On aging

My honest opinion: don't do it.  

Poh Poh (the Big Yam's Tai Poh) got a spot in a nursing home this past week and was moved into her new digs on Wednesday.  We went to visit her on Sunday evening with my mum.  

The good: the facility is a Chinese one, is close to my mum's house, and is a newer building so everything looks fresher and cleaner and brighter than some of the other, sadder places I've seen (like that one on the corner of Dufferin and Bloor).
The bad: it's a nursing home, people.  They suck, any way you cut it.

The staff were all really sweet.  I think something about the Chinese filial-piety, veneration of the elderly thing means that there's inherently more respect and care for the elderly, but maybe I'm projecting.  I will say that I'd be very surprised if the staff that I met were capable of elder abuse, whereas that hasn't been the case of other retirement residences/nursing homes I've come across.  My Poh Poh's Alzheimer's means that she's on a floor that has restricted access - to prevent people from wandering off and strangers from getting in.  

There's nothing to say - it's grim, but in order to assuage my mum's guilt over having to put my Poh Poh in there, I will say that the grimness is inherent to the generalized process of getting so old/incapacitated that you can no longer care for yourself/be cared for by loved ones who have external full-time responsibilities, and nothing to do with the facility.  We arrived at meal-time and all the residents on that floor eat together at one time, grouped at tables.  The food smelled pretty good.  I think another thing about the specificity of Chinese-run facilities is that (as far as I know), the specific Chinese foods they're serving have to be made fresh and can't necessarily be delivered in powdered form from a Serca or Beaver Foods truck.  

She has a private room that overlooks the courtyard and features utilitarian, hospital-issue furniture with her own bathroom.  It's all pretty institutional-looking but there are activities to do every day (like karaoke - Dotytron: "I have a feeling that particular session is pretty hilare," and cooking classes and gardening) and this is only her first week there.  

The Big Yam, bless his little geriatric-loving heart, was in high spirits.  He's been talking about "maybe see Tai Poh" for the last few weeks and when we picked up my mum to go, he said to my mum, "Go see Tai Poh's new house" and my mum (who is hearing impaired), said, "we're going to see Tai Poh's new home" and the Big Yam replied matter-of-factly, "yes" (more correctly, it sounds like "yesth" with his lisp).  It's pretty cute watching him and my mum interact because they frequently have parallel conversations about the same thing entirely in short, observational sentences with an economy of language.  He was SO HAPPY to see his Tai Poh and of course, the other residents on my Poh Poh's floor (the ones who were more aware of their surroundings) loved him.  

This one old guy was like, "he's grown so much!" (I've never met him before in my life) and kept giving the Big Yam an enthusiastic thumbs-up and big, toothless, gummy grins.  When we went around the corner, the Big Yam pulled on my hand wanting to see "Gung Gung again" (Gung Gung being a general, respectful designation for an older man.)  

It relieved a lot of the internal pangs to see the Big Yam in that environment.  First of all, it made my Poh Poh so happy.  Second of all, it helped make some of the other residents happy.  Third of all, he's at the perfect age where he's so blissfully unaware of his surroundings that he can interact with her without being aware in the slightest that she's not 100% herself.  I'm not going to lie: it was emotionally really hard for me and the Dotytron (and my mum too, I'm sure).  An old woman in a wheelchair was periodically shouting a nonsense refrain from her room, at nothing.  It is a strange hinterland that people with Alzheimers and similar degenerative brain conditions occupy and it hurts you, as the outside observer because of their liminality - my Poh Poh is at once lucid and aware enough of her own surroundings to know she's not at home, and yet, not so aware or unaware that she can either continue to live with my parents or fail to care about her immediate environment (assuming that any level of brain degeneration results in enough loss of sentience that one can reach the point of not caring at all, on any level).  

I try to take comfort in the fact that the Big Yam and my Poh Poh have such a special bond and such a special relationship, but it is a bond that makes us unbelievably happy and sad at the same time.  Because he won't be able to understand when she's gone.  Because he's so young that he won't be able to remember how they were best buds.  Because life is inevitably about losing people you love and being lost in turn.  

It's an old chestnut, but a true one: every day, is a getting closer, going faster than a roller coaster.  The amount of things that have happened in the past 5 years, both good and bad, is staggering.  I blink and I find myself married, with a home, a kid, and down 4 grandparents, and a father-in-law.  I don't know how we're supposed to manage it, and by "it" I mean "life."  

I'm in a melancholy mood.  I re-read The Fault In Our Stars because I picked it for our book club next Wednesday and I wanted to refresh my memory.  The season doesn't help.  Reading about mortality and love and what it means to live and die doesn't particularly help.  That book is SO GOOD.  So good, but not really doing much to dispel the glumness of my latest trifecta of read books.

The Mansion of Happiness is a collection of Jill Lepore's essays on life and death (as the cover says).  The essays are loosely related, but generally use one illustrative example (like, the board game from which the book derives it's title) to use as an aperture into how American views on life and death have changed over the past 150 years.  The essays can be a little disjointed from one another, but I particularly found the ones on birth control and the right to life movement fascinating, as well as the ones that detail the regrettable perversion of Darwin's theory of evolution into social Darwinism and the subjugation of certain races and classes of people.  The first essay is a bit of a slog, but after that, I found the rest of them quick going, with a lot of interesting factual nuggets and a feminist slant.

Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers earned it's Pulitzer Prize like whoa.  This is investigative, immersive non-fiction that lies at the junction between anthropology, sociology, and Dickens.  Detailing the lives of select residents of Annawadi, a slum that lies at the edge of the Mumbai International Airport, bordered by luxury hotels, over the course of 4 years.  This is a ground-level study of global capitalism and the seemingly insurmountable division between the ruling classes in a booming metropolis of the new millennium, and the shifting underclass that lives on the margins, endlessly searching for openings to grab a foothold on stability and to rise up from poverty.  The book is descriptive - there is little editorializing from Boo on the widespread corruption, hope, despair, and capriciousness that make up the stories of the Annawadi residents.  This is globalisation and it is capitalism in all its raw, unfettered glory.  Where there are opportunities for upward mobility but where these opportunities are dependent as much on luck and fate as hard work and skill.  Here are the clashes between old beliefs and new, between traditional gender roles and a new world for educated women, where Muslims and Hindus are forced to live side-by-side, where caste still matters even as the city churns itself towards a newly imagined, democratic future-self.  I can't say enough good things about this book.  It is staggering in its scope and execution.  The questions that Katherine Boo asked to land in Annawadi are central to anyone hoping to understand the realities of unfettered capitalism outside of the North American context.  

Katherine Boo is so damned smart.  This is her quote from the afterword of the book: "It is easy, from a safe distance, to overlook the fact that in under-cities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people ARE good, and that many people try to be..." 

See?  Smart.  That quote and the experiences of the people in this book also made me re-think some of the unquestioned, institutionalised racism towards First Nations in Canada  that I had unconsciously been allowing to color my views of the "Idle No More" movement that's been happening.  I needed that kind of re-alignment and re-assessment of my unconscious biases and I'm glad that this book kick-started it.

The rest of the weekend was busy.  Chinese school, grocery shopping, visiting our friends R & R and seeing their new little baby M, who slumbered away in my arms like a quiet little sack of teeny tiny (fingerling) potatoes.  We started watching Homeland, which I enjoy 150% more than Deadwood, if only because it provides lots of opportunities to see Claire Danes do her signature-Claire-Danes ugly cry.  It also provides lots of chances to crack up any time someone says the name "Abu Nazir" with intense solemnity.  It's super-far-fetched but I find it way more engaging than Deadwood.

On Friday I made us homemade Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supremes.  These were AWESOME.    I based it off this recipe, which is less a recipe and more of a wake-up call to spark the thought that OH MY GOD, OF COURSE I CAN MAKE THESE AT HOME.  Very filling, but very delicious.  I made my life easier by pressing them in the panini press and also crunching up the tostadas into big pieces, which made folding the (whole wheat) tortillas around the filling much easier.  Big hit:

Sunday we went for all you can eat hot pot with my mum, after R & R stuffed us with a million Babu treats (fish patties and samosas).  The Big Yam seriously ate at least 4-5 different treats (which Babu charmingly calls "Shorteats") and the patties were SPICY!  He kept reaching for another one after I tried to cut him off.  He's a total Tamil Tiger.  Consequently, he was ruined for any food at hot pot.

Tonight we had tuna noodle casserole with my patented buttered challah cube topping, alongside green beans and brussels sprouts.

And that bring us to the end of this lengthy post.

Remember: don't get old (but also don't die young - you can see the bind you're in).

Fin.

Slog

Feeling the slog lately, folks.  Not much to report, still reading the same book, doing the same things, just the daily grind as it were.

Yesterday was a bit of a rough day.  I basically turned into a fat little weirdo and went to town eating the most DISGUSTING things, all spurred by an incredibly salty pseudo-Thai food lunch.  This resulted in scrapping last night's planned dinner (baked eggplant) in favour of hot dogs and KD (also salty).  Then I went to town and destroyed three quarters of a bag of dill pickle chips (also salty) and then ate a giant slice of that chocolate cake washed down with a cold, icy glass of milk.   I was sooooo thirsty all night.  It was the worst and basically wasn't worth it.

The Dotytron downloaded Deadwood and we've been watching it but I kinda hate it because everyone on the show is like, super ugly and grimy and dirty and unattractive all the time and I don't have the patience for that kind of wild west realism.  So I've spent the last few nights complaining mightily and then passing out in a pool of my own spit on the couch and then turning into mad dog when the Dotytron wakes me up to go upstairs to bed and throwing a million punches and thrashing around like a tantrum having toddler.  It's super-fun for my partner-in-residence, let me assure you.

The Big Yam, aside from weirdly deciding to go on strike from one of his two chores (feeding the cats - the other chore is setting the table), has been super-fun after dinner and we've been spending time coloring and then singing along to him playing the harmonica.  He's so cute.  He requests "Home Range" and "Blackbird" and what he calls the "Fish Song" (this one) all the time.  Here's a video of him playing the harmonica:

I love this kind of family time.  I love the energy in our house when this stuff is happening.  I know I'm going to look back on these videos and remember how happy and content and warm and cozy the house was with the Dotytron playing his guitar and the Big Yam discovering music.  When the post-dinner before-bed goes well, it's magic I tells you.  My only wish is that the Big Yam was a bit better with independent play - the ideal scenario is the Dotytron playing guitar and me reading or knitting and the Big Yam absorbed in his own activities (quietly).  It would be nice to get that some days.  But I get why he's so into being with us and having our attention after 10 hours spent at daycare (or "work" as he calls it).  In recent weeks after reading something that clued me in to how he must be feeling at the end of the day, I've relaxed a bit on the rigidity of having the Dotytron start dinner as soon as he gets in the door.  Having even 10 or 15 minutes of focused, parental play time is all the Big Yam needs to recalibrate and I find it does ease our transition into dinner and then the night.  There's less of a fight this way and it's not so harried.  Everything can wait.

We've been really good about using the slow cooker and capitalizing on quick meals to get us through the weeknights and it's paying off in spades.  Tonight we had that baked eggplant with an arugula salad on the side.  SHAME: I just realized I've been spelling "arugula" wrong for YEARS.  It doesn't help that spell-check for some reason doesn't recognize the correct spelling.  DON'T UNDERMINE ME, SPELL CHECK.  THAT'S A B***H-A** MOVE.

Fin.

Oh Captain, My Captain

Sorry it's been silencio...things have been stressful here lately.  

We had a pretty wide-open weekend with few commitments, and so when SMckay called me with an idea to piggyback Lolly's trip to Guelph for haircuts and visits on Saturday, I jumped at the chance.  The Dotytron had already made plans to jam with his friends that day, so I was going to be rolling solo with the Big Yam and was feeling slightly daunted by the (imagined) interminable afternoon hours with just me and him.  So I loaded the Big Yam up into the Captain, and drove to Lolly's and she drove us in the Captain to Guelph.

We had good times all day and I got to see J and her baby V and be mortified by the fact that the Big Yam proceeded to smack V upside the head with, among other things: a tractor, a teacup, and, in dire situations, his bare hand.  The poor little Hungarian Princess was a mass of welling eyes and quivering bottom lip and I felt like the worst parent in the history of the world.  I don't know what the Big Yam's problem is with the hitting, but right now he has mad issues!  I know it will pass but it's trying.  Being the parent of a hitter (and I'm told it's the same for parents of biters) is the worst.

It's Lolly's birthday today so we discussed our options and she wanted to go to Mandarin so we planned to meet up with the Dotytron and Lolly's hubby in the west end of Toronto.  We're in the Captain, it's 6pm, we're all peckish, we're on the 401 eastbound, just outside of Guelph, and then the battery indicator comes on the dash (or at least, I notice it's lit up).  So I'm like, "Uhhh, the battery light is on." To which SMckay replies, "It's fine, I'm sure it's nothing, keep going."  But because I'm a paranoid nerd when it comes to cars, I look it up in the book, and it says it has something to do with the alternator belt and you should pull over (which Lolls says she's NOT going to do on the 401) and check it out, and if the belt is fine (not that I have any earthly idea what an alternator belt looks like), then get it checked at the earliest possibility, but if it's worn, then your car could overheat.  I'm reading this out loud and look at the temperature indicator and me and Lolls notice that it's cranked all the way to "H."  I call the Dotytron and fill him in on what's going on.  He calls me back five minutes later and is like, "the boys say that if it's the alternator, just keep driving, because otherwise, once you stop the car, it won't start again," and I get all shrillsville panic mode and I say, 

So we're both like, "we gotta pull over" and she doesn't want to pull over on the 401 (rightly) so we're trying to get to the next exit.  From the back, SMckay is like, "Ugh. Don't pull off at 312, cuz there's like, nothing there," and Lolly and I got all snappy with her (in retrospect, this is funny), about how we DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE AMENITIES AT THE EXIT BUT WE HAD TO STOP BEFORE THE CAR EXPLODED.  We just manage to pull off and pull into this car stop thing just as our power steering gives out.

6:30pm.  In a random, rape-y car stop off some deadsville exit (SMckay was right about that) outside of Guelph. With a sleeping Big Yam (thankfully) and a car that's getting colder by the minute.  So I'm calling CAA and the dude is all like, "Is the Dotytron in the car with you?" and I say no, and then he does that apologetic "hmmm" sound that phone customer service people do when they're about to screw you.  BECAUSE CAA COVERS THE PERSON, NOT THE CAR.  Which is the STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE.  He puts me on hold for a million hours to "see what he can do" and the solution he comes back with is that his "supervisors" are willing to waive the waiting period and sign me up for automatic basic coverage, which gets me a free ten kilometre tow and then I would be responsible for paying the rest of it to Toronto.  I was like, "Uhh, why don't you ask your supervisors if I can just G-D pay for the premium coverage now and they can waive the waiting period for that?" (premium package covers towing your car to wherever you want within 200km) and he puts me on hold for a million more hours and finally agrees.  THANK GOD.  So we wait for a million hours for the tow truck driver to show up and SMckay convinces her adorable and nicest Papa in the world to come and drive us all to Toronto.  Seriously. Best Papa ever!!!  Meanwhile, the Dotytron calls me and is like, "So...the guys here are going out to eat soon...so what's going on with dinner?  Should I wait for you guys, or..." and I almost reached through the phone and strangled him.

When we finally get to Lolly's house to meet up with the boys, it's 8pm.  Everyone is STARVING. Tempers are short.  We show up at the Mandarin and there is a FORTY FIVE MINUTE WAIT.  We go to a nearby restaurant and there's ANOTHER hour long wait.  It's tragic.  People are getting to the point where they're like, "I just don't want to do anything any more" (you know when people are so dispirited and crochety that you give up having an opinion because you just want to be a foul owl?   We were all that).  Anyway, we somehow pulled through the badness, decided to make Lolly happy and give her the Mandarin meal she wanted, and we were sat within 30 minutes and we ate and instantly regretted life.  But this happened:

So it was all worth it in the end.  Also, the Big Yam was a trooper.  He was up until 10pm and ate the latest dinner of all time and was just lovely about it.

This was great because on Friday, I kept the Big Yam home with me on my day off for the morning, and he was a monster and it was non-stop time outs and lots of me yelling and I just felt awful and guilty and at the same time, mad at him for not being a peach.  So his behaviour on Saturday made up for it, big time.

The good thing to come out of our Friday hours together was that we made this cake:

It was AMAZING.  Think: the best, classic, chocolate cake with white (vanilla) frosting you can imagine.  It used a new (to me) frosting called butter roux frosting which creates something so light and fluffy, it belies the fact that there is flour in it as a base.  It's the perfect marriage between true buttercream (based on a Swiss or Italian meringue - my favorite for it's lightness, but it's actually heavy on the butter and labour intensive) and what I call fake buttercream (icing sugar and butter, which makes something kind of thick and gritty, but which can also be delicious, in a homespun kind of way).  This frosting was so light!  The cake is a classic, oil-based chocolate cake, which means that it comes out very chocolatey and very, very moist.  You can also make it all in one bowl with a whisk - no mixer required!!!  I used this recipe, from the blog Posie Gets Cosy, here.  The only change I would make is to line the pans with parchment (I had some sticking issues) and to switch to a whisk attachment for the frosting after creaming the butter with the paddle attachment.  I also omitted the almond extract (didn't have it) and put the beans and scrapings of a 1/2 of a vanilla bean in the flour-milk roux mixture.  The Dotytron and I are obsessed with it and are eating this cake like it's going out of style.

 For dinner on Friday night I made us shepherd's pie.  I mixed leftover mashed potatoes (from my turkey dinner last week) with mashed cauliflower for the topping and it was awesome!!!  A great way to add more vegetables and it adds a nice flavour.  The two textures meld together so that you don't notice it at all.  I made enough to freeze a giant pan so that was also a bonus.

I spent all of Friday night toggling between the menu for East Side Mario's and Red Lobster.  Guys, Red Lobster has SHRIMP FETTUCCINE ALFREDO and it's ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT.  I want a giant plate of fettuccine alfredo so bad...I can hardly stand it.  We're hoping to head down to Geneseo in a couple of weeks just so I can go to Delmonico's and get my fix.  I just lost about an hour of my life salivating over the Delmonico's menu.  I want veal parmigiana AND alfredo and that giant rib-eye steak!  With fried calamari and fried mozzarella triangles!!!  LOOK AT THOSE PRICES, PEOPLE!  They are not fooling!  And best yet: the quality is good!!! It's not garbage food (the way East Side Mario's is).  UGHHHHHH, I want it so bad.

Last night we had dinner at Momma D's and she made us prime rib and we had mashed potatoes and beans and beets.  She also made the Dotytron a birthday cake - a classic mom cake - golden cake with mocha fake buttercream.  It was DELICIOUS.  It brought me around again on the fake buttercream and the sweetness of those old-fashioned cakes.

Tonight we tried to get our lives back on track with that spicy grain soup and quesadillas.

Found out from my mechanic that the alternator belts just got worn.  The repair isn't that pricey, thank goodness.  Captain Save-A-Ho is on my bad side, lately.  I guess this is what you get when you buy an 8 year old car, for $6000.  This hasn't put me off of buying used.  I can accept that cars break and they have a limited life span, and I think it's ludicrous to buy new.  To me, it's six of one, half dozen of the other.  If I bought the Captain new, I would have had to put in this amount of money at this point in the car's life anyway, but I would have overpaid (in my opinion) for those first 5 years of driving worry-free.  Rotors and belts wear out, that's just natural.  However, I will concede that next time, we're going Toyota or Honda and everyone else can go eff themselves!

I've been meaning to post about these for ages but it kept slipping my mind.  In the Big Yam's stocking this year, we got him a pair of slippers from this Etsy seller, Wooly Baby.  These are the coolest slippers ever and I'm in love with them.  First of all, they're made from recycled materials.  The uppers are felted recycled sweaters and the bottoms are suede, which makes them non-skid.  The elastic around the ankle coupled with the height means that they stay on and they're so warm and cozy and stylish.  I love them.

I also knit the Big Yam this cabled hat and mittens and they were in his stocking.  Apparently at daycare J asked him who made him the beautiful hat and whether it was his Mama, and the Big Yam was very serious and said, no, Santa brought them.  I get no cred, but at least we know that Santa indoctrination is working.

This morning when he woke up we did our customary, being cosy and smushy in my bed routine while he drank his milk and he said to me very seriously, "I go to work."  Haha.  You sure do, buddy, you sure do.

Fin.

Evidenced-based research

As a corollary to my stance on informed choice, I also believe in evidenced-based research.  I recently came across two parenting blogs that provide an evidenced-based research approach to common parenting issues:

Squintmom
Science of Mom

I like these blogs because, as has been evidenced time and time again, I find reading about parenting issues (sleep training, introduction of solids, discipline techniques) fantastically boring.  I tend to go with my gut, based on being a rational, well-rounded individual, and therefore finding people who ARE willing to cull through academic studies and summarize the findings on these issues in as unbiased a way as possible, saves me a lot of time and has the added bonus of helping my ability to defend a position with some degree of authority, while putting in very little of the dirty work myself.  BONUS.  

Anyway, the Science of Mom has this 6 part series on sleep training, which I passed along to the Roomie, not as a way of persuading her, but as a way of giving her some information she might not otherwise come across.  The Science of Mom lady's findings very closely match my own experiences from sleep training the Big Yam and from going with my gut, and are best summarized using her mantra:

"Parent with love. Parent with respect. Parent with knowledge. Parent without fear."

Her sleep training summary can be found here. I very much believe that it's detrimental for parents to tie their sense of worth as parents to their ability to silence their baby's crying.  Crying is their way of expressing frustration.  It is GOOD to experience frustration and the associated adversity and I believe that part of being a successful parent is giving your child the space to work through frustration and adversity and more importantly, the space to express their full gamut of emotions and know that they're being heard and not immediately mollified.  

I also believe strongly that you have to treat children, and even babies, as rational human beings.  Babies can understand long before they're able to talk, and it's important to give them the respect of explaining your actions and why you're doing what you're doing and making them feel secure.  Since we returned to regular work schedules on Monday, we've been putting the Big Yam down to sleep in his crib and he's been waking in the night crying out for us.  On Monday night, the Dotytron hopped out of bed and grabbed him and brought him in for Sleep Away Camp, which immediately settles him.  Last night, I hopped out of bed and went into his room.  I told him that we were here, that I was going to pick him up, that I would sing him a song, and then that it was time for him to go back to sleep.  He requested two songs, and I sang them, and then I laid him down in the crib, tucked him in, and told him that Mama and Baba love him but that it's time to sleep and that we're right next door and we'll see him in the morning.  And he said, really quietly, "okay" (which obviously pierced my heart with a million tender shards of love and affection) and I left the room and he stayed down until morning.  Getting the "okay" from the Big Yam goes a long way to ensuring Yam compliance (in the immediate term).  

The "okay" kills me.  On Saturday night, when we were at our friend Fox's one bedroom apartment for a big French Canadian-themed dinner with a bunch of Supper Clubbers, I put the Big Yam down to sleep on Fox's bed and tried getting him to go to sleep but he wasn't having it.  I told him that I was going to leave the room to go get Baba to come in and sing him some songs.  He was lying on his back, in this strange bed, in what is obviously a bachelor pad, and he did his quiet "okay" and lay there with his eyes open staring up at the ceiling while I left him in the dark room.  That two-syllable word was so filled with trust and patience and the love that underscores both those things that it still rends and mends me in endless simultaneity today.  Such a small moment, but I was filled with love for my brave little trusting Boobla.

The Roomie's parenting style came up recently in discussion because she's been criticised for it by some close (mutual) friends of ours.  The Dotytron, as usual, was so smart and had this to say: "As far as parenting styles go, I'd only be concerned for baby T if the Roomie wasn't doing well.  Since this is the parenting style that's making her happy then I know that T will be happy.  If she's 'setting herself up' for something down the road, then it's going to be what it's going to be, but for now, the most important thing is that she's doing something that works for her."  He's a smart cookie, that one.  The Roomie's style is her style.  It fits her life and her choices make her happy.  Her style wouldn't work for me and the Dotytron because we are two individuals with a lot (some would say too many) interests and in order for us to be happy, the baby had to be incorporated into our lives as a discrete individual inside a family of similarly discrete individuals who had to maintain a balance between accommodating this new addition and still pursuing our individual interests.  Subsuming my life to a baby's would never work for me and would make me unhappy and therefore would produce an unhappy baby and family unit.  

My friend G always comments about how during one of our get togethers during my early days with the newborn Big Yam she was impressed with the ability with which I fluidly switched from talking about being a new parent to switching to my opinion on some current event issue or another that had come up in a parallel conversation, and how that hadn't been her experience with other parental figures in her orbit thus far.  Can you IMAGINE a Karl Lagerfeld who didn't have things to say on films or popular culture or philosophy or Idle No More or the fiscal cliff?  I HAVE OPINIONS, PEOPLE.  AND THEY MUST BE HEARD!  

That's why going to the drop-in centre always made me slightly screwy in the head.  It was nice for the Big Yam, but not great for my intellectual development to be dealing with all the "careers" (my term for stay at home moms).  Perhaps it was this particular sample.  I get that the conversation would necessarily be rooted around the commonality, or what brought this disparate group of people together in the first place, but you would think that after a few months of going some place 3+ times a week, the conversation would veer towards other things.  

Tonight for dinner we had freezer posole with crushed tortilla chips and avocadoes and shredded cabbage mixed with lime and sour cream.  It was amazing:

I've put down the recipe for the sour cream pancakes we made on the weekend.  These pancakes turned out nice - they have a lower flour-to-wet-ingredients ratio than most and so they come out a little eggier, but definitely not dense or dry.  I'd say they're like a cross between a Dutch baby and a regular pancake.  They're also not too sweet and could hold up to many different toppings.  I adapted them from a recipe on Smitten Kitchen.

Fin.





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Sour Cream Pancakes
makes 14 4" pancakes

3/4 c. plus 2 T. all purpose flour
2 T. sugar
2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt
2 cups sour cream
4 eggs
unsalted butter, for cooking pancakes

- whisk sour cream and eggs together.
- whisk in dry ingredients until combined.
- slowly heat 1/2 T. of butter at a time in a heavy cast-iron skillet (what I use) or your preferred pancake pan.  
- drop a scant 1/4 c. of pancake batter at a time into the pan, cook until golden and set on bottom and bubbly on top, and flip.

In the blink of an eye

...your just over 2 year old turns into a teenager.  The Big Yam had a nightmare last night so we pulled him into bed with us at 3am.  This morning, as we were battling our first-day-back-at-work blues and getting up to an alarm, he was splayed out horizontally on our bed, face down, out COLD when we'd been up for over an hour.  We had the light on in the room and everything, and he couldn't be roused.  When I finally nudged him awake he got all super-dramatic about it, thrashing around and moaning and telling me that it was too bright and to "turn light off!"

There have been insane linguistic advances lately.  He's gone from announcing his desires with only nouns to constant, "I want"/"I don't want" (usually followed by a please).  We're also into a "What's that Mama/Baba?" phase that we can see is going to lead into the incessant "Why?" territory soon, because he's doing it already with stuff he knows.  Also, in the last week he got super into tea parties, to the point where too much hard play with our actual tea cups resulted in the necessity of a tea set purchase.  For the record: he likes his tea with at least 5 spoons of sugar, and he likes it hot (he'll put it in the oven for you if it's not hot enough).

We had mild cases of the Sunday blues last night.  It was rough going to bed at 9:30 and setting an alarm when we'd been used to staying up late and sleeping in.  But this morning, I put on my GAP skinnies, pulled on my blazer, rolled my cuffs,  put on my booties at work and felt like a BOSS.  I can't help it - I just love working and I love my job.  I feel so fulfilled.  Tore through my vacation inbox gleefully and put things in motion and felt GOOD.

So.  New year.  I don't usually do resolutions, but if I was to try to be conscious of something it would be to be try to up my positivity and not be such a negative b***h, letting idiots and people who bug me send me into a time-sucking rage (over usually, very small things).  I would also try to be conscious of trying to be more relaxed and less control-freak and most importantly, making an attempt to humor people (like, my mum) instead of always trying to make sure the record is accurate.  Trying to make sure things are accurate is like, a huge fault of mine.  It makes it hard to let things go.  This is made difficult by the following:

1) I believe in informed choice
2) I believe in accuracy (and indeed, my job is basically to be an arbiter of reliable, accurate, and current information)
3) I have the memory of an elephant

Most people do NOT have my elephantine-like memory, which makes it difficult for me when I'm like, "100% this happened," and they remember it differently.  On the one hand, I can't HELP the fact that I have near-total recall.  On the other hand, I gotta learn to pick my battles and like, let it go sometimes.

It suits my narrative to think that people find me prickly because I'm loud, sure, confident, and an industrious pig with an elephant's memory.  I can construct the resistance to me as being anti-feminist and the fact that people like a woman who is more chill and laid back and less forceful.  I can recognize that this is a convenient narrative for me that obscures my need to look more closely at myself and try to attenuate my responses to situations so that they don't engender such a strong response in turn.  BUT (you knew there was going to be a giant but, there, didn't you?), I think a lot of the problem people have has to do with feminism and the anti-feminist need for women to be and act or express their opinions in a certain way.

This basically means that I'm not going to back down when the Dotytron's like, aunts and uncles espouse uneducated, simplistic, and sometimes downright offensive racist or anti-union opinions on a public forum like Facebook.  I'M PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE, DOTYTRON AUNTIES AND UNCLES!!!  I HAVE THE FACTS ON MY SIDE!!! Hahaha.

I'm currently reading this collection of essays called The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore and there's a section on birth control and child-rearing that talks about Margaret Sanger (who you will likely know as one of the most vocal proponents for birth control access).  She published an 8 page monthly newsletter called The Woman Rebel (YES!) and in one issue exhorted her readers to:

"look the whole world in the face with a go-to-hell look in the eye."

To which I say a hearty, YES, GUY.

These are our breakfast and dinners lately:

Sour cream pancakes & English bacon

 Turkey dinner with stuffing, brussels sprouts salad, cumin roasted cauliflower, roasted garlic mash, for Dr. Rei, Hanbo, the Roomie, and L'Armi

 Sweet potato pecan pie for the same turkey dinner.  I cut back on the sugar in the sweet potato layer and it made it very potato-y.  I won't make that mistake again!

Turkey soup with dilled matzoh balls - leftovers from the turkey dinner put to good use as the Dotytron is feeling sick.

Not pictured: the baked whole wheat penne with tomato sauce, ricotta, and meatballs, covered with a thick, gooey, browned, chewy lid of mozzarella that we had for Sunday blues dinner last night, alongside caesar salad.  All I've been craving lately is like, red-sauce Italian-American food and plenty of it - fettuccine alfredo, chicken marsala, veal parmesan and heavily dressed caesar salads.  Yum.

Fin.

Last night

This happened:

In the words of Dr. Rei: "Hunger Strike is my favorite duet of all time."  LOL!  It was gold.  Even if my go-to karaoke song was ridiculed beyond all measure (my karaoke song, which I think is in my range, is Janet Jackson's Again - which is a huge downer ballad that's a million minutes too long).  We took turns randomly picking tunes from the 90s to play while we played Settlers last night and it was the most hilarious time of life.  It was just the best.  Except for the Dotytron's one illegal divergence into TTD (that's Terrence Trend D'Arby) territory.  The song is amazing, and will probably get thrown into the DJ Fraaaaanche mix, but it was released in 1987.

Dr. Rei picked Ruffest Gunark and as soon as the opening bit came on, the Dotytron, Dr. Rei and myself immediately reverted to pure gunshots-in-the-air junglism.

Ahhh, the 90s.  So awkward for me socially, so rewarding culturally.

I'm just gonna say right now, I would totally go back in time and rekindle my lust for both Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum AND Jason Newsted of Metallica.

We have seen a s**t-ton of movies lately.  Here's my rundown.

I am really, really, really glad that I didn't pay to see this movie in the theatre.  The Dotytron and I were constantly looking at each other being, "these kids are insufferable."  It was all so...precious.  I get it.  I get how feeling like an outcast (uhh, hello, I was totally an outcast - albeit a strange breed of outcast who was kind of popular with the boys? - in high school) makes you feel like you're a special jewel when you find other outcasts.  I hung out with a bunch of goth/industrialists one year my senior who bought sheets of acid (sheets!) at a time.  I know what it's like to not feel like you fit in.  However, this was the 90s.  It was kind of de rigeur to not fit in.  The 90s were a very forgiving time to be dressed in head to toe Goodwill and rock a man purse and undone Docs and ponchos.  It was amazing.  Now granted, these kids are growing up in Philly - so maybe it was different in the States, but the protagonists in this film, the damaged, wounded birds, are kind of weaksauce, to me (remember: SHEETS OF LSD).  I didn't really get what made them so special.  They were kind of second tier...like the kind of kids in high school who were all about Bush or Better Than Ezra (second tier 90s bands).  The film was written and directed by the author of the book upon which the film is based, which can be very, very dangerous.  John Green, one of the most brilliant YA authors around, has wisely refrained from adapting his optioned novels for the screen because he feels that this job is best left to professionals.  I would say he is right.  There was way too much affection for very middling characters who all had an after-school-special wounded-bird "reveal" that was supposed to explain why they engaged in such damaging behavior as sleeping with douchey, pretentious college boys.  When the Dotytron and I were watching the movie, we totally pegged the crew of kids in our high school that this film was representing...people who were legends in their own minds but who were second tier at best.  Emma Watson is very, very, very bad at playing an American teenager.  The big reveal about the central protagonist (I think his name is Charlie) that comes at the 3/4 mark in the film seemed really overwrought to me.  The one bright moment was Ezra Miller's portrayal of Patrick - Miller is a fantastic actor and imbues the character with precisely the kind of adolescent fire that the other characters lacked.

Django Unchained doesn't approach the brilliance of other Tarantino films - I can't say I liked it as much as Inglourious Basterds, by a long shot.  It was incredibly entertaining, although it needed some editing - I felt the film dragged in the last 1/3.  Much has been made about Tarantino's numbing use of the N-word.  I don't see this as an issue.  I think the N-word debate in contemporary American popular cultural criticism is fuelled by people with a very rudimentary understanding of the fluidity of language. It's VERY easy to tell when people are using the N-word pejoratively and as a racist invective as opposed to reclaiming it.  Can you claim that Tarantino fetishizes black culture?  Yes.  But I think you can claim that Tarantino fetishizes most pulp American culture in all its forms, and therefore, I don't get from Tarantino that he's being racist.  He's practicing a brand of post-modern pastiche that he invented and brought to American filmmaking.

Much has been made about the framing of the film - with Foxx's Django a silent, mute, black hero who is helped along by a white guide, and of how it depicts black American slaves as all-too willing accomplices in their own enslavement, waiting for white emancipators.  I definitely see some merits in that, but I'm not sure that Django's silence isn't more to do with the tropes of the Western hero and less to do with his being a slave lackey.

Christoph Walz is entrancing.  He is a wonderful Tarantino muse and he devours audience attention when he's on screen.  It's hard to focus on the other actors when he's there.  Leonardo DiCaprio was also extremely good - reminding me of what a great actor he can be.

I might have ruined Les Misérables for myself by revisiting the 10th anniversary edition and listening to too much Colm Wilkinson.  Colm Wilkinson IS Jean Valjean for me and it's hard for me to accept others in the role (the role and the songs were actually written with him in mind).  I don't think I would have been able to accept any film adaptation, in reality, much as I wanted to.  Ultimately, I think the power of the musical is in the songs, and in the delivery of the songs by strong, musical theatre voices.  I don't need to see the facial expressions that accompany them.

I didn't think that Hugh Jackman made a good Jean Valjean.  He favours a lot of vibratto, and his voice is very quavery, which means he never really hits the note.  I also don't love the timbre of his voice.  To me, he's more of a "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gaaaaaaal" type of musical theatre performer (playing Peter Allen doesn't dispel this notion).  More of a jazz hands and flying kicks type, instead of, as my sister would say, and Irish tenor (we have no idea what this means, but we feel that Colm is one).  Anne Hathaway does a pretty good job of doing Fantine, and only indulges in a bit of Oscar-baiting scenery chewing - her voice was strong.  I was expecting to hate Russell Crowe's inability to sing, and he did ruin certain songs for me, but I thought he was passable.  The guy who played Marius, who has a face I don't usually love (too many freckles!!!), totally surprised me and I LOVED the guy who played Enjolras.  Overall, it was moving, although I find Tom Hopper's insistence on weird, tight, off-kilter close-ups distracting and I thought some of Javert's costumes looked cheap.

I really really really liked this.  Do I think it's like, an Oscar-worthy, best film of the year?  No, but it's definitely deserving of the audience-favorite awards and acting noms that it's generating.  We are BIG David O. Russell fans around here.  This is just a cracking good romantic comedy.  And not in the Nora Ephron screwball way (which is also good), or in the way that passes for romantic comedies nowadays, with Katherine Heigl playing a damaged neurotic mess of a woman who can't take care of her shiz and whose life isn't complete without a man (which is very, very bad), but in the way that makes you laugh with human moments that are funny but also tinged with drama - like life.  The family drama elements and friend drama elements and the sports and superstition all play out in a relaxed, natural, winning way.  It was charming.  Bradley Cooper, who I normally dislike, was fantastic, and Jennifer Lawrence, whom I almost always love, is the most desirable nutjob to ever appear onscreen.  Loved this.

I had pretty dismal expectations for This is 40, coming off of shell shock from the depressingly unfunny Funny People.  The criticisms of this film are mostly true - it's a little too Apatow - like, he needs to get out of his own head and life.  Casting his own wife and his own kids doesn't help - his kids are okay, but kind of flat and stiff and the youngest one looks like she's looking at her dad off screen in almost every scene.  Leslie Mann is cute but the director doesn't maintain a suitable distance - you can tell he's crazy in love with her.  What saves this movie is that there are some genuine laughs derived from astute observations about couple and family dynamics.  I definitely laughed out loud - I just wouldn't necessarily tell people that this is a must-see comedy.

Being an information professional subjected to n00b librarians and old geezer librarians constantly trying to stay relevant by hopping on whatever death knell for media trend is de rigeur (and without any rigorous analysis or criticism or knowledge of people, trends, desires, or technology), this doc was obviously wicked up my alley.  It's basically about the New York Times and how they're struggling in the wake of bloggers and Twitter and aggregators and whathaveyou.  It focuses a lot on media correspondent Gary Carr, who is this amazing, grizzled, former addict with a take-no-bulls**t attitude who's like, "I used to be a junkie, so no, I'm not worried about my future at the Times."  It was awesome because it underscores how CONTENT IS EVERYTHING and how AUTHORITY MATTERS.  I can't say that enough: CONTENT IS EVERYTHING.  AUTHORITY MATTERS.   

Okay.  That's enough out of me for now.

Seventeen work-free days are drawing to a close so I'm going to combat a case of the Sunday blues by sitting on the couch and knitting and reading up a storm.

Fin.

Happy New Year!

Was Christmas only a week ago?  It feels like ages.  We've had a humdinger of a holiday so far, and what's best - there's still 4 work-free days to go!  

There was a lot of upheaval leading up to Christmas - the Dotytron's sister's pet cat was in and out of emergency and we didn't know if she was going to come to the farm or not and there was a lot of re-jigging and constantly changing plans to make sure that we'd get to spend time with her over the holiday.  It all worked out in the end, and we made it to the farm, a day later, but still, enough for us to revel in the stillness and beauty of rural Ontario (despite the presence of 3 dogs, turkeys, a couple of sheep, and a murderous rooster).  

The Boobla on Christmas morning, after opening his present from us - the classic Fisher Price Popcorn Popper, which he loves.  He's also wearing the hat I knit for him.

Scenes from the Farm.  Farmer R got the Big Yam this camo fleece suit for his birthday, and he was wearing it at the farm.  That's him and Farmer R doing man stuff in the family room.  So cute!  I love that photo.

3 turkeys in a barn.  This is shortly before I almost got beat up by a rooster.  The Big Yam was standing up, just surveying the scene and this vicious, bullying rooster just up and charged at him.  The  Big Yam freaked out, started crying, the Dotytron picked him up, and I ran at the rooster, who retreated for about 2 seconds and then came at me.  I ran away with my arms in the air, screaming.  That guy was tough.

We came home to a Christmas miracle: snow!!!  So we unpacked the car and promptly borrowed our neighbour's sled for some Big Yam sledding.  So grateful that we have an awesome hill AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR STREET.  Yay Lil' Ugmo!

Christmas with my family was a hoot.  This is the only decent photo we got with all the cousins.

Because my family believes in age-appropriate play.  This is how we treat the younger generation.  We followed this up by playing Cards Against Humanity with the kids present.  Then we all took turns timing each other in how long it took for us to put together a Melissa and Doug puzzle, marketed for children aged 3.  EVERYONE was timed, down to the youngest kids up to my brother's girlfriends.  It was awesome, and very typical my family.

My sister got the Big Yam this t-shirt, which is obviously the best t-shirt of all time.

On our way back home, we stopped at Phoenix for breakfast.  This is a sign of how far the Dotytron has come in his Chinese appreciation.  He was ALL OVER the weird, HK-style cafe offerings.  So stoked about getting chicken teriyaki with fried eggs and condensed milk toast.  I had the spicy satay macaroni soup. It's surprisingly comforting.

This is the quilt I made for the roomie's baby T.  Finished just in the nick of time!  The pattern is a simple one that I made up, making use of colorful scraps I had on hand in my stash.  

This adorable baby is the adorablest.  But she looks tired because she isn't sleep-trained.  LOL!  The roomie is always like, "T just went down for a 20 minute nap" and the Dotytron was like, "That's not a nap.  She's just spreading out her night's sleep over the course of an entire day."  I keep threatening that we're going to kidnap her for 3 nights and return her to the Roomie and L'Armi sleep-trained but the Roomie won't hear of it.

We spent New Year's Eve with our Magnetewan cottage crew - minus Pingy.  We had finger foods and talked about the Idle No More movement and Indigenous rights in Canada.  We also talked about the arts and it was precisely the kind of conversations that I love.  I've known Montréal I and the Roomie since university and feel so grateful that we found each other.  So many nights spent talking deep into the night.  So many more of such nights in our future.  Feeling lucky to have them.  Our New Year's breakfast with them was: nduja scrambled eggs, bacon, the Dotytron's waffles, and rye toast.

Last night's dinner.  I've been craving red meat like mad lately.  

We sent the Big Yam into daycare today.  The Dotyron and I are going to see a movie at our local with some free vouchers we got from a botched Dark Knight Rises screening in the summer.  

Saw a bunch of movies over the break...will review tomorrow.

Fin.

Italy, Poland and Back Again

Oh my.  I have a heart full to bursting.  What a weekend it's been and we're only midway through Sunday!

Friday was a delicious, multicourse extravaganza hosted by our dear friends, B & G.  They generously thanked everyone who helped with their August wedding by having us all over for an Italian dinner - featuring platters of proscuitto di parma, taleggio, pecorino, a rabbit pappardelle, an arugala salad, a slow-roasted pork shoulder with root vegetables, beans, and pannetone and panforte for dessert.  Along with different wines to pair with each course and the emergence of midnight grappa!  It was unreal!  We sat and dined and talked public policy and laughed and joke deep into the night.  The Big Yam passed out and we tucked him into our hosts bed and trundled home bleary eyed at 1am.  We had a Sleep Away Camp night because we knew it was going to be easier than trying to get him down in his crib.

The Big Yam opted to wake at his usual time (7am) so we were hurrrrrting all day yesterday.  I can't even tell you how hurting.  Not enough sleep by far.  Then we went to Momma D's for a Christmas brunch with her sister and Cousin Yeti and Cousin M.  Then, just when we thought we'd be able to nap while the Big Yam went down, I made the inexorably bad decision to try to "quickly" fix our leaky kitchen faucet.  DISASTER.  I took it apart, but then couldn't put it back together again.  Then, the valves under the sink started leaking, and then, what had been a slow drip, turned into a full throttle rush of water from the faucet.  So I called our drain guy, who as it turns out, only does drains.  He recommend a plumber, but when I called the plumber he didn't pick up.  So I went down the list of Homestars.  Settled on Mr. Rooter because I thought they were reputable and they could come right away.  So, instead of napping, I then had to DEAL WITH A TRADE.  WORST!

I should have gone with my gut.  Mr. Rooter is a scam of scams.  Basically, it's a big organization that sub-contracts n00bs who get to wear the uniform and give people the impression that uniform = experience.  This guy was the worst!  He came in and was like, "You need a whole new faucet.  It's old.  And I need to re-do the pipes that lead to the faucet."  The cost?  Replacement of faucet (where I purchase the faucet - just the labour) - $250+ tax.  Then, to fix the pipes underneath ($150+tax).  So suddenly, I'm looking at another trip to Home Depot to buy a new faucet and $400.  So I put my Chinese hat on and worked on him for a solid fifteen minutes.  Me: "How about you bill me for the pipe fixing and then I give you $100 cash and you fix the faucet and leave it off the books" (and various permutations of this).  To his credit (and this is the ONLY thing I'll give to this guy), he wouldn't take my under-the-table haggling deal.  So, I was like, since I have to pay Mr. Rooter a "just to show up" charge of $70 anyway, at the VERY least just put my faucet back together again so I can use it and I'll deal with the mini-drip.  So he stayed in my kitchen for a G-D HOUR taking up time when I could have been napping, and at the end of it...DIDN'T PUT IT BACK TOGETHER PROPERLY.  When we turned the valves back on, the water was still gushing out.  I was so pissed!!!

So I called my original guy back and he was willing to come to our house, from AJAX on a SUNDAY, and he fixed both problems in an hour, and charged me $180 total.  Lesson learned.  NEVER, EVER go with the big guys, and go with the the little dude who has a sense of craft.  The upshot is, now I have a plumber and a drain guy who I LOVE.  Seriously, drain guy called me back yesterday afternoon just to make sure I'd found someone.  What a mesnch!

Even though we were feeling very, very, very rough, we pulled it together and went to S & P's for S's annual Polish Christmas dinner.  UNREAL.  10 people, in their apartment, served the following:

- Polish charcuterie - smoked sausages, cured meats, pickles, rye bread, and this yogurt/soft cheese spread that I'm addicted to
- fried mountain cheese on rye bread
- pickled herring on buttered rye (this pickled herring was sooooo good!  S gave me some to take home, because she's a sweetheart)
- cubes of chicken & dill aspic (this was like chicken soup, but in jellied form - cold and refreshing)
- a wild mushroom soup with sour cream and dill (the best mushroom soup I've ever had), served with little puff pastry wrapped mushroom puree bites
- perogies
- potato salad
- pork roast stuffed with prunes with mashed potatoes, and grated beets
- assorted Polish sweets served with vodka & blackcurrant syrup

And I think I'm forgetting a course.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no you di'n't!!!  One woman!  Doing all that!  For TEN PEOPLE!!!  It was unreal to the max.

I'm still dreaming of that pickled herring (I'm eating the stuff she gave me for breakfast tomorrow) and thinking longingly of that mushroom soup.

Plus, we did a Secret Santa exchange and then people gave the Big Yam sweet presents and S & P sent us home with little bags of Polish candies.

I can't even.

The conversation was so good!  We talked about animal rights and voting with your dollar and racism and other lighter topics.  A debate about whether the majority of stars are orbited by planets (which was the Dotytron's position) resulted in us tweeting Neil deGrasse Tyson for an answer (we haven't gotten one yet).  We talked about unicorns.  It was stellar.

Again, we got home super-late (for a night out with the Big Yam) - another 1am.  But wonders of wonders - the Big Yam slept in until 8am and that extra hour made all the difference.  This afternoon we have a Christmas party at our neighbours house with the kiddies.

I also forgot to mention that on Thursday I went for the Hart House Holiday Buffet lunch with MHui and G and it was the best!!!  Just look:

I mean, REALLY.  How can you NOT want to eat there?  They also had a fire going in their giant fireplace and they were projecting snow on the walls for an extra Hogwarts-y touch.

Dr. Rei and Hanbo came by and spoiled the Big Yam rotten with a book of Aesop's Fables and a mini-Gandalf.  G got the Big Yam a cute board book about the moon and MHui got the Big Yam this adorable Chewbacca stuffy that makes Chewbacca sounds:

As an aside: nerdiest collection of presents, ever!  Love it.  

That's not even counting the train and bowling set from SMckay and this cute wooden doll that S gave to T and this cute wooden car he got last night.  It's all too much, really.

My heart is full to bursting thinking of how lucky we are to be raising a kid who is loved by our community of friends and loved ones and how lucky we are to be able to count this extended network of smart, funny, talented, kind, and diverse people as our dear friends.

IT'S THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS, RIGHT THERE!

Hilarious: while our plumber (who is an irie dude from one of the French-speaking Caribbean islands) was working on our kitchen sink, the Big Yam, clutching Gandalf up there, went up to him and said, "Look, it's Gandalf" and our plumber was all like :|

So good!

Sunday breakfast: brisket sammies with cheddar, topped with a fried egg, and tater tots.  F**king love tater tots.

Tonight for dinner we had fusilli with Italian sausage in a rosé sauce and arugala salad.  We chased these with cookies and milk.

Fin.