Cleveland round-up!

Our long weekend in Cleveland was obviously the bestest.  We booked it down there early Friday morning and got into town around 12:30pm.  Even though it's a bit of a long haul, because we were there most of Friday, all Saturday, and had brunch with the wedding party on Sunday, you didn't feel like the 11 hours of total driving was all for just a couple hours of fun.  Oh no...it was an ENTIRE WEEKEND OF FUN!  


We rolled into town, got to check into our hotel early, and then headed to Happy Dog, which is our NEW FAVORITEST RESTAURANT ON EARTH.  The concept is simple, but amazing.  You pick either a $5 1/4 lb hot dog or a veggie dog, and then load on as many toppings as you want, from a list of 50 different toppings:

Then you pick either fries or tater tots for $3 and you can pick from 19 different side sauces to dip from for free, or add any number of extra toppings for an extra $1.  BOSS.  This place is THE BOMB!  Check it out, they have seated DJing, or as the Dotytron called it, "living the dream:"  

The danger with Happy Dog is that you can go a little nuts with your toppings, if you're prone to straying from classic combos (ie. Dr. Rei and the Dotytron) and end up with a hot mess.  I tended to stick with tried and true variations.  The Dotytron messed up one of his dogs by going buck, but for his other one, he went with one from a list of suggested combos (Michael Symon's picks) which sounded weird but tasted awesome: peanut butter, bacon, chopped onion, and Oaxacan red chile and chocolate mole sauce.  

The other thing we learned about Cleveland is that this town is SERIOUS about their craft brews.  It's a religion down there.  The beer list at Happy Dog is also boss.  I seriously want to open one, here. 

On Saturday this crew walked to a park for the sake of the two cousins, who promptly passed out en route.  This is us in front of the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, which we obviously didn't go into because I don't like paying money to see Bono's glasses in a glass cube.  I don't know for sure that Bono's glasses are in the collection, but I'm guessing that it's 90% Bono's glasses and 10% guitar picks.

Pretty bad-a** public art in Cleveland.  Like this Claes Oldenburg stamp, which we then found out was commissioned by BP oil.  Booooooooooooo.

Because we couldn't get enough of Happy Dog, we went there for Saturday lunch with the groom-to-be.  Seriously, I can't impress on you enough how much we loved Happy Dog.

Me and the Big Yam, wedding bound

Uncle Rico, upon seeing the Big Yam en route to wedding, exclaimed, "He looks like a model!"  LOL!

First dance...awwwwwwwwwwww.

The wedding was super-fun!  So I don't want to brag or nothing, but I basically saved the wedding and someone's life.  I saved the wedding when A (the bride) called me over and asked me to distribute programs to all the guests, who had mostly come through a different entrance and missed the stack of them.  No big deal, just another day in the life of a wedding-saver.  Then, my mom's "date" (her friend A), had a glass of the pineapple punch and because she is a drinking lightweight like me, FAINTED IN MY ARMS while I was talking to them about  where we were going to sit.  So I helped her onto the floor.  It was like a less funny version of the time the Dotytron fainted at Au Pied Du Cochon.  A was out for a good minute.  It was a little scary.  I hope she remembers how I saved her life so that I can call in a favour one day.  She better!

Then S-Dawg took A back to her hotel room.  S-Dawg's gf didn't come to the wedding, so during the dancing, when people were all coupled off, I asked him, "S, are you sad?" and he said, "A [my mom's friend] is by herself right now!  Of course I'm sad!  She's alone, she's scared..."  LOL!!!  Because of course we had to make everything inappropriate by joking about how S undressed A before putting her in bed and took her socks off with his teeth.  Hahahaha...I love my inappropriate family.

The two cousins.  

Watching the two cousins together all weekend was cute.  The Big Yam kept trying to kiss Little Big Cuz and was getting rebuffed all the time.  The Big Yam is a pretty sweet kid.  If you tell him, "go give so-and-so a hug/kiss" he generally does it.  Little Big Cuz was having none of it.  Which meant that every time Little Big Cuz had his back turned to the Boobla, the Boobla would walk over and try to sneak a kiss onto his back.  So cute!  

The Big Yam's daycare provider is seriously his biggest fan.  Every time when I drop him off, I give him a kiss and tell him to be a good boy and to listen to J and every day she looks at me like I'm crazy and says, "All the time.  He is perfect.  He is an angel (except she pronounces it an-hel)."  I find it so funny.  Today she was telling me how he's so mature (there's another kid there who is exactly 1 month younger than the Big Yam) and how she can set him down at a table to play with the older girls (who are 3) with play dough or sand and how he doesn't ever try to eat it.  But the slightly younger kid eats the play dough and sand EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  LOL!  So cute!  Calling a toddler "mature" is really funny.  It's not very cleary from the photo above, but the Boobla's head is about 1 1/2 times the size of Little Big Cuz's.  Also really funny.

I'm still getting post-traumatic stress every now and then.  For some reason, maybe because he's been growing so much and I love this stage of his life SO HARD right now, I'm realizing how narrowly we dodge a bullet?  Every now and then this past week I've been getting flashes of him at the bottom of the stairs.  And of him looking up at me from the CT scan table with the neck brace on his neck and looking soooo sad and scared and lost.  Worst thing ever.  

It is a magical thing watching a being that started off as a two cells rapidly dividing, plant their feet, point at the moon, and say, "moon."  The human brain!  

Tonight for dinner we had chicken katsu oyako don with brown rice.

Fin.

Quickie

A short little video of the Big Yam's Cantonese in action.  He says the numbers 8 and 9 and his intonation is actually pretty good!  He doesn't actually know what they mean - it's rote memorization.

Fin.

Culture I can't get behind (aka stoops kids)

On Sunday night we watched the movie Drive.  When this came out, I felt like my FB exploded with peeps going bats**t for this flick.  After having seen it, I totally don't get it!  It was so boring!  Nothing happens!  It's all style and hipster-posturing, with no substance.  From the 80s hot-pink font of the title credits to the director's fixation with Ryan Gosling's character's gold scorpion embossed white quilted jacket (the director was OBSESSED!), I thought it was just hipster-bait.  I didn't get what there was to love about the movie.  The film's story is completely implausible and makes no sense, it glorifies in violence for the sake of gratuitous violence and the casting!!!  Egregious!!!  We're supposed to believe that Carey Mulligan (below), is a waitress, named Irene, who got knocked up at seventeen, by a dude who is in prison, and has a son named Benicio.  !!!!!!!!  

And somehow, through her moochie-face (which is what me and my sis call a certain squinty, pursed lip, Renee  Zellweger-esque face), she is the white light in Ryan Gosling's life?!?  C'maaaan.  Does that woman up there look like the kind of woman who gets knocked up at 17?!?  Jeez.  Cast like, Kristen Stewart or something.  Someone believable.  Then there was the soundtrack.  The director used Lynch's go-to man, Angelo Badalementi, which was obvious in the first few seconds of music in the film.  Here's the thing though, when you combine Lynch and Badalementi, Lynch has a way of using Badalementi's excesses and reigning them in so that you have something very eerie and surreal - something suffused with a feeling of foreboding.  This director though, just made the 80s-referencing principal refrain into a weird, cheap, music video with slowed-down shots for no reason.  Overall, I just found it boring.  As Bwong said, "Drive = John Hughes edits David Lynch footage" or as Dr. Rei said, "what's to like about this?  People turning around slowly?!?"  

We also watched 1 hour of Hugo before quitting because it was so borez0rz.  Total, total boringness.  As the Dotytron said at the point in which we stopped, "this is way too long for something not awesome to happen."  LOL!  It's so true!!! NOTHING AWESOME HAPPENS!  It's a kid's movie!!!  


So we've had bad luck on the movie front lately.  I have some good ones on deck but the Dotytron is being resistant, I'm not sure why.


In other culture news, Toronto's free weekly, Now Magazine recently published an article about this band of just-barely-not-teenagers named BBNG (BadBadNotGood) who are receiving fame and attention because they did jazz versions of Odd Future tunes and attracted the attention (and daps) of Tyler the Creator.  Here's the article: BadBadNotGood.  It was brought to my attention by the Dotytron, who was up in arms, because the stoops kids in the article dissed the school they're going to, Humber College's Jazz Music program (the Dotytron's alma mater) and the faculty, and did the usual stoops kid thing of complaining that the program is full of dorks and is stodgy and lame, etc.  So all the faculty, who are like, pretty big deals in the jazz scene generally and locally, have been posting replies, which the Dotytron got wind of.  The replies have been stuff to the effect that these kids might just want to play with the same people they're dissing one day, so that it's not the wisest move.  The author of the article is an idiot, and so are the kids, obviously, because they assume that all jazzers are boring and out of touch, SIMPLY because these kids know who Tyler the Creator and like, Pitchfork are.  THAT'S THE LAMEST SHIZ I'VE EVER HEARD!  Guess what stoops kids?  NO ONE CARES ABOUT PITCHFORK!  TYLER THE CREATOR IS NOT AN ARBITER OF TASTE, HE'S JUST ANOTHER STOOPS KID LIKE YOU.  And this is coming from someone (me) who loves nothing more than to talk about how the jazz scene is full of nerdlingers...but at the same time, there are people out there doing boss things, and even those people (like Robert Glasper, referenced in the article) are being dissed by those stoops kids.  


My problem with this is multi-fold.  


1) Those kids doing a live instrument version of Odd Future is totally musically the boringest.  It's akin to when people put out "baby" CDs with like, Metallica songs on it or like, Radiohead, but turned into lullabies. I find that stuff impossibly juvenile and boring and lame and one-note.
2) WHO CARES WHAT TYLER THE CREATOR THINKS?!?
3) Why is the media slavishly lapping up what the Odd Future kids are doing, acritically?  Isn't the job of the music journalist to be a place of sober second thought, to reflect on the work of artists, not to jump on like Tyler et al. are the saviors of rap and the new apostles?!??!!  It's embarrassing to the max.
4) Stoops kids are super-annoying
5) BTW, according to the Dotytron, those kids aren't even good musicians.  They're just aight.  


The culture of mediocrity triumphs again.  


This letter to the editor in response to the article was the best:


Jazz lesson for BBNG

NOW is at its bully-pulpit best with its cover on BADBADNOTGOOD (NOW, March 22-28). Writer Anupa Mistry – if she can explain exactly what a “deranged bebop fugue” is, I’ll eat one of my jazz students’ boat shoes  – is palpably excited at the prospect of her imminent takedown of the twin straw men of jazz traditionalism and educational institutionalism.

The article is facilitated by her trio of “jazz futurists” who uncritically grant Mistry the pretext required to rail against jazz music’s assumed “fusty codes,” cloistered elitism, fetishization of rote virtuosity over individual creativity and, my personal favourite, ossification (proven, apparently, by jazz’s presupposed reluctance to include Odd Future’s Ass Milk as part of its mouldy canon).

If I’ve understood Mistry’s “through the looking glass” history correctly, then John Coltrane and Charlie Parker (two of the most significant musicians of the 20th century who both died young and underappreciated) are part of music’s fat cat hegemony while Pitchfork Music and James Blake remain marginalized?

Andrew Scott
Toronto

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  Snap!  


For our family holiday Monday yesterday, we had fat baby with Mennonite garlic breakfast sausage for breakfast:

Then we did fun stuff like play outside and go to PacMall to get a cute Ipad cover and eat froyo at Yutopia and then we came home and had a dinner of single-crust tourtiere with pan-fried brussels sprouts and roasted carrots:

Then we watched episode 2 of Game of Thrones which is all kinds of bucksauce.  George R.R. Martin is a bit of a sick bastardo. It doesn't sound like much, but it was a near-perfect day.

Tonight we had tarte flambée (Alsatian pizza, topped with creme fraiche, caramelized onions, lardons, and for one of them, a baked duck egg) and a salad:


So good!


Fin.

The weird language

When we were hanging at the Dotytron's Aunt's place on Sunday, the Big Yam was being a little clingy for some reason (possibly because he was getting assaulted by dog licks) and didn't want to do anything but sit on my lap.  He started pointing at one of their pot lights, and Momma D goes, "what does he call them again?  He's has this weird language"  LOL!!!  For the record, he calls them "dang dang" which is Cantonese for a lamp or light.  So awesome.  I'm not offended because it comes from a well-intentioned, if a little ignorant place.  I mean, I really don't think my mother-in-law is racist.  Haha!  It's only going to get weirder when we enroll in family Mandarin classes.  

The Dotytron is against 99% of extracurricular programming for children before a certain age.  He thinks it's a waste of money and (more importantly) a waste of his weekend time to be schlepping a kid to go to "music classes" (ie. song and story circles) or like, "playball" or something.  I'm indifferent.  I didn't get enrolled in non-swimming programming until I was in like, the junior grades and my mum and Big D needed somewhere to take us during summer vacation.  Wait, I might have done ballet for a year or two when I was 5 or 6.  The Dotytron's number 1 enemy is paying for music classes.  Number 2 enemy is parent and tot swimming where you're paying to be in a pool to teach your kid how to blow bubbles in the water.  The only children's extracurricular programming the Dotytron is willing to exert any energy over is a weekend language class (which will most likely be Mandarin).  MHui has been scaring the craps outta me because she's saying that secondary language acquisition peters out for kids by age SIX.  AGE SIX!!! I'm ramping up my Cantonese speaking to the Big Yam.  I only wish I was better at speaking Cantonese and had another language to teach, too!  One of the Big Yam's friends at daycare has a mom who only speaks French to him and a dad who only speaks Spanish.  And then he get English from everyone else.  He's slow to talk but it's all in there.  He's a pretty lucky kid!  His mom speaks French to the Boobla, too.  Which is good.  

Three posts in a row!  I'm on a roll!  

I woke up stupid early this morning to prep dinner, which was oyster po' boys with remoulade on my favorite buns of life - the rolls sold at Strickland's.  They're soft, yielding, flour dusted, perfection.  We had this with a ceasar salad so I had to soak the oysters, make the croutons, prep the romaine, and make the remoulade.  I also boiled and peeled 8 eggs for on-the-road egg salad sandwich breakfast for us.  I know, I'm insane.  But look at the results:

So worth it. Milk soaked, egg dredged, flour-and-cornmeal-paper-bag-shook oysters, fried crisp, and piled on a soft bun smeared with remoulade and some salad greens courtesy of E's winter CSA food share that she gifted us with last night.  AND ceasar salad?  Happiness!  

I also made my current favorite breakfast.  It's this egg sandwich thing from Deb from Smitten Kitchen by way of Joanna Goddard's A Cup of Jo blog.  It's supposed to be a homemade rendition of a NYC bodega egg sandwich.  I wouldn't know what that tastes like, because when I travel to NYC, eating from a bodega is the last thing on my mind.  Bodega eating is for NYC residents only, I believe.  Anyway, I took one look at the pictures and thought: GENIUS!  So easy!  I've been using a slice off a block of aged cheddar for the cheese in the middle and 2 eggs (no water) for my 9" cast iron pan...but that makes for a bit of a thicker egg pancake which is a little harder to fold, so in the future, I'm going to be more restrained and go with just 1 egg.

Seriously, ^^^ that right there, sandwiched between the two halves of a lightly toasted Pita Break One Bun is a damn good breakfast.  

Trying to get some packing done tonight.  Strangely dreaming of a vacation to Austin and San Antonio?!??? Who's in?  Chef H: I'm looking in your direction.

Fin.

When you find yourself in times of trouble...

the answer to lifting your spirits is usually amigurumi.  You know, those super-cute, wee, Japanese crocheted or knitted stuffies.  The ultimate in spirit-lifting would logically be the entire main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in amigurumi form, obviously!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  *dies*  Whoever made these came to the sound decision to do late-series bearded Riker.  Also, Data's eyes are the best.  The best episodes were all the holodeck Sherlock Holmes ones, followed closely by anything involving the Borg.

Uhhhhh...yeah.  I'm done being a giant nerdliner, thanks.

Actually, not quite.  So I went to see The Hunger Games a second time with Dr. Rei which was obviously the hardest thing in the world for me to do because the movie doesn't hold up to repeat viewings.  Just kidding!  April Fool's!  Opposite day lasted for just the preceding sentence!  IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME THE SECOND TIME AROUND.  The best was getting to hash it out with Dr. Rei after, when she said that, "the one major complaint I have, and I know it's a small one, is that they didn't focus on the FOOD enough!"  LOL!  So then we started talking about the lamb stew with plums that Katniss loved so much and Dr. Rei was talking about the "pearly grains of polished rice" that I didn't even remember but that apparently made a huge impression on her.  So funny.  I love that girl.

Soooooooo...we got an iPad.  I know, I know.  We're not even like, app-y people.  But I'm semi-addicted to the nerdiest game ever (STILL not done being a giant nerdlinger!), which is this spelling/word jumble game called Word Warp.  On Saturday, before the movie, I think I managed to get Dr. Rei hooked on it as well, resulting in her saying (when Word Warp refused to accept a perfectly legitimate word), "this has the paws of Word Mole [a word game on the Blackberry] all over it!"  LOL!!!  We like letting the Big Yam play sneaky learning games on it.  It's kind of blowing his mind that his favorite app, I Hear Ewe (where you touch cartoon pictures of animals and this disjointed, supremely disaffected male voice says, "This is the sound a rhinoceros [raccoon, zebra, frog, etc] makes" followed by a real life recording of the animal sound), is so much bigger than it is on the Ipod touch.  He's loving life.  As an aside: zebras make CRAZY sounds.  Like, if you were to imagine what a zebra sound liked, you'd think horselike, right?  WRONG!  They kind of make these weird, keening, "yip yip!" noises.  It's bizarre.  Knowledge I wouldn't have without I Hear Ewe.  I'm loving life because I get to spend my before-reading bed time playing Word Warp times a billion.  And because now I can get the iPad-only version of Gourmet magazine.  That's basically all I use it for.  The Dotytron has been obsessed with playing this learn Cantonese game that I downloaded for the Big Yam.  It's super-cute.  He gets SO MAD when he doesn't get it right and he's SO HAPPY when he does get a few in a row right and they let you pick one of the "stickers" to put on the sticker page.

We've been talking about getting one forever and when we finally decided to pull the trigger, the Dotytron was asking me what we should get engraved on the back (if anything) and I immediately said: "San Dimas High School Football Rules" and he paused and said, "I knew there was a reason I married you."  LOL!

Ta-da!

Okay.  I think I'm done nerdlinger-ing out.  The other thing that totally raised my spirits today was going for a Kenzo Ramen lunch with MHui, G, and Dr. Rei.  Mmmmm...tonkotsu ramen with gyoza and takoyaki (fried octopus balls).

Other things that make me happy?  The other day, the Big Yam was in his high chair and we were in the kitchen getting breakfast put away.  We always make a point of kissing each other in front of him and then saying, "See? Mama and Baba love each other."  So we stood in the doorway of the kitchen and I called out to the Boobla, "Hey Master T!  Look!  Mama and Baba love each other." and we gave each other a smooch and we turned to look at him and he was sitting there, with both hands holding the far edge of the tray like he was bracing himself, and BEAMING at us with this big, silly, stupid, pleased grin on his face.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.  

I went for a run today.  DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN.  I'm getting semi-serious about success.  And by success I mean getting back into a regular routine of yoga, and running so that my heart doesn't explode during softball.  I still hate running.  I think I always will.  If it wasn't for old skool jungle mixes on the Toronto Rave Mixtape archive, I wouldn't last a second.  I have very very modest goals - 5 km in 30 minutes.  And if I don't meet that goal, I will be negative 10 trillion degrees upset.  See?  Reach for the stars!  Or reach for the closest piece of fried chicken!  Whatever floats your boat.

Work continues to be buzaaaay.  My colleagues be wigging.  Me?  I like being busy...and I like feeling the presh.  It's good.  I'm falling behind on school work...but it's still all good.  Getting so excited for my long weekend of fun (please, Captain Save-a-Ho...don't break down on us!)

Tonight E came over for dinner.  We had mulligatawny soup with red lentils and brown rice and coconut milk, and samosas from Bombay Chowpatty, this place close to us that specializes in chaat.

Fin.

BLARGH!

Blargh is how it is around here and blargh is how I'm feeling folks.  Because I am a child of the new millienium (in spirit, if not in age) then I will report back to you, my ever faithful readers, in a list format:


The Good:
- finished a paper 8 days early!  This stunning display of anti-procrastinatory behaviour is brought to you by the time-honoured technique of "repurposing a paper from a previous master's degree"
- had a family and friend filled (if not exactly restful) weekend
- this is a four day work week, which will be followed up by a 3 day work week
- we will be spending the weekend in Cleveland celebrating the nuptials of Chef H and his bride-to-be, A (and my fam-bam will be there, too!)


The Bad:
- I have to finish another paper this week and prepare a 15 minute conference presentation on it by next Saturday
- work is INSANELY busy.  Like, so busy that I'm being run off my feet and the pleasant sensation of feeling under the gun has morphed into the slightly queasy, sweat-inducing sensation of seeing the bullet coming at you 1000 miles a minute
- the weekend was busy and thus our house is a giant pigsty of disgustingness
- there is no time to clean up said giant pigsty of disgustingness
- I haven't been home enough lately to spend QT with the Big Yam and it makes me sad because he's kind of the best right now.


I don't know how I'm going to reconcile everything.  Academic Book Club continues to pile on the homework (2 books and an article?!?) and our meetings are now on a regular schedule (first Thursday of the month, instead of when it works out for everyone).  Work Book Club has started back as well.  I'm feeling really behind on my reading, between the two book club's required reading and the ever-growing list of new stuff I want to delve into.


I have a quilt I want to make for the roomie's bambino.  I have assorted things I want to start working on - not the least of which is getting my ducks in order for the kitchen reno...which is probably still over a year off, but I want to know exactly what I'm getting and have everything priced out so that when the time comes, I can just pull the trigger.  I'm thinking white, Shaker-style cabinets with really exaggerated, modern pulls, grey counters, a grey cork or tile floor, and an acid yellow backsplash.  Some open shelving, magnetic knife rack, and some wire baskets to hold onions and potatoes and fruit and such.  

This is the stove I want.  I'm really set on dual ovens, and I can't afford like, a Viking or anything.  This is a Fisher Paykel - I like the big oven-little oven combo...I would first have to see if the little oven can fit a half sheet tray.  If it can't, then it's kind of pointless and I would just go with one oven, which is what I've been working with for the past ten years.

This is the sink I want.  It's a Kohler stainless steel "smart divide".  A DOUBLE SINK WITH A LOW DIVIDER.  Genius!!!  Serious, serious genius!  All the benefits of a double sink AND a farmstand sink!

I'm not wedded to this model, but when we finally (FINALLY!) get a dishwasher...I want a Bosch or a Miele.  I told you: I'm not f**king around any more.  This is for reals.

Of course, it remains to be seen if we can actually blow like 10gs just on appliances...but I want my kitchen to be boss...otherwise, I'd rather just save up for longer until I can get the one I want.  

Tonight's dinner was a reuben sammy with leftover St. Paddy's corned beef.  I also had a salad alongside.  

Back to the grind, sons.  Back to the grind.

Fin.

Because I am not as smart as my heroes

...and never will be.  Here is what John Green has to say about The Hunger Games movie (which dovetails neatly into what I have to say next):

What is very, very interesting to me is the ways in which the plot of both book and movie explore the extremely complicated and ethically fraught relationship between observer and observed—the way resource-laden Person X paying attention to the plight of resource-deprived Person Y shapes both the lives of Person X and Person Y. (The most interesting moment in the movie to me is when Katniss gets the salve from a sponsor that allows her to survive: Lawrence’s complicated thank you in that moment is maybe even more evocative than in the book. Katniss is benefiting from the generosity of the rich, but she only needs this generosity because the social order that created the wealth is also the social order that put her in the games.)

Like, what Collins explores with real brilliance is that most social orders are more or less designed to be unjust because they are less concerned with justice than they are with stability.

And when you yourself are the victim of this injustice, you’re aware in a heightened way of what gets sacrificed in the name of stability. But the vast majority of people benefit from stability, or at least feel that it is better than taking a chance at instability. (And in this respect, we’re not entirely wrong. Like, it’s still unclear whether the radically unjust but relatively stable rule of a Hosni Mubarak, for instance, will be replaced by something better.)

Because I am not, nor will I ever be, as smart, or as good of a writer as John Green, here is what he has to say about the resolution of Konygate:

Some Appropriate Responses to the News That Invisible Children Co-Founder Jason Russell Was Arrested for Being Drunk and Masturbating in Public

1. Make a gift to a highly rated, respected, efficient charity that works in Uganda, like Save the Children.

2. Join the Kiva nerdfighters group and lend to entrepreneurs in Uganda, the DRC, and other nations affected by the LRA.

3. Remind yourself always to do some research before giving to any organization, like for instance by making a quick visit to charity navigator.

4. Remember that the masturbatory habits and/or substance abuse problems of cofounders of charities are not nearly as important as the work those charities do and the efficiency with which they do it. I, for one, am far more concerned that Ugandans seem generally disgusted about Kony 2012 than I am with this news.

5. Acknowledge that the LRA sucked 10 years ago, and sucks today, and will suck tomorrow, and that it remains our job to pay attention in a patient and sustained way to the world in which we find ourselves.

Uhhh, yeah, what he said.  I am continually humbled by the brilliance of John and Hank Green, to the point where, should I be blessed enough to bear another child, they shall be named Jhankgreen.  Jhankgreen Lagerfeld (because I am starting a semi-serious campaign now that the next child should have my last name, as a bid to counteract patriarchal naming conventions.

So smart!  This week has been insanely, insanely busy.  Busy at work, busy with school, and our nights are busy.  To wit:  Monday night, we were both home to put the Boobla to bed together (my favorite!).  Tuesday night, I had class.  Wednesday night, the Dotytron had a parent council meeting to attend.  Tonight, the Dotytron wants to catch our friend A's set at The Rex.  Friday night, I have book club (where I will probably have to defend YA AND Mindy Kaling to my professor friends, who are SERIOUS INTELLECTUALS) and then Saturday we have to do house/grocery stuff and then I'm shopping with Dr. Rei and then seeing the Hunger Games with her.  Sunday we have brunch at the Dotytron's Aunt's house in King City or wherever and then we're taking my mum and Poh Poh out to dinner.  PHEW!  That means that the only night we had with both of us at home was Monday and Sunday.  That's too few!!!

Reasons why I love Dr. Rei and the fact that she's working at the Ministry of Magic.  Getting texts like: "dude! We still have to talk about the Budget!" (the provincial budget dropped on Tuesday...kind of a big deal.)  We are literally the only two people we know in the world who care to talk about the budget and provincial politics in any great detail.  I love that gal.

Feeling pretty stressed right now.  I have two 25 page papers I want to have done by the middle of April so I can have a clean slate before my last class starts in May.  I'm losing a big chunk of Easter weekend for the best reason possible, which is to celebrate the nuptials of H & A.  I'm super pumped about it!  

In other news...so many babies born!  All little girl babies too.  My colleague K had her baby this past weekend and Uncle Jesse and N had their daughter on Monday.  I am feeling tinglings in my uterine region!

 Wednesday night's dinner was those black bean and spelt burgers I make on occasion.  But with the addition of a runny fried egg (makes everything better!) and some baby arugala in addition to the smoked Spanish paprika feta spread on Pita Break One Bun.

Tonight's dinner was a cabbage and beet borscht, which had all the colour leached out of it from sitting in the slow cooker all day.  Still tasty though.  I tried to find some beef shanks or shins to dress it up but no dice.  Settled for pork ribs instead.  Served with oven-warmed Ace bakery roasted garlic bread.

Fin.

Retraction

Don't ever say that I can't admit that I'm wrong.  

I've been very vocal about my initial love affair and subsequent breakup with Zooey Deschanel as a style icon and then as a female figure in popular culture starring in a hit sitcom.  Initially, I really disliked the show New Girl because of the whole "adorkable" thing which was way too twee and infantilizing for my liking.  Well, I've come around.  We find the show pretty funny and I can admit it.  

I will say that the show has definitely taken steps to reduce the undue focus on Zooey Deschanel's character Jess, as a series of walking quirks and has taken steps to mature the other members of the cast into a really likable, funny, watchable ensemble.  The show has even addressed the criticisms of the tweeness (I'm not the only one who has said it!) head-on, most notably in a confrontation between Jess and her roommate's high-powered, very un-cute lawyer girlfriend, which included the following diatribe from Jess: "I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person. That's just weird, and it freaks me out. And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it just slightly cuter. And that doesn't mean I'm not smart and tough and strong."  Which was a little heavy-handed for my liking.  But lines like this one (Jess, bemoaning her inability to make an apology): "I hate groveling. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes in the court of the Sun King. I think about that all the time," made me LOL like a mother.

This past weekend when I was hanging with the neighbs the Big Yam was giving me guff about wearing his hat and I was telling him, "you wear a hat when you're outside!" and he took the hat off and THREW IT ON THE SIDEWALK at which point I told him that he has to listen to mama and hustled him inside while he kind of twisted and bucked in my arms like a 28lb giant Southeast Asian grub.  Later on, I took him back outside and he wasn't wearing a hat, so one of my neighbs needled me, "where's his hat?" (I forgot to put it on him) and so I said, "the important thing is not whether he's protected from the sun at all times or not.  The important thing is that he knows that if it is my will that he wear a hat, he has to wear a hat."  LOL!  I'm pretty sure they think I'm the meanest parent on the block.  I rule with an iron fist.  I went back in to tell the Dotytron and he supports me 100%.  The Boobla neither has the mental capacity (right now) or the history to understand context, therefore, it's my job as the parent to decide when he has to wear a hat or not.  But if I say, we wear a hat when we go outside, then he better do it, because my word is LAW.  

How many times have I seen a parent, obviously not happy about their kid doing something they don't want them to do, standing there, arms akimbo, earnestly saying, "Madison, can you please stop taking the sand out of the sandbox? Madison?  When you take the sand out of the sandbox, then there won't be enough sand the next time you want to play with it.  Madison, I asked you to please leave the sand in the sandbox," and on and on with their voice going up at the end and I'm like, why are you pleading with your kid?  Why are you trying to reason with them?  They don't understand the long-term ramifications of their actions!  Every day is a new day to them...they're not going to get that if they shovel all the sand out of the sandbox now, that at some date in the not-too-distant-future, the level of sand in the sandbox might decrease to the point where it will have a negative impact on their sandbox fun!  **I** barely understand that concept (see: my clothes buying habit and my credit card balance)!  It's all about conditioning them.  So yeah, maybe I treat my kid like a dog in the court of a slightly-more-strict version of the Sun King.  But at this age, they kinda ARE like dogs!  Is that wrong?  Am I not supposed to say that?  Obviously, the personality of the kid makes a huge difference too.   Some kids might not be as receptive to direction.  But maybe it's the cultural studies in me but I believe that like, 98% of the time you can mould general behavior.  That's how I learned that murdering people is wrong, right?  

So despite the individual personality of the particular kid involved, I think that it's a symbiotic relationship between the parent and the kid (within reason).   Kids who come out of the womb more sensitive can have the edges smoothed a bit by a parent who doesn't give into those sensitives, or have those edges sharpened by a parent who gives into those sensitivities.  That's why as a general thing, people have an easier time with their second child, because they're less anxious and stressed out than they were with bambino number one.  I can draw an anecdotal conclusion that the parents I know who still have babies that get up in the night repeatedly, if you ask them, "well, how long do you let them cry for?" will almost always say, "I can't bear to listen to them cry!" That being said, I'm pretty sure if we have another baby, that #2 is going to be a hellraiser of the highest order, just to shake up my world a bit.  At which point, I will post another retraction.  Stay tuned!

Tonight I have class.  It's my last Tuesday class before the summer term starts in the beginning of May.  The summer class ends on July 14th and then I will be DONE MY DEGREE!!!  THE STUPID DEGREE THAT PROBABLY WON'T ADVANCE MY CAREER PROSPECTS IN THE LEAST AND WHICH I RUINED MY MATERNITY LEAVE WITH MY FIRST CHILD FOR!  

Sigh.  

Fin.

Weekend in review

FAO DR. REI - this post might contain Hunger Games movie spoilers!  You've been warned!  Same goes for anyone else in my pathetic readership who hasn't seen the movie yet.

This weekend was kind of bucktown.  We went with some crew to AYCE Hot Pot for dinner and it was THE BEST!  Well, some people didn't love hot pot as much as we do.  I find it odd, and I know that Dr. Rei considers it like, a personal insult any time I take friends to a Markham favorite that she's been to and they don't like it as much as she does.  In her mind, that means they don't "deserve" to go.  LOL!  It's kind of cute.  Is it wrong that I secretly agree?  You're either on board or you're not!  You either can accept the glory of AYCE hot pot (and the unlimited eggs for dipping!) and cold, sweetened (and free!) chrysanthemum tea into your heart or you can't.  

It's the same with the Hunger Games.  I've basically turned into a one-woman Hunger Games defender.  There's been some kind of weird anti-Hunger Games backlash popping up on my social media and I swear, I'm turning defending the Hunger Games into a part time job.  I get so mad!  Why haters gotta be hatin' so bad?  Seriously?  It's always the duy-duys who have no idea about popular culture and dislike anything that's popular, too.  Guys: SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET IT RIGHT (ie. suffrage, civil rights, public healthcare, Harry Potter, the Hunger Games).  It's okay!  It's not that big of a deal to participate in a collective cultural experience!  It's also always the same duy-duys who like, dislike it because it's not "intellectual" like, say, Mad Men.  People talking about how "intellectual" Mad Men is makes me want to braf.  HOW?  WHY?  Because it's super-boring?  It's such an insular character study.  Even though I find i the least-compelling television ever, I can get the appeal.  But don't be trying to convince me that it's the SMARTEST TELEVISION IN FOREVER.  And that's it's all high brow high culture just because it's all mid-century modern and because people are conflicted.    Uh, no thank you.  The Mad Men-repping crew is always the same as the Six Feet Under crew or like, the Jonathan Frantzen crew and you know what I have to say about that?  I've had enough about white people and their white people problems, thanks.

I feel like the same thing that happened with Konygate is the same thing that happened with Lana Del Rey.  No matter what, there is no way that you can convince me that stopping Kony wouldn't benefit Uganda, or if you want to get specific, it would reduce the kidnapping-children-for-child-armies numbers.  What's galling is that the same liberal intellectuals who are all like, "Kony 2012 is complicated!" are also the same ones who are like, "stop globalisation!" or like, "stop the Israeli occupation of Palestine!" which is a WAY MORE COMPLICATED ISSUE!  Like, exponentially!  It's just the internet and the media whipping themselves up into a froth.  Which is what happened with Lana Del Rey.  Girl wrote (or had ghostwritten, seriously?  How is that an issue anymore?) a catchy song that capture a very evocative vibe that is really underrepresented and then did a semi-nervous performance on SNL (which wasn't even as bad as everyone made it out to be) and people raked her over the coals for it.  Whaaaaaa?  I'm an original hater and I frequently hate things randomly (ie. my hatred for the Jigga Man) but my gift is being able to step outside of myself enough to know when it's irrational and inconsistent.  And the attempt to take down LDR was totally irrational and bizarre. Like, she's being taken to task by the bloggerati for being contrived?  For being manufactured?  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...sorry, I'm already asleep from this BORINGEST CULTURAL CRITICISM CONVERSATION IN 50 YEARS.  

Move along!

ANYWAY, hot pot wasn't the most successful but the night was the best anyway because the crew was the best, anyway.  One of our friends didn't know that at most AYCE restos a 10% gratuity is included and ended up paying way more for a tip and the Dotytron was like, "You know what?  That's a n00b mistake.  I'm not even going to offer to pay you back because you have to learn your lesson!"  LOL!  I'm always bigtime embarrassed/find it hilarious when the Dotytron gets all hilariously uppity about "teaching people lessons" (except when the lesson learner is me, obvs.)  We got to the theatre (an hour early) and we totally thought our ticket taker was just acing the deadpan ennui delivery when he told us there was a line already.  We're all like, "Aw, Brandon! You card!  Very funny! Haha!  A line an hour early!?  Why I oughta..." and then we found out that we were in the SECOND line for our screening.  PSYCHO KILLER, QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST?!  We were okay though and got decent seats.

Did I mention that I braided my hair into a side braid a la Katniss Everdeen?  When I saw the flick, I realized that I've been rocking the winding-around-the-head French braid for longer than Katniss.  No big deal, they just used my styles for inspiration.  I was also wearing a hob t-shirt that SMckay got for me.  And she was wearing her Hot Topic District 12 tank which I almost wanted to rip off her body, but I didn't, because I was trying to be cool in front of her beau.  They showed a Hunger Games commercial before the movie started and SMcKay and I did the salute from District 11 and Lolly was like, "you guys are such nerds," and I said to her, "Uhhh...HOW ELSE WOULD WE HONOUR RUE, HUH?"  *rolls eyes*

Afterwards we went for frozen yogurt at Pac Mall and it was the best!  Funnest night evers.  So so good.  I'm glad I get to see the movie again this weekend with Dr. Rei and the Roomie.  I totally came home from the movie (we were out SOOOO late!  Didn't get home until 2am!  What?) and tried to will my brain into having sexy dreams about Peeta.  I'm like, such a shipper.  I have been since I was a kid.  I think my shipping started with Lady J and Flint from the GI Joe cartoon.  I have a long shipping history but haven't gotten to the point where I write fanfic (yet.)  What!  I would NEVER!  Hahaha...just kidding.  I might.  Someday (tomorrow.)  

I'll do my movie review at the end of the post so that people who want to avoid spoilers can.

Yesterday the Dotytron was preoccupied with getting his stuff ready for his teaching evaluation that's happening today and I spent a good chunk of time outside with the neighbs chilling and weighing in on our one neighbour's siding dilemma.  I love my hood.  So hard!  According to this site that calculates walkability (using a very simple metric), my neighb scored a very nice 88/100!  That's a solid A, folks!

Friday night's dinner was delicious - a folded pizza bread sandwich thing, stuffed with chopped anchovies, olives, a sundried tomato tapenade, and sauteed rapini with fresh mozzarella.  This was a briny, delicious delight.

Tonight for dinner we had chicken stew with sweet potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and peas and dilled cornmeal dumplings.  So, basically the return to cold weather was the fault of this meal

Okay.  Time to get serious.  Hunger Games movie review.

Overall, really really liked the movie.  They stayed true to the spirit to the book and the changes they made in order to make the story flow, made sense.  Some people have been griping that it wasn't as violent as the book and that it was toned down too much to make for a PG 13 movie, but I think those people are sociopaths.  I don't *need* to see someone getting mauled to death.  The before and after are enough for me and it still evokes the horror of what the Capitol makes them do without being gratuitous.  When the film first started, I was a little worried that the jumpiness and fast edits was going to continue through the film, but thankfully, it dies down.  Gary Ross does a great job with strategic flashbacks and knows when to lay on the music-video-effects touches and when to pull them back.  Jennifer Lawrence is a PERFECT Katniss Everdeen (I called it AGES ago!) and Josh Hutcherson is a good Peeta.  Liam Hemsworth as Gale is also good, even if he's reduced to making the same perturbed-but-stoic one expression for the few minutes he's in the film.  Here are my thoughts in point form:

- I know why Madge had to go, but the symbolism of the mockingjay pin then gets all garbled.  In this case, Katniss picks it up in the hob and gifts it to Prim, saying that it will protect her (no explanation of symbolism of mockingjays!) IT FAILS TO DO THIS because Prim gets picked in the Reaping.  Then she gives the mockingjay pin (which I would think is now CURSED) back to Katniss to "protect" her.  Bad symbolism guys, bad symbolism.

- Prim is THE WORST.  When my sis and I saw her casting, we were like, "UGH, UNIBROW!"  You're supposed to love Prim on sight.  FAIL!  Big casting mistake.

- The chariot scene suffered from some seriously bad CGI.  Admittedly, they had a small budget to work with...but you could've done better than that!  It looked really really cheesy and had me concerned before the rest of the film settled my fears

- Elizabeth Banks was PERFECT as Effie and the character of Effie was perfect.

- I'm not sold on Woody's Haymitch.  They also make Haymitch way more sympathetic than he is in the book, which doesn't do justice to the complexity of his character.

- LOVED Donald Sutherland's President Snow.  Also loved the speech about hope and why a little hope is good but too much is bad.  Loved the improved presence of Seneca Crane.  Also loved the final touch of killing Seneca Crane by putting him in the room with the poison berries.  Although we were joking after that that if we were Seneca, we would've been, "Well, this is getting a little obscure.  I guess President Snow is late for the meeting" and the final scene would be him still sitting in the room, looking at his watch, getting all exasperated.  LOL!

- it seems like just about EVERYONE IN THE WORLD pictured the cornucopia as like, a French horn half buried in the ground.  LOL!  People were NOT expecting it to look so futurismo, but I get it.  Making a giant golden French horn probably wasn't in the budget.

- Totally cried like a baby when Rue died.  Loved seeing the uprisings in District 11

- Didn't need Cato's speechifying at the end.  I don't need Cato to be rehabilitated.  He's a Career.  That's what he does.  I didn't want Cato to be humanized.

- Totally thought the shippers were robbed by the scene where Katniss kisses Peeta not for show in the cave.  In the movie, they just show her looking at Peeta in a new way (way to go Jennifer for the ace acting chops!) and then cut to daylight.  Lame!

- In our theatre, when Katniss kisses Peeta and they cut to Gale watching from District 12, the whole theatre went, "Awwwwwww" in sympathy for Gale.  It was hilarious.  And awesome.  

Overall, it was a very satisfying fanboy film experience. My quibbles are small and my appreciation is great.  I read recently that The Fault in Our Stars has been optioned for a film.  Pretty pumped about that.  With Batman and The Avengers opening this spring/summer...it's going to be a very satisfying fanboy summer for me.

Fin.