told him that he doesn't really have the extra income for that right now, and it's kind of silly. this is also in light of the fact that i was pushing him to snag one of the free ones that td bank gives out in the summer. he was too lazy to do that, so tough titty.

then today, after we had effectively squelched the ipod plan, i put phase II into play. i called long and mcquade, and identified myself, explaining the situation, and seeing if they could put one on hold for me and make it a surprise. the head of p.a. told me that the $150 rumour was a rumour, and they hadn't set the price yet, but that he'd hold one for me, find out how much they were selling them for, and then call my cell phone back to let me know. that's pure, cold-war era tom clancy-penned proper spy business, right?

so i get the call, and call back the store.

"long and mcquade, ian speaking"
crap. i panic and hang up.

5 minutes later, call back.
"long and mcquade, ian speaking"
i panic and hang up

5 minutes later, call back.
"long and mcquade, ian speaking"
hang up one more time.

2 minutes later, call back.
"long and mcquade, ian speaking" (it's a testament to the dotytron's consummate professionalism that his voice wavers not a bit in the delivery of the standardized greeting when he's clearly dealing with SOME kind of spastic phone lunatic)
at this point, i throw up my hands to the fates and say, "it's me".

"ohhhh, it's YOU. ___'s girlfriend also has your last name and we were just making fun of him because his crazy g/f kept calling here and hanging up"

"well, i'm the one you should be making fun of. wait - you guys have call display?"

"yeah, why did you hang up on me ten billion times?"

"uhhhh...none of your business. can i speak to chris in p.a. please?"

"huh? why?"

*laughing, now* "just let me speak to chris in p.a."

"what's going on here?"

me: "FINE" *blurt out the rest of the story*

i take this as a sign from the gods that i'm not meant to keep a secret, and that my pitiful attempts to do so will only result in american sitcom-style farcical events transpiring (and not even good sitcom-type machinations...like, second-rate, "two and a half men" kind of stuff). so the ipod issue has been successfully put to rest.

luckily, i have a contingency plan. this exercise has underscored to me my innate capacity to churn up ingenious and creative machiavellian schemes while also simultaneously highlighting the fact that i am too much of a bumbling boob to execute said plans with grace and panache. we'll see how the fall-back plan goes.

despite my illness i did manage to accomplish a lot during my "write-off recovery" afternoon, yesterday. i made a batch of deviled eggs, cranberry hazelnut chocolate bars, butter pecan fudge, matzoh ball soup, cranberry apple pear relish (12 jars!!!) and a tiramisu. the deviled eggs, bars and fudge are for the dotytron's mother's side of the family's holiday get-together. it's hor d'oeuvres, potluck style. call me a miserable pissant, but i kinda don't like it when adults have potlucks. like, ADULT ADULTS. not like, young-family-starting out, adults. i kinda think if you're going to have people over to your house for a to-do...you should just host it. or get it catered if you're not into that sort of thing. there's something kind of weird about having kids (in the family scheme of things, i'm still considered a kid) schlepping stuff over to an adult adults' house. i don't mind when i offer, or if it's close close family or friends...this is obviously a situationally contextual thing. if the point is like a cookie-swap or a dinner club or something, then i totally get it.

anyway, i'm bringing the bars, the fudge, deviled eggs, and smoked salmon with herbed cream cheese on crostini. the jam is to have to give out and the tiramisu is my offering for tonight's dinner. my bffff chris, and his gf are having us over for dinner. she's making lasagne. i actually really enjoy being cooked for. it's a nice change to go, and bring something, and not have to fuss and twitter around the kitchen and just get to enjoy. so that's what i'm having for dinner tonight.

...after a long day of researching this damned, dirty paper (which i alternate between feeling REALLY good about, and feeling hopelessly lost).

fin.

that's IT

those who know me know that every atom in my body is driven towards maximum productivity and making bales and bales of hay while the proverbial sun shines. waking up each morning sluggish and drowsy, with the dull fog of a headache that creeps inexorably further over my synapses through the course of a day, with an old-fashioned washboard at the back of my throat and suspicious tenderness in my sinuses IS NOT OKAY. it's only been 3-4 days of feeling slightly under the weather, but i'm THROUGH. i'm going on an aggressive campaign to rid myself of whatever virus has set up shop in my body.

this means: MATZOH BALL SOUP. i'm a great believer in the power of jewish penicillin. so i'm scrapping my plans for the more ambitious dinner i was to have tonight, in favour of homemade chicken stock, loaded with cubes of carrot, celery, celery root, rutabaga, and glistening, slippery egg noodles, bobbing with comforting, little, dill-flecked, chubby matzoh balls.

last night's dinner was delicious. toasted panko makes all the difference in an otherwise simple pasta, adding flavour and texture. the pork rillettes were delicious! decadently coated with a snowy cap of porcine fat, smelling faintly of sweet porky goodness. the meat was tenderly shredded and light and with a pinch of fleur de sel, it went perfectly with some crostinis.

it's kind of funny to see how my ambitions have telescoped with the dawning realization of my lack of time or will. the paper that i wanted to kick ass on, the one that was going to be the apotheosis of my scholarly ability and intellectual aptitude, has since been reduced to this statement, uttered with dirty-harry like grim fortitude, through gritted teeth, "it'll get done". so i went from having something that could be published, to something whose principal merit is that it has a beginning, middle, and end.

fin.

i hate my government documents course

which, i should clarify, has NOTHING TO DO WITH MY LOVE FOR MY CURRENT JOB. the two are COMPLETELY unrelated. i'm being made to jump through hoops for no apparent cause, just cuz this little potser thinks he's the second coming of cool. remember that show, "head of the class"? it was about a group of misfit geniuses being taught by some benevolent-but-hip george carlin lookalike, who would make them do strange, random activities that seemed pointless at the time but would prove to reveal sage lessons on life and love, things that these brainiacs, for all their high iq, needed to learn like the rest of us poor, shapeless schlubs. well, this prof is NOT that george carlin lookalike. i'm like, seriously, guy...i DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS S**T. it's NOT fun.

and there are these miserable cows at the data, maps and government information library at robarts, who, when they find out you're a FIS student, won't even offer up DIRECTIONAL advice, because that might be construed as "cheating". i just want to know where the general AREA is, you beasts!!! i'm going to put in one more half day, and then fini. i can't care. caring just leads you one step closer to failure.

i DO care deeply about my food paper though...and i've got to start busting ass on that guy, pronto. tonight is all about that business. i've also got to pick up some knitting needles for a new project...i'm almost done my little nephew's hat.

i think my poor health is due to all the eating out i've been doing lately. so i'm putting a temporary moratorium on that, and getting back to home cooked food. tonight, that means we're having my buddy's pork rillettes with crostinis and a simple spaghetti with broccoli, chickpeas, toasted garlic breadcrumbs and parm. oh hell, i might as well throw some pancetta in there too.

fin.

p.s. i totally spoiler alerted my "surprise" gift for the dotytron yesterday. the way our room is set up is his computer/studio is in a corner of the room, kind of sectioned off with a bookcase, and he sits with his back to me, and i have my own desk. so i'm surfing around looking up specs on ipod nanos (only a *little* over the budget), but i can't figure out what the deal is (ie. how big is 4 gigs, etc). because i have no one else to turn to at that immediate point in time and because i'm an impatient f**k, i ever-so-casually ask, "how many songs is 2 gigs?"
dotytron: "i don't know, it depends on the encoding quality"
me: "yeah, but roughly"
dotytron: "it depends on how long the songs are, how high quality the of the mp3 is, there's a lot of factors involved, that's why whenever people come into the store asking how many songs, it's the STUPIDEST QUESTION EVER"
me: "oh, you sell ipods at your store?"
dotytron: "yeah"
me: "do you get cost on them?"
dotytron: "cost on an ipod isn't all that much...it's like five dollars off, that's bec--- wait a minute, why do you keep asking about ipods?"
me: "uhhhhh"
dotytron *shakes head* *dawning awareness*: "you're a goon"

luckily for crafty ol' me, i have a contingency plan. you could say that i was so clever as to have an ipod red herring, if you will.

keeping secrets will be the death of me. it's just not in my nature.

fin.

i feel like gash

i feel a burgeoning scratchiness at the back of my throat and was completely knackered last night when i came home at 7pm. it felt like it had been a really long day for some reason. my bones were aching, my back was aching, and to top it all off, i had to engage in geneva-style, protracted negotiations with the significant other over who would take out the garbage and pick up pizza from magic oven. in my opinion, the case was pretty cut and dry. i bought and ordered said pizza, was paying for said pizza, had just got home from a long day and felt like trash, and i even threw in doing the dishes (not one of my household chores) into the mix. the dotytron had come home early, done an hour's worth of yoga, and had taken an epsom salt bath and was in his jammies. his argument rested on the fact that he didn't want to put on socks or pants and walk the 3 minutes to the store. CASE CLOSED! i win! i took advantage of the fact that i was writing off school work to send and address most of our holiday cards and wrap some more presents.

i'm *thisclose* to being done our holiday stuff. me and the doytron were going to be extremely unsentimental and exceedingly practical and forgo presents for each other, because well, we're getting to the age where the stuff we really want and could use costs a lot of money (like, you know, a house), and we should really be saving for that instead of passing our money back and forth. but...i LOVE GIVING PREZZIES. absolutely adore it. so, we're going to get each other something small and set a conservative limit. i feel like i've gotten better at keeping a secret too, so the present might actually stay a surprise. this is a moot point at the moment because i don't actually have said present in my hot little hands. i might burst with excitement and spoiler alert the whole thing once i actually buy it.

so, last night we ordered pizza from magic oven. i hate those f**ks and hope they go out of business. it's the most shoddily run operation ever. this is what you get when you do business with hippies. this is what you get when you do business with people who focus more on having a menu with "organic and spelt crusts" instead of making pizzas with toppings you actually want to EAT (ie. 99% of the meat pizzas come with chicken. chicken on pizza is a crime against humanity in my books. you might as well have cubes of styrofoam gracing your pie). anyway, we only order 1 pizza, ever, and that's the harmony magic. it has proscuitto, and roasted garlic and arugala. last time the pizza came without arugala. so i called and complained and got a five dollar credit on my account. when i called last night, the five dollar credit wasn't there. then the guy was a complete, rushed jerk to me, so when i asked him how many slices the "extra large" had, this was his answer: "i don't know, it depends on who's cutting it" CE N'EST PAS ACCEPTABLE. so what are you saying, buddy? that it could be 2 slices, 4 slices, 49? then he HANGS UP THE PHONE ON ME WHEN I'M IN MID-SENTENCE. (i wanted to clarify that i could send the dotytron with my credit card). then, when i saw the bill, the bill said "5 dollar credit" but the pre-discount total for the pizza came to $35.00. you're telling me this was a FORTY DOLLAR PIZZA!?!? learn how to run a business you goons! i was too tired to call and tear them a new a**hole. but now they're on my bad side. which means that i'm going to conduct my signature, guerilla campaign of obnoxious discrediting to make them go out of business. this campaign includes such tactics as walking by the store and proclaiming loudly (but casually) that i'm surprised they're still open after the health inspection violation, or when i'm feeling less creative, a simple, "wow, what ass-tastic pizza they have here, I HOPE THEY GO OUT OF BUSINESS" will suffice. to think that this is what came to supplant the afghani restaurant we used to go to (rip chopan kebab house, rip). i blame 9/11 - people just didn't want to have anything to do with afghanis anymore. it's a crying shame.

today is my long day with night class at school. i'm technically done all my other classes, so i only have night class today, but my government documents assignment is getting finished today come hell or high water, so i'm planting myself in the government documents library at u of t and screaming and cajoling until the work gets done. i'm cautiously optimistic...at this point, i'll hand the thing in half-done to get my stinking b+. i switched around my courses next term because i'm not putting myself through the hell of international documents. i'm taking a sociology of culture (*insert audible sigh or relief*) and another course called "the death of objectivity" (*insert another audible sigh of relief*) offered through the mcluhan institute. i kinda hate marshal mcluhan, but i'll take anything that lets me read latour and heidegger. then i've got a legal librarianship course and then a distance course called "community informatics". i'm not sure what it's about, but it's distance, which is what counts.

anyway, tonight i'm joining my friend evan for a little pho on spadina action. i've been craving my hue style pho like nobody's business (hue style pho, if pho on spadina restaurants will have me believe, means that it's a spicy broth, with more randomized assorted animal parts, and different noodles). it's damn tasty on a blistering cold day, and it's what i'm going to need to revive me after a day spent in the stacks.

fin.

i have big news

that unfortunately, i can't share quite yet, and seeing as how i'm the biggest walking spoiler alert of all time...it's damn nigh killing me. but, i'll be patient, because i don't want to jinx it, even as it's going to make my life that much more jam-packed for the next few months. i can tell you this: i quit my public library job yesterday. i resigned! effective immediately! that was a bit of a jerky thing to do, but i could really use that time to work on my last papers and have some breathing room, and ultimately, i figured that i was a page, the lowest rung on the ladder, and they could do without me for the four morning shifts i would be missing.

so i'm free! less one job and feeling quite light and bouncy about it all. i'm a little scared that i was being impulsive, and that i'm kissing four years of seniority goodbye. but at the same time, i know that in my graduating class alone there are at least 7-8 toronto public library people that i can think of, all of whom have at least 4-5 years of seniority on me, which means that when we get out, we're going to be all fighting for the same part-time librarian positions, and i'm going to be stuck being a page still, shelving books from here to eternity. plus, i'm not sure i'm cut out to be a public librarian. i don't really like the public, or the level of questions you get, or enjoy making displays. i like doing research. i wouldn't mind being involved on a policy level, but at the branch level, it'd drive me bonkers.

that was last night's dinner. brunswick stew is quite tasty, actually! i haven't eaten lima beans in years and years. i vaguely recall they used to appear in a soup at some old pizza joint (maybe mother's? remember those? faux tiffany lampshades and all? actually, come to think of it, remember when people used to eat pizza at pizza parlours?) and i'd studiously work my way around them. anyway, times have changed, and i quite like the lima now.

for those who want to know how to make a brunswick stew all your own, it's easy. chop up some onion, garlic, celery, and red peppers. throw some oil in a pan, take your chicken pieces (skin on, bone in, boneless, whatever) and brown them on both sides in the hot oil. take the chicken pieces out and set aside, and sautee your onion-pepper-celery mixture. take a little less than 1/4 c. of flour and sprinkle it over the veggies, stir that in, then stir in 1 teaspoon of thyme, 1 L. of chicken stock (reduced sodium if not homemade), and a few shakes of hot pepper sauce. throw the chicken pieces back in, and let it all simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring every now and then. for the last 10 minutes or so, throw in some frozen corn, the lima beans, and season it with salt and pepper. i served it with steamed rice with a drained can of kidney beans thrown in. i think next time i'd throw in some sausage or chorizo or something, just to cajun it up a bit more.

today is the leg lib's open house. it's a big deal. everyone looks forward to it, principally because my supervisor goes buck and makes about 10 billion different chocolates, cookies, and candies. we're having party sandwiches catered and my contributions are: bacon and chive quiches, little lemon curd tarts with whipped cream, pound cake cubes for the chocolate fountain, and my smoked salmon crostinis with the herbed cream cheese. i'm going in early and staying late to help clean up, but i figure i can get some school work done in the meantime.

for dinner tonight, i'm making rainbow trout, seared with a pistachio and orange vinaigrette and some steamed green beans. we're also starting with some pork rillettes my foodie friend dropped off to me. so nice! i know him from a messageboard and have met him one other time in my life, but us food-peeps stick together. this is all dependent on me not feeling immeasurably lazy and pooped and wanting to order out so that i can finish up an assignment.

fin.

i love love love my family

and that includes dr. rei. saturday night and sunday afternoon were spent visiting up in markham with my family. it was a really short, intense visit, but it scored really high on the laughs-per-minute ratio. all were present except for my youngest brother, who's off doing the rejection-of-family, rebellious, absentee university student thing. my parents were a little strict so the other three of us kids all went through the same stage, yet we're all extremely affronted that he's choosing beer bongs and pub crawls in favour of loafing around the living room, playing with the two babies and laughing about stupid family in-jokes.

my sister and outlaw bro checked out our dodgeball game on sunday and kept score for us, after which, dr. rei, the dotytron and myself abandoned our initial plans to inaugurate the kfc bowl into our gastronomic lexicon, and went for dinnie at oyster boy with my sis and outlaw brow instead. it was a really fun time! oyster boy used to do dufflet desserts but they've recently made the switch to in-house dessert-making and executed themeselves admirably. a chocolate creme brulee was soft and silky, a lemon pot de creme was tangy and equally luxurious, and a chocolate walnut brownie was dense and fudgy with a crackly top. otherwise, we participated in dr. rei's first raw oyster experience, had some baked, a couple of orders of fish'n'chips with oyster boy's standout frites (best in the city!), a plate of steamers and a plate of steamed mussels with lots of soft white bread for soaking in the steaming liquid.

this all came after a gluttonous and outright ugly display of takeout dimsum consumption from my grandparents go-to place. we've honestly been frequenting the same chinese restaurant in markham (pak fook) in all its incarnations for almost 20 years. they give my grandparents mad "face" (ie. chinese-speak for deference, respect, status - all the things my people love so dearly) and its the venue of choice for all my grandparents' various backroom mah jong parties and special occasions. they want the dotytron and myself to have our performance piece there, and were none-to-pleased when i politely declined. anyway, it's the only place i know of that'll do delivery dimsum in the kind of weather we experienced on the weekend. as usual, egged on by my mom, we ordered too much. i was burping up msg-laced and pork-infused vapours throughout dodgeball. it was gross.

i've started wrasslin' with my sociology paper in earnest. it's going to be an ugly two weeks. tonight for dinner we're having "brunswick stew" which (according to cooking light) is a louisiana speciality usually made with squirrel. i've opted for the more readily available and less-rabies-inoculated chicken thighs and drumsticks instead. anyway, it's a roux-thickened, chicken-stock based concotion featuring the creole "trinity" of onions, celery, and peppers, with lima beans, the aforementioned protein element, and corn. we're having this on rice'n'peas.

fin.

correction: katherine hepburn is the worst person alive

...even though she's no longer alive. rip, katherine hepburn, rip you crazy old coot.

so, i've got some better perspective on the situation now, and i feel like i can post. i mean, so i missed one party. that doesn't make me a bad person. i'm still going to send along my donation through the wonders of paypal and i'm still going to mail the care package and that's that. i've dealt with my chinese-born confucian-filial-piety-incubated guilt and i can move on.

i just had brunch with my pastry chef friend cum-dodgeball teammate, mc. she's the best! she's really quiet when you first get to know her, but once she opens up, she's really comfortable to be around and really funny and spunky. i like her. she's a very good, decent person, who should get the HELLS out of the restaurant business, because they're mean to her and she's not cut out for it. we went to three's company on the danforth. they do a nice brunch. i had croissant french toast with strawberry confit and my choice of vanilla yoghurt (blech) or whipped cream (yum). i also ordered a side sausage. for some reason, maria couldn't finish her eggs benny so i ate half of that too. it was really good! they serve nice, thick, slices of peameal on top of a cheddar scone, topped with a giant poached egg and a nice homemade (though undersalted and under-lemoned) hollandaise, with roasted sweet, russet, and blue potatoes. yummy! it's also really affordable there too. the benny is 7 or 8 bucks and my french toast was 7. it's also a lot less mayhem-y if you go on saturday instead of sunday. sunday is bonkers.

i woke up hella early this morning and did all my baking that i was going to do for the open house...all i have to do is whip some cream for my lemon curd tarts and maybe make another baguette or two's worth of crostinis.

tonight my sis is coming into town with the babies, so me and the dotytron are sleeping up in markham and then heading back downtown for dodgeball tomorrow afternoon. the rest of the afternoon is supposed to be spent working on my government documents assignment *shudder*. we'll see how that goes.

last night's dinner was a PERFECT copy of the spicy beef kimchi bowl at sakawaya. it was so yummy. we ate it while watching the last of season 1 of "entourage". it's aight. funny enough and disposable enough so that you don't have to REALLY pay attention when you watch it. plus the episodes are really short and digestible. i can't wait to watch season 2 and 3. tonight for dinner if they wait for us up in markham it'll probably be chinese food. otherwise, it'll be wendy's takeout on the way up.

yay babies! yay brunch with friends! yay my rendezvous with the kfc bowl tomorrow post-game!

fin.

i'm the worst person alive

i've honestly never felt so guilty in my life. i MISSED MY FRIEND'S PARTY. the dotytron and i fell asleep at 9pm last night and didn't wake up until the wee hours of saturday morning. ugh. i feel so guilty. not only did i let my friend down, i didn't deliver my bff's care package, our care package, and flaked out on a bunch of friends that i haven't seen in MONTHS who were going to be there. i'm so pissed! i mean, i KNOW my attendance at things is spotty at best, especially jungle events, which i've all but given up on, but the fact that i missed this, when i fully intended to be there, blows. i feel like such a monumental f**king jerk.

i don't even want to post anything today as punishment for not making it last night.

fin.

weekend!

the weekend is upon us! joy! happiness! lots of baking and xmas readying and studying! i kinda sorta ate healthy last night...and i went for a run (i only ran maybe 4 laps because it was FLIPPING cold outside and i don't have proper winter running gear), and did a nice long bout of yoga because i was noticeably getting tighter and less limbre (and since my limbreness is measured on a microscopically incremental gradient, it makes a BIG difference - ie. whether i can touch my toes or not). running makes you hungry! so then i ate about ten billion cream puffs and the ends off the pound cake i baked for the open house next week. we're having a chocolate fountain. it's terribly exciting.

yesterday was a very slow day at the public library so i did some "reading" while i was putting the books in order in the entertainers biography section (792 for you dewey hawks) and read some of an autobiography and biography of katherine hepburn. she was a B***H. bigtime. and i thought she was supposed to be this big feminist, sassy icon, but she's a privileged, self-absorbed, horrible person, who became spencer tracey's doormat for their 30 years together and enabled his alcoholism and was mean to his wife. so, if every day that passes leaves you with a message, yesterday's message was that katherine hepburn was a big jerk.

pet peeves: people who spout the phrase: "be the change you want to see in the world" - i want to punch them.

tonight we're going to our buddy robin's benefit party. i think the entire take from the door is being donated to him because he lost EVERYTHING he had when his apartment in ottawa burned down. everything! and he also saved some cats in the process (for real, it was in the local ottawa news and everything). i'm such a jerk and so don't like going out in the cold that i'm like (half-jokingly): "can't we just paypal that s**t? do we really have to GO" but of course, i'll go, for a drink or two (aka the dotytron's drink or two) and then head on to the succor and comfort of my home and anthony bourdain's "no reservations". the world of torrents is frustrating me by not giving me any of the the 3 seasons of the show in its entirety. but it's okay, because each episode focuses on one city and is self-contained. there's no worry with continuity or anything.

for dinner we're having a spicy beef kimchi and udon bowl. thinly sliced flank steak simmered in a beef broth and kimchi concoction with some udon noodles thrown in. yum! i found the recipe in a martha stewart living magazine of all places, and i'm hoping that it replicates my spicy beef udon bowl at our corner japanese restaurant, sakawaya.

fin.

success!

there are now only two major things (and one teeny tiny presentation) standing in the way of the end of my first term. one of them is HUGE and i haven't even started, nor do i know where i'm going with it, but hopefully i'll have the other big thing out of the way by the end of this weekend and i can focus on it for two solid weeks. one for research, one for writing.

it really does make all the difference in the world eating home cooked food. i feel better already. i also feel the need to reiterate how much i love barley risotto. it's so so so good. barley seems to maintain the creaminess even after refrigeration and subsequent microwaving back to life. it also has that al dente bite in the middle and it kind of feels healthier.

it is a truth universally acknowledged that my ever-present honesty and lack of being able to hide stuff on my face conspire to result in me giving the "wrong" reaction in certain situations. case in point: the other evening, the roomie came home and as we were talking on the couch, she gave a breathy, "guess WHAT?" and her face was filled with kid-realizing-there's-enough-snow-for-a-snow-day excitement and glee.
"what?" i ask.
"_____'s PREGNANT!" (my doppelganger).
me *stunned silence*: "what are they going to do?"
roomie (semi affronted): "what do you mean what are they going to do, they're keeping it"
me: *stunned silence*..."that's f**ked up".

i don't feel like i'm at the stage in my life where people i know (who are almost always at the same stage as me in my life) can be having babies like it ain't no thang. finding out that people are having babies always freaks me out. it's not like i'm not happy for them, but i'm always like, wow. your life is going to be so different. it's probably incredibly immature of me, and i know it. and it also has this reverse affect where it makes me NEVER WANT TO HAVE A BABY EVER. the only time i get really excited in the first moments is with my sister. otherwise, it's a gradual coming to terms with, and then acceptance, and then excitement takes over. but it's definitely a 12 step process. i'm definitely NOT one of those people who's all baby-crazy (the roomie) and thinks that every baby in the world is a precious jewel and every little gassy, cross-eyed stare, or jerky, spastic gesture is worthy of swooning and cooing. there are a LOT of ugly and unlovable babies out there and while i can intellectually appreciate that your baby will never be ugly to YOU, i think you have to be self-aware enough to know that you can't expect that kind of benevolence from everyone else. like, tom cruise's baby, suri? ugly. courtney cox's kid, coco? ugly. this is also where my reverse-racism comes into play. i generally have a lot less tolerance for "canadian" (read: wh**e) babies than "ethnic" babies. i dunno. i feel like there's way more potential for things to go wrong in the cuteness department with canadian babies.

i'm going to hell, i know. it's not like this is an all encompassing rule or approach. i'm just pointing out general trends. of course i'm going to love and spoil all my friend's babies, as i'm a born spoiler and an ACE auntie. it's more of a selfish, solipsistic moment, where i imaginatively transport myself into their shoes and every fibre in my being puts the brakes on and screams, "hells no!". i'm sure in a few years, when i'm a little more settled and have done a bit more traveling and gotten my jollies out a bit more, i'll be more generally excited at the prospect of my crew version 2.0. this is coming from the person who's planning an elaborate multi-generational xmas 2008 in disneyworld family trip and is nearly beside herself in anticipation. but this is ALSO the kind of person who is extremely neurotic and paranoid of the apocalypse (secular).

tonight for dinnie we're having the sausage, rapini and garlic pasta. with a warm baby spinach, pear, sliced almonds, bacon, and blue cheese salad.

fin.

tomorrow, tomorrow

wow, it seems like every day my blog is starting with a confession of my falling off the healthy, home-cooked food wagon. today is no exception. i ate too many open house audition treats my supervisor made and subsequently ate square boy yesterday. square boy was actually a stand-in for my initial choice, which was wendy's. apparently there's this new burger that i have to try (no, not the baconator, which is my go-to ONLY when my beloved smoky bacon mushroom melt isn't on the menu). it's the jalepeno double cheddar melt. i must try!

there's a certain subsect of people in this world, neither completely high-brow or completely low-brow in their food choices, who share a certain camraderie about food. these people just love to eat, and will eagerly share news of new dishes, or dishes past, luxuriating in every drool-inducing detail, spasms of delight crossing over their glazed faces at the thought of a certain dish at a certain cloth-napkin and wine-service restaurant, or the particular chewiness of the gristle on the pork bones at a hole-in-the-wall. i consider myself firmly situated in this community...they're my phantom crew if you will, and i generally become fast friends with anyone who exhibits these same gluttonous tendencies. well, in the past little while, there's been a ripple of excitement through the community. i was tipped off by my friend bwong, and just yesterday, had an extended conversation with my co-worker, the two of us with crazed grins of anticipation all the while (this community seems to host a disproportionately high number of chinese people in its ranks) what is the cause, you may ask?

behold! it's the kfc famous bowl. which is being introduced into canada and is causing flurries of excitement in the iron-stomach community. it's their version of shepherd's pie. mashed potatoes, popcorn chicken, corn, cheese, and chicken gravy. i didn't know this, but my cursory research indicates that there are MULTIPLE KINDS OF BOWLS. apparently there's a chicken and biscuits bowl! the discourse has been fevered and intense, to rival any academic conference. "i think it all comes down to the mashed potatoes" is a sample quote. for my part, i can't wait. i think it warrants a special group trip, a collective "famous-bowl" cherry-popping so we can compare notes together.

long day today...i'm actually EATING HOME-COOKED FOOD. i'm bringing barley risotto and leftover braised shortribs with a few fruits thrown in for good measure. i'm actually looking forward to eating real food for a change.

fin.

teh fattycarmichaelz0rz

well, all my good intentions went out the window, because, as the inexorabe lunar calendar will tell you with unfailing accuracy, the moon is in the seventh house, and jupiter has landed me fat square in the midst of pms. compared to most ladies, my pms is very mild and wreaks little havoc. i don't freak out, i don't cry, i don't get unusually sensitive or angry, oh no. instead, i eat my way into junk food oblivion. therefore, day 1 of healthy eating was curtailed in favor of popeye's fried chicken goodness. we've been eating out A LOT lately. this is bad, as we are both in reduced financial circumstances. and yet, and yet...this always seems to happen as the holiday season approaches. it's a time of unrelenting business, social obligations, school-end stress and myriad loose ends to tie up. this does NOT inspire me to spend time in the kitchen cooking dinner, on top of all the other cooking i'm doing. for example the cooking i'm doing to produce my wondrous cupboard of preserves you see pictured at right. divine, isn't it?

i recently finished david sedaris' book, "dress your family in corduroy and denim" how did i live so long without david sedaris' acerbic, dry, black humoured, amazingly perceptive observational writing in my life? i adored every minute of it! i was thoroughly, bewitchingly engrossed in every word on the page, laughing out loud to myself (or, LOLing for the information superhighway generation) on the couch while the roomie and the dotytron frittered away their pitiful, non-sedarised lives in front of much more music (which doesn't even PLAY music videos anymore).

i also knitted up a storm last night, treating myself for having my presentation done early by watching a few episodes of anthony bourdain's "no reservations" (thank you, torrents!), a travel show where he flits off to the corners of the earth and eats, and eats, and eats. it's pretty appalling that the mere sight of razor clams and huge hunks of slow-roasted pork are enough to have me near tears of ecstasy. i think i might have even emitted a whimper or two. he and i share a fundamental belief that the communion of the table is enough to gloss over all differences. it's privileged, naive, and hopelessly self-serving, but i feel it in the very marrow of my bones, even as i acknowledge how nostalgic i'm being. good food and music make the world go round in my books, trans-global capital be damned!

school then home, then another hour spent tapping away at my presentation notes, then more tv and knitting. we're back on the healthy train with that pasta from last night...the sausage, rapini, chickpea one. i add the chickpeas for extra fibre, and to flush out some of the ridiculous canned bean backlog i have going on right now.

no dessert, either.

fin.

teh slackz0rz

wow, giving up my sunday contract is the BEST SHIZ EVER! i got one assignment done, didn't do the notes for my two presentations but will finish them today, and otherwise ate like a glorious pig all day. the breakfast was delicious! i've also included pictures of the shattered and decimated remnants of my dangerous dan's dinner, which i consumed in a haze of not-chewing-fury and fat-hungry fervor. we all shared a large poutine (look at how gloriously gravy-soaked it is!) and i had a rib sandwich. it's basically the meat from their "bronto beef ribs", braised to a falling-apart, gristly chew, sopping wet with bbq sauce, topped with onions, mushrooms, slices of fresh tomato, and mozzarella cheese. humina, humina.

today is a nice long day of work, and then coming home and hopefully going for a quick run (if it's not raining) after hitting up chinatown for some groceries. tonight for dinner i'm making rigatoni with a sauce of crumbled italian sausage, chickpeas, rapini and parm. with a spinach salad with avocado chunks and other goodness.

fin.

coziness is my downfall

last night was the usual fun with the crew. dr. rei came over for a sleepover, which was just what we needed. we're entering another period of ennui, where we don't want to go out, and all we want to do is be cozy at home and spend the night nattering away. it was a lovely time, if fairly uneventful. does that make me square? boring? i just don't want to go out to random s**t and spend money for no reason. it's not like we ever run out of things to say.

yesterday's field trip to mccall's was loads of fun. i got all sorts of little doo-dads and some new cake pans and other specialized equipment. it's not like there's stuff you can't get anywhere else, but it's nice that it's all centralized in one place, making it ever so convenient.

i ended up making pouding chomeur for dessert last night as i wasn't happy with how the chocolate souffle was turning out. i gave my notice at the public library for my sunday contract. i realized it was silly for me to be taking on this extra work for no good reason...it works out to an extra $140 a month and i needed to make more time for myself. i've cottoned on to the preciousness of sundays spent sleeping in, making a nice breakfast or going our for brunch, doing house stuff and not being rushed before dodgeball. today i'm going to finish making my spicy zucchini relish, finish up three assignments, make our xmas newsletter, and hopefully finish off the secret surprise xmas present for my family.

for breakkie we're having challah french toast with a spiced plum compote and a pastry cream custard. alongside some garlic sausage from the mennonites and a carrot-beet-apple-ginger-cucumber-pear juice. for dinnie tonight we're going to dangerous dan's!!! i'm going to have the bronto ribs sandwich and poutine. if the track is clear i might for a run this morning and have a nice long stretch.

fin.