beautiful girls

okay, i don't know how many of you have heard that sean kingston song "beautiful girls" on the radio, but i heard it for the first time about a month ago when i was visiting my sister in the states, and we were APPALLED. it's a song that's laid over the hook for "stand by me" and ben e. king is spinning somewhere (i'm not sure if he's dead or not) at the travesty his song has become. let's just say the chorus consists of the words "suicidal, suicidal." nuff said, right?

WRONG!

i saw the video on the weekend, and i can no longer harp on the song. the singer is adorable! i have unlimited pathos in what's left in my blackened heart for fat kids and old people, and he's a pretty fat kid.

here you go:



tonight i'm being taken to barrio by the boy's parents for dinner. it's a small-plates place on the danforth. but i'm back on the healthy good eating train, because well, quite frankly, loafing about watching tv for 10 hours straight does make you feel a little icky. i'm maxed out on junk food for a while.

fin.
fin.

zomg!!! zomg!!! zomg!!!

i dunno where my head is at, but i didn't take any pics of my dinnie last night, and it was AWESOME. it's like: i don't care about blogging anymore or something. but it's not true! i smoked some ribs over hickory for almost 2 1/2 hours, finished them with my chipotle bbq sauce, made dinosaur bbq's macaroni salad, and had caesar salad and leftover pie to finish, and it was glorious! you'll have to take my word for it.

you'll also have to take my word that DAFT PUNK DEFIES EXPECTATION AND DESCRIPTION (the pics are courtesy of some dude on a messageboard). holy. s**t. i want to be their friends. they're SO COMMITTED to their image that it makes me (someone who's VERY committed to my image) feel like i'm as uncommitted as britney spears, or something. i just feel like they're the kinds of people and musicians who are EXACTLY the same no matter what they're doing. like everything they produce is on the same continuum. it's the ultimate expression, as if performing at arrow hall, building that ridiculously insane l.e.d. triangle-pyramid rig, writing their tunes, and talking to you at a coffee shop is the EXACT same kind of conversation. very few artists are like that. very few artists make me feel like it's just WHAT THEY DO. as opposed to being a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of what they EXPECT to be the thing to do, or what they've learned is the "thing". it's very strange. but when it happens, it's THE BOMB. they're so cool! so cute! j'adore!!!! there's a sincerity and LOVE there that is so appealing. i'm sure zappa was the same way, coltrane, mingus, miles davis.

me and the boy had a convo this morning about how today's jazz artists are so steeped in the CANON that they have to become such virtuosic and theoretical lions, that it produces people who don't live lives WITH other people. like, they can ONLY talk jazz to other jazz heads (like a lot of the boy's friends are annoying like this) and don't seem to share the same world, which produces music that's missing a certain communicability.

today is a schluffy day. we're going to laze about and eat pizza and play frisbee and be smooshy together. then we rejoin the real world for a couple of weeks and then COTTAGE X 2 WEEKS!!!

fin.

"this is a house of math, NOT a house of tupac"

- that's a quote courtesy of dr. rei's dad, by way of dr. rei last night. the hilariousness of that quote speaks to the general gaiety that was had last night. conversation topics that touched on: classicism, homophobia, racism, the movie "crash", whether our capacity to deal with technologies innovations in a considered, moral fashion was being outstripped by the pace at which technology was developing; were interspersed with talk about who's the hottest actress in the world, steven hawking eating go-bots for breakfast, steven hawking leaving his (surprisingly) hot wife for a robot, what's the best television show, that fact that thom yorke's wonky eye has basically gotten to the point where it's turned around and facing inside his head, and how much it would take to have sex with a plethora of people, priests, steven hawking, and finally, rita mcneil. which lead to the boy, in a drunken frenzy of misunderstanding to exclaim, "go camping with rita mcneil?!? aw, i would do that for FREE"

i would post other people's pics on here other than the ever-present bffff dr. rei, but i'm not sure how other people feel about having their mugs plastered on the internet.

there was a eleventh-hour addition to the lobsty-fest last night that was brought by another guest, who (we suspect) was in my grade 2 class. he's going to try to dig up a picture of me in grade 2...hilarious! he's now doing his phd in neuroscience in philadelphia. after all the trouble of lobster-fest...can you believe i FORGOT to take a picture of the full spread?!? i'm shocked and appalled.

it was fantastic times. the poolside sunning and swimming was refreshing, and yesterday was THE PERFECT summer day. not a cloud in the sky, clear, with a mild breeze and a balmy 26C (not the 35+ we've been suffering through). lovely lovely lovely.

and of course, tonight is DAFT PUNK!!!!!!! in your FACE!!!!!!! i'm going to go insane. bucwild, 100$ insane. i've been spoiler-alerting myself with pictures of the inside of the massive pyramid they build on stage to light and control the whole rig (from which they perform) and watching tonnes of footage on youtube.

a;sl9421!!!!098fXELJASD#$%!!!!!

for dinnie tonight i'm smoking ribs on the bbq with dinosaur bbq pasta salad (using their recipe) and leftover caesar salad. with leftover pies.

fin.

LOBSTER-FEST 2007!!!

it's the most, wonderful time, of the year! the title would infer that this marks just one in a long lineage of lobster-cookouts at my house. that would be misleading. in fact, this is the inaugural new england style lobster boil i've ever hosted (but is the culmination of many years of yearning and pining). the theme is byol, bring your own lobster, as i am without the financial means to provide all and sundry with lobsters (actually, i'm buying all the lobsters and being reimbursed)

we're also going to go to the pool today and hang out and be rambunctious and scandalous and sun ourselves like teenager beached seals. what a glorious day!!! happiness!!!

the menu tonight is: steamed lobster, boiled red skinned potatoes tossed in sour cream and herbs, corn on the cob with butter, and caesar salad. for dessert, 3 kinds of pie (hey, it's my birthday weekend!!!): strawberry mousse pie, peanut butter pie with fleur de sel, and blueberry sour cream pie.

it's going to be a feast for the ages!!!

fin.

love for the world...

i love all my friends and my family and my coworkers (except the public library ones, who can be drags). i love the security guards at the library who apparently told my coworker as she was leaving yesterday that i was cute and friendly and thought i was in HIGH SCHOOL (!!!!!!!)

the roomie HAS A JOB!!!!!!!! and more importantly, potentially starts on MONDAY so that she can enjoy the partyingest, most rockingest weekend of ALL TIME!!!! my lovely friends took me out to dinner last night and it was so much fun. we were also surprised by the visit from the roomie's (now my also) friend from new york. so it's going to be a full house of laughter and good times this weekend. i love a full house!

sigh, i'm a lucky lucky lucky girl. take THAT michael jackson disease!

my other brother visited last night, harangued me for cake, found out there was none, stayed and talked comic books and made fun of me, and then left. tonight my mummy is taking me out to dinner at jean's and montreal friend is coming, and i think i'm just going to take it easy and relax. OR i could go to hip hop party's 3 year anniversary, but according to dr. rei, the dj list sounds suspect. if i go dancing anywhere other than daft cakes, i think i might hit the peer pressure night tomorrow at the drake underground, post lobsty-fest.

today's a short day at work. LET THE FUN BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!

one one one !!!!! 11111 !!!!!! one one one

fin.

*cue the ramones*

happy birthday to me (happy birthday!)

it's a late late late post today because i was a cosseted little lamb who woke up to a lovely surprise breakfast prepared by the roomie. it was french toast with a warm fruit compote (apples, peaches, strawberries and blueberries) on top and a beet, carrot, apple, celery, cucumber juice.

it was lovely! i was running late and opted in the heat to take the subway. so i turn to my little bro and go, "hey! we can take the subway together!" he looked less than pleased. so i ask him why he has a problem taking the subway with his sister. his reply? "it's a personal journey" (lol!) so i kept joking about it and he practically flew out of the house...i swear he was running down the driveway putting his shoes on - all to avoid having to have his sister along on his "personal" ttc "journey". hilarious. we ended up riding together because in his haste, he forgot his lunch and had to double back for it, by which point i was ready to go. i think he was worried that i was going to yap his ear off, but he listened to his tunes and i read my entertainment weekly, and we parted ways at yonge with a hearty slap on my back (from him) and a happy birthday goodbye. my lil' bro is the cutest. kid. ever!

dinner at amuse bouche last night was a bit disappointing. the prices they charge are on the high end, so i expect nice stuff. we sat down at 8:30 and didn't leave the table until 11:30. did we have a tasting menu? no! we ordered apps, mains, cheese course and dessert. does that warrant 3 hours? hells no!

the room is nice and intimate, the patio is lovely, although they do squish the tables in (even setting tables at odd angles to squeeze a couple more deuces into the room). we sat down and were immediately presented with a bread plate consisting of two cumin and fennel flecked bread sticks that were nicely chewy, and a slightly sweet raisin bun, with soft butter for spreading. the bread sticks were nice, but i generally don't like to start the meal off with a sweet bread, and the raisin bread seemed more suitable for breakfast than as a pre-dinner offering.

our amuse was a lobster croquette on a chili aioli that was innocuous, neither tasting particularly of lobster or the aioli of chili. the outside wasn't very crispy, but the inside was nicely light, almost souffled. we then waited about 20-30 minutes for our appetizers. the boy had the horse tartar, which was served with a panko-breaded fried egg yolk that had been overcooked so it wasn't runny. the horse tartare was also served with potato chips (very fine, thin, nicely seasoned), garlicky cool mushrooms, and a cheese lollipop. the tartare was very nice (who knew that horsey was going to be so good?) it was springy to the tooth and tasted like a mix between mild beef touched with some pork-y brawniness. the tartare was a little too strongly seasoned with truffle oil.

i got the duo of foie gras, a $19 plate that contained a sliver (1 cm thick) of seared foie (cold by the time i got it and overcooked!!!) and an inoffensive terrine, smooth, served with a tiny postage-stamp-sized piece of toast, an apple gelee, and a thin stick of caramel.

we then waited THIRTY MINUTES for our next course. no apologies, no checking in from our server, no nothing. i finally had to flag him down and politely mention that we had been waiting quite a while for our main courses, which is when i got a kind of half-assed apology and that he was aware of it, and had asked the kitchen to put our orders "at the front of the queue". lame! lies! it's also the kind of place that does wine service, but inattentively, so there were long stretches when the boy's glass was empty, and he would've liked to be topped up, but it wasn't offered and our server was nowhere to be found. amuse bouche is also the kind of place with towels in the bathroom, instead of paper towelling. if you're going to be that kind of place, it's not MY responsibility to chase YOU down when there's a forty five minute delay between courses, or when i want my wine refilled. if you're going to do something, do it right!

we were then placated with our intermezzo, a nice, bland canteloupe sorbet, after which we had to wait an extra TWENTY MINUTES for our mains.

finally our mains arrived. i had ordered the monkfish appetizer. it was a piece of meaty (but overcooked and tepid) monkfish encased in a piece of non-crispy pancetta, with a red pepper skin "tuile", a red pepper "egg yolk" (red pepper puree emulsified to look and hold it's shape like a raw egg yolk) and sweetbreads in a wine reduction. the sweetbreads had been overcooked to the point of dry, graininess. and the red pepper elements on the plate were incongruous with what was otherwise a very earthy surf-and-turf concept.

the boy had lobster, which came with a half-seared tuna tartare, artichokes, edamame, and asparagus. the lobster was also on the luke side of warm and overcooked (dry, tough). the couple at the next table also had the lobster just before our mains were set down and later complained to the waiter that their lobster was overdone. so the kitchen was just a miss that night.

i had the cheese boutique "surprise" - a goat's cheese encircled with pork and seared and served with a rosemary and thyme jelly. this was very nice. i also sampled the boy's cheese plate which had four kinds - one of which we dubbed "hot garbage" (in the good way, it was a raw cow's milk that was rubbed with fleur de sel...stinkaroo! tastiroo!) - a strange superfluous jelly and some lovely black sesame spotted crackers and wheaty, flakey, digestive-like cookies to accompany that were possibly the best thing i ate all night there.

for dessert the boy had a $10 creme brulee that's about the same size as you would get for $5 at anywhere else...it was good but not great (i mean, how hard is it to mess up creme brulee?) and i had a trio of chocolate with a milk chocolate and bergamot milkshake (okay), a chocolate and chai beignet (okay) and iles flotante meringues in a chocolate-orange sauce (better than the other two elements but still not wow-y).

overall, i was disappointed. for that price point, and the way they style themselves, i don't expect to see empty plates and cutlery languishing on the table in between courses, cool food, crappy wine service, and miniscule portions.

let's just say, i hit a mcdicks IMMEDIATELY after and polished off an infinitely more satisfying big mac combo. there were some elements there were good, but nothing veered into greatness, and i much enjoyed my half-the-price feast at oyster boy on sunday MUCH more. admittedly, the kitchen at amuse bouche is tiny, but then you shouldn't be so ambitious. just be what you are! do a few things REALLY well! i'm puzzled because it's gotten such glowing reviews, but maybe i'm too late.

tonight i'm baking pies. i had lunch with my dad (indian buffet at kathmandu on yonge) and we've had two rounds of cake here at work (my coworkers surprised me this morning...I LOVE MY WORK!!!! and someone else who's resigning got going-away cake) so i doubt i'll be hungy for dinnie. dr. rei is coming over to "help" me bake pies for lobster-fest 2007 on saturday.

fin.

i went to the doctor

and guess what she told me? (guess what she told me?)...well, it wasn't "boy you better try to have fun no matter what you do". why do i carry sinead o'connor lyrics in my head? is it the same reason i know all the lyrics to a matthew sweet song? and ugly kid joe songs?

the doctor was pretty comforting about the eye. she gave a look-see in there and said there was some redness, and postulated that it was the beginning of a sty and that my body was probably fighting it on its own. however, she was less encouraging about the ringworm, which isn't ringworm at all, but some kind of rash. she's going to refer me to a dermatologist. she also noticed that there's some weird lighter pigmented patches on my skin, that no one else i'm in regular contact with has noticed. i'm kind of pissed, because the last time i thought i had ringworm i went to a walk-in clinic and was an idiot and shot my load and told the doctor who saw me that that's what i thought it was, and so being a walk-in clinic doctor, with you know, credentials and stuff, he decided that i was really more qualified to assess such things, didn't even LOOK at my face, and prescribed me a very powerful steroid cream. which i applied. which might have caused the differing pigmentation on my face. great. i tried to fob off my doctor by saying, "well, maybe i'm just...dirty" her (very dry, very clipped delivery): "its. not. dirt." so i'm kind of freaking out that i have michael jackson's skin disease, which is kinda cool but kinda rough. i've never really aspired to be a white person. maybe now, i'll be getting me some white privilege. sweet!

the dynamic in my house is very cute right now, especially with my little bro living here. he's sleeping in my living room, so usually he's in there post-dinner, mucking around on his computer, seemingly engrossed. however, he can apparently hear all the conversations we have in the roomie's room, and busts out funny little interjections. last night the roomie was talking about how she still doesn't know if she has a job, but that if she does, they want her to start right away and she'll have to miss daft punk. "sour!" she says, "sour!" i echo, "sour!" my little bro chimes in from out of nowhere. the roomie and i were doing yoga and stretching in her room and she was complaining about her headache, and then we hear, "do you want me to go out and get you some ice cream?" isn't he a good egg? what a good egg! finally, as he was leaving the house to go do his workouts, the roomie goes, "bye little brother!" and just before the door clicks shut he replies, "bye...big sister." so cute!

today i'm having lunch with my ex bf's mom at the cafe at hart house. i told me co-worker and she was all like, "whatever, jennifer aniston." ha! but seriously, my ex bf's mom LOVES me. i always liked being around their place because she has two sons and no daughters so i got a lot of the run-off from that. she publicly sings my praises every chance she gets. she also uses me to pry into her son's life. i gotta be careful.

tonight for dinner the boy is taking me to amuse-bouche restaurant. beware if you click the link! it's flash-heavy. i kinda hate flash websites. it's like, quit wasting my time! i got s**t to do! just show me the goods! anyway, the menu looks good, but i think i'm going to order two apps (they have horse tartare!), because the mains seems a little insipid and uninspired. lamb saddle? so dry! beef tenderloin? such a boring cut! duck breast? snoozefest! i'll post a full review with pictures tomorrow.

fin.

dear google calendar

you have changed my LIFE. i'm in LOVE LOVE LOVE! it's so organized, so colour-coded, so handy!!! plus, i can share my calendar with important people (ie. the boy) so that they can be made aware of certain events (ie. family birthdays) and thus the burden of responsibility for remembering said dates, events, social outings, is shared (ie. reduced nagging!)

muy fantastico. late entry today, but not much going on round here last night. we kind of did this faux-camping thing in the roomie's room. we lay on her bed and lit candles and put witch-hazel-soaked cotton pads on our eyes and idly blabbed and drifted in and out of sleep while the boy noodled on his guitar. this is AFTER i ate my weight's worth in tortilla chips, alternating dips in a reassuring cycle of habenero salsa heat tempered with full-fat sour cream cool. and three pieces of the roomie's leftover goat's cheese, basil, and chicken pizza. this was all after my pms-induced pleas for dial-a-steak were shot down.

despite the torpor of yesterday, this week is jam-packed with social outings. plus i get to visit my doctor today and plague her with my hyperactive, hypochondriac-driven, hystrionics. ie. my eye has been feeling funny since sunday morning...it feels kind of bruised and i get a little twinge of a dull ache when i close it shut or rub it or prod at it (as i've been doing). so i've somehow convinced myself that i have an african bot fly laying eggs in there. the boy says that if a million bot flies emerge from my eye in a rupturing stew of pus and swarming appendages, that he will welcome them with open arms and love them like they were his children. it's strangely comforting. i also may or may not have ringworm on my face. ringworm is NOT a worm, it's like a skin fungus (does that make it MORE or LESS gross?). i suspect i get it from touching books and rubbing my face in passing at the public library. either way, i've been aggressively treating it with alternating tea-tree oil and this steroid cream i have lying around. i suspect my treatment might be *too* aggressive considering i haven't ascertained that it's anything other than a patch of dry skin.

on that note, for dinner tonight i'm making tilapia fillets braised on the stove with grape tomatoes, arugala and chorizo, served with orzo pasta. i WILL NOT give in to pms cravings and eat a ridiculously over-priced and under-portioned nascar ice cream bar from 7/11 (chocolate cookie, vanilla ice cream, caramel, nuts, coated in chocolate, if you're wondering)

fin.

feast!

we feasted at oyster boy last night. we had 1 1/2 dozen oysters on the half shell, some steamed clams, some baked oysters (baked with champagne and brie) and some of their crispy onion rings with jalapeno-lime aioli. it was delicious and relaxing and ever-so enjoyable. i love that place to pieces. i feel so comfy there. if i could book that place out for a wedding reception i would, but it's not big enough for a dance floor. i think ideally, i'd love to have a wedding reception (or just a plain ol' party) that consisted of my favorite things to eat from around the city: fish'n'chips from harbord, thai food from jean's, oysters from oyster boy, pizza from mamma's pizza, red devil cupcakes from the babycake company, sheet cake from dominion's...etc etc.

this week is jam-packed already! it's going to be crazy...what with work, and the roomie potentially starting work, and then i have 3 separate lunch dates this week, and a birthday dinnie out, courtesy of the boy, and then my montreal friend is coming down for the weekend, and i might have a hoo-ha on saturday, and then there's daft punk on sunday. i also have a doctor's appointment and i've got to finish this work for the professor (who is only HALF done the paper...what a slacker-face!) thank goodness it's a long weekend. i can't WAIT for friday!!!

today is my long day, so i packed a dinner of grilled chicken caesar salad. and a tonne of fruit and some nachos and guac for if i get EXTRA hungry. although it's so hot out that i don't foresee myself stuffing my face. but we all know how quickly THAT can change!

fin.

m-r-i

these are my two favorite non-relatives in the whole, wide, world. i don't have many people i consider friends, but the ones i got, are beyond precious. there's a curious and magical alchemy that happens when the m, the r, and the i get together. it's a bizarre mix of zaniness, wacky hijinks, and non-stop blabbing about all and sundry. last night's episode featured a short jaunt to the annex, which inspired the usual annex-tirade (we hate the annex) that's de rigeur whenever we're in the bloor and bathurst area.

here's a picture of the "wu-tang forever" sign with its' contextual surroundings. i really need to get more pictures developed. it sucks. i have a whole album from our europe trip still to be catalogued and filed away. and i keep accumulating pictures without ever developing them. so now i'm up in the hundreds of dollars of pics to process. yikes! i also need some picture frames to put up around the house. and drapes. i want some drapes, dammit!

today is a lazy day. we did some cleaning, ate a spartan breakfast (i overate like crazy last night) of boiled eggs and toast and i'm going to futz around in the garden and do some errands while the boy does his guitar lessons. i'm celebrating the fact that it's a three paycheque month (!!!!!) with a treat dinner at oyster boy tonight. i LOVE oyster boy, and there's something about the muggy heat of august that cries out for sucking back dozens of cold, crisp, briny shellfish on the half-shell. with a cold beer. i don't drink, but i definitely appreciate the circumstances that are conducive to quaffing cold, alcoholic beverages.

fin.

parenthood

the movie, was one of my fav movies as a kid. it's got a stellar ensemble cast and a sprawling multi-generational storyline (i love both those things in combination but i'm more iffy once you add in the x factor of period-piece into the mix). my youngest bro has been living with me for the past month and i've gotten some serious faux-parenting experience.

so far, i feel i've been handling it well.

teenagers-on-the-brink-of-adulthood might just be my forte. they're cogent, lucid (for the most part) and you can reason with them (for the most part). i think most of the credit has to go to my mum and stepdad for putting down a good base, but they raised a good kid so i just have to do some checking-in every now and then. we've had a series of talks lately (the family's been concerned about him dropping the ball on university). i find the rest of my family really prone to stressing unnecessarily and really fear-driven about stuff so it's probably best that i'm the one bridging the gap with the surly teenager, since i'm surprisingly (for all my high-strung, type A personality ways) low-key with the approach (SHOCKING!)

last night i met one of my bro's co-workers, this kid aidan, who was hilarious. he dresses like a sk8r boi, is pants at guitar hero, and ate his FIRST blueberry like, two days ago. he also thought that guacamole was "too crazy" for him. he was polite, so i guess that's the most you can ask of someone.

as they were leaving, i was reduced to shouting "don't drink and drive!" "uhhh...bros before ho's!" at their retreating backs, dip-setting out of my house.

tonight i'm going for dinner at harbord fish'n'chips (yay!)


fin.

grown up christmas...

so...the funding for midwives in ontario got released last night and was being over-night couriered...so sometime today my roomie will find out if she has a job or not. it's like grown-up christmas. she's stressing really hard. i think she's more nervous about actually GETTING the job and then having to practice. even though she's amazing at her job and is always near the top of her class and is beyond capable. i'll keep my reading public updated!

is this bad luck? a preview of yourself in your wedding dress? it's kind of too good NOT to post, imo. i ripped a page from "tyra banks' america's next top model school of mall-grade modeling advice" and opted for an "editorial" style shoot, complete with awkward angles and a sneak peek at my world famous "monster" calves. i am NOT smiling with my eyes though. not for less than $10 000. i think if i'm going to pull this off, i really need higher heels. it's going to be a b***h to walk in, but for the dress to have that real effect, i think i'm going to need some patent stilettos.

last night's dinner turned out awesome. the grilled eggplant was only *slightly* less good than the deep fried stuff, so i think i'm going to stick to the winning formula (especially if i have a heavy plate of deep fried on deck).

tonight is going to be a laid back night...i picked up a 9-5 shift at the public library for tomorrow, but they're short-staffed so i'm working the position above my current one, with a $20/hour wage, which is the only reason i decided to do it. i also found out august is a 3 paycheque month! sweet!!! i LOVE 3 paycheque months. more than christmas.

i went to canadian tire yesterday to get myself and the boy a fishing license and some new fishing line to re-spool our rods. i LOVE LOVE LOVE canadian tire. i think it's a sign of what stage at my life i'm at that my three favorite stores are: canadian tire, target, and home depot. canadian tire has the MOST of the stuff i need right now though. if i win the lottery, i'm going on a shopping spree at canadian tire. so many rubbermaid storage products! so many life jackets, camping equipment, coolers! canning jars aplenty! be still my heart! i pledge my everlasting allegiance to the mighty canadian tire dollar!

tonight for dinner i think i'm going to keep it easy and make nachos with shredded monterrey, scallions, homemade salsa, refried beans, sour cream and guacamole.

fin.

celebrity gossip did me in again!

this is a pic of last night's dinner. i ended up tossing cooked penne with zucchini ribbons i had sauteed in roasted garlic butter, and some chopped oil-packed, oven roasted chilies my supervisor at work gave me, along with some good pecorino romano.

*BEEFY UPDATE*

i can't reiterate enough how much i enjoy my job. which is good, since they've hired me on for 20 hours of work a week this coming fall term. and i'm also hoping to be able to do 7 hours a week at the public library. i'm hoping my classes are as low-intensity as last term's were. i WAS counting on sunday shifts at the public library (where i get paid time and a half for a 3.5 hour shift) to give me an extra boost so that i could drop one of my public library shifts during the week, but because toronto city councillors are lily-livered weaklings who can't approve taxes, toronto is cash-strapped and is forcing all of its' services to downgrade and the public library has stepped up to the tune of 1.3 million.

wow. toronto is probably the complainiest city i've ever known. a bunch of ingrates! largely prosperous, but always wanting more more more of everything! it's the same thing no matter what you're doing...it was bad when i was promoting and throwing parties, it's bad if you're a homeowner, it's bad all around. it's like, no one can reconcile living in a quasi-socialist society with the fact that maybe, just maybe you won't be able to buy your flat screen hd-tv if you also want you kids to enjoy a free public school education that's consistent and get decent health care.

it's not like i'm letting the government off the hook either. the amount of mis-handling and mis-management is atrocious. you know what, stephen harper? i'm kinda sure we didn't need to spend x billion on those arctic military ships trawling those icy waters for terrorist polar bears. but that's just me.

the point is, i'm a tortured union steward. torn between my innate fiscal responsibility issues, common sense, and my leftist, blue-collar sympathies. i'm like a considersably more winsome and gamine karl marx, if you will. ha!

tonight for dinner we're having fried rice with pork stuffed eggplant pockets. i usually deep fry the pockets, but we've been pushing it on the deep fried front lately, so i think i'm going to try baking them. i predict complaints. either way, the stuff gets soused with thai sweet chili dipping sauce, and that stuff has the power to make an entire fascist military's sins seem palatable.

fin.

you know what i'm sick of?!?

i'll tells ya. recently, dr. rei was trying to tell me this story about how, due to over-fishing in china, an overgrowth of plankton and algae has given rise to GIANT 400 lb squids that are terrorizing the strip of ocean between china and japan. as she was trying to impress upon me the grotesque enormity of an armada of half-tonne squids with trailing tentacles, my only comment was to interrupt with an exasperated, "i'm SICK of everyone trying to blame chinese people for EVERYTHING!"

and you know what? i AM.

i'm also not impressed with the conservative government's idea to spend close to half a billion dollars funding faith-based schools in ontario. whatever happened to PUBLIC EDUCATION?!? there were stories all up in the newspapers the other day, about how people of the hindu faith can't afford the $8000 tuition for private hindu schools and are feeling the pinch. well you know WHAT? i'd LOVE to send my (fictitious) kids to HARVARD or the LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS but i can't afford that either! whatever happened to SAVING for your kids' education? sheesh! it's like no one wants to work anymore. technically, it's the catholic school board's fault. i say cancel the catholic school board, separate church and state, and throw all that money into PUBLIC SCHOOLS. and if you want your kid to go to a specialized institution, you can hold a billion bake sales and pay for it your damn selves.

tonight for dinner i'm making ricotta and mozzarella stuffed zucchini blossoms with a zucchini ribbon - parmesan and garlic penne.

fin.

the wonders of tantric bum chakras

as evidenced by the perpetual youthfulness of one gordon sumner (that's sting to you, me, and the rest of the world). we saw the police last night at the acc and it was a great show! it's the first big concert i've been to in a long, long while. the acc is so cavernous that it's kind of hard to get a vibe going in there...i think i'd much prefer everyone to be on the same level, no chairs, pushed in cheek-by-jowl a la wembley or something...it's so much more hype! but the police were polished performers with nary a wrong note and thankfully (for my poor catalogue of their repertoire) they stuck mainly to the hits. sting's voice is so distinctive and evocative.

i'm feeling kind of lethargic lately, something i'm putting down to the poopiness of the weather and the horribleness of my diet of the last little while (thus the late entry). my lovable supervisor brought me a stuffed eggplant for lunch which was absolutely delicious - a mini eggplant, stuffed with a savory meat mixture and sauced liberally with a thick, reduced tomato sauce lashed with fresh basil. she's managed to single-handedly turn me around on the inclusion of breadcrumbs in meat mixtures (meatballs, meatloaf), which i used to snobbishly turn my nose up at, sniffing "filler!" with disdain. breadcrumbs, soaked in milk or water really do result in tenderness and softness, without any of that tough brawny bounce of 100% meat. i'm sold!

finally, i'm obsessed with edward tufte. i can't reiterate enough how much i adore his treatise on the failures of powerpoint. a sample quote (on the frequent and ubiquitious habit of printing out powerpoint presentations as handouts and slides *cough* UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO'S FACULTY OF INFORMATION STUDIES *cough*): "the resolution of printed-out slide decks is remarkably low, approaching dementia" DIVINE! the over-reliance on powerpoint's banal and punishingly uninformative and overly reduced bulleted summations is something that i've been railing about since i started school last fall. it seems to run rampant at the Faculty of Information Studies and is commensurate with the paucity of actual, graduate-level learning to be had there. in place of rigor, we have endless streams of content poor slides with insulting clip art.

it would be one thing if my faculty just KNEW this, but no, they have to be u of t smug about it (while managing the simultaneous feat of being u of t painfully-out-of-touch) and the students for the most part are, i hate to say it, kinda lame and (imho) total dumBies (hard "b" sound...rhymes with gumby), preoccupied with nattering on about word limits and formatting, instead of producing anything interesting.

but i'm not bitter. ha!!!

tonight for dinner we're having long beans, tofu, and pork stirfry in chili black bean sauce on steamed rice.

fin.

chat-fest 2020

last night was fun! we were small in number but large in spirit. we basically sat outside and gabbed for 5 or 6 hour straight and ate good food - basically my favorite favorite favorite way to spend an evening.

there were a lot of hilarious moments and lines...so many that i can't even remember them all.

suffice it to say that i suspect mitch albom KILLED morrie, for fodder for his pap book - which is really a thinly veiled amalgamation of every blandly obvious motivational life snippet to ever tumble from some idiot's lips.

in other news, while vintage trawling with dr. rei yesterday i found my wedding dress. oh yes. all i have to say is: 80s silver lame (i don't know how to put accents in here). tight, ruched, and featuring a collarbone-framing riot of silver bow-like decoration. FAB-U-LOUS!

i keep flip-flopping on the whole "to marry or not to marry" issue. as dr. rei said, there's no good reason to do it, and no good reason NOT to do it. more than anything, it's an ego-issue. everyone ALWAYS says they're going to have an "unconventional" wedding, but few people pull it off. i have some STELLAR ideas to show peeps how it's done. as long as there's no slow dancing, expectation of speeches, schmaltzy and maudlin sentimentality, forced-kissing, stupid games, or me having to make a (un-funny, totally serious) spectacle of myself, i'm IN!

i wasn't completely pleased with my layered semifreddo dessert last night. it needs some kinks worked out. the ladyfingers were frozen too solid for the rest of the dessert. i think instead of coffee (which has too high a water content and subsequently freezes too icy, i'm going to soak the ladyfingers in a milk-coffee-kahlua mix and hopefully the fat content in the milk and the alcohol content of the kahlua will prevent the iciness. i'm committed to perfection (or so my resume boldly claims!).

today i'm having my fam over for some wading pool action (my sis is up visiting with the kids) and playing in the park and then a bbq at my pad. we're having: dilled deviled eggs (i LOVE deviled eggs!), portugese-style grilled chicken (marinated in chilies, lemon juice, garlic, paprika, wine, and a whole host of other goodness), with a bean and grape tomato salad in mustard-dill vinaigrette, my famous garlic bread, corn on the cob, and for dessert, that espresso mascarpone cookie layer cake.

unf unf unf!

fin.

that's my boy!

took my little murderah bumbacat, smudge to the vet yesterday. ooooh boy! he was PISSED. i had him in the carrier and he was freakin' tits - snarling, doing that low whiny rumble, and hissing like a madman. i was getting a lot of looks from other clients.

when i finally get into the examination room, the vet comes blithely in, notes the sounds coming from the carrier and asks, "oh, is he scared?" me: "uh no, he's just ANGRY". the vet kind of chuckles and coos at smudge and then tries to get him out of the carrier. it required holding the carrier at a 90 degree angle to dump smudge out. when the vet tried to pet him, smudge attacked him. back claws kicking, teeth bared, hissing, boxing at him with his paws. so the vet goes away for 15 minutes to try to get smudge to "calm down". comes back in, no dice. when he tries to examine him again, smudge goes berserk. it was awesome! so vet goes away and comes back with these thick, leather, elbow-length gloves to hold him. STILL can't do anything. he fought with smudge for a good 10 minutes trying to "tire him out" and eventually had to call in TWO assistants just to give smudge his shots: 2 to hold him down, one to administer the injection.

smudge basically didn't get seen properly by the vet because he wouldn't let them near him but the vet says that any cat that puts up that good of a fight is healthy. that didn't stop mr. schiesty from trying to bring him in for a $500 "teeth-cleaning". i don't know if i'm going to bite on that one. it's a lot of money and smudgie's teeth seem pretty clean to me.

i was simultaneously embarrassed/proud. like when your kid takes a massive vomit ON someone you don't like. it's amazing.

tonight i'm having my male doppelganger and possibly dr. rei over for dinnie. we're having a tomato-basil ricotta tart with a big salad and a new dessert i'm trying: a layered semifreddo. ladyfingers soaked in coffee and rum are layered with a chocolate-hazelnut semifreddo and a sweet cream semifreddo. it's like a frozen cappuccino.

fin.

banged up

in the the past little while, i've managed to: form a GIANT blister on the back of my right foot, stub my toe and cut a little bit of the cuticle, and burn my right arm with hot pasta water (nooo!!! not again!!!).

i'm a hurtin' unit right about now. also i think i've temporarily fixed my computer problems. i have a cpu that runs HOT (eff you, athlon!), so basically, it had gotten to the point where if my computer restarted and rebooted (on its own) say, 10 times in a day instead of 20, i was considering that a good day. i opted to take the side off of my computer and it seems to help it cool it down a bit. i also don't run my computer all day anymore but turn it off when i go to work. that seems to help a bit too. but it also means mad dust up inside so i gotta go get some compressed air, STAT.

p.s. i LOVE compressed air.

tonight is a lowkey night. i gotta take my cat to the vet and then i'm going to come home and do some prep work (i'm having my male doppelganger over for dinnie tomorrow, and my whole fam over for dinnie on sunday).

i finished reading sarah dessen's book "dreamland" ages ago, which officially brings me up to speed on her entire body of young adult work. this one was a little harder to get behind. it's about a girl whose sister runs away, so she's feeling a lot of pressure to carry the weight of her family's expectations and does things she wouldn't normally do (sign up for cheerleading, etc). then she hooks up with this mysterious dude (with the laughable name "rogerson biscoe"!!!) who smokes pot and has dreads and turns out to be abusive. it was kind of a dark text and i think it's hard for me to appreciate or understand how people stay in abusive relationships. i can understand being physically outmatched, but how people continue to put up with it boggles my mind. all it would take would be one time and i'd f**king lay into the bastard and make him so sorry. i'm more about the elaborate revenge techniques. i wouldn't hit back, but i'd set fire to every belonging, clip mousetraps to every finger, toe, and his d**k, slip lsd into his morning coffee, etc.

i was bad at ate square boy at like, 11pm last night so i'm feeling gross and repentant. tonight for dinner will probably be a grilled cheese sandwich or something.

fin.

LATER, layton!

so, for the past week and a half, as i'm biking along wellesley on my way to work, i'm pretty sure at around wellesley and bay, i see jack layton (also on a bike).

now, i'm a pretty strong ndp supporter and i don't want to shatter anyone's illusions, but jack layton bikes like your sissy grandma. dude is SO SLOW. so every morning, i'm zipping by him, dinging my bike as i pass, thinking, "LATER, LAYTON, EAT MY DUST!".

also: jack layton (or his doppelganger) wears black tapered faded levis. wow. no wonder the ndp shows so poorly every election. their leader is biking around town like a geriatric with two bum knees sheathed in heavy metal skid jeans. wow.

today is a long day, i packed the rest of the boy's malai kofta roti from ghandi's for dinnie (we went halfsies - i had sag paneer). ugh. one more long day and then tomorrow is FRIDAY! woop!

fin.

take THAT, bugaboo stroller crew!

as faithful readers know, i've been on a constant mission for zucchini blossoms for the past month or so. this weekend's planned mission to st. clair was aborted due to inclement weather and the fact that when i called ahead, dude at the store said he didn't have any. last week at riverdale organic farmer's market, i was told i had to come early (i usually meet the boy there at around 5pm when i'm done work). this time, i sent the boy to the market alone. his mission: be there for the start of the market (3pm) to grab 'em while the getting was good. he arrived on the dot, the guy with the blossoms was just setting up and as he unloaded the basket out of the truck, the boy pounced on them, found out how much they were (5 for $1) and started shoveling them into a bag, just as the rich cabbagetown/riverdale moms with their thousand-dollar strollers started to coo and chirp behind him, "ooh, what are those?" "how do you cook them?" etc. i was so proud of him. i'm sorry to sound like a jerk, but when it comes to zucchini blossoms i think they should be allocated on the basis of skill (like communism!).

we had them with a pasta with spicy cured sausage, arugala and grape tomatoes. the zucchini blossoms were FANTASTIC. and i'm already hungering for more.

today i'm meeting my deadbeat dad for lunch and then meeting h and dr. rei after work for ghandis rotis and to check my library co-worker's gallery exhibit.

fin.