Minute to win it

Sorry it's been radio silencio - it's been a real corker of a week. Preparing for being away for two weeks at a cottage with a bambino, and planning the street party, and an adjustment to the Boobla's bedtime routine, and the - heat! - resulted in me on Friday just out of sorts. I had a headache, my joints hurt from going too buck swimming laps, I was definitely dealing with a bit of sleep deprivation and basically ended up forcing the Dotytron to skip softball to look after me while I moaned and groaned and worried myself into a fit about having fibromyalgia or lupus.

Good news: I don't have fibromyalgia or lupus. What I DO have is a need to take things easy and not spend the hottest day in recent history schlepping around town to visit with my friend M and her baby, the Rev. Al Sharpton:

I also baked up a storm for the street party AND chose Friday as the day when I had to can my chipotle BBQ sauce in order to make room for all the cottage stuff I was going to be buying at Costco. My house was a sweatlodge. No matter - what made me feel infinitely better was Friday Night Lights, watched in bed on the netbook. Guys, this show is THE BOMB. The running joke is how the one pilot episode we watched was (is) a billion times better than the sum of EVERY Mad Men episode we've ever watched (endured). Mad Men is the BORINGEST SHOW IN ALL OF CHRISTENDOM. AND THEY DON'T EVEN GIVE US BOOBS. Worst. Friday Night Lights is the best. Seriously, the best. The characters, the writing, the depiction of small town America. So good. Such top notch TV. It's all I want to do now.

Saturday we hauled our butts up to North York to visit with my dad's sister and brother who are visiting from HK - my cousin hosted that side of the family:

After calling in advance to make sure my dad wasn't going to be there - we had a really fun time and it was great - considering this will be the most time I've spent with this side of the family since I was under 5. It did make me sad for what a dips**t my dad is - but I was glad to still feel a part of this family. We felt really welcomed and it was quite sweet.

Then the street party happened:

I was running "Minute to Win It" challenges for the older kids at the square table on the left. For everyone who pooh-poohed my Minute to Win It aspirations (*cough* The Dotytron *cough*) - let all you naysayers be informed: the kids went APES**T and mad hilarity ensued. I make a natural Gamekeeper (Hunger Games reference, what!) - mostly because I really, really, really ENJOYED being in control of the distribution of prizes and denying kids I find annoying whenever they got all whiny on me.

This is a photo of the Big Yam sporting his "loot bag" item (all the kidlets got a little loot bag). Isn't it the best? Dollarama coming through.

We had a lovely, long bike ride on the Leslie Spit this morning. I couldn't love the Spit more - it's seriously a marvel of urban conservation - it's basically a dump that's been turned into a conservation area and is now home to a bird sanctuary and foxes and coyotes and other urban wildlife awesomeness.

Now it's dinner with the outlaws and then hopefully the T&T Night market.

Fin.

Do you

The new favorite saying around here revolves around variations of "do you." As in: "Do me?!? Do YOU." Or, when I'm complaining about somebody/something the Dotyron likes to say: "She's doing her right now, you focus on doing you." LOL. Love it. Words to live by.

In good news: our Cleveland pictures came back from the ether!!! Huzzah! I've put them pon the FB - don't know how to put them on Google+ yet but when I do, they will magically appear.

We had Poh Poh and my mum over for dinner last night. I made us that grilled Vietnamese pork meatballs with rice noodle salad dish - nice and cool for a HOT day. For dessert I buttered and grilled slices of pound cake and then topped it with grilled figs and a maple-syrup sweetened whipped thickened yogurt:

It's hotter than a witch's butt out there today. I spent most of yesterday driving around to three (!!!) Canadian Tire locations on an agonizing search for air conditioners. First Canadian Tire was out of stock, even though the website showed in stock. They check their system and tell me to go to Canadian Tire #2 in North York, which purportedly has NINETEEN of the model that I'm looking for. I show up, and OF COURSE they don't have it. So they send me up to Richmond Hill where I finally get it, but not until I've wasted like, 3 hours driving around town dealing with inept retail staff. I was so mad I left a poop-filled diaper in the parking lot of Canadian Tire #2. They're lucking I didn't chuck it at the front doors.

Then we drove back downtown. I needed rice noodles to make the dinner, so since I already had the car I figured I'd break my usual, grocery-shopping-at-multiple-stores-on-the-Danny rule and go to the Loblaw's near my house to get the rice noodles and the rest of my groceries for next week. I have a full cart and I can't find rice noodles. BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARRY THEM. BECAUSE THIS LOBLAW'S MUST BE FREQUENTED BY RUBES. I was soooo mad that I left my full cart of groceries to melt in the aisle. WHAT GROCERY STORE IN TORONTO DOESN'T CARRY RICE NOODLES?!!!???? Brutal.

Came home super hot, super mad, super frustrated. Dinner with my mom and Poh Poh helped. That is until my grandma locked our bathroom door on her way out of the bathroom, thereby rendering us bathroomless. We tried picking the lock with paperclips for half an hour before I knocked on my neighbour's door and he went to town and busted the handle with a pair of vice grips. Lesson learned - better that it happen now before the Big Yam locks himself in one day. It's just the motivation we need to get those glass handles on our doors, stat.

I'm supposed to hang out with my friend M and her baby C today...but it might be too hot to do anything but loll around in the a/c reading books. We'll see. I'm also supposed to head out to get some grocery shopping done...but it's already hot as a mother out there, so I might avoid until tomorrow. I have a passel of book reviews to do - I've been reading up a storm and don't plan on stopping anytime soon, what with two weeks at the cottage looming. Wahoo! Two weeks, mother effers! Although I will miss my Dr. Rei something fierce.

I'm deep in the middle of trimming up my chevron blocks for my quilting project - I'd really love to take my sewing machine to the cottage if it was at all feasible...then I'd be able to get my quilt top finished sometime during the two weeks...hopefully. At this point, the car is so packed to the tits it's not going to be likely.

Fin.

Clevelanded

The good news: our car got fixed Friday morning and we eventually made it to Cleveland. The bad news: my camera ate all the bomb-a** photos we took and left us some pretty nondescript ones. Totally bummed about that, but what can you do.

We got there Friday evening (it's about a 5 hour drive sans baby, a 6 hour drive avec - so the equivalent of going to Montreal, but I would say more fun than Montreal). We had dinner at Otani's, which is this Japanese restaurant owned by my friend H and his mom, Auntie J - who is my mom's childhood friend from school. Otani's is AMAZING. I'm sure rolling up with the owners helps - but we had beef tataki, their famous volcano roll, big slices of hamachi and salmon, delicious scallops and shrimp from their teppanyaki side, uni with quail egg yolks, this Hawaiian roll with macadamia nuts and this jalapeno roll which was straight incendiary.

That night we went to this speakeasy fundraising night held by Ingenuity Cleveland - a non profit organization that funds the arts in Cleveland. It takes place on a bridge that spans the Cuyahoga river, on the part where their now-defunct subway trains used to run - so cool! The night was fun - they had drinks and people dressed up in period garb, a photo booth, a dj, some art installations....and black jack tables. Me: "How much is the table minimum?" Random dude giving me a bewildered look: "Uhhh...a dollar?" Dotytron and I bought chips ($5 for 6!) and went to town. By the end of the evening, the Dotytron was up like, $40 after a $10 investment, so we decided to "cash out". The Dotytron goes to the table where we purchased chips and watching from afar, I can see his growing confusion as the woman manning the table, instead of giving him money, starts counting out raffle tickets. When the Dotytron asked for clarification, she pointed to the SMALLEST SIGN IMAGINABLE that said "chips can be cashed for raffle tickets to be entered to win a $100 gift certificate to the Greenhouse Tavern." The Dotytron was none too pleased to say the least and H & A were cackling about how we got "Clevelanded." LOL! I have to say, it IS a very unorthodox way to run a charity casino. As we left, I pointed over to a dude playing at the table I had been at, who was playing 3 black jack hands at once and had amassed a stack of about $100 in chips, "should we tell him?" We decided that we didn't want to be responsible for his disillusionment and the recipients of his (justified, probable) ire so we slinked off into the night.

Saturday morning we checked out The West Side Market, which is their equivalent to St. Lawrence Market. Unlike St. Lawrence market, the West Side Market is much more representative of Cleveland and has a sense of place. The vendors lean towards the Eastern European side, reflecting the Polish and Slavic immigrants in the area. We picked up crepes, cupcakes, double smoked bacon, sausages, beef jerky, and pepperoni sticks galore. So good. Then we had a little driving tour of Cleveland and checked out their wee little Chinatown and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. For dinner that night, we went to this Polish placed called Sokolowskis - which has been in business for the past 88 years. It's the kind of place where everything is served cafeteria style, which might be repugnant for those of you unfamiliar with the charms of the old style American cafeteria-style restaurant, but is manna from heaven for anyone who loves to eat real, home cooking. In true style, you grab a tray, and make your way down the line (desserts are served first, natch). I had a slice of coconut cream pie, picked my main (breaded pork chops) which came with 2 sides (beans and perogies), unlimited trips to the salad bar, and the best bowl of beef barley soup I've ever tasted, the flavour goosed by liberal lashings of thick cream. It was delicious. Found out later that this Cleveland institution has been visited by no less than Anthony Bourdain and John Oates of Hall and Oates fame. So good.

That night we watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. First, the theatre where we watched it was initially having major problems with the sound - the commercials and previews all sounded like it was happening under water. Not good. The Dotytron, H, and I all went up individually and spoke with the useless tits at the theatre to complain and were assured that it was only the commercials and previews and that once the film started, it would be fine. Guess what? It wasn't fine. You couldn't hear the dialogue over a weird grinding/whirring noise and when we were whispering to each other about who would go up and complain next, we were actually SHUSHED by other people in the theatre! What freakin' idiots. We're trying to fix the problem here, you nincompoops!!! I couldn't believe those tits were shushing US. I was livid and of course I get all irate and in my head I'm all like - this complacency is how you end up going to war, blah blah blah. Anyway, they subbed the celluloid print for the digital one and then it was fine.

What wasn't fine, however, is the movie. I'm going to be liberal with my review so if for some reason you haven't read the books and don't know what to expect, then go someplace else. Also: you've had like, 10+ years to get this shiz done...so really? This film was a disappointing conclusion to the series, especially after the highs of Deathly Hallows Part 1. My principle critique is that moments of emotional impact weren't given the proper treatment, so you lost your investment in the events transpiring. What you have instead is a wooden race to the finish, where significant moments weren't highlighted. For example:

1) the battle of Hogwarts should be epic. The culminating battle is a well-worn cinematic trope, so there's no excuse for one done poorly (ie. see The Two Towers' battle at Helm's Deep for reference of a culminating battle done well). When the staff at Hogwart's first raise their wands into the sky to conjure the force field I was so adrenalized my blood was singing in my veins and I get goosebumps remembering it even now. Unfortunately, that initial excitement is soon quashed by the lack of attention paid to the battle. In the book, the battle sequence is when all these characters that you've grown to love over 7 hefty tomes all come out and mobilize together. Professors Trelawney, the creatures of the Forbidden Forest, the ghosts, the people in the paintings...anyone connected to Hogwarts both great and small come together to fight for this central symbol of the world of Harry Potter. What we got instead was a barely-there fight focusing too much on Neville Longbottom. It was such a let down.

2) The deaths. The death of Fred (or George) and Lupin and Tonks is a BIG DEAL. I cried in the books. What do we get instead? A glimpse of their dead bodies and a 10 second reaction shot of Ron Weasley. LAME!!! SO LAME! Lupin and Tonks I can kinda understand because their relationship isn't super-developed, but Fred (or George)?!!!???? Come ON! Their sacrifice is just as big of a deal as Harry's. Also - how the crap are we supposed to know that Lupin and Tonks already had their kid? Why bother mentioning it at all?

3) In the service of more emotional impact, I would have cut back on the scene with the whole Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter's interview on the location of the diadem. Seriously. We've SEEN ghosts do that whole, evasive-and-then-suddenly-shriekingly-angry thing before (see Moaning Myrtle). Why was that episode so long? Why was the sequence with Crab (or Goyle) burning down the Room of Requirement so long? Instead of that - how about more Battle of Hogwart's????

4) The epilogue. Worst. Hated it in the book. Hated it in the movie. So awkward. Don't need to see it. And you're telling me they STILL haven't gotten rid of Slytherin House?

5) Snape's memories in the pensieve bring me to TEARS every. single. time. I read it in the book. To tears. This is a character who's been with us from day 1 and this is how you do him in the end? By making him look like a fat, pasty drag queen with too much pancake makeup and eyeliner? By glossing over the importance of his patronus being the same as Lily's? By making his sacrifice for Harry (and really Lily) a rushed montage afterthought? SERIOUSLY?!!!???

6) Anyone who cares about Ginny and Harry's relationship raise your hand. *sound of crickets* Exactly.

Anyway, I was disappointed. These were things that could have easily been fixed to give us the movie that us Potterites deserve.

We left the Big Yam with A's mom, who provides babysitting services as part of her retirement. The text message we got from her at 9:10pm (about an hour past T's bedtime) showed a photo of a beamingly happy Big Yam climbing the couch and giggling a gap-toothed smile. When we got home, we found out why, as A's mom reported that she gave him THREE BOTTLES of milk and let him finish all the Cheerios (about a cup's worth). LOL! The Dotytron was a little concerned about the fact that he had quadrupled his before-bed intake and I was a little concerned about my breast milk surplus being wiped out, but as I told the Dotytron: when someone else is watching your kids for you, you kind of have to let that shiz go and let them do whatever keeps them and the baby happy. Just gotta go with the flow.

Sunday morning H & A cooked breakfast and then we napped and then headed to Michael Symon's burger bar, B Spot. Delicious. We split an order of amazing onion rings (so crispy!), twice fried skinny frites, their namesake Lola burger, a fried bologna sandwich, and some beers (they had a beer called Brother Thelonious!) I had a vanilla-apple-pie-bacon shake. So good. Thick vanilla ice cream with apple pie blended in and topped with crispy bacon bits. B Spot also has a full service pickle bar and a suite of homemade sauces for topping your burgers. It was really good. Then we walked around this quaint little town called Chagrin, which is where all the Cleveland rich folk live. Lots of pokey antique stores and high end boutiques. We sampled ice cream from Jeni's which serves bougie ice cream flavours like goat cheese & cherries (so good!) and brown butter almond brittle (also really good!). As we were backing out of our parking spot, H's car got honked at, and he wigged out. He was all like, looking back, and opening his car door to lay some smack down, until we looked back and realized it was an OLD LADY - like giant polarized shades, dyed hair, barely could see over the steering wheel, rich, leaving her inheritance to her cats old lady. So the running joke became about how H almost fought an old lady.

We ate our last meal at Skyline Chili - an Ohio institution that started in Cincinnati. Basically it's variations on chili, served either with cheese, with onions (3 way) and with beans (4 way) on a limited number of bases: coneys (hot dogs), spaghetti, baked potatoes, fries. The log type thing in the second photo is a burrito (filled with spaghetti) and topped with the chili, cheese, etc. It's kind of trashy but also hella delicious. It's also a quasi-fast food joint with table service. Keeping it classy, Cleve.

We spent our last night in H & A's backyard, with a fire going, playing games and with the boys smoking cigars and shooting the shiz with the sparking light of fireflies in the dusk. We also had a cupcake tasting and a Handel's ice cream tasting.

These guys are totally our doppelgangers. H's scotch and cigar collection is insane, he's a chowhound like we both are, we travel the same way, AND H just sent me his excel spreadsheet bugout bag list for emergency preparedness. LIKE IN CASE OF THE APOCALYPSE. It's serious and insane and I was thrilled (thrilled!) to find a kindred emergency preparedness spirit. The Dotytron (on the drive home, of which bugout bag/emergency preparedness talk make up 95% of all conversation): "I wasn't sure whether the bugout bag talk was scaring you or motivating you" (it did BOTH, people!) A believes in the power of vinegar as the solution (double entendre) for all things AND is notable for her dogged determination to always do what's right. Not what's easy. Not what's quick. What's right. Love that. They're total nerds like we are.

Can't wait to go back to the Cleve. I'd love to do a Harvey Pekar tour and not go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame again. Plus, there's still so much to eat!

Massive heatwave in the Tdot right now. Staying cool is the name of the game.

Fin.

Fail.

1st try getting to Cleveland - fail. We're on the Gardiner, in Mississauga, lunch packed (Italian cold cut sandwiches with lots of butter, cherries, butter tarts, ice cold water, chips), tunes blasting, when the Dotytron feels the Captain shift into a higher gear and suddenly we're running at 4000 RPMs. So he pulls off at the Erin Mills Parkway exit and slows down to get it to shift down, and then the car dies. Just stops dead. He tries to turn on the hazards and it makes a weird grinding noise and then everything kaks out. Can't turn the key in the ignition, can't change gears, nothing. We're stuck in the middle lane of the off ramp on a bleeping hot day. We call CAA, he stops traffic so that me and the Big Yam can climb out of the car and wait in an Eggsmart, and then the Dotytron proceeds to deal with shadesball tow truck drivers.

Why are tow truck drivers such lowlifes? Tow Truck Driver #1 (TTD1) shows up, pulls in front of our car, gets into position, and tells the Dotytron that the OPP are going to show up any minute now and will consider the car stopped in the middle lane a safety hazard and will make him get pulled to the shoulder. TTD1 says that he'll cut the Dotytron a special rate to pull him to the shoulder now, but that if he waits until OPP makes him pull over, then he's going to have to charge him full price. Dotytron reports this back to me 'pon the celly and I tell him, "Tell him to go F**K himself." Then, Tow Truck Driver #2 (TTD2) shows up and says to the Dotytron, "Listen, I know TTD1 and he's a crackhead. An actual crackhead. He just sits in his house all day, listening the scanner, waiting for the call. Then he'll take your money, immediately go buy a rock, and then sit doing crack all day. I'll tow you to the side of the road FOR FREE just so TTD1 doesn't get your money." LOL!!!!!!!!! How hilarious is THAT?!??? Then OPP does show up and is saying that TTD1 is already in position and Dotytron's explaining the situation about how TTD1 wants to charge him and TTD2 will do it for free and OPP says that he's aware of the long standing feud between these two and the problem is that TTD2 isn't licensed to tow on the highway (even though we were stopped about 6 feet from Erin Mills Parkway - gah!) and just when things are about to come to a head, CAA shows up and tows our car to our mechanic.

What a shizshow. Meanwhile - Bruce Wayne shows up and gives us all a lift back home. So we stayed home and hung out with the neighbours and I drowned my sorrows by eating 4 (FOUR!!!) hot dogs and half a box of KD. And then we walked to Ed's for ice cream. Needless to say, I watched the final episode of season 2 of Treme feeling VERY thirsty. Haha.

We're hoping our mechanic can have us back on the road (apparently our alternator is blown) and then we'll stay an extra day so that this entire weekend isn't a write off. I just really didn't want to be in Toronto this weekend and moreover, was REALLY looking forward to hanging with H & A.

Fingers crossed.

Tempting the fates cautionary tale - because I'm a novice driver and fear cars, I'm always freaking out whenever I hear the slightest rumble/creak/whathaveyou in the Captain. The Dotytron is always saying that I'm "irrational" and "if something's wrong with a car, you'd know - it appears gradually, it doesn't just die in the middle of road while you're driving." After yesterday, I'm all like, "SEE! SEE!!!!!!!!!" *a million fingers stabbing in his direction*

Ai ya.

Fin.

Done.

For realsies this time. Finished my final take home exam for my Public Accounting and Finance course, which was as scintillating and uninformative as the course title would suggest. It's kind of alarming how many paragraphs I can fill with sound and fury, signifying nothing. Worked hard on it all day Monday and Tuesday and now I'm DONE! So now I can embark on my weekend in good conscience. What's that you say? The weekend is still three days away? That today is only the proverbial "hump" day? FALSE! My weekend starts today - with a trip to work to celebrate a colleagues 60th birthday (and to eat cake for breakfast!), a visit from Lolly and JSculls (with sweet baby V in tow) so that we can loll around by the pool and eat brunch and otherwise be ladies of leisure, and the inaugural meeting of my Knit Club tonight.

Knit Club features a lot of overlapping members of Academic Book Club - except this time, we bring a crafting/sewing/knitting project and sit around flapping our gums and getting work done at the same time. Fun! I'm toting my sewing machine to start piecing together my blocks for the chevron quilt I'm making for the Big Yam.

A Big Yam, who, quite possibly, is lagging behind on his fine motor skills. We took him in for his 9 month well baby visit (no shots!) where our Doctor asked me a series of questions about his development. He's killing it on the gross motor skills front - crawling, he's been pulling himself up to standing for a while, etc. But fine motor skills? I dunno. Pincer grip? Not so much. Passing an object from one hand to the other? Meh. Putting his arms up to be picked up? Nope. Although I have to say, those skills seem pretty arbitrary. Take waving "bye bye" - we just don't have much of an occasion to do that around these parts. We don't leave him on a regular basis with other people. He's with me all the time! We're past the point of saying "hi" and "bye" - it's like waving hi and bye to your roommate. It just doesn't happen. The Dotytron thinks that he passes an object from one hand to another, but I haven't seen it. And when he wants to be picked up, he crawls over to us and hoists himself up, looking cute. Why isn't looking cute a fine motor skill?

Monday was a bit of a rough day. I was feeling stressed about the pinch on our finances, about some drama with my bros, and to cap it all off, I received a letter from my bio dad saying that after the series of dramas we've been having for the past few months (which I had thought we had come to a workable resolution to at our last in person meeting in early July), his wife had informed him that that she would divorce him if he continued to see us and that the stress and upheaval weren't worth it to him. So I guess I'm effectively estranged from my big poose of a bio dad. And the Big Yam will have seen him all of one time in his life, and that when he was less than a month old. Ah well. It's not like the Big Yam's missing much. I will say that at our last meeting, when I questioned why my dad wanted to be involved with us at all, seeing as how his interest in us was diffident at best, he said that he wanted to keep tabs on the Big Yam because from the first time he saw the Boobla, he could read his future on his face (there's a Chinese expression for it) and that the Big Yam was/is/will be destined for a "remarkable" future and remarkable things. When he said that, I flashed to images of the Big Yam looking like this:

and like this:

and I was like, "remarkable? Really?" LOL. I'm kind of sad about the whole thing - I think it's unfortunate but ultimately, it's my dad's loss. I feel sorry for him and his sad, lonely life, where these are the kinds of choices you make.

Onto a happier subject: tomorrow we're leaving to visit H & A for a long weekend in Cleveland! Yay! H has apparently planned our weekend down to the minute. According to him, Cleveland is actually pretty cool (for a weekend) and he wants every second to count. Friday night we're apparently going to some 20s style speakeasy party under a bridge. How cool is that? Love those guys - can't wait! Road trip!

Onto even more happier subjects: dinner! Tuesday night I made us a seared steak caesar salad:

Last night we had breaded and fried tilapia fingers with homemade tartar sauce and a red cabbage/scallion slaw:

Tonight the plan is lamb burgers with some kind of salad.

Fin.

Yowza wowza.

Busiest summer weekend to date. Holy cats, this was epic. I'm going to recap things chronologically. Thursday night's dinner - torched salmon sashimi rice bowl with spicy mayo, based on something I ate at Guu Saka bar. There, they make these little cream cheese balls and then lay a thin slice of salmon on top and torch it with a blowtorch so that it's lightly seared - the singed tips of the salmon chunks have a deliciously charred flavour, which contrasts really nicely with the cool, limpid, raw salmon underneath. Delicious!

Friday night we had softball (we won! Finally!) where we broke our diamond 2 curse (we consistently get placed on the s***iest diamond in this park and lose every game), but only because we were playing on a new diamond. The rest of the games are on diamond 2, so we'll see how we fare. I'm turning into quite the second baseman, if I do say so myself. I like playing the same position because it's a lot easier to learn the game this way - I only have to think about certain plays and get my reflexes in gear for one position, instead of switching it up all the time. Second base is perfect for me because I don't have the arm to get stuff in from the outfield in time - although I do miss catching those pop flys. I'm also helped by having the best rover possible backing me up. I also tried my hand at pitching for the first time - we have a rotation of 3 pitchers but if the batting order is just so, then they get called up and we're screwed - so I pitched one inning - it was pretty boss. I feel like my bocce experience helps me and I did pretty good - it's kind of a big deal because none of the other teams have female pitchers.

After the game we went to our teammates' B & M's condo for a bbq. This is what it looks like late Friday, after a few hours of drinking on the diamond and drinking at a bbq:

Sloppy. Late night for us and the Big Yam. Saturday morning woke up at the crack of dawn to put together final preparations for demo day. It was epic and heart-warming in equal measure. Dudes from the street came to lend a hand with tools and smashing stuff, compelled by the seemingly genetic guy-need to smash things to smithereens and to make things with their own two hands. The delivery of the disposal bins created much interest on the street and everyone came together to lend a hand. Tillers, Uncle Jesse, our Discerning Coyote friend, B, Gaz, and this guy Big Dave together took down our deck roof and the raccoon brothel/former sweatshop that was our garage. Here are some before and afters:

Crazy, huh? It's so spacious back there! Nevermind that we're probably going to rebuild a shed/studio for the Dotytron over the space, for now, we have a prime location to hold cock fights or to put a rusted down Trans Am up on blocks. We can make an ice rink in the winter or an outdoor kitchen in the summer. It's pretty great and already makes the space so much nicer and more usable. We can't thank those guys enough.

While the Dotytron was heading up that operation, I was representing our family at a party for the Dotytron's Uncle's 1 year anniversary of receiving a kidney transplant (kidney donated from his sister). Truth be told, I think I had the harder job - hanging with the outlaw family all day in the sun with the Big Yam. I did miss smashing things but it was nice to see the family. So we were gone all day up in Aurora from 11:30 until 6pm. I came home, packed up a dinner for the Big Yam and then toted him to a housewarming party for our friends M & M, who bought a place around the corner from us. Stayed there for an hour and then got picked up by the Dotytron for an impromptu dinner with our friends B & G and S & P at Aravind on the Danforth. The restaurant specializes in southern Indian, specifically Keralan, cuisine, which is VERY different from a lot of the northern Indian and Pakistani food that's de rigeur in Toronto. Much lighter, lots of seafood. The food was prepared with care and attention to plating (rare for Indian cuisine, I find), and served al fresco on a lovely, private patio out back. It was a great way to end what had been a VERY long day. Big Yam was a trooper beyond compare.

That's my crab cake appetizer and the Dotytron's pickerel main with cassava. So good! We were both EXHAUSTED by the end of Saturday. We had each put in a very long day, but I'm so glad we got to end it by having a nice dinner out with dear friends. I love those guys.

The name of the game on Sunday was sleeping in, eating Swedish pancakes and bacon, cleaning the house, tidying up outside, hanging with the neighbours, and putting the fake tattoo that comes with our box of freezies on the Boobla's chest - so badass. As Hanbo pointed out, the freezie mascot looks like old skool Chris Bosh. Then Dr. Rei and Hanbo and Dr. Rei's bro came over for a swim and then Bwong came over and we hit some balls with our Louisville slugger and played catch at the diamond and then met up with the Roomie for dinner at Florida's on Pape - which is a classic Greek diner style place where they do rotisserie lamb and pork and sell it by the kilo and serve beer in little glass cups. Super cute, kind of divey, but a fantastic dinner deal

And that, my friends, was my weekend. Now I've got to catch up on a million things - calling daycares, filing, finishing a stupid take home exam for my stupid program, getting details in order to go to Cleveland, etc. etc.

Fin.

LL Cool J goes swimming!

Here's a shot of the Big Yam on a family swim...we call him LL Cool J when he wears this sun hat and the brim is down over his eyes:

I've been plugging away at my take home exam these past couple of days. Part 1 is done, Part 2 I'm going to start tomorrow or during afternoon nap today. These past few days have also been about resigning myself to the fact that we're going into debt this summer - maternity leave top up well has run dry and the Dotytron is back to his meagre half-time salary with no possibility of supply teaching gigs to top him up. We saved a good chunk of change, but that's basically all going towards stuff for the Big Yam (I spent $100 on baby gates!) getting our car fixed up for our upcoming Cleveland trip, and the other life stuff that you need to spend money on. It hurts my frugal soul, but what can you do? I'm not even thinking about the tuition payment in September or my pension payments for the time when I'm not getting topped up. Things are looking pretty grim.

It does look like the Dotytron has wrangled enough hooligans to help us demo our garage and the roof of our deck this weekend. You can tell he's a bit nervous about it - he keeps looking for an out (which I'm not giving him.) If we're going to undertake any home improvement this summer, getting rid of the raccoon motel that is our garage is a good one. Then hopefully next year when we've begged and prostrated ourselves before the bank for more money, we can do our kitchen and deck/fence!

In other news: I've started cutting out squares for the quilt I'd like to get done as my summer project. It's going to be a chevron quilt for the Big Yam, in bright orange robot/rocket fabric (from the same line as his crib bumper).

In other other news, my bike kakked out on me on Tuesday, on my way to my lunchtime bocce game! I only made it a few blocks from our house before the gears seized up. Booooo!!! So I had to find a place to take it in to get it fixed. Unfortunately, the closest place I found is this fancy-pants place that sells bikes for racers and triathletes - who were less than impressed with me coming in with my Toronto Police auction repo-special. Serious bikers are the worst. They're such jerks about their Shimano gears and $5000 frames. Why can't they be more inclusive? Serious eaters and music lovers are inclusive! Sheesh. We'll see what the damage is. They charge by the hour and I got them to clean my bike while they're at it. If they do a s**t job on the cleaning I'm going to be mega pissed.

We ate last night's dinner outside, on our neighbour's lawn on a picnic blanket. Our neighbour's kid joined us. Super cute! We had pan-fried smoked, cured pork chops and sweet, creamy, boiled new potatoes from our CSA tossed with creme fraiche and scallions (my new favorite starch) and sugar snap peas steamed and then tossed with sesame oil and fleur de sel (my new favorite veg). So good!

Tuesday night's dinner was that quinoa and brown rice salad with scallions, soft boiled egg, and avocado, dressed with scallion mayo:


This is a video (a short one!) for a change, featuring the little dance the Boobla does when he's grooving on some tunes. We're not particularly fond of the song the cookie jar makes, but we're reassured by the fact that he also does his little butt-bop to Brahms and old skool hip hop and jungle. When the butt-bop is in full swing, it features flappy arms as well:

I love that guy.

Fin.

A quickie...

had our first dip in the pool yesterday - LOVE OUR POOL! LOVE IT! LOVE IT HARD! What's better than a free pool a 2 minute walk away? Answer: NOTHING! NOTHING IS BETTER IN THE SUMMER!

Pingy and I took the Big Yam there. He was a little tense - it's only his third time in a pool and he's used to the warm bath waters of indoor pools and not the bracing freshness of an outdoor pool. It was so much fun. Pingy also did a Uniqlo run on behalf of the Dotytron's work wardrobe which makes her the best of the best of the best. She just got a gig teaching high school math at this super crazy private school on the upper east side of NYC. Fancy pants! So Gossip Girl!

I love Pingy. She's so cute and nice and fun and patrician. LOL! I made dinner and we packed it up with us and ate it on my roomie's deck. It was grilled Vietnamese pork meatballs on a rice noodle salad with cucumber, carrots, lettuce, scallions, and mint doused in homemade nuoc cham:

For dessert I made us strawberry shortcakes on sugared biscuit filled to the brim with Ontario strawberries. Ontario strawberry season is almost over and it makes me sad!!! Don't go, Ontario strawberries, don't go! I'll miss you so! I'm going to feverishly buy up as many as I can before the go away. Is it a bad foodie confession to admit that I don't use them in jams and jellies? I always use California produce because I feel like the sugar in jams masks the flavour of the Ontario goodness anyway. So Ontario strawberries get the baked in desserts or eaten out of hand treatment in my house.

Anyway, we have a big day today - bocce at work and then meeting my friend M and her baby C at Riverdale Farm, then picking up our CSA and then swimming again and then hanging out with Pingy and the roomie. Phew!

Fin.

The attack of the killer cat hand

...the thrilling tale of how an over-testosteroned cat almost ruined my weekend. Wednesday afternoon I was sitting out on my neighbour's front lawn doing the usual after-work street hang thing with the Big Yam. The Dotytron opened our screen door to ask me something and I guess Smudge, our cat got outside, immediately saw Lil' Bit, our next door neighbour's cat and started going buck wanting to eat him. Now Smudge is truly the gentlest cat around, INSIDE the house. He routinely sits passively as the Boobla Khan mauls him and cheerfully pulls his tail and yanks out handfuls of his fur. But, outside in the world, he goes a little insane. So I separated the two kitties and then tried to hustle Smudge back into the house, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. He was so amped up that he turned around and chomped down on my hand, pretty deep, before running into the house. This whole exchange took about 2 minutes. Later on in the evening, as I was eating dinner with our Discerning Coyote friend at Bairrada - my hand started swelling up like crazy and it hurt when I lowered it below my heart level - like the dickens.

Thursday morning I called to make an appointment with my doctor, just to see what was going on - when the receptionist triaged me over the phone and I said "cat bite" she immediately got me an appointment for later that afternoon. I wasn't going to keep the appointment, but am I glad I ever did! Dr. T was scaring the bejeezus out of me and totally stoking the smoldering embers of my hypochrondria. He said that the bite was definitely infected and that he was very glad that I came to see him when I did and that he was going to start me on oral antibiotics but if that didn't work then he wanted me to go IMMEDIATELY to the hospital as the next stage was INTRAVENOUS antibiotics. WTF?!???!! He was saying stuff like, "I want you to have a very low tolerance for seeking emergency help if anything changes." !!!!!!!!!! Who knew?!? He also gave me a new tetanus shot (even though I'd had one just 5 years prior) and he called me on Friday and he wanted me to come back first thing Saturday so he could monitor the situation.

Is that insane or what? I was like, what the hell? Who knew cat bites were so serious? Apparently because cat's teeth are so sharp and thin, they can puncture really deep. Their mouths obviously harbor a lot of bacteria, which means the bacteria can be deposited quite deep into the hand and infect tendons. Hands are also considered "high risk" areas for animal bites, because they don't get great blood flow (extremity) and the network of tendons, musculature, etc. is so complicated, which is why he wanted to re-up my tetanus immunization and why he wanted to make sure the infection didn't spread. So he drew a mark around the redness on my hand and told me to go straight to emergency if the redness spread beyond the outline or if the swelling increased or if I broke a fever. Insane. I couldn't believe it. But when I came back on Thursday and told my neighbour, she said her friend got a cat bite on the hand and it spread to his elbow with his forearm all swollen in like, a couple of hours!!!!!!! So let that be a lesson to you - cat hand is no laughing matter.

I was especially bummed about cat hand ruining my weekend. We had plans to go with Supper Club to the Island for a picnic - luckily, by Canada Day the swelling had greatly reduced and the redness had retreated somewhat. So we loaded up the Chariot and biked to the ferry docks which OF COURSE were INSANE with tonnes of n00bs also going to the Island that day. The lineup stretched all the way back to Queen's Quay. Luckily, everyone is going to Centre Island and the Ward's Island ferry was empty. Unluckily for everyone else, they were all crammed onto the Centre Island ferry like sardines, not realizing that all the islands are connected and that the difference is, as our buddy Fox says, "purely psychological." No matter - we sat on the sandy beach of Ward's which looks onto the Leslie spit, facing away from the city and it's lovely. It was a bit of a hipster hang - everyone around us was like 20nothing and look like they ambled out of an American Apparel ad, but it was a hot, sunny day and we picnic'd like kings. Evidence:

The Dotytron and our friend R pulling daddy daycare duty - Dotytron is sporting a women's sun hat.

Master T sporting Liz's sunglasses

Liz holding T and looking radiant

T's buddy, D.

We left the island in the early evening and had grand plans to go to a lobster boil hosted by B's work friend down the street from us, or to catch drinks with Fox and his gf, but by the time we got home, showered, bathed and fed the Big Yam, we were all exhausted. So we had the roomie over for Pakistani take out and front stoop hangs with the neighbourhood kids. It was a lovely way to spend Canada Day, even if we were asleep by 11pm. I love the feeling of being sun drunk - lying on a blanket in the sun all snoozy and lethargic with heavy limbs. Like you could sleep the whole day away...it's one of the few times I let myself be lazy.

I know I've said it before, but I really think I live on the cutest street in all of Toronto. On Thursday evening a few of the neighbours rounded up their kids and we all walked to the ice cream store together in a little caravan - toting kids in strollers, walking, kids pushing other kids on plastic buggies...it was the cutest!!! I love my street - so lucky we have this.

We headed up to Markham after I got the a-ok from the doctor on Saturday - after begrudgingly spending the night downtown on Friday. We hung out with my sister and her kids and celebrated Poh Poh's 89th birthday:

It was bittersweet. I came home last night all sad and on the verge of crying. Sunday was an emotionally draining day. My sister and I had breakfast with my dad on Sunday morning - an airing of the grievances if you will, that was cathartic but still taxing. Then we had a physically draining excursion with the kids to the splash pad in Markham, and then dinner for Poh Poh at Big Mouth Kee.

I was sad when I came home because I was remembering previous year's celebrations of my Poh Poh's birthday - when Kung Kung would organize a giant banquet and book out the whole restaurant and it was a big to-do with like, 9 or 10 tables of guests and a full day of mah jong. This year was a quieter affair - Poh Poh still played mah jong but the cake cutting during the "afternoon tea" portion was much more subdued. It's natural, I suppose - since Kung Kung was the driving force behind all the ostentatious gaiety. But I was just sad. Then I started remembering how ungrateful I was and how I was a jerk one time to my grandparents (I was a jerk MANY times to my grandparents but I was remembering one time in particular) and I started feeling so guilty about awful ways I behaved as a kid and remorseful that I never had a chance to tell Kung Kung I was sorry. This has been a hard year - with Poppa getting sick around this time last year and Kung Kung passing away...it's definitely had a lasting impact on me. The Dotytron and I were talking about it last night - your 30s are such a transitional time. We have experienced so much joy and love from having the Big Yam and maturing into our relationships with our family and extended friend-family network and at the same time, as you get older the reality of it is that you're going to start losing more and more people and that's just the way it is. I was sad last night because I wasn't sure if Kung Kung died knowing that I loved him and was grateful to him for everything he ever did for me.

It's so weird how these random moments can fill you with guilt after the fact. When we were prepping for my fatburger shower last year, I had filled a piping bag with frosting for the mini cupcakes and my sister perked up and said she wanted to try piping the frosting on. So she was doing it and then I saw that she was getting frosting on the floor of the dining room and she wasn't wielding the piping bag properly so I kind of hustled in and took it out of her hands and took over and I'm like, FILLED WITH GUILT about that to this day. For being such a jerk and being so controlling and bossy and perfectionist when my sister had done SO MUCH for me and was so excited for the arrival of the Big Yam and had been so amazing about throwing me a shower and going so above and beyond. She continues to do so much for me. And look at me. I'm an ingrate. I barely did anything for her when she got married and when she had Miss E because I was a no-good 20 year old raver and an underpaid slave drone in the restaurant industry, respectively, when those seminal events happened. Ugh ugh ugh. Soooo guilty!

Sis - I love you the mostest...and even though I won't cut and paste Facebook status memes out of principle - I hope you realize that you're the best sister to me and I feel guilty all the time for not being half as good to you.

See? I'm an emotional wreck. I don't know if I'm hormonal or what. I'm a total suck now. I blame a combination of: turning 30, the loss of 2 great men in my life in the past year, having a baby, my own maudlin sentimentality, and watching a David Simon series (remember how I got when I was watching The Wire regularly? Treme apparently has the same effect).

The plus side of going to the doctor's on Thursday was that they had a table set up for the East York Senior's services network or something, which has volunteer opportunities for people to connect with and help seniors in the community. So I think I'm going to sign up. There's stuff like visiting seniors in their homes or taking them to appointments. The Dotytron: "That's great beebs. But are you just going to cry the whole time?" (I hadn't thought of that. Note to self: get a handle on crying about old people before volunteering with old people organization).

Here are some shots from the splash pad - I have the cutest niece and nephews in the world. Little Big Cuz was not feeling the water so much:

Thursday night's dinner was boss. Pan fried smoked cured pork chops from the mennonites (it's like eating a thick piece of english bacon/ham), new potatoes boiled and tossed while still warm with creme fraiche and scallions, and sugar snaps steamed and tossed with sesame oil from our CSA.

Finally, here's a video of the Big Yam doing his new fish mouth thing while eating. It's the cutest - he does it at the 23 second mark. He's also showing off his "slap the table" technique for more food. We're trying to do the baby sign language for "more" but he much prefers yelling at us and slapping the high chair tray with his hand. Incidentally, baby sign language is kind of weird. There are a bunch of signs for stuff that has NO PRACTICAL PURPOSE! Like "cow" or "butterfly" or "blueberry." I don't need my kid to tell me when he sees a cow! How is that ever going to come up? I think we're going to try for "more" "water" "please" "poo" - you know, the communication that makes MY life easier.

Our friend Pingy is in town so we're hanging out with her in the afternoon. The drop-in centre we usually go to is closed for the year, but one of the parents organizes a Monday thing that runs all summer in a nearby park with a splash pad, so I think we're going to go to that this morning. Our pool is opened so we have TOO MANY possible things to do during the week now. Yay summer! Bye bye sad, hello being grateful and loving life and the awesome people in it!

Fin.

I didn't forget about Dre.

I swear! I've been taking an extended hiatus to work reeeeaaaalllllyyy hard on finishing my LAST PAPER OF FIRST YEAR MPPAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's done done done! It's in in in! WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I'm freeeeeeeeee! Free to spend the summer with my boys and chilling out maxing relaxing all cool. Free to spend my afternoons swimming, visiting with friends, crafting, thinking about cottage fun times, cookings, farmer's marketing, bike adventuring with the Dotytron. FREE.

So my extended absence from chinotto hating land was well warranted, methinks. This does leave me with a big hodgepodge to tell you about and a recap of last weekend on the cusp of this weekend...but so what? The last weekend was delicious. We had a park picnic with kdubsguelph crew at Riverside Park in Guelph:

We played ladderball (BEST. GAME. EVER.) and the girls changed the Big Yam's diaper while I was playing catch and he was apparently quite traumatized by it - to the point of trying to crawl away from them with his bare butt in the air while they all laughed. LOL! Then we came home and were obviously pooped from a day spent outside. Sunday we had a bbq at Xtina & Buns' home to see baby H.

As Tillers puts it, leaning babies up against each other is never not funny. Look at these three hooligans! You've got H looking like a dad in his dad jeans, Big Yam looking like he's having the time of his life, and sweet mullet V looking like she's ready to cut someone:

We came home on Sunday and I was working on the computer when I saw someone coming up the shared driveway and rummaging in our neighbour's recycling bins. I wasn't sure what was going on so I watched for a bit, until the person started rummaging in our recycling bin. Then I told the Dotytron to maybe go outside and let the person know that we put out our recycling on Tuesday, so if he could come back then to collect recyclables for cash instead of showing up in our driveway, we would prefer that. So the Dotytron went out there and told him and was super nice about it, but OF COURSE the guy was an old Asian man and I immediately felt guilty for shooing him away and I started crying cuz I was all worried that he wasn't going to be okay. The Dotytron loves it when I cry over stuff like this. Mainly because he and Dr. Rei both love nothing more than when I drop my tough-guy routine. LOL! Anyway, I kept crying about it off and on all Sunday evening. To the point where on Monday, the Dotytron turned to me and said, "remember when you were weeping last night? THAT was an awkward display of humanity." LOL!

On Monday I made us a dinner of baby new potatoes tossed warm with creme fraiche, salt and pepper and chopped scallions, with roasted lemon-oregano stuffed sea bream, and a side of roasted asparagus. Didn't get a photo of it, though. Tuesday I made us lamb kofta in a harissa-kicked sauce with sweet-sour Moroccan style eggplant on top of whole wheat couscous with raisins and grated carrot. This was a big hit:


Last night we had dinner with our Discerning Coyote friend and his new ladybird, N. We went to Bairrada on College. I suggested it based on the fact that it has a gorgeous, giant patio and lured by the promise that Wednesdays are "roasted pork on a spit" night. Anticipating big hunks of juicy pork, I was chagrined to find that they saw off little wee plates of dry pork brushed with piri piri. When we saw that suckling pig was on the menu, we tried to order that, but it was sold out! Then our meals and apps took forever to arrive (they comped us an app and our second round of drinks though) and when the food did arrive, it was underwhelming. Don't think I'm actually a fan of Portuguese food, to be honest. As the Dotytron summarized, "nice patio with dry stuff." It was true: everything we had there WAS dry.

One of our favorite nighttime rituals now is on our way to bed, to go and "take a peek" at the Big Yam while he's sleeping. We tip toe into his room, peer into the crib, behold him looks all peaceful and pouty in slumber like this:



...and then turn to each other and smile all welling up with love and happiness and cute overload. It's my favorite part of the day. Seriously - how can you not love looking at that?!?

I also kind of like going into the room when he's wigging out and peering in the crib and seeing him all distressed clutching a stuffy - it's also cute with his two little (soon to be four) Chiclet teeth poking out:

The Dotytron went into work today to clear out his classroom and attend meetings. He should be home earlier in the afternoon and then we're planning on heading out to Metro Hall to hear some big band free outdoor concert thing. More likely, I'm going to splinter off and hang out with Dr. Rei while the Baba and Boobla listen to big band. Pingy comes into town tonight! Then tomorrow is a Supper Club Canada Day picnic on the Island, maybe more hanging with Pingy in the late afternoon, and then up to Markham to visit with my family because my sis is coming into town - it's Little Ze's birthday today and my Poh Poh's 89th birthday on Sunday. Yay! Family time. Fun time. Sun time. Bliss.

Fin.

I'm coming home

My youngest brother, CHova, is 10 years younger than me. That's a pretty big age gap for siblings and it meant that we lived parallel, concurrent lives - under the same roof but at entirely different stages, spaced too far apart to share experiences and be contemporaries. I've always felt badly that for most of his youth CHova was practically an only child, at home alone, in the crumbling estate that is my family's house in Markham, with my mom and Big D (two people who are notorious in their complete and utter inability to understand adolescence). Bruce Wayne has always stepped up and I'm glad that my brothers have each other for besties. It makes a big difference.

CHova has turned out to be a really good kid. He's smart, hard-working, responsible, funny and socially at ease. And he's cool. It's nice to have a sibling who's cool and stays on top of shiz. I sometimes look at him and marvel at how he turned out - almost against the odds.

At Kung Kung's funeral, CHova came out of nowhere and gave one of the most moving speeches I've ever heard in my life. It was funny, it was poignant, it was heartfelt. He told stories about my Kung Kung and how one of the things he'll always remember is how my Kung Kung stood up for him one time when he was just an 8 year old kid, when an older dude cut in front of CHova in line at McDonald's. He told another story of how my Kung Kung took him to see Gladiator and they emerged from the theatre in the pouring rain, how my Kung Kung looked at him, paused and said, "I guess we better make a run for it" and how Kung Kung outran him to the car. CHova closed his speech with the chorus from "Coming Home" - a song I'd never heard before that day...and now whenever I hear it I cry. And yeah, I know it's Diddy and I know it's kind of cheesy, but Skyler Grey kills it and the sentiment gets me every time. When I think of my Kung Kung and Poppa and Grandpa Reid and well, every old person in the world going home, with those words ushering them into the great beyond, it's unbelievably bittersweet.

All this is to say that I love CHova and I'm proud of him.

I'm continuing to experience family dramas with my dad and it's annoying and most of all saddening that someone could be so lucky as to have my siblings and I for family and not give a rat's. I look into the Big Yam's cute little face (seriously - how he is so cute? Cute expressive eyes, cute button nose, cute little mouth, cute little teefs, cute chubby cheeks, cute straight eyebrows, cute round head - there isn't a single feature that ISN'T cute individually and when put together becomes the apotheosis of cuteness) and I'm just sorry that my dad chooses to miss out. And I think of how awesome it would have been for Kung Kung and Poppa and Grandpa Reid to know this little being that they're a part of.

But they're home. And when it's my turn to go home I'll tell them how grateful I am for my family.

Fin.