homeowners...helping homeowners

it's been a while since i've checked in. sorry, buds. this maybe be because WE PUT AN OFFER IN ON A HOUSE. zomg. zomg. totally. what the frack? it happened SO FAST! one day, i'm calling the realtor to make appointments for viewings, the next day, i'm calling electricians trying to get quotes. it's madness i tell you, madness.

so, if you want to find out how to make a super-rash decision that will leave you financially beholden for many years to come, then do please read on!

tuesday was an after work session of many, many viewings, or whatever we could squeeze in that we couldn't see on the weekend that hadn't been snapped up yet. out of 12 i had sent our realtor, only 5 were still available. we drove around and came up on lil' ugmo. lil' ugmo is owned by a chinese family. the owners are a little difficult in the sense that they are ALWAYS there and aren't that amenable to showing the place - now showings on sundays, etc. it's been on the market for a while...it had popped up a few times in my property matches and i even recall seeing it ages ago before we had even retained a realtor when i was just trawling realtor.ca.

lil' ugmo is on a quiet, dead end street with a ttc stop right at the end of the street. also at the end of the street is a very large park with a playground, 3 baseball diamonds, a hockey rink, a dog park, and an outdoor swimming pool. it's not as nice as withrow park (not as many mature trees) but it's a bit of an urban oasis still. it's a 2 minute walk to the gerrard street car which will dump me off right in front of my current employment and a 7 seven minute walk down to queen street and the wonders that are leslieville. it's a 3 bedroom semi that's touted as having a finished basement with a bar.

that is a lie. no one would ever want to spend time in that basement. pros: it appears dry. cons: it's disgusting. it also has knob and tube and the whole place has to be rewired - service upgrade, new panel, outlets, etc. (can you tell i've been talking to electricians?) the dotytron was kind of keen on it. it's got 3 decent sized bedrooms and a really nice bathroom and an okay-for-the-basement-but-probably-not-holmes-approved sink and toilet in the basement. it's got a shared driveway and a giant garage in the back which is crumbling to say the least.

ANYWAY, the dotytron was a little keener on it than i was. i thought it was okay. the dotytron's rationale was that even if we DIDN'T get lil' ugmo, we would be buying something similar in the same price range later. so i was like, whatever, we'll see what happens. lil' ugmo already had an offer on the table that expired on tuesday night. our realtor said it wasn't a strong offer because they let the offer sit on the table for a long time (ie. there was a long deadline before the offer expired), which means that the potential buyers are giving other potential buyers a lot of opportunity to put their hats in the ring as well.

so the next day i email our realtor with this message: "hi realtor, we're considering lil' ugmo. what do we do now? we haven't read that book you gave us. we don't know what's going on!" and she CALLS ME BACK and is all like, "okay. we'll get together after work today and put in our offer at 8pm. don't worry" and then i called the dotytron and we were both like, "what the hell?!? zomg!" but she picked me up and we went to a few more viewings (none of which were as suitable as lil' ugmo) and then we grabbed the dotytron and we sat down and went over our offer. we went in $20,000 under asking. then the agent went to present the offer and we buggered off (aka ate big mac combos with filet-o-fish chasers at mcdonald's) and waited. the sellers countered with $4,000 less. we went up $3,000, they came down an additional $5,000.

this whole time, the dotytron and i were initialing pages (so many initials!!!) and signing stuff and the realtor would go deliver it. she kept remarking that she'd never seen any other couple so calm about the whole process. i think it helped that we're not the kind of people to FALL IN LOVE with a house. i mean really, the more houses we've seen, the more they become more and more the same. people either have crappy taste or they have the standard, $450,000+ taste that's ubiquitous. we're just not the kind of people to be totally emotional and GOTTAHAVEIT about it...which probably helped in the end. when she came back after the sellers countered our second offer with their $5,000 less, i outright said, "i REFUSE to pay more than X for this house," at which point our realtor was all crafty-like, saying, "are you willing to meet them halfway and go up to X" and i said, "absolutely not" we just didn't care, ya know? like, we obviously CARED but we weren't about to lose our heads for lil' ugmo. i really can't imagine myself losing my head for ANY house, because a house is a house. you lose your head for the life you build inside it. you lose your head for your choice in decor and aesthetics. not for the house itself. then the realtor got super crafty, being all, "well, are you going to be upset if it sells tomorrow to someone else for [$3,000 more than my maximum]? you know, $3,000 over the life of a mortgage is nothing." and i was like, "no! i don't care!" at which point i think she could see how obstinate and unyielding i am and backed down (i show everything on my face.)

so she went in with our final offer and at 11pm she shows up at our house and me and the dotytron are all like, "we didn't get it...ah well, at least we went through the experience," except when we open the door, our realtor is like, "YOU GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!" and me and the dotytron just stare at her, mouths agape, blankly. the next day our realtor told me she later told her husband that she has NEVER seen a reaction like ours. lol! to be honest, the whole time we were signing, it felt like pretend...you don't really conceptualize that you might actually WIN the everloving thing, you know? and when you find out you get it, you kinda are like, "gah! i don't want it anymore! can't you take it back!" hahahahaha...or at least you get that way if you're me and the dotytron.

so we were totally in shock and everything happened SUPER fast and the days afterwards are a total whirlwind of sorting our your financing and calling home inspectors and trying to get a crash course in being bob villa or mike holmes and making sure you didn't buy a lemon. it's like they keep you busy with busywork to prevent you from actually realizing what you've done. we were in the place for TEN MINUTES!!!!!!

our home inspection is tomorrow. we're going in armed with a digital camera and a tape measure. i've also got two electricians coming in to give us quotes (the house has the dreaded 'knob and tube' and probably requires a whole sale overhaul) tomorrow at the same time. if i find ONE thing i don't like the sounds of, it's OFF!

to say it's been a crazy few days is a mad understatement. last night for dinner i made us braised squid and artichokes with chorizo potatoes...it's the first time i've had a chance to cook since monday. felt weird!

today i went and met up with H super early in the morning and we biked out to roncesvalles, because it was the annual yard sale. it's crazy! we met up with M and a bunch of her friends and the Mister (M's mister) and i bought 3 catering trays (for mint juleps and to hold our bar supplies!) and an ikea tray for the kitty bowls, and 8 1-gallon glass jars with lids from some kooky herbalist for storing dry goods because glass is better than plastic. it was a solid haul. thanks to the kindness of A & C for letting me store the glass jars at their place. loves yous!

now we're taking a harvey's coupon (if we go ahead with lil' ugmo...it's going to be coupon eating for a while...oh well, alinea was a fitting last huzzah) and doing dinner and a movie at the amc. we're going to see 'terminator salvation'! it's been getting middling reviews.

tomorrow is a crazy hectic day...i'll try to come back with a full report.

fin.

lucky button-ness abounds!

but we can't crow too much about it lest the fates come down hard on my semi-charmed life.

yesterday was delightful! sunday was equally delightful although it was marred by a wicked bout of indigestion following a too-gluttonous trip to AYCE japanese land. i can't blame it all on AYCE, though. when the goosetang reconvened at casa del hones, we decided that we really needed something sweet. which of course meant that we had to pile into bwong's car, hit up a sobey's and "get inspired" by the freezer case, cookie aisle, and bakery department (in that order.) inspiration struck to the tune of a classic hamcamp klik viennese dessert table, consisting of: semi-frozen creme puffs, lil' debbie swiss roll cakes, a club pack of ice cream sandwiches, and a mixed pack of creamsicles (assorted flavours, which is a bust, because we all know that creamsicles ARE orange.)

my nascent acid reflux probably wasn't helped by the bile-producing interminable boredom that was 'amadeus.' dr. rei and the dotytron contend that it was the director's cut version that dr. rei procured that marred the film. i beg to differ. the director's cut and the theatrical release differ by about 20 minutes. the extra 20 minutes go towards epic opera sequences that last FOREVER and are just barely redeemed by doves flying out of a paper mâché horse's butt. i don't get it! it doesn't do anything to portray mozart's genius. the dotytron says that that's the point - they're attempting to demystify mozart. that's fine, i guess. but the framing device of using salieri's long-standing resentment doesn't do anything to help propel the narrative along. salieri doesn't come across as ENOUGH of a tragic figure. the performances are pretty decent, except for mozart's wife, costanze ("stanzy" to you and i) who seems to have wandered in off the set of 'rocky.' her line delivery and tone and accent and gestures were appalling. like, i don't know how this film won oscars, appalling. the film gets entirely too repetitive - there isn't enough propulsion in the story or in the development of the characters to make the destinies of the two principals engaging. as i said upon the departure of the goosetang, epic STANZY fail!

the win part of sunday was our meeting with trevor d, who is a goony guy but a consummate professional, or as consummate a professional as you would expect someone wearing triple xl sweats and some lower single teeth caps with photos of pit bulls as his screensaver to be. he was being very kind and considerate with us. lol! "look, i know these are probably your first grills, it's okay, i'll take care of you, maybe throw in a matching diamond in the canine for free." hahahahaha! it was very cute. plus, he's done grills for mtv and junior reid. i think it's pretty respectable and on the up and up.

also, the dotytron was SO GOOD at shopping! so well behaved! we started off at harry rosen in the eaton centre but we didn't like it. as soon as you walk into that place, it's like the sharks smell chum and even though you can't see them, you can sense that you're being stalked by 3-5 salesmen keeping a "discrete" 3 feet behind you. then when you finally dare turn around, you're left with the winner of the secret harry rosen silent tussle invading your face with a sharkish grin. our guy had the additional distinction of accessorizing his not particularly fashion-forward look with some inflamed coke-nostrils. lovely. we looked over the boss and zzegna and dolce and gabbana selections. but the dude was all up in our grill. then we tried on a few things, with the dude first scoffing at my hypothesis that the dotytron is a 42T ("no, he looks like a 40T to me" ) then getting out his measuring tape and confirming that actually, i was right.

we hightailed it out of there. we ended up in the bay. the bay is AMAZING. a lush, tranquil (the less charitable might say deserted) oasis of calm. you're left to your own devices to paw through things at your liking. fine, so you might have to chase someone down when you finally need assistance, or they might not have the size you're looking for, but the dude helping us took one LOOK at the dotytron, and casually said, "oh so you're a 42T, i'll show you what we have in stock in that size" with nary a brandishing of measuring tape in sight! it was blissful! we found a lovely suit, not in the light grey that i had originally envisioned (it did nothing for the dotytron's skin tone) but a lovely inky, blue-grey, that has the magical trick of turning different colours depending on what shirt/tie you match it with. you could totally see the dotytron getting into it, too! offering suggestions and opinions. it was amazing!

then, when we're finally ready to make our purchase, the guy helping us, mohammed ali (with no less than 35 years at the bay under his belt - responsible for the custom tailoring, to boot), tells us that he'll take down our credit card number and charge the suit and accessories to us in 2 weeks when it'll be 30% off!!!!!!! so nice!!!!! I FREAKIN LOVE THE BAY! who does that?!??? the hudson's bay company, that's who.

monday morning we did some tidying and cleaning in preparation for kdubstdot bbq action and then went to the park to play some frisbee while we waited for a court for no-rules tennis. it was so much fun! we've gotten way better at no-rules tennis in the year since we played last...we can actually get a decent rally going. first for the monday version of a sunday breakkie i made a fridge clearing kind of western omelette on a kaiser with orange peppers, green onion, diced genoa salami with swiss cheese melted on the bun, lettuce, tomato, and mayo (the swiss cheese and the mayo were total overkill.)

then the kdubs gang came over and we hung out and it was the BEST! s-dawg came over too and made a wonderful impression on everyone...i think J wants him as her second husband. this cemented through the unique bonding devices of tasteless, crass humour and les miserables singalong karaoke. i'm not gonna lie: les mis karaoke was kind of awesome. during the song, "confrontation" between javert and valjean, the group SEAMLESSLY broke into two parts, each group taking on the role of valjean and javert. it was awesome. special shouts to poor A who wasn't feeling well and was a total good sport. we missed the fireworks...but there's always canada day. the dinner was delicious. N brought the BEST chocolate chip cookies in the whole world...we had pop and chips and salsa and i made cheeseburgers and spinach avocado salad with toasted salted pumpkin seeds and we fried up cheese sticks and poppers and finished with key lime pie. deliciouso! so good i forgot to take pictures! me! forgetting to take pictures!!!

the short of it is: i love my friends and family with all the mush and gush that my craven heart can muster (a surprising amount.)

so last night, after we had ushered out our guests and tidied up the place, the dotytron and i went down to our subterranean lair and prepared for some 'john adams' bedtime viewing. the dotytron was in his undies and went running upstairs to grab us two glasses of water. when he returned, i spun around in my desk chair to accept my glass, only to come face to face with this, because me sitting happens to put me at crotch-height if the dotytron is standing:

yes, ladies and gentlemen. stuffing ice cream sandwiches in your underpants is precisely the kind of romance that somehow warmed a fire-breathing, heteronormative fighting, nuclear family smashing, feminist like me to the (oppressive) concept of holy matrimony. i dare you to resist the same.

tonight i saw a few houses with our realtor. one that we're actually considering. it's got good bones...in a super nice neighbourhood, across from a giant park (as big as withrow!) close to ttc, 3 big bedrooms, 2 decent bathrooms...the house needs a bit of work. it would be a step down, but there's room to personalize it and make it our own without having to live in flophouse hell.

dinner was pancetta, onions, garlic, and red dandelion greens with parm on farfalle. i made a salad too but by the time i finished housing pasta, i was in no mood to eat it.

now i'm doing futzy, house type stuff and trying to figure out what my new knitting project is going to be...what should i bring to knitting club tomorrow?  

hey, you know what we haven't had in a while?

roll call of awesome:

mindy kaling on twitter. she's one of the co-writers on the american 'the office' recently given her own show to develop. mindy kaling's tweets are PRECISELY what you want from a microblogging device. fun, funny, cutely insightful. she's not trying to EDUCATE you. she's not trying to TURN THE SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD UPSIDE DOWN. she's not trying to MINE YOUR DATA. she's not trying to PROVE HOW AWESOME TWITTER IS AT REVOLUTIONIZING CONVERSATION. it's just a window into her delightfully (and self-aware) slightly vapid brain. i love it. it makes me want to log onto twitter, which is more than i can say for 99% of the other dodos on there. sample tweet: "the american tradition of talking to your boyfriend on the phone until you get sleepy and incomprehensible is a great one." heehee.

she also has a a blog, called "things i bought that i love" where she talks about precisely that. sample line: "(n.b. an adorable and mortifying thing for a girl is when her boyfriend picks her up off the ground: ”oh god oh god are my spanx showing?! am I crushing his spinal column with my weight?!)" as someone who has been completely mortified when picked up off the ground by the boys i've loved before...i could totally relate.

read! enjoy!


fin.

well, that escalated quickly

dearest readers...i bought a CREDENZA! and it is GORGEOUS! it's a gorgeous teak with a very dark, almost walnut stain. long and low, 6 feet long with both shelves AND drawers. it was a very fortuitous find and i'm absolutely in love love love with it.

i've been on the lookout for a long, long, long, time. i hate our tv stand and the stupid bookcase we inherited (it got left behind in a previous apartment) to store our dvds and videos (yes, i said videos.) so i've been trawling craigslist, various used furniture stores, ikea, looking for something suitable. everything was either too expensive, or not quite right, or overpriced (ie. craigslist - people overvalue their stuff like crazy.)

i was considering this piece on craigslist:

but i wasn't too sure of the wood colour or the leather top. it was okay, but not perfect.

this little number seemed aight...but all the way in etobicoke. and the finish was meh.

i had kind of resigned myself that i might get two of the ikea ps lockers in red:

this is an affordable option (although not really, if you get two, you're up at $260.) plus it has its drawbacks: the doors open only with a key, which means you have to either never lose the key, or keep the key in the lock and turn it every time you want to open it and access the dvd/vcr whatever inside. plus you'd have to drill holes in the metal to get the cords running through and i don't even know how to do that.

yesterday i did my crafting, did some light spring cleaning, then went over to help H move, showing up fortuitously in time to grab the last garbage bag...lol! some help i was. then i zipped down to queen east to see if i could find anything in the junk stores around.

i stopped in at one place...he didn't have any teak, but he had some walnut pieces (i like walnut too, i'm not a 100% teak fetishist.) they were too tall. finally, he showed me something that looked like this:


with a 4 shelf bookcase on top, the whole thing selling for $395. the credenza bit was only maybe 2-3 feet wide...and he was willing to separate the two pieces and sell the bottom to me separately for $225 plus tax. the finish was more blonde...i didn't love it, but i think i was in a credenza buying/nesting/roomie moving out so i have a proper living room again frenzy...so i thought about it and seriously considered it. then i called the roomie cuz she was in the area and i thought we could shove it in her car and be on our merry way. i went to meet up with her, but en route, popped into another store, and lo and behold fell in LOVE with my little beauty piece.

i don't have a picture. it's gorgeous. it has some minor scuffs and nicks...nothing a little go over with steel wool and teak oil won't take care of. it has shelves on either side hidden with sliding doors, and three drawers in the middle. one of the drawers was missing, the dude at the store told me it was being fixed. it was being sold for $250. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY! i had just walked along a strip of queen east where similar sizes (already oiled up) were going for $1000+. so i snapped it up. i was in lovelovelove and it felt rightrightright. it turns out that the drawer is outright missing...but i can deal with that. i can slide the doors over to cover the space, or take out drawers entirely, put in shelving, and put the vcr/dvd/pvr (eventually) player on that. that's why it was so cheap. it's so lovely! i'm in total love with it. the drawers slide smoothly, and everything is in good shape. i can deal with scuffs...i mean, if the piece is from the 1970s, i don't expect it to look new. otherwise, i'd buy a reproduction, right?

i also really love these industrial things...but i figured i should get out while i'm ahead:




then i went by upsidedive to pick up a dress of H's that she had bought online. they're having a $5 clothing sale. i bought a $5 stripey, cotton, polo tennis dress thing with a drop drawstring waist for FIVE DOLLARS! i'm in lurve with it. it's grey and pink. i can't believe it was still there. it's the perfect beach/swimsuit coverup. then i saw THIS and fell in love all over again:

a chrome rocker!!! i sat it in it...it's pretty comfy...nice high arms would make it good for knitting. it's rare to find vintage rockers that aren't all colonial style...or the DAR chairs...i hate the DAR rockers (example below)...i think they're super ugly:

we're going back today to grab the rocker...and then i'm done buying stuff. lol! we're going to get some expedit bookcases to sub out for our mismatched, falling apart ones...and then stick everything back in the living room once the roomie is gone. i'm so excited!

ohhhh!!! i also picked up this little number at upside dive:

hi cute apple clock! why are you so cute?!? isn't it adorable?!??? i love love love upside dive. they're the best. they're a team of siblings (it helps that the guy is kinda hot! lol!) and everything is really gently priced and they're super nice and so close to my house! they're the ones that sold me my bedframe.

look at my crafting! my bread bags turned out really swell! i'm pleased...i especially love the poppy print.


this is last night's dinner. i almost poosed out and had us order pizza, cuz i spent about a million hours at H's helping them unpack. i hate moving but i'm a fiendish unpacker...i'd rather stay up all night unpacking because the sooner the new place is in order, the sooner my troubled heart can be at ease. H was ready to quit a few times but i was totally bossing her into finishing the kitchen. ha. the last few times we've moved, the dotytron has taken beer breaks and he'll come back and i've got two rooms done. i have the energy of like, 5 mes when i'm moving. considering how much money i spent yesterday, i decided it was prudent to cook. it was delicious! yummy tartar sauce, yummy fried artichokes, the arugala cut through everything, the shaved parm add a little salt and texture. and the fried lemons! i love fried lemons! i sliced them on the mandoline, peel and all, and then battered them and fried them and sprinkled them with salt. i could snack on fried lemons like chips.

okay, i'm about to eat a bacon'n'egg breakie and then embark on shopping with the dotytron hell. wish me luck! then goosetang forever!

fin.

nothing says long weekend

like a little saturday morning sewing machine crafting flex. what what! yesterday was a short day at work made lively by a visit from G, hubby C and sweet, serious-faced baby G. so cute! G is probably the hottest mummy i've ever seen. she's positively glowing - i guess no sleep is agreeing with her!

then i came home and got a bunch of little piddly things done. like ordering my veiling and another headpiece and sorting out the rehearsal dinner and trying to get more chairs from the rental place and calling disney to sort out some details. after that, we met up with momma and poppa d and sister em of the familia dotytron at jean's vegetarian kitchen for some veggie thai food and long conversation. we missed mother's day so it was a nice opportunity to catch up. i also FINALLY got to gift the secret knitting i've been working on for the past 2 months.

i made the ishbel shawl pattern (large size) in drops alpaca for momma d. it took me FOREVER. i started off strong, but then repeated screwups which necessitated having to undo, stitch by stich, 380 odd stitches in a row, for several rows kind of slowed my resolve. i've read of some people on ravelry finishing this thing in a week. those people obviously don't do anything but knit (there's actually a seemingly disproportionate number of knitters who are also phd students - go figure.)

readers of the blog have heard me rhapsodizing about the virtues of blocking, so i'm going to offer you a little pictorial evidence of its effects. block is particularly important when you're working on lace projects because the knitting gets all kinked up and crumpled in the process. this is what the shawl looked like after i had woven in the ends and taken it off the needles:

it doesn't look much like anything, right? a brief soak in some wool wash and tepid water and after being stretched and pinned to my blocking board, the next day when i unpinned it, it looked like this:

see? keep in mind, i'm not even that good at blocking yet. but magically, through a bit of coaxing and positioning, the lacy pattern appears from that rumpled, crumpled, kinked up mess. it's kind of like magic and it makes lace knitting totally worthwhile.

i don't know what my next knitting project is going to be. we're having regular knitting club meetings on wednesdays so i'll need a steady supply of work. i'm thinking of making myself the twilight mittens or some other cabled mitten pattern that's snug like the twilight ones were. i'd like to make something for myself for a change...maybe a cardigan? who knows...i'll figure it out.

today is an odds and sods kind of a day. i'm going to do some early morning sewing, trying to bang out a couple of quickie projects and refamiliarize myself with my long-languishing and neglected sewing machine. poor little lamb. then i'm going to be real neighbourly and help H, that guy, and sweet baby D move into their new abode. which is SO SO SO close to me! i'm so happy about that! walking distance friends are the best friends to have and they're literally just across the park. love it. i might go check out this used furniture place to see if they have any credenzas worth buying then do some light grocery shopping and come home and hopefully have time to work on the performance invites and itinerary. make dinner and bake a loaf of bread and the other usual to-do has to be fit in there somehow as well.

tomorrow is even more of a gong show...we've got to get up early, eat a nice sunday breakkie, then head down to harry rosen, the bay, and the hugo boss store to see about a suit for the dotytron. i met some guy a while ago who was trying to convince me (and half succeeded) of getting a custom job done but then common sense prevailed. it would be RIDICULOUS for the dotytron to have a custom suit, considering he has to wear a suit maybe 4 times a year. plus, the dotytron hates shopping more than anything. there are witnesses! he almost had a breakdown buying BIRKENSTOCKS in italy last year while dr. rei and i giggled away at how wound up he got. we might just break up over the whole suit thing. we'll see. here's hoping. anyway, a custom job is out of the question...we'll probably just throw down for something from the boss black label or zzegna. he's got other more conventional, man suits but i think it'd be nice for him to have something a little more european in the tailoring...slim lapels, quite fitted...probably in a dark charcoal or a grey. he has a black one, he as a blue one (that needs to be upgraded, but not just yet) so i think a dark grey is the next choice. and a new pair of regular dress shoes. and a narrow tie. and possibly a vest. the crazy thing is how EXPENSIVE men's clothes are. like girls can easily find a $20 top that would be fine for work. good luck if you're a guy. it's basically never happening.

then we're going to meet up with trevor d of trevor d custom jewelery to see about the grillz. i'm a little suspect but i'm not sure if that's because i'm being classist. i'm going in thinking, if it's good enough for dank of frank'n'dank fame, it should be good enough for me, right? right? *tugs on collar* eeks.

after that, the day slides into more relaxation mode as we get together with dr. rei and hanbo and bwong for some all you can eat japanese action up in markham. once we're stuffed to the gills we're going to head back down to our pad and watch some amadeus action. sounds like a near-perfect evening, if you ask me.

in other news, i'm seriously considering getting a masters of public administration or public policy...or an mba. doing the mba means i have to do the GMAT which i think means that i probably need to brush up on my long-lost grade 10 math skills. the masters of public policy or masters of public administration doesn't require the GMAT, so i might go that route. i really want to be a research officer and secure my place in the public sector somehow...and i kind of want to advance in my field too. a two year, course based degree seems like a good insurance policy to have in the back pocket. plus, i took a look at the courses...SNOOZE fest...i could probably do it with one eye half closed and my shoelaces tied together. the major deterrent is that the programs are hella expensive. the good thing is that a lot of them are geared to working professionals so they do intensives where you only go to class one weekend a month or something. i think with my MISt and an MPA/MPP/MBA that's basically going to make me super hire-able and eligible to work in a liberal think tank. possibly.

tonight for dinner the plan is to steal another page from paul kahan's book and copy a dish i had at publican. it's going to be fried fish, fried artichokes, fried lemon with tartar sauce, arugala and shaved parm. i'm excited. we don't have smelts readily available so i'm going to use a plain white fish like tilapia or halibut instead. it really doesn't matter as long as there's something crispy and battered with something tartar sauce-y.

i don't know if i'm going to bother making a dessert or not. i've been craving dessert like mad lately but i'm not feeling inspired to actually make anything. plus we're having key lime pies on monday at the bbq/lowkey chill time hangs i'm hosting.

time to get cracking.

fin.

trip the light fantastic

i don't know what that phrase actually means. but so strongly do i feel about e. lockhart's amazing authorial talents and so hastily did i write that post last night, that i feel i didn't hit the point home well enough yesterday. e. lockhart is a FANTASTIC author. go pick up her books. do it now! you will instantly be transported back to high school, except it's kind of the best possible high school experience because you're one removed from the ACTUAL trials and tribulations and angst. ruby oliver is a winning protagonist and her surrounding cast are equally endearing. did i mention she has hilarious sessions with her shrink and fantastically kooky parents who sound just like real (white) liberal parents living in seattle? did i mention that i'm positively salivating at the prospect of ruby oliver book 3 'a treasure map of boys' and upon its purchase anticipate unplugging myself for the entire blissful 4 hours 2 days it will take me to hastily devour (4 hours - first pass) and slowly savour it (2 days - second pass)?

i actually don't have time to talk. dr. rei is meeting me shortly and we're going to walk to the subway stop that will put me on the bus to take me to dodgeball. thursday night dodgeball is in some faraway land known as st. clair and dufferin. it's the ends of the earth! plus i have to use my precious free time feverishly finishing knitting a shawl that i want to block tonight to gift tomorrow. this shawl has been TWO months in the making. shawls should NOT take 2 months! well, i guess they do if you lead a fantastically busy life and put it in time out after one too many times undoing messed up rows (that's 300+ stitches to a row, friends.)

i'll update with more plummy book reviews tomorrow!

fin.

move over sarah dessen

there's a new YA writer i'm obsessing over in town. i've read A LOT in the last little while. like, a lot a lot. so i'm going to give a rundown on what's been passing before mine eyes.

my second e. lockhart book (timeline: 'fly on the wall' was the first), 'the disreputable history of frankie landau banks' has landed itself on a number of "best of" lists for 2008 - not all of them YA, either. it's a boarding school story (put down the pager! dr. rei has already read this one) of a girl who's come into her own (ie. gotten hot over the summer) and is whip smart and ready to cause havoc on her well-meaning but kind of sexist boyfriend's secret society. there are pranks! there is romance (kind of)! there is a girl finding herself (totally)! i really enjoyed this book, but i was a little put off by frankie's strange awakening to feminism. it was kind of wishy washy and it did the annoying YA thing where the protagonist JUST SO HAPPENS to be a hot little number which is a little galling. it's like, regular girls can't be rebellious? despite minor quibbles (here's the anti-feminist one i wasn't going to put in the review lest i ruin my credibility - then i remembered i don't have any - the girl doesn't end up with the guy she should end up with!) lockhart's brains (i think she's got a phd or something) and her way with words and characters and dialogue is glaringly apparent. she writes entertaining, fully-realized stories that land on the respectable side of fluff without having to pander to clichés or strangely ramped up tragic narrative devices or TEEN cruxes (ie. pregnancy, pre-marital sex, physical abuse, death.)

after finishing this one, i went right out and grabbed whatever i could from her. the next two i read were part of the 'ruby oliver' series, but i read them out of order. 'the boy book' is the second in the series (the third isn't out until july 2009; a fact i discovered when i went hoofing it to indigo on my lunch break at work only to find that i could pre-order, but not have it in my hot little hands.) the main character is ruby oliver, a wise, conflicted, very relatable teen with boy troubles and friend troubles. the story unfolds after a crisis (picking up a few months after the events of the first book, 'the boyfriend list' ends off) that leaves ruby isolated and confused, trying to sort out her life with her wacky parents, the various boys in her life, her shifting relationships with her female friends, and herself. the voice is clever, funny, and rings with a clarity that makes the character feel effortlessly real. this is a book i could re-read over and over again.

the same could be said about 'the boyfriend list' i enjoyed both of these books more than 'the disreputable history' - the characters are more flawed, without the private school gloss of wealth and beauty to insulate them from accessibility. i'm seriously addicted and i'm chomping at the bit for the next one to come out. i can't say enough good things about the writing. say what you will (the dotytron dismissively calls these books my "teen porn" and threatens to turn me into my sister - who incidentally makes a living hunting down actual pedophiles), this is just plain addictive fiction. if people can give nick hornby the time of day, then e. lockhart is certainly his equal. the protagonists just happen to be a bit younger and they're girls. i actually think i like e. lockhart more.


last night for dinner i made flammekeuche with purchased whole wheat pizza dough. i also made that celery, cucumber, red onion and pepper salad with the cumin mint dressing. it's nice and fresh and crunchy and refreshing. it was a good foil against the bacony, creme frâiche-y fatty yield of the flammekeuche.

tonight i hosting knitting club. which means that M, H, that guy, and baby D came over and we knit and talked and watched baby D's kooky, pre-verbal antics. because there were vegans afoot, i made moroccan red pepper, potato and egg sandwiches (minus the egg for the vegans) with harissa. H made us a lovely couscous salad with cucumber, onion, and raisins. it was very nice...but for some reason, totally exhausting.

tomorrow night is dodgeball. i'll have a big chunk of time between work and dodgeball so i'll do some more book reviewing.

fin.

the weekend that was

zomg. zomg. this three-day weekend felt epic but wasn't long enough by far. we started with a classic dotytron and lagerfeld productions rental car road trip (plastic bag for garbage? check. les miz and the best of heart? check. coffee and knitting? check. spotty sense of direction even though we've driven this route at least 20 times? check.)

we did a little bit of target shopping, a little bit of dsw shoe shopping (i bought the shoes pictured above. i've since found out that they come in mustard yellow and forest green. it is for the best that i was ignorant.) then we hit the house of guitars, which is exactly what it claims to be. more guitars than i've ever seen in my LIFE. plus like a million autographs from like every rock band in history on the walls. it also sits on top of a GIANT cd store that's like what sam the record man would have been in its' last days - except filled with stock. what a throwback.

then we went to 'nick tahou's' and shared a garbage plate. we got a red hots one, with hash browns and mac salad. it was AWESOME. however, it was a hot and sunny day and we were stone sober (not ideal garbage plate consumption conditions.) we split one. the magic is in the mustard and the onions and the "beef" gravy/mince stuff on top. the hashbrowns and mac salad could have used a bit of salt but it's deeply satisfying in that way that only regional americana can be. it also runs right through you. it's a total colon cleanser.

next up was mother's day tea. the day care is kind of mean about it. if your mom/parent DOESN'T show, you don't get to go! so mean!!! now i know why miss ramona had a meltdown when she found out that my sis couldn't go for the second year in a row. you're totally ostracized! and there's NO REASON for it! trust me, i'm ALL ABOUT kids not getting accommodated or coddled for no good reason. i don't believe that everyone should pass or that differences should be elided. however, this is not an exclusion based on merit or skill set and in this case, making the exception so that the four kids whose parents couldn't make it aren't left alone in the play room isn't DIFFICULT to do! totally not nice. me and the dotytron were totally swarmed by kids when we showed up. then we decided to take mosey on over to little ze's room to see what his class was like. he was eating snack. at first i couldn't see him but then the dotytron pointed him out, "he's right there!" at that exact moment, little ze looked up, saw the dotytron, and came zooming over, launching himself into the dotytron's arms for a GIANT hug. then he grabbed his coat, put it on, and looked up at us, ready to go.

we didn't really know what to do, because we weren't sure if he could come to the tea with us and it wasn't technically time to go. so we tried to explain that to him, at which point his eyes welled, his lower lip started trembling, and those fat cheeks of his started drooping. it was the most tragic thing ever. the dotytron and i looked at each other, not really knowing what to do, and both welled up. basically, we're total suckers. it's his little face! we can't help it! the little guy's face is just too cute. anyway, we finagled him into the mother's day tea and it all worked out.

we rendezvous with the rest of my siblings (after i spent a full 30 minutes trying to get the car seat into the car) and hit 'five guys burgers and fries' for dinner. leaving the kids at the hotel where my mum and big d were staying was also tragic. just as we were filing out, little ze came running out of the bedroom (my parents' had a suite), and was all like, "guys! guys!" wanting to show us something. when we said, "sorry buddy, we're leaving now" his face TOTALLY fell and he turned around and did the sad, slow, walk back into the bedroom. i swear that face will stay with me to the end of my days. it's cuz he has such big puppy dog eyes.

the new 'star trek' movie is extremely entertaining. yes, there are parts that are completely implausible and kind of annoying (bwe does the best job of summing them up here *warning* SPOILER ALERTS!) and i wasn't even that pumped going in (i'm not a jj abrams fan, unlike the rest of my siblings), but it somehow won me over. it was a near-perfect summer time air conditioned theatre blockbuster confection. smart, funny characters, knowing without being too meta and coy, nodding to the source material but forging ahead with a clear idea of how it was to be reimagined. it's also got big budget special effects (unlike the new 'g.i. joe' reboot which looks like HELL.) AND it has john cho and a pleasingly multi-ethnic cast. thumbs up. well worth it.


plus when we showed up at the theatre, the rochester star trek sci-fi/fantasy club (which seemed to consist of one dude and his gf) had set up shop with all kinds of memorabilia and they were awesome. look at him! so cute! they were also selling warf toys and giving the proceeds to charity. AND they also include buffy under their sci-fi/fantasy umbrella. if we lived in rochester, we would totally join. these guys are our kinds of people. so cute! plus, there's something that breaks my heart when you see people packing up a fan/memorabilia table at the end of the night. i don't know what it is. there's something about seeing people taking down a stand (any stand, really) that cuts to the quick. yes, i'm an emotional, sentimental weirdo...what do you want from me.

saturday was all about the dance recital and checking out the venue for the performance. we also had dinner at the conesus inn. check out my piece of prime rib:

i totally ate the whole thing! i wasn't really expecting to, it just kind of happened. that's the princess cut. to give you an idea, it goes (in increasing order): princess, queen, king, truman. there's only one truman per cow or something, so you kind of have to let them know if you're having one early on. we also split some clams casino (i LOVE clams casino!) and stuffed mushrooms and coconut shrimp. your meal also comes with a salad and a baked potato. i didn't eat my baked potato. but i STILL managed to eat that entire hunk of meat AND a slice of leftover wegman's cake later that night.

i feel shame.

the next morning i made a mother's day brunch for my sister (my mum and big d had taken off at that point) consisting of bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado on a toasted english muffin, topped with scrambled eggs, topped with hollandaise. AND some fat babies. yikes! i felt more shame.

vto compound the shame, we decided to hit an arby's on the way home. it was my first time. the dotytron has been trying to convince me to go for the entire 8 years we've been together and i finally buckled. we roll up at the service centre, park, walk in, place our order. first of all: ARBY'S IS FREAKIN' EXPENSIVE. seriously, a beef and cheddar combo in the states (small fries! small drink!) is $8.11 USD. WTF?!?? that makes NO SENSE! ESPECIALLY in this economy! anyway, we paid, and then the FIRE ALARM went off. so we all had to evacuate! so we stood outside in the freezing cold, not knowing what to do. i'd just blown $20 on both our meals, we had paid, but hadn't gotten our food yet, so we were kind of in a bind. do we drive off and just burn the $20? who knows how long it would be before we were allowed back in? do we wait and get cold food? we ended up waiting 20 minutes and insisting that they start our order from scratch (their lips said yes but their hands and negative work ethic said no.) arby's did not win me over last night. i was definitely underwhelmed. i can see the merits, but mine was obviously made with zero love. there was the faintest smear of processed cheese and the barest whisper of bbq sauce and horseradish. lame! i like the onion bun and the curly fries. i think i need to give it one more fair shot before i call it.

then the dotytron and i got lost for an HOUR in buffalo trying to get on the peace bridge after missing the exit like 5 times and paying stupid interstate tolls about 10 more times than we needed to. it was super aggravating. THEN we got stuck on the lakeshore facing the runoff traffic from that tamil protest that bunged up the gardiner. we had left at 3pm so that we could get home by 6...we ended up getting home close to 9. super irritating but we got a full singalong of the les miz soundtrack out of it, so it wasn't a total loss leader.

ha! we had started les miz when we were in the midst of getting lost and i had had the chance to sing my song ("i dreamed a dream" - thanks susan boyle, cuz now everyone is going to think that i only like it because of your human interest story. incidentally, not the case.) but the dotytron kept turning the stereo off after that. i assumed he was tense and mad because we had been so lost. then as we pull into customs, i turn it back on. he clicks it off. "why are you so weird about having customs hear us playing les miz?" his reply? "i'm not, i just want to sing and i don't want to get interrupted." lol! then i realized that the song that was coming up in the queue was "who am i" - the dotytron's favorite. hahaha...nothing dissolves tension more than the discovery that the dotytron likes to have an uninterrupted go at singing his song from the les miz sounds track. heh.

tonight for dinner i made us whole wheat penne with broccoli, chickpeas, and T's chilis. it was a bit of a throwaway, quickie weeknight thing. i didn't have a chance to go grocery shopping before we left and tonight was a late night for me at work.

i have a wackload of book reviews coming your way...you've been warned!

fin.

can't talk...

researching graduate programs to attain another degree based out of spite.  lol!  few things motivate me like pettiness, spite, and pure avariciousness. i wish that wasn't the case, but it kinda is.

i think i kind of want to a do an m.p.a (masters of public administration.) it seems the logical next step in order for me to continue in the life of a public servant. i'm doing some research on some programs now. u of t has the best looking one (read: touted as "interdisciplinary" aka bird-course lagerfeld coast-mode-ville) but it's not really geared towards working professionals. york has one that you can do entirely online, but...it's york. the u of t one is SUPER wishy washy and you get an internship out of it (writing grant applications, research papers, policy reports.) it seems like the best application of my academic skills/leanings to my increasingly capitalist philosophies (ie. wanting a house.)

we saw a couple of more places tonight. one was listed today and there's ALREADY a few offers on it. it's crazy. this market is insane.

tonight for dinner i made us pho, with a pork stock made from bones simmering with star anise, garlic, black peppercorns, and onion bits for a full 24 hours in my trusty slow cooker. i bought sliced frozen beef from the chinese grocery store, defrosted it and stuck it in the bottom of a colander. i cooked off some rice noodles in a pot of boiling water and then dumped the noodles and all the boiling water into the colander to kind of par-cook the beef a bit. i wanted to set aside some stock for maybe making ramen or for freezing, so i didn't use it all for the pho. the stuff i did use i doctored up to taste even more vietnamese with some sliced ginger, soy, fish sauce, a few pieces of bashed up lemongrass and a decent hand with salt to make up for the loss of msg. i added bean sprouts, thai basil, and lime wedges to the bowl.

it was a reasonable approximation but still not quite there. the bean sprouts were very raw, wet and basement tasting (you know how bean sprouts can taste like basement sometimes???) so they kind of overpowered the dish. i think next time i'll skip it and add a bit more salt. pretty good for a first attempt though. the stock was ace. i threw it in the fridge to make skimming the fat easier and it came out a quivering, gelatinous mass. BEST!

tomorrow we're getting up early and heading to upstate new york. i have the day off so we're heading into town to check out sites for the ceremony and we're going to see my niece's dance recital and do a mother's day thing with my mom at the conesus inn. they're known for their prime rib. i'm known for eating prime rib. it's a match made in heaven.

the dotytron and i are going to get our cross border shopping done during the day tomorrow and then hopefully brave the rough side of rochester to eat a garbage plate at nick tahou's hots and go to the great house of guitars with the dotytron. my sis it out of town during the day so we're going to the mother's day tea at my niece and nephew's nursery school. i'm super stoked to sit in little wee chairs and eat graham crackers and apple juice with all the other moms! the dotytron is pumped as well!

big weekend ahead of us...time to call it.

fin.

go hard or go home

my vote: go home.

life is INSANELY busy right now. work is teh crazez0rz. then i come home and more often than not i'm getting the screws put on me by my realtor to check out houses. monday night i almost gave myself a migraine trying to figure out the meal plans for my family's disney trip. my usual obsessive meal planning was attenuated by the fact that for large groups (and almost everyone, really) dining at disney you have to make reservations NINETY days in advance. disney has also implemented this meal plan thing where you can pay a flat fee for 1 quick snack, 1 quick service meal, and 1 table service meal for each day that you're there. sounds great, right? but once you factor in the meal plan, the restaurants offering the meal plan, the fact that there are 4 different theme parks and countless hotels, that some meals require the redemption of more than 1 voucher at a time - it's a logistical nightmare. i normally wouldn't even CARE where we ate at disney...but the reservations thing ramps it all up. plus the fact that trying to get consensus out of my family on anything is impossible. my family has never met an event/gathering/meeting that they couldn't turn into a GIANT s**tshow through a combination of poor communication, lack of planning, and last-minute changes. so yeah, it was a three hour long session. last night we had a documentary. tonight i'm going to help my friend H paint her new place, which is a 10 minute walk from my house! i'm so happy to have good friends in the neighbourhood.

last night i made us a chicken heart salad based on something i had at paul kahan's "publican" in chicago (that one had duck hearts.) i sautéed up finely diced onion and garlic in a pan of butter and olive oil, then cranked the heat and added the chicken hearts. when they were just done but still tender(ish) i pulled it off the heat, stirred in baby spinach and a good shot of vinegar, seasoned it up, and finished with a final sprinkle of fleur de sel. i served it with boiled eggs cut into quarters on top of my sourdough sandwich bread, which i cut thin, buttered, then grilled on the panini press.

it was pretty good, but it wasn't the dotytron's favorite. he's not so into hearts and gizzards as i am. he thinks it gets a little too "temple of doom" to be eating 14 chickens' worth of hearts. i think he's making arbitrary distinctions. the next time, i'm going to sear the chicken hearts individually, as dumping them all in the pan didn't allow for as much caramelization as i would have liked.

okay, so hot docs this year has been mostly miss. we've seen 4 so far, and i've basically take a 30 at each one.

friday night we saw "art and copy" which combines clips of iconic ads with interviews with the giants in the field - people who helped redefine the nature of advertising. some of the people were interesting, but the documentary fell flat - there wasn't enough substance. it meandered and lacked any kind of cohesion. you have really interesting, engaging, brilliant people who are reduced to quippy soundbites that don't really lend you a sense of well...anything. it seemed like the director was too enamoured with the genre of advertising to come up with any indepth analysis or critique. because he distributes attention amongst a number of people, you don't get any cohesive sense of any one of them - it becomes a survey of the field and a somewhat sycophantic look at the medium and its' stars.

on sunday we saw "let's make money" this was THE WORST. it actually made me want to punch the air, the screen, and everyone around me who was sitting there not stewing in rage (in that order.) it was SO BANAL. it starts off showing a montage of gold being mined and then turned into bars...from the description in the hot docs catalogue i thought it was going to track the route that money follows. this is the hot docs synopsis: "What do banks do with our money? The intricate web of the world's financial system is surveyed in pursuit of the answer to this timely question, all leading to a harsh take on the consequences of greed." sounds pretty decent, right? WRONG! this was SO SO SO TERRIBLE. stupid interviews with people who had no authority or context (most egregious was this spanish cartographer commenting about the "concrete tsunami" - aka the building of giant foreign-owned luxury developments on the spanish coast.) most of the interviews consisting of long, rambling, directionless commentary delivered by some teutonic random talking over his shoulder as he drove on the autobahn - seriously, how intelligent or composed can you expect someone to be in those circumstances? there were stupid, pithy introductions to each segment that were peripherally related - stuff like, "how do we save ourselves from the rich?" SO DUMB. it was so insulting and high-level. basically we found out that power and money are concentrated in the hands of the few and that africa is hella po'. WE KNOW THAT ALREADY! the problem with the doc is that it doesn't properly tell you why. or HOW the IMF and world bank screw over africa. why agricultural subsidies are bad, etc.

i could understand if the documentary assumes that everyone has such a deep understanding of the issues that it doesn't want to re-tread remedial ground...but the overall documentary is one giant gloss. it just doesn't make sense to perform a surface analysis of such complex issues. TERRIBLE.

on sunday night we also saw the newest featured from the director of one of my favorite docs from 2007, "helvetica." "helvetica" used the font as a launching pad for an examination of trends in typography and on a larger level, aesthetics. it was a fascinating cultural studies look at a cultural product that is once ubiquitous and invisible - and how it's rise and fall from favour says specific things about cultural and aesthetic values.

the new documentary from this dude is called "objectified." it's a look at industrial design - the thought processes that go into the design of the everyday objects we use. i thought there was a bit of a disconnect between the idea of industrial design and how it was depicted in the doc. he chose to talk to the superstars of the industrial design world, the people who AREN'T really designing everyday objects. they're designing stuff for the MOMA store. also, it became another meandering survey piece through a lack of focus on the part of the director. this was very well shot though - the static images were beautiful, but empty, like the movie. they briefly touch on the sustainability, but not in any in-depth, considered way...it turns out to be more like industrial design porn. i'm as susceptible to that stuff as the next person (one need only look at my rapidly multiplying backlog in my google reader for evidence) but at the same time, industrial design is a persuasive, consumer-driven art form that is at odds with the precepts of sustainability. there wasn't any talk of that or of how people's desires and what we consider to be "intuitive" design is constructed. maybe i'm inserting too much of what **i** would have liked to see, but overall, i thought the film suffered from a lack of focus and inability to really get at the meat of the matter.

last night we saw "the jazz baroness" which follows the strange life of a wealthy white baroness (baroness pannonica "nica" de koenigswarter, born kathleen annie pannonica rothschild) who fell in love with thelonious monk and supported bebop at its' height. charlie parker died in her arms. this was a potentially interesting story bludgeoned to death by the too-heavy hand of the director/filmmaker (the baroness' grand-niece, hannah rothschild, writer for vogue and vanity fair.) the symbolism and editing were atrociously heavy-handed. helen mirren lends her considerable patrician talent as the voice of the baroness, in voiceovers. there's a lot of great interviews with jazzy heavies like sonny rollins and other people i'm only peripherally aware of through the long-suffering, dedicated (and oft-wasted) tutelage of one dotytron, esquire. it was interesting enough, but not great. apparently the baroness and monk never consummated their mutual love. even though he lived with her, wrote songs for her, and she worked tirelessly to get him gigs, even serving as chauffeur and putting herself in considerable danger - a white woman consorting with assorted black musicians and smack addicts. it's worth seeing if you have a passing interest in jazz (or share a life with someone who does) but if you're outside of that select sub-section of society, it's not very good and not worth going out of your way for.

tonight for dinner i just got us a quickie chinese bbq and rice takeout from a chinese bbq place in chinatown east. i was on the run.

okay...off to paint!

fin.

recap

oh my. i felt exhausted this morning. i felt like i needed a weekend to recover from my weekend and while i know how debauched that statement sounds, the reality of what i actually did that resulted in this sad-sack state is the diametric opposite of glamorous.

saturday morning i woke up obscenely early (hot docs reviews forthcoming tomorrow evening) after our friday night documentary and puttered around and futzed with my sourdough wholewheat sandwich bread. instead of kneading, it uses a technique called the "french fold" - my bread turned out very squat and quite homely. i was worried it was going to be a dense brick. it's still pretty dense but shows a pretty open mie which indicates that my starter is working, but it's nowhere near as lofty my inspiration recipe, pulled from the fresh loaf. it was still a bit too sour for my liking, for an everyday sandwich bread. i think i probably let it ferment too long. actually, when i look at the loaves posted...the baker only got maybe an inch more heigh than me, by the looks of it. so i didn't do too badly. still could use a bit of work. the dough was a NIGHTMARE to work with. wet, sticky, goopy, sludgy - it made a mess of my counters, hands, and every scraper and bowl in the house.

so wrestling with the dough baby took up a good chunk of my time. then i blew out my computer and gave its' innies a compressed air bath, put everything back together, and realized that EVERY usb port had crapped out on me. oy vey! i panicked and fiddled and tried every configuration before calling canada computers and finding out whether i could bring it in to the service people there. in the end, the dotytron suggested that i probably loosened something and that i should see if i could readjust on my own. i fiddled around a bit and lo and behold, it worked! now i get the intense satisfaction that can only come from meeting a formidable and inscrutable foe like a modern day computer head-on and emerging triumphant. seriously...how many people can fix hardware stuff on their computers?!? not many, that's who. granted, the "fix" consisted of pressing gently on a little metal thing attached to the circuit board...but still. a fix is a fix is a fix. i probably (definitely) would have gotten fleeced out of $25 by canada computers and then had to deal with the trauma of carrying my computer around on public transportation.

s-dawg came over, drunk and heaving from a day spent at the ballpark. we packed up the car and i drove us to meet my mom for dinner. the ontario kid-contingent had been summoned by my mom to a dinner because her friend from cleveland was visiting (they were in KINDERGARTEN together!) and my mom's other schoolmate from back in the day was also joining in. cleveland friend was also bringing her "kid" (aka, a dude my age) so my mum wanted us trotted out for a little meet and greet and to provide intra-generational support. generally these meet and greets with my mom's friends' kids or my mom's clients' kids are THE WORST. this turned out to be THE BEST. cleveland kid was a chef, totally funny, sarcastic, brought his adorable gf along and we got along like crazy. it was fantastic. they were totally our kind of peeps - could totally see us incorporating them into regular crew if they lived in toronto. my mum's other school friend is this lady B, who is a lesbian falling on the butch side of things. she's AWESOME. i just added her as a friend on facebook. lol! she just knows what's what. where the good food is, where to go for taiwanese bubble tea, and she's got a zillion hilarious stories to tell. her gf is very sweet too.

i totally find old chinese lesbians from hong kong kind of exotic. i expressed this in the car ride home and the dotytron was all like, "me too!" lol! lemongrass was super tasty and also very fresh tasting. the thing with going to places in the company of B is that she gets MAD FACE! special items not on the menu kind of face! it's totally awesome. we had pho and it made me cry that there wasn't anything so good downtown. the broth was so clean and clear tasting, unlike the stuff downtown which tastes like reconstituted dish water. WHY ARE MARKHAM AND SCARBS SO GANGSTA IN THE FOOD DEPARTMENT?!??? it's infuriating! we also had awesome rotis and curry crab and finished off with coconut milk ice cream served in a little wee baby coconut shell that had bits of young coconut mixed in. i LOVE baby coconut flesh. best baby flesh in the world.

anyway, we ended up totally re-jigging our sunday morning plans so that we could have dim sum with the whole crew again on sunday morning. we went to this place at bayview & 16th called yang's. it was pretty nice and the food was very clean tasting...not so heavy on the msg-tip.

then we ditched the dotytron at home and i went to play dodgeball. then i met up with bwong and we checked a documentary with my friends B & G. after that, i headed to my boyfriend's place to hang out with him, his gf, and sharky. i tried acme burger for the first time...so disappointing. actually, once you've had five guys, there's really no turning back. every other chain burger tastes like crap. plus it takes FOREVER for them to make it at acme burger! plus the guy totally did the thing where he takes the spatula and LEANS on the burger with it, as i watch in horror at all my precious juices running off into the charcoal. i watched for a few minutes before i had to intercede with a meek, "ummmm...i think my burger's done" the bun was okay but that's pretty much all they had going for them.

so i hung out there and then the dotytron came and met up with me and we headed down to see ANOTHER documentary at the bloor cinema, again with B who met up with us (not exotic chinese lesbian B, B of B & G fame.)

zomg! now you know why i'm feeling so pooched. i've got a low-grade headache and i'm thinking i might bail on the documentary we have on deck tonight to do the millions of other things i have to do. like plan out my family's disney food itinerary. gah! and i haven't even STARTED compiling a hawaii food spreadsheet yet. and the trip is only THREE MONTHS AWAY! i know!!!!!

tonight i made an asparagus pasta with cream and lemon and diced red onion and garlic. basically the same as the orecchiette from last week but subbing in pan-frying the asparagus with the diced onions and garlic instead of the re-blanching treatment the frozen peas got, 1 c. of whipping cream instead of the crème frâiche, and no proscuitto (i'm not gonna lie, it was missing a bit of pork - i contemplated putting in some pancetta to start but decided i wanted this to be a true vegetarian meal.)

i also made that baby spinach salad with the toasted salted pumpkin seeds, cherry tomatoes, and red onion with the sweet lemon vinaigrette. i usually add avocado but that wasn't happening because the avocado was mad sketchy - it had been through hell.

okay, so you all know how OCD i am about my fruit and veggie consumption, right? how i like to eat the WHOLE fruit so that if you want a piece, i'd rather give you the one i just cut up and get another whole fruit for myself rather than contemplate having only 5/8 of a fruit. it's crazy, i know. so anyway, today at work i went for one of my mini-runs (10 minutes!) and then came back in, stopped by the kitchen, cut up a mango (using the mango turtle technique) and an apple (taking all four sides off the core, i hate eating an apple just out of hand) and put them both on a plate. then i went to the bathroom to change and stuck the plate on this counter directly across from the women's bathroom door, close to the photocopiers. now, the bathrooms are off to the side of my work...it's not like they're in a heavily trafficked area. i come out, grab the plate and IMMEDIATELY notice that one entire HALF of my mango is MISSING! i'm all like, furrowed-brow "HUH?!?" about it and then i look over to my right and A CLIENT IS EATING MY MANGO! WHAT THE EFF?!???????? who DOES THAT?!??????? this client is a regular and likes to make themselves at home...but still!!!!!!!! i mean, granted my old supervisor T and i bring in cupcakes and little chocolates and stuff, but if i saw a cut up mango (with the pit cuz i like to suck on the pit) and a rapidly browning apple on a plate, that doesn't exactly scream, "treats for everyone" to me. i was kind of taken aback and put off.

so now i'm all screwed. i have to eat another 1/2 mango to get the WHOLE fruit in me, but then what am i going to do with the other 1/2?????? i can't go to sleep tonight with 1.5 mangoes coursing through my bloodstream.

the inconveniences of being insane, i tells you.

fin.

auspicious

yesterday was little miss ramona's FIFTH birthday. she is FIVE! it was five years ago yesterday that the dotytron called in sick to work and he, my mom, and i drove down to geneseo, ny in the early hours of the morning to nervously circle the hospital. while eating breakfast in an IHOP, we got the call that the little miss was born and that i was officially an aunt, the dotytron and unkie dodo, and my mum a grandma.

holy eff the time has gone by fast. i have mild pangs that i don't have a little bobbin of my own yet and that my kids and my sister's kids are going to be far apart in age. but there's nothing that can be done about that when your mom didn't have the foresight NOT to wait 7 years between her first and second childs. ah well, in due time. to be honest, the dotytron has more anxiety about it than i do. lol! i think he underestimates how close my family is. i think i see my sister more than people who live in the same city as their siblings.

so yeah, that was pretty auspicious. what was MORE auspicious is that when i changed into a pair of jeans to go look at houses with our realtor, i found FORTY BUCKS in my pocket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm going to buy a lottery ticket or two with that money. perfect! this comes at a much needed time because even though i just got paid on thursday, because of my unrelenting and spartan savings/debt repayment regimen and budgeting, i only had $25 to tide me over until the next paycheque. ha. it's actually not that unreasonable - part of the budgeting had been spending money for when i go down to the states next weekend, so really, it was only money to carry me during the week - and now that i'm biking, it's really only money for spending on food or something.

but who cares about that now? I'M FORTY DOLLARS RICHER!

so much to tell you folks! wednesday night i worked late at work and came home to perogies prepared à la dotytron (per my instructions.) basically he sautéed some onions until they were golden brown and then tossed some perogies in and dotted them with butter and salt and pepper and threw it in the oven. the point is, i ate so many that i got 'rogie sick.

thursday night i met up with dr. rei and we went to my dodgeball game where i had a class-A wigout on the other team because they started getting all cranked that we were tooling them. in particular, this one blondie in green shorts shorts kind of hated me (blondes always hate me! i don't know why?) we got a dude on our team with a super insane arm and a really hard throw (eeen) and he hit one of their girls in the neck-chest region (close to the face) and then she said something like, "that's the third time" and then her lunkhead bf came rushing onto the court and started calling out eeen saying that he should ease up on his throws when he's throwing at girls. which OF COURSE makes me turn into instant apocalyptica, for a few reasons that i'll itemize here because i believe firmly in the beauty of an itemized list:

1) yes, eeen has an insanely hard throw, but it's not like his arm is so accurate that he could make adjustments and calibrate it so that what hits at the waist on a 6ft tall dude would also hit at the waist on a 5ft tall girl (she was short.)
2) he's not doing it on purpose.
3) their guys weren't letting up on the girls on my team, but because they had crappy accuracy and weak arms, it wasn't such a big deal
4) getting hit in the face is nothing. it kind of stings and you're kind of taken aback for a second, but it literally doesn't last more than 10 seconds of shock. it's a foam ball, fer crissakes.
5) it makes me about 10 different kinds of insane when people think that girls can't take the treatment in dodgeball. it's coed mixed sports. either stand up and take it like a true playa, or step down and play with julio down by the schoolyard, 'naw mean? i would NEVER ask a dude to lighten up on me. throw it as hard as you can! i want to be able to catch that shiz...i want to get better at the game.

anyway, that was that drama. so i started yelling my little buckshot shorty face off and running at the mouth (not very sportsmanlike of me, but whatevs.)

then i went with dr. rei to meet some of her tuesday night dinnie crew at duff's for wings and fries and such. it was a good time...we covered a lot of conversational ground - state sanctioned gambling, agency, the occult...it was good times.

yesterday after work i went and checked out some houses with our realtor. attention all potential home buyers: when the listing says "attention renovators" STAY AWAY! lol! generally when houses look too good to be true for the price on the listing, it's because there are nests of rats living in the place (seriously, i saw a place that was like that.) some of the houses were disgusting. obviously suffering from years of neglect and being used as boarding houses. it was gross. i am NOT prepared to do that much work to a house for a few reasons - i don't have that capital available, above and beyond the purchase price, and as much as one of the houses broke my heart because it was soooo big and beautiful and the bones were there, you were looking at $100,000 in renos. plus the house was listed at a stupid price. if it was $200,000, then fine, that makes sense. this place was $335,000 and it was the one that looked like it hadn't been lived in in 50 years (the sad thing was, it was tenanted up until 3 weeks ago) and literally had PILES of mouse crap in corners - it was so gross we hand sanitized the eff out of ourselves after.

i saw one cute place...same owners for 50 years...lot of love. super outdated but the kind of thing where it's livable...mostly cosmetic changes...it had one of those cute attic lofts where you have this hook thing to pull the trap door with stairs down from the ceiling. that was the most viable. the realtor said it was good coming out with me so that she gets a sense of what i mean when i say that i'm willing to do some work. am i willing to take a place down to the brick? no. am i willing to basically live in tent city while my house gets worked on for a year? big no. anyway, i really really really like our realtor and i feel we made a good choice.

i made a quickie dinner of the old reliable spicy beef and kimchi udon and then we went and saw the first of our hotdocs. in deference to K's geriatric schedule, i'm not going to do a review just yet until she's had a chance to see it. i don't want to spoiler alert anything.

today is errands, working on the garden, baking bread, researching disney restaurants day. then i'm having dinner with my mum and her friends and s-dawg at lemongrass in the no-man's land between markham and scarborough. it's getting super good reviews. then we're coming home and SLEEPING! i'm feeling mega sleep deprived lately and tomorrow is a big day with dodgeball and two documentaries.

a demain.

fin.