oooh, i forgot to mention

that one of my work girls got me THIS as a prezzie:

it's this crazy japanese mascara that doesn't PAINT your lashes, it ENCASES EACH ONE IN A TUBE. so that no matter how much crying, eye-scrunching, WHATEVER you do, that shiz is going nowhere! you can't even rub it off with makeup remover! you have to gently squeeze along your lashes and supposedly (according to my friend, M) it feels like you're pulling your lashes off but what's left are the little tubes that had been surrounding them.

check it out:

http://www.cimel.ca/

(click on the link to see the video). G & M both SWEAR by the stuff. it made their lashes SO THICK on their wedding days (they both wore on their respective big days because of the no-coming-off factor!) and no smudges!

so pumped to try this!

fin.

lionel hutz

okay. remember how we hired lionel hutz to be our lawyer and when we tried to make arrangements to sign the retainer he told us he wouldn't be able to see us until late in the evening because he was going to be in "court" all day, except when we showed up at his ramshackle, skeevy office it turns out that by "court" he meant "canada's wonderland" because he had a fresh judy jetson stamp on the back of his hand?

well, me being me, knowing that we're about to go off on vacation and be away, i got my affairs in order early and fired off emails to my bank lady, our agent, and lionel hutz informing them of when i'll be away, where they can contact me, and listing all the relevant contact info for all the parties (including my proxy lawyer - my mum).

yesterday i get a call from lionel hutz informing me that HE'S QUITTING HIS PRACTICE due to "personal issues" and wouldn't be able to represent us in this transaction. OY. he's transferring all his business to another lawyer close by. what a mess! i spent more than an hour yesterday frantically trying to call new lawyer, find out what her credentials were/how long she's been practicing, etc. she's in the same price range but way too laid back for me: "you're closing on the 31st? most people don't retain a lawyer until 2-3 weeks before closing, how about you come in on august 26th?" i'm getting really sick and tired of people telling me what "most people" do.
BE PREPARED FOR THE OUTLIERS! jeez! our agent does this too - "the industry standard is blah blah blah" and i'm like, lady PLEASE. don't give me no industry standard bullcrap. you're on LAGERFELD STANDARD TIME now and you better recognize! anyway, i'm going to force this lady to meet with us and sign a retainer next week while we're in town before we go to make things official and to peep her operation and to impress upon her that i DO NOT do things in a relaxed, last-minute, or according to some fictitious "industry standard." you're working for ME now.

last night was super fun! we went to barraida which is just west of the college street insufferableness and has one of the loveliest patios i've ever seen - you're very secluded from the city hum. it was lovely to get taken out by my work friends and enjoy a nice dinner out. the back patio features a huge spit and they're famous for their roasted meats. i split their signature "flaming chouriço" with T...it's an entire horseshoe of thick-skinned chouriço set ablaze and carved into fat-chunk-flecked pieces. so delicious. delectable! i followed that up with a slightly less impressive suckling pig sandwich. the suckling pig was cold and served on a soft roll without any accompaniment, so it tasted kind of dry.

after dinner, the dotytron picked me up and we went over to his jazzer buddy's K's house and out for beers with his jazzer friends. it was fun! i wish we could have stayed later - i feel more at ease with them now that i can talk about how BORING it is when they talk about dexter gordon or how they've tuned their lap steels and how the beatles are over-rated. lol! next week we'll hang out proper. i was at my most obnoxiously charming and was rewarded with big laughs. i love having my funniness validated with laughter. so key.

the downside of all this frivolity was that we didn't get home until late and all the packing i was SUPPOSED to do didn't end up happening. the dotytron is home all day today so he can get some of that done but we all know that i'm a big enough control freak that i'll have to check over his work.

k, so this youtube clip has taken the world (blogging and real world) by storm. i'm sorry, but i didn't find it that awesome. first of all, it's not all that well choreographed! and it's too damn long! edit that shiz! i feel like this is something that w.p.'s go buck for but that i kinda don't get. i'm happy that their happy but i wouldn't consider this the best shiz ever and certainly not warranting the amount of lurve it's getting from the interwebs. also, the bride isn't really giving it her all. finally - it's awkward watching people dance the w.p's at the wedding dance. that's why i avoid dancing in public unless the conditions are RAVE and no one is paying attention to me. bah, i'm probably being a stressed out grinch. this is just one of those scenarios when the internet got it wrong and those scenarios tend to grieve me.

so we're leaving tonight for our awesome performance weekend adventure. i'm looking forward to this mini-vacay. it's going to be fun to hang out in geneseo with my family and with the goosetang clan. it's going to be relaxing and food-filled and chill. pretty ideal conditions to usher in your THIRTIES. that's right, i'm turning THIRTY on sunday. crikey!!!

wishing you all the best this long weekend! lots of love to my readers - you know we would have wanted you to share our day with us (and you will, in the form of video clips and photos) but this is really the only way we could swing it without going any crazier than we already are.

LOVE!

fin.

*grabby hands* x 111110100000

last night's gambol down vinyl memory lane ended up being very fun. we've given up on cataloguing our stuff on discogs for the time being and instead we divvied up the work thus: i would sit on the floor, pull out stacks of my records and file them into "keep" and "iffy/don't remember - requires another listen" and the dotytron would play the iffy/don't remember ones with me barking "forward! back! other side!" directions for the needle. i need surprisingly little time with a track to get a sense if i want to keep it or not.

things i love the most: amens. all kinds. 808s. all kinds. it's a pretty simple formula, really. occassionally i'd pass him something like "tudor rose" or "walk wid your friends" (shouts out to all the massif who know what i'm talking about) and feign like i didn't remember what it sounded like just to hear them again. i haven't touched my records in a dog's age. i'd like to get another turntable and a mixer again. playing records is fun.

stuff on the chopping block was a lot of my indeterminate atmospheric drum'n'bass with the faux jazzy/nature stylings and most of the indeterminate noise/breakcore type stuff. i think all told i'm axing 30-45 tunes from my collection - not too bad. not that significant but it still lightens the load somewhat.

this morning at work i had a run-in with toronto's finest. i was called to the front of the building by security because i could speak cantonese and there was an elderly woman out there who didn't speak any english and they wanted me to translate. i went and the woman was clearly disoriented and confused. she was fairly lucid, but she kept repeating the same story about her apartment. she could give me her name, but not her address or phone number or tell me who she lived with or what she was doing at my building. each time i asked her a question, she would listen carefully and then start repeating the story about her apartment. after 15-20 minutes of this, security told me to go to work and they would call me if they needed me. they called me out again when the toronto police showed up.

there were two lady cops, one kind of burly and pouty and the other one was short and spry and seemed intent on pleasing (i'm not sure who, i think burly cop). burly cop barked out questions to ask the lady, but i got nowhere. then burly cop said, out loud to her partner, "well, we should just dump her at the hospital, she's obviously koo koo." it was off putting to say the least. then she told me, "tell her that we have to take her to the hospital because we can't be babysitting her all day." after about 15 more minutes of me trying to explain to the lady and find out if she remembered the street name of her address or if there was anyone she could call, the woman (who was 71, i managed to get that much out of her) would simply say, matter-of-factly, "i can't remember." she was clearly suffering from some kind of dementia or alzheimers or equivalent. burly copy was clearly impatient (i can't imagine what she had better to do than, oh i don't know...HER JOB). then burly cop started going through the woman's pockets (without asking the woman) all rough and pulled out a cell phone. she dialed the only number on the phone and it turned out to be the front desk of the apartment building and then they escorted the woman out to drop her off at the building. pleaser cop was no better...she was clearly trying to kowtow to burly cop.

as she left, burly turned to me and said, "thanks for your help. you should consider becoming a cop." ummmm...no thank you, lady! that poor old woman - i can't imagine what it must be like to go through what she's going through and to know that you can't even trust law enforcement (which is deemed an "essential service") to make sure you get home safe and sound or that you'll be looked after. they totally didn't give a rat's butt about her and she was a buck to be passed off as quickly as possible. so sickening. i seem to recall in first year politics that we make some kind of trade with government - something to do with "civil society" and some kind of "social contract" - this cop was so NAKED about what a d**k she was. i mean, i guess it's one thing to gripe about this situation when you get home from work, but she was doing it in public! being blatantly patronizing and unsympathetic, rude and callous. it made me want to give her a dressing down, so bad...but i didn't know how to go about it.

it's so sad. when you read the newspaper stories about the racist cops or how they engage in racial profiling or use unnecessary force - it's so easy to believe it. everyone i told the story to today wasn't surprised and more often than not piped up that cops are a**holes. totally disheartening and scary.

not to be a weirdo, but i'm going to change the topic in a big way -

roll call of awesome:

online store: three potato four. whooooosh. that sound, my friends, is the sound of my heart being set afire. click that link only if you are strong-hearted and sturdy of account balance enough to handle the visual assault. it's like instant grabby hands over here, folks. i want most, if not all of the lovely vintage curiosities and novelty items there.

to wit:

united states chalkboard map.

hardware store drawers. these are the perfect size. i actually just went to the trouble yesterday of taking all our burned dvds of movies and shows and whatnot, taking them out of the cd binder, putting them in paper sleeves, and printing up labels with a nice font and labeling the front of each sleeve, with the intention of stacking them in something like this - so that we can flip through them and find the movie we want and it looks nicer than those cd binders and books which i find to be offensively hideous. if i had even the slightest bit of extra coin right now, i would get one for sure.

this old telephone sign. LOOK. AT. THAT. FONT. *faints from typographic happiness*

i'm actually buying this tonight. it would be perfect in the entrance way of lil' ugmo, hung up on the exposed brick wall...add a mini ledge underneath for cell phones and mail and it's a PERFECT landing pad. love it.

wire egg basket - for holding magazines in the living room or bedroom. LUST! PINE! WANT!

whyohwhy must i be so short of money right now? ugh. it grieves me deeply.

fin.

better

today has been MUCH better. i've done a crapload of packing, reorganized the spare room where all our boxes are being held, baked 1 cake and blind baked another tart shell. got my toe nail fixed, laid down vocals for the last tune, dropped off my keys at my friend H's place (she's cat sitting while we're getting hitched) and got caught in a torrential, biblical thunderstorm that soaked my drawers and had me praying to the gods that i wouldn't get hit by lightening.

i'm going through my records and then i'm calling it a night. we had a lovely dinner with our friend B at this restaurant king palace where they do spit-roasted lamb. spit-roasted lamb could be my middle name. it's so good! it's like a greek greasy spoon but the food is amazing - chunky salad with a huge slab of feta; salty, greasy, tender lamb sold by the kilo; house-made onion rings; and saganaki because the dotytron can't eat greek food without getting saganaki



totally awesome! so cheap! that and 3 beers and 1 coke was $70. the lamb was SO good. i'm taking everyone i know who appreciates the beauty of spit-roasted meat.


for sunday breakkie i made us an AWESOME sandwich. ace focaccia bun, spread with roasted garlic-parsley butter and warmed in the oven. topped with crispy proscuitto and soft scrambled eggs cooked in butter with scapes. oy. if i ever open a restaurant that would DEFINITELY go on the menu during scape season. it was criminally good.

okay...i've got to sift through the detritus of many thousands spent on obsolete vinyl.

fin.

m.i.a. x 2!

what the-? am i off blurging? no. just mad busyface and life insists on kicking me in the 'nads.

to wit: today, while baking one of the THREE cakes i'm making for the performance, during one of the now increasingly de rigeur, global-warming-initiated, toronto torrential rainstorms, the dotytron came home, went downstairs and started screaming his little pin head off. whyfor? BECAUSE OUR BASEMENT WAS HAD FILLED WITH AN INCH OF WATER. mayhap i should now mention that OUR BEDROOM AND 99% OF OUR WORLDLY POSSESSIONS ARE IN THE BASEMENT?!?? oy vey. luckily, the floor in the basement isn't even so there are high spots and low spots. the area outside our bedroom had 2 inches of water, but we don't keep anything there except for some metro shelving for our linens and the litterboxes for the cats. the floor in the bathroom also dips down and also was covered in 2 inches of water that was creeping its way into our bedroom and under our bed. PURE CHAOS! i didn't even know what to do. i placed a frantic call to our perpetually beleaguered landlord who gave me his trademark heavy sighs and then called me back with instructions to buy a shop vac ("make sure it's a good one") and vacuum up the water - he's going to reimburse me for the shop vac.

so we went to ever-trusty home depot and grabbed a shop vac. for the record: shop vacs are amazing. they're miracles of modern engineering. it made short work of what had been a daunting task comprised of equal parts: bailing into a bucket with two sour cream containers; sponging up a teaspoon of water at a time with our oft-abused and cheap mop and wringing it into another bucket; and holding back heaving waves of vomit at the dust-bunny, hair, and dried insect carapace slurry pooling at our ankles.

the good news is: i've baked 2 of my cakes and they're safely enshrouded in a saran sarcophagus and sitting in cryo. i also did some packing and finished the pillow for our grillz-bearer. i also went and got a pedi with dr. rei at urban nails. they were insanely busy and i was told that my polish was dry and to slide my pampered tootsies into birkenstocks before the enamel had fully hardened. result? i gouged a chunk of polish out of my big toe. now i have to go BACK and get this shiz fixed tomorrow. ag! the positive thing is that through the help of dr. rei, i've figured out my makeup situation for the big day. dr. rei is much better at being a girl than i am. well, i'm really good at the clothes and styling part, not so good at the hair and makeup part. let's just say that liquid liner works miracles. the looks is pretty cute...very 50s and subdued. now all that remains is the hair question - fat curls/waves or stick straight? my hairpiece is kind of intense, but dr. rei is a big fan of soft waves on me.

things are chugging along at a healthy clip. now we're doing recording sessions and final mastering and tomorrow we have to bang out another track for the cd.

last night was fun! my friend lives in a crazy condo complex at front and spadina. parking was IMPOSSIBLE. however, guess what we saw en route to A's place that made last night the most MAGICAL NIGHT IN ALL OF EXISTENCE?

THIS GUY:


a groundhog! in the city! how crazy is that? look at how fat he is! it's a quasi-miracle.

my offerings were a big hit at the bbq. especially the peanut butter pie, which always makes people go mental. in other news...i think last night was the first time i've been somewhere where the number of people who DON'T like deviled eggs outnumbered the people who do. i've actually never been ANYWHERE where my deviled eggs weren't met with fawning appreciation. it was a little unsettling, i'm not gonna lie.

"(500) days of summer" was a mediocre trifle. some cute elements, some genuinely funny moments, but overall unmemorable and a little to self-assuredly winsome even for me - and for a long time there zooey was my style icon and i LOVE winsome! but this was too much. it's about a relationship between tom and summer and as the officious meta-narrator explains: theirs is not a love story. tom is a hopeless romantic and summer not quite. the good points of the film were the WARDROBE. oh my! zooey's wardrobe was TO DIE FOR. all prim sleeveless blouses vaguely reminiscent of the 50s with full tailored pants (so katherine hepburn!) for the office or circle skirts for play, a blue ribbon in her jaunty, swingy ponytail
like a dark-haired, blue eyed betty from riverdale. eeks. i wanted everything she wore.

the story was a bit trifling - purporting to show all the messy bits from a failed relationship. the soundtrack that's garnered so much press was a bit intrusive, you could just tell how clever they thought they were being with their choices. the whole thing reeked of precociousness which was off-putting. i've read reviews that critique summer for being too much of a cipher - but i think that's the point. the film is mostly played out from tom's perspective and a great deal of it is about how he projected onto her - and how you always project onto this idealized girl/boy/etc. of your dreams. the film makes zooey deschanel very alluring in her zooey-ness. i don't know how much longer she can ride this schtick out for - can you be that dewy and curlicue girlish at 40? how is she going to grow out of it? summer is the girl that every urbanite or small town/suburbanite secretly covets. into "cool" music, funny, dry, game.

it was fine, just very predictable. i'm not sure that i would recommend paying full price for it.

it makes you want to be alluring though. oh, how i wish i was as alluring and delicious as zooey deschanel! i expressed as much to the dotytron and he told me that i WAS alluring - in a better way, even. i mean, i guess? if you consider the jabbering, crass, f-bombs dropping, awkward question asking, prickly pear stuffing her face with deviled eggs at the party and talking with her mouth full type alluring. ha. seriously, my signature party move is to blunder into asking someone a seemingly innocuous question that ends up being about the most awful part of their life and then to talk about how much i love deviled eggs and draw attention to the fact that **I** brought them to the party. what a shy, demure peach i am!

dinner tonight was stuffed eggplant with garlic bread on the side. tasty and the needed respite from what ended up being a hellish day. yes, i did pick that entire sheet of burnished provolone off the eggplant and roll it up like a cigar and eat it thusly. you would have done the same. while we're at it, yes, i did end up eating the steak gristle off of everyone's plate. so sue me!

my fair lil' ugmo - living room edition:

k, i think we're in the market for a new couch. i had been coveting these models from style garage (a local toronto company):


but they are priced for lawrence park royalty. seriously! the bottom one STARTS at $3000! my sister got the world's comfiest couches from raymour and flanagan for like, $800. hers are GIANT and squishy! me and the dotytron can both lie down on the full size couch without touching. s-dawg can hide BEHIND the back cushions with someone lying on the couch and be undetectable during a game of hide and seek! plus, i've come to realize that tufting is not your friend. some tufting yes. excessive tufting, no. tufts are ground zero for pet hair and crumb collection. they're the capacious belly buttons of the sofa world. not good.

crate and barrel's petrie sofa has taken the design world by storm. every blogger and their twitterer (see what i did there?) has one and sings its praises. it's still pricey though.

this little beaut from eq3 is the one i'm gunning for. sleek, cute, affordable (less than a grand) and with cute stubby wooden legs. i'll have to take a seat on 'er to see how she holds up...but right now, that's the front runner. in a nice, dark, inky grey (the better to camouflage cat hair).

we've pretty much decided on paint colours...white trim and accents, most rooms will have pale, pale grey walls with 1 wall a bold colour - teal, plummy purple, citron. the dining room is going to be a grey-blue, my craft room/office is going to be a pale turquoise/sea green with orange accents.

i'm pumped! too bad we got to run the gauntlet before that stuff happens.

fin.

m.i.a.

longest non-vacation related blurg break evers! i know, where have i been, right? in frazzled town, population: me and dotytron, that's where. but also having the time of my life this weekend.

friday i woke up with a rip roarin' headache and called in sick to work. i think a few too many nights of a few too many missed hours of sleep and stress were wearing on me. my friend I was in town from montréal so i took some pain killers, slept in, felt marginally better and then eased my way out into the real world to help her find some jeans. we had success with my go-to brand, dish jeans. they're AMAZING. fantastic washes, super-flattering cuts, and the price point can't be beat. seriously, an amazing pair of jeans for under $90?!? in this day and age? BEST!

i also went to gadabout to see about that vintage dress i had been pining over. turns out that it wasn't right. it had a pencil skirt with a tulip overlay that was a little *too* vintage costume-y. plus the colour wasn't super flattering, which is kind of odd, because one of the pluses of being a swarthy dark-skinned mohican such as myself means that i can wear almost any colour under the sun. i have a slew of weddings to go in the next little while so i wanted something kind of new and more importantly, most of my party dresses are red/pink/purple and i wanted something in the blue range to match the dotytron's suit. yes, it's VERY important to me that we coordinate when we go to suit-and-dress events. i just like to be matchy-matchy. anyway, i ended up finding a lovely ombré aquamarine-to-teal, floaty, silk number that, if not quite perfect, was too lovely and on sale to pass up. it looks pretty banging on, if i do say so myself.

that night we had dinner at our friends J & S's house. J made us pulled pork sammies on powdery, light, fluffy buns with a potato salad and a coleslaw. i contributed chocolate pudding pie. it was a great meal that went much later than i had intended (they're parents to two young children) - but that's what eating and convivial conversation will do to you.

the next day i finished my bouquet and then headed over to the ex-roomie M's house. she was having an informal bbq and our friend P was in town from new york. it was kind of awkward - at least when the parents showed up. i feel like there are a few kinds of parents. the cool kind where having the kid doesn't really change them at all and they are still relevant and not that boring about it (like J & S and my sis and H and G & M) and then there's the kind that go kind of buck and you can't have a non-child related conversation with them anymore, or a conversation that doesn't revolve around how VERY OKAY THEY ARE WITH POO. i hate that conversation. more because it's such a tired cliché. like, "poo doesn't even phase me" "i'm such a mess, look at me, i've got vomit in my hair" we get it. you're a mom now. WE KNOW. nothing new here!

anyway, there were a few moms who were on that tip. and on that naturalpath/cranial sacral therapist for my child, no vaccines, co-sleeping forever, and breast-feeding until 5 tip. one of reasons for breast-feeding until 5 that got trotted out was because there's "research" that shows that breast-fed kids get sick a lot less later in life and have better immune systems, blah blah blah. so, me being me, i piped up and said that i question how those studies can isolate breast-feeding as the singular causation for that. then people asked me why i was questioning something that was "natural" and i said, i'm not questioning breast-feeding, i'm questioning the claims made by the research, when the cohort must have been really small and a longitudinal study is impossible where you can say that breast-feeding is the root cause of a boosted immune system. i was formula fed and i'm healthy as a horse. it's going to be mostly anecdotal, like that and quite frankly, people have to find what works for them, instead of having la leche league going all nazi on your butt and women feeling like failures if they have problems breast-feeding or have to go back to work and can't or something.

then this one girl at the party turns to me and interrupts me saying, "excuse me, but do you come from a science background?" and i was like, "um, no. i come from a cultural studies/critical theory background. you apply a critical lens to everything" to which she replied, "don't you find that exhausting?" lol! yes, i find being critical exhausting. it's a lot more work than being vapid and reducing complex issues down to a science/nature dichotomy, i'll tell you that much!

it kind of went downhill from there. the kids wanted to have a "dance party" and at some point, this one kid S who's like 4 or something demanded that i come in and dance with him. i find dancing with children kind of awkward. but i didn't feel like i could say no because everyone was cooing and oohing and awwwing and so in love with their own kids that i would have felt like a d**k. so i half-heartedly danced. also, we were dancing to like, michael jackson's PYT, which i think is played out. the same way i can't dance to "thriller" - i can appreciate that they're hype tunes, but they're still played out.

at the end of the day, my issue is with people who actively participate in their own essentializing. people who define themselves by what they do, the activities they engage in. it's too much for me. that's why i never call myself a foodie. i LOVE food and i LOVE cooking but i hate being defined by stuff like that. try calling me a librarian and see how well that sticks. obviously, there are times when i strategically self-apply those categories (at like, a library conference or something, or for professional reasons) but generally, i hate being lumped in with other crafters, or knitters, or foodies, or librarians, or WHATEVER. i feel like my engagement with these things are too nuanced to be reduced down to a handy handle. i hate clichés (for the most part, but i'm not above using them in my writing). it IS exhausting. the roomie, on the other hand, is the kind of person who LOVES being defined by those handy handles. so women are like X, parenting is like X, midwives are like __, __, and __.

i dunno...i feel like you have to be a whole person (or strive to be) in everything that you do and i don't feel like you set a good example for your kids or anyone if you devote yourself to the kids, your partner, or any ONE aspect of your life. as in everything, balance is the key!

ANYWAY, after that we headed out to B & E's gorgeous house in the kdubs (somewhat predictably getting lost along the way because kdubs MAKES NO SENSE) for a little me and A (male doppelganger) birthday soirée where people didn't follow the rules and got me presents. they were very sweet and thoughtful though and i love them. we nibbled on nibblies and talked about stuff and gossiped and laughed and drank tom collins (A's favorite drink). then we got all skanked up and headed to the RAVE! yes! i went to a RAVE! like, enter through a mysterious parking garage, all night dance party NOT in a club featuring a UK headliner! best! i saw no less than 2 pregnant women (although the dotytron claimed there were 4!) and i got all lurved up with my favorite peoples and danced and hugged and kissed and it was lovely. we ran across A's friends K & C who we sat with at A & J's wedding (all the ex-raver crew sat together). now THAT'S the kind of parent i want to be! K & C have two youngish kids and were at the rave as long as we were, standing right up front, dancing in front of the speakers the whole night. amazing! plus when we sat with them at the wedding we chatted about how they like to give their kids old moog synthesizers to play with and they were totally normal and fun and interesting. best parents ever! we stumbled out of the rave at 4 in the morning and barely slept before a pack of us headed out to canada's wonderland.

i kind of thought that with the rave the night before and the no sleeps we'd kind of take it easy, you know, a couple of hours and then call it. OH NO. we were there for like, 8 or 9 hours. C & C joined us as did J & N - such a fun time. foot long hotdogs, the smell of fried dough, novelty ties, hamburger hats and thrills and chills in the form of poorly maintained wooden roller coasters and the freakishly well engineered physics-defying new ones.

after THAT, we stopped off at the roomie's pad again to bid I and P adieu. it felt like it had been a lifetime since we had seen those guys last, when really it was only a day.

now we're swept up in ironing out the last minute details for the big day (or rather, series of big days). yipes! too much to think about!


last night for dinner i made us macheroni carbonara with pancetta and scapes. the pasta was a beautiful hand-rolled number i got in that gift basket of goodies from my coworkers. i served it with our favorite cool summer salad - cucumber, radish, dill and crumbled feta in a sweet vinaigrette.

tonight for dinner i kept it simple and made myself a grilled cheddar sandwich on challah, and a boccaccini, tomato, basil and salt sandwich on sunflower rye. the dotytron is off doing man things with his da' - i think they're having a "before you marry that harpy" heart-to-heart.

the next two nights i won't be home for dinner. tomorrow is dodgeball so i'll probably be eating leftovers or something quick out - and friday is a bbq at my dodgeball teammates' place. i'm contributing a peanut butter pie, raspberry brown butter bars (my new favorite treat!), deviled eggs, and a panzanella (i might axe the panzanella though because i feel like bringing 4 things might be overkill). i already made the peanut butter pie so all i have to do is make the bars and the deviled eggs tonight.

fin.

i leave 'em froze like

her-on in your nose - nas, "it ain't hard to tell"

a few recent examples of me being a confused little chicken. nas' "it ain't hard to tell" playing in captain save a hoe. me, listening carefully to the lyrics and finally cluing in after hearing this song at least 25 times in my life, to the dotytron: "ohhhhh, is it 'her-on' as in 'heroin'?"
dotytron: "ummm, yeah"
me: "cuz i thought it was, 'i leave 'em froze like [gil scott] heron in your nose'" dotytron: *explosive laughter*

on our scarborough vacation we came across this sign:

me: "one can get 50% off? so you may or may not?"
the dotytron: "no, you freak, BUY ONE CAN, GET THE OTHER ONE 50% OFF" lol!

yesterday was fun...we went for dinner at the ex-roomie's place. she "made" (ordered) pizza. our friend I is visiting from montreal and we hadn't even seen the roomie's new pad yet. it's super nice! she seems really settled and happy. after dinner, we went to ed's real scoop in leslieville. i found it kind of pricey there. their regular is like, $4 after tax, for only 1 scoop. greg's is $3.25 (plus tax) but the regular gives you TWO scoops. the ice cream was pretty good. they have gelato and ice cream. the gelato is displayed in the bountiful euro tourista style, all overflowing-swirly-erupting from their containers in a garish, fecund, orgy. i'm not a fan of that style. i prefer the more restrained, hoity-toity, clinical, hushed canister style favoured by grom in florence. the flavours at ed's were okay - the fruit ones better than the nut/chocolate ones.

we followed that up with "harry potter and the half blood prince"


SPOILER ALERTS (ONLY FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK OR MY SISTER WHO DOESN'T WANT TO "HEAR TOO MUCH" ABOUT IT - YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!)



i thought this movie was pretty good, but to resort to a cliché so tired and well-worn that it's practically vapour, the book was better. the film as a film lost the mark a little bit. there was way too much emphasis on the snogging and teenage hormones and not enough to give the events of the novel traction. my friend K had read reviews that dismiss this installment as a placeholder for the final two installments of "deathly hallows." this does an egregious disservice to the source material which was compelling in the EXTREME. it's one of my favorites in the WHOLE series! there's so much set up, but for all this movie would have you believe, it's really just about young love.

in this i might be a little biased - i never thought the harry-ginny weasley thing was the good call (are you accusing me of wanting some minority flavour all up in this shiz with some cho chang love? you're 10% right.) i just never felt that their relationship felt real or compelling or believable, unlike ron and hermione, who make so much sense you're surprised they weren't betrothed at birth.

in the book the last few chapter's events are so full of action that it's a confusing whirlwind - you don't know who is where doing what - there's chaos at hogwart's! i remember having to re-read the chapters just to sort out the sequence of events, because there were a lot of things happening concurrently - draco, the confrontation, snape's betrayal, the breaching of hogwart's, etc. the film sucks all the tension and instability out of it, plowing through to the foregone (for the readers') conclusion with a grim, plodding, rote cadence that robs the climax of its' dramatic propulsion. it's really unfortunate. also, a lot of the book had to do with harry's conflict with his principal father figure, dumbledore. there was a lot of resentment there and teenaged chafing at dumbledore's oblique guidance - the movie does away with that. what you're left with is not a lot of action packed into a very long film, with an almost interminable middle act based on unrequited love and lust and misdirected affections. also, not enough build-up of the half blood prince stuff.


/END SPOILER ALERT


so many movies coming out that i want to see!

i want to see still -

the hangover
2012 (obviously i know this is going to be terrible)
district 9
public enemies (renter)
paper hearts (!!!!!!! TWEEEEEEEEEEEE)
(500) days of summer (!!!!!!!!!!! INDIE BAIT!)
where the wild things are (!!!!!!!!! all of the above!)
inglourious basterds

tonight i played dodgeball and then we went to burger shoppe quality meats for post-game eats. i had the riverside burger (onion ring, bacon, bbq sauce, regular fixings). it's a 6oz patty cooked medium (aka well done) for $9. i also split a poutine. the poutine was decent. my tablemate ordered the pulled pork poutine which was WAY better.

the decor in the place is really nice...kind of bluegrass country-modern. worn wooden tables that are super sturdy and thick with some nice lines and fantastic lighting fixtures. overall i'm not sure that i'd be running out of my way to go back for the burgers but the food was aight overall. it's decent and an okay price.

fin.

crush. kill. destroy. STRESS.

extra emphasis on the stress part. so, the friday purchaser's visit went pretty well...we dug one of the contractors we had come through. he was way lowkey. the other lady we had was some kind of home improvement project manager/contractor. her company is called "homegirl renovation" she was super nice but kind of heavy handed on the sell. i think it's like home renos for n00bs or something. basically, the service she offers is she gives you design suggestions and manages the entire project. you pay the trades directly, you pay for all the materials directly, and she just negotiates the contracts and makes sure that everything happens on time and on budget. the price? 20% of project costs. that seems outrageous (to me).

when we were walking through the house with her she was nice but in a kindergarten teacher (read: vaguely patronizing) way. plus, her suggestions were not to my taste. we have very different design aesthetics. she wants ONE GIANT OPEN space (living/dining/kitchen) and i'm not sure how into that i am. i kind of like defined spaces. maybe it's retrograde - who knows. also, a lot of her suggestions were kind of expensive. for example, we have a long hallway as our entryway and she was really hell bent on tearing down that wall and opening up that space. fine, i can see that a lot of people are into doing that. me, not so much. WALLS ANCHOR FURNITURE. i really believe this strongly. otherwise, you have stuff floating around in spatial limbo and you have to be a lot more creative in creating defined spaces. also, taking down a wall would mean that it would expose a part of the floor which would probably end up meaning we would have to replace the hardwood, since it's next to impossible to find a match for a single strip. she also suggested a half wall with lattice work or glass blocks. lame! and she didn't really factor in the work that we could do (ie. sanding and staining the stairs).

the other contractor was super low key and relaxed and we both got a good vibe from him. the electricians were pretty decent (we'll have to wait until we see the quotes) but the good news is we don't have to replace ALL the knob and tube. it looks like just 50% of the house is knob and tube. huzzah! AND we had a roofer in to give us a quote who said that there were some trouble spots but we didn't need a whole new roof just now. HUZZAH! also, our water pressure issues are probably going to need an $800 fix to upgrade the diameter of the intact pipe from a 1/2" to a 3/4" our piping is copper and not the stuff it's not supposed to be, so we came out of the visit feeling pretty good overall.

these warm fuzzies were soon dashed in our meeting with the bank. see, in the time since we had received our original pre-approval, we kind of racked up our lines of credit - paying for random ish and oh, yeah - CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE. we had to re-sign some forms because our bank lady hadn't realized that we had knocked the price down a couple of grand from the post-home inspection haggling. so she had to re-do the forms and get the underwriters to contact the CMHC and get them to sign off on it. except the underwriters were all like, "nuh uh uh, oh no you din't just rack up your line of credits - hooee" and we were like, "C'MAAAAAAN" so we had to take out the money we had saved for our down payment and pay off our l.o.c's with the idea that as soon as we get the stuff signed off on from the bank, we can go ahead and "repay" that money with borrowed coin. if you ask me, that sounds pretty a** backwards and tricksy. i just hope we don't get a nasty surprise when they're all like, "YOINK! JUST KIDDING, NO HOUSE FOR YOU!" and we'd be out lil' ugmo AND our deposit, at which point i'm going to turn into this guy:

just the thought of it makes my bile rise and i'm not a bilious person by nature (though some people would probably beg to differ - and by "some people" i mean "my mom").

we were kind of shook coming from the bank and we were driving around scarborough when we saw all these discount tire places having tire sales. captain save a hoe needed a new back tire (we knew that going in) so we decided to bite the bullet and get a new one, seeing as how we were planning on driving into the states to visit my sister this weekend. so we go. OF COURSE YOU CAN'T JUST GET ONE TIRE. so we bought two new back tires. it wasn't a big deal because our two back tires were winter tires anyway and that's a no no. we're told that it's going to be a 1.5 hour to 2 hour wait. we're like, "what are we going to do?" the dotytron says, "look, let's just go get a bite to eat, walk around, maybe do some grocery shopping, and by the time we're done, we'll come back and grab the car - it's like we're on VACATION!" lol! scarborough vacation! our favorite kind!

we did our grocery shopping at this middle eastern grocery store, arz bakery and fine foods. we discovered the BEST seafood store in all of toronto, where kumomoto oysters are SO CHEAP! and malpeques are almost a buck an oyster!!! we also ate our lunch at this quiet, hushed korean restaurant that served red bean rice and had these crazy little moist towelettes that started off small and round in a dish like altoids. then the server poured hot water on them and they grew like weird sea cucumbers/those sponges that grow type things. it was kind of obscene. at first we didn't know if they were edible or not (they kind of looked like tripe and/or marshmallows). the bi bim bap was first rate as was the kimchi. p.s. WE LOVE SCARBOROUGH.

here are some shots of our scarborough vacation:

this is me in front of an old age home



the dotytron at the seafood store/

twisty cheese at arz.




look at that spread! best looking and tasting korean food i've had in toronto (AYCE bbq places in markham don't count).

then we wandered back to the garage, feeling pretty good and happy that we made the best out of our staycation in the scarbs. we show up and the mechanic is giving us doleful eyes saying, "i tried calling you, you have a problem with your car, your front struts need to be replaced" and all our hard-won goodwill was destroyed like so many shocks on a strut-less car. we were staring down the barrel at an almost $700 repair which is PRECISELY THE THING YOU NEED WHEN THE BANK IS LOOKING ASKANCE AT YOUR SPENDING HABITS.

we came home, broken. the dotytron was pissed, mostly because we had had a mechanic put the car and do a thorough (or so we thought) check before we committed to buying it. how did he manage to miss the leaking grease from our struts? i turned into optimistic resiliency glass-half-full person, which only made the dotytron feel worse because i only get like that when stuff is grim (i sweat the small stuff, not the big stuff.)

we had a fantastic night with the kdubsguelph crew through. we ate, gossiped, got our hair did (my hair is super cute!) did a dry run of the performance for their benefit to squeals of delight and laughter and laid down the background vocals for the cd we're giving out as part of our performance favours. it was fun and a much needed morale boost for our flagging spirits.

the next day i had a bit of a breakdown, stressing about the bank and the car and worrying that we bought a lemon. i totally hormoned out and bawled my eyes out then met up with dr. rei for some kvetching on how weddings make people crazy and how stressful it is with everything seemingly happening at once around these parts (for her and me.) it was nice to see her face and get it out the way you can only get it out with your bestie. i picked up some floral wire for my bouquet, got some bags for our packages for the out of town guests (aka everyone), and bought the dotytron a fake coach carry on luggage to go with our fake burberry carry on luggage. cheap luggage is the best. paying for expensive luggage is some of the dumbest shiz you can do, imo. it’s all made in china anyway! we’ve gotten tonnes of use out of our $20 pieces. you really can’t go wrong with chinatown luggage.


the dotytron was finished work early so we headed out to geneseo a full 3 hours early. we had a lovely relaxing weekend. we LOVE geneseo. we LOVE small town u.s.a. it’s like our happy place. guaranteed good, quiet, relaxing, nap-filled times. i found my boob cutlet things for $20 (they’re like, close to $100 in canada) and we got the dotytron a cheap pair of not-too-garish swim trunks (we only narrowly passed on the american flag ones. just barely). we had dinner at this pizza place that’s run by kids (seriously, the place was OVERrun with kids and also seemed to be managed and staffed by no one over the age of 15) and then checked out the geneseo festival – featuring a cover band who’s name escapes me, who lured us in with a combination back-track/live rendition of c&c music factory’s “everybody dance now.”

the next day we hit brian’s u.s.a. diner for some rib-sticking grub:

the meat lover's skillet and the "belt buster" respectively.



after brian's we checked out the boyd-parker memorial which marks this place where two dudes from the revolutionary war were hijacked by iroquois (who were in cahoots with the brits) and tortured by getting tied to this tree with their intestines and then forced to walk/run around the tree until they fell down dead. totally gross. there's a giant white oak at the memorial which is purported to be actual "torture tree" and a path is marked around it in stones. we may or may not have also videotaped a tasteless reenactment of the torture.



from there it was off to watch the air show, rated as one of the top 10 air shows in the united states. lots of old timey planes and like f-16s and stuff. we also checked out the vintage car show. the dotytron and i are getting married because we're basically the same person. in that, we both like muscle cars like chevettes. and last week, when i went into the bathroom, singing "watch out boy, she'll chew you up/whoaa here she comes/she's a man-eater" he turned to me in mid-tooth brush and said, "get out of my head" and pointed at his head while spewing gobs of toothpaste foam and said, "i was just singing the EXACT SAME PART" also, when we were on our scarborough vacay, we passed this place and we both said, at the same time, "STEAK QUEEN" it's freaky deaky sometimes.

team geneseo came home, napped, played with the kids, had aunt cookie’s subs for dinner. there’s a massive sub culture in the states. (did you see what i did there? i know you did.) i made us a strawberry pie that didn’t fully gel but was tasty nonetheless and then we packed up our bags and went home.


last night we had dodgeball pretty late so i got to come home for dinner before heading out again. the dotytron made pesto and we had cheese tortellini with pesto again. i can house that stuff like nobody's business and to be honest, it's not even that good! i also had a basket of zucchini blossoms on a trajectory to shriveled and slimy so i cut those up and made those zucchini pancakes that T at my work told me about. they were a little too small for stuffing and frying, which regular readers of my blog will know is my preferred treatment. the eggy pancake is T's. i got super lazy and made a GIANT pancake freshened up with a dollop of sour cream.

when we came back from dodgeball we treated ourselves to lemon cake from wegmans. it's GOOOOOOOOD. wegmans can make anything better. love my weggy's. i want shares in weggy's.

tonight for dinner i made one of my old standbys: braised tilapia with chorizo, arugala, and tomatoes over orzo. i made a bit of an improvement based on what i had around. i usually add a splash of white wine as part of the deglazing/braising liquid but we didn't have any so i took a grapefruit, cut it in half and squeezed in the juice. it was awesome! it added a nice note of sweetness to the dish and married the flavours nicely. i'll post the recipe at the end of this epic post.


i also made some blueberry-raspberry muffins because i've been craving hot crusty muffins with melted butter for breakkie lately.


finally, i banged out some raspberry brown butter bars for the work book club meeting tomorrow.

fin.



-------------------------------------------
braised tilapia with chorizo, arugala, tomatoes

serves 2-4 (depending on how many tilapia fillets you have)

2 links of spanish cured chorizo (dry), sliced into 1/2" slices
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
minced garlic to taste
2 pints of grape/cherry tomatoes
1 clamshell of baby arugala
2-4 tilapia filets
1 grapefruit, juiced
1/2 lb orzo (for 2, or the full lb for 4 people)

- in a large, flat pan with a tight-fitting lid (suitable for having all the fish filets in one layer), sauté the chorizo in olive oil until lightly browned and some of the fat has rendered
- sauté the onions and garlic until softened
- add the 2 pints of tomatoes, put the lid on and simmer at high heat until the tomatoes are started to shrink and release their juices. shake the pan occasionally.
- lay the arugala over the tomato mixture and lay the tilapia filets over the arugala, in one layer if at all possible. season the tops of the filets with salt and pepper.
- pour the grapefruit juice over the filets, cover the pan with the lid and braise on medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.
- meanwhile, cook the orzo in boiling salted water. when it's al dente, drain, and scoop some of the braising liquid into the orzo and stir.
- serve the fish filets with the sauce and arugala over the orzo.