Still Bucktown, After All These Years

This batting stance from Lindsay = everything to me, right now.  After our epic family whiffle ball game at my sister’s house, the Dotytron and I immediately went out and bought some bases, a bat, and a whiffle ball and have been having some (exhausting) games with the kids on the street after dinner.  Lindsay’s batting stance is simultaneously unconventional and ineffective, but he really commits 100% and for that, I cannot fault him.  That lunge, and that tongue sticking out, do me in, every time.

Have I talked to you about how Quincess falls all the time?  Seriously, all the time.  He never puts his hands out and always falls and conks his head.  He gets GIANT, ugly goose eggs on his little misshapen noggin.  Even if he doesn’t make impact with the floor, when he falls, the goose eggs stick out so far that it gets conked again. We suspect it was from his time in the helmet, when he was a crazy man who “crawled” like this: 

Never forget.

Recently I took him to the doctor because we were starting to worry – how often does a kid have to fall and get a giant goose egg on their head before you start to be concerned?  Well, as it turns out,  depending on how they react post-fall:  it can be quite a lot.  Like, more than the Quincess’ current number, which seems to be averaging a head-conk a month (this month he’s got 2).  His pupils have never been wonky (one bigger than the other), he always cries immediately, he doesn’t get sleepy, or nauseous.  He eats normally, he doesn’t act funny, he responds appropriately, so there hasn’t been any indication that he’s had a concussion, which is when the doctors would be concerned. 

The other week we had my ex-bf and his new gf over for dinner.  I was just telling them about how he falls a lot, and he was standing beside me and somehow tripped, from standing, over his own feet, hit the ground, and rolled onto his back, crying.  “Quincess! What happened?” I cried.  “Ionow,” he said, through his own tears, on the floor on his back, which made me laugh so hard.  I’ve been trying for months to record a Quincess “I don’t know” because it’s the cutest disavowal you’ve ever heard in your life.  Lindsay tends to give you cow eyes and spread his hands out, but he doesn’t run the words together in quite so winning a way.

However, Lindsay is taking after the Big Yam in his ability to articulate.  Behold:

Quincess is usually very good about sharing.  He’s never so attached to whatever he’s playing with that if Lindsay comes barrelling up and acts like a giant baby about not having the toy in question, if I ask him to give it to Lindsay, he usually does it, with no fuss.  The other night, he was carrying a tennis ball and was running from one end of the backyard to the other, dodging and ducking and somehow managing to keep it just out of the hammy grasp of Lindsay, who was crying in frustration.  At one point, Quincess looked up and caught my eye and gave me the most knowing, devilishly pleased grin, it slayed me.  He’s a sneaky one, that guy.  When you catch him fiddling with something he’s not supposed to be touching and you say, “Quincess!” to stop, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing and do this exaggerated arm flail, both arms back and forth in tandem, which is a dead giveaway that he’s been up to something no good.  It’s a caricature of: “doo-de-doo, nothing to see here.”  I’ve been trying to catch that on video too, because like that Arrowsmith song, I don’t want to miss a thing.

We took the Big Yam to see the new Pixar movie, Inside Out.  Somewhat predictably for a Pixar film, the Dotytron and I were bawling our eyes out.  I would say that it is one of the least child-appropriate Pixar films in their entire catalogue (depending on your child, of course).  The Big Yam got basically nothing out of it.  I kept asking probing questions, "why is she scared?  Where are they going?" and he was consistently, "I don't know."  To put this in perspective, we recently showed him the original Jurassic Park and when the T. Rex first comes chasing after the jeeps, the Big Yam breathed, "Goll-lee!" It was so cute!  I mean, really.  Kids using anachronisms are just the best.

Inside Out is a journey through the emotional growth of a pre-teen girl, taking place almost entirely within her mind, with lots of clever nods to brain science and psychology concepts.  SUPER KID-APPROPRIATE, AMIRITE?!?  Obviously, because it’s Pixar, the story is nuanced, touching, emotionally resonant and at times, quite funny.  Does my kid understand a bit about entering the “abstract thought” room and “deconstructing”?  No!  It shouldn’t even be marketed to children.  I also found the characterization of the central character’s interior emotional life, lacking. 

A design critic friend of mine recently talked about how the “colour relationships” in Pixar films are terrible and I have to agree.  After recently watching Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, and Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, there is something to be said for the subtlety of older Disney animated films and animated films that aren't made in the North American vein.  Pixar films frequently look like a daycare exploded on film (see: Toy Story, Up, Inside Out).  The beginning part of Wall-E escapes this trend, but otherwise the animators tend to err on the side of garish.  Bill Peet, whose stories I loved as a child, was one of the animators on Sleeping Beauty:

Can you imagine ever seeing anything looking like that in a modern, mass-produced animated film?  Or, check out Eyvind Earle’s concept art for Sleeping Beauty and try not to have your heart sing:

Kids can handle subtlety.  Look at the vast range of illustration styles in children's picture books.  It's one of the reasons why I can't stop buying them.  As a rule, I generally loathe kids movies that are too pop culture referential.  For a shorthand: any film that features an extended anthropomorphic dance sequence to a modern pop music number (Reel 2 Real's I Like To Move It - I'm looking at you here), makes my skin crawl.  I think my reactions to a lot of kids' movies can be summed in this trailer for the new Peanuts aberration:

This is what the Peanuts are about now  I mean, really.  Charles Shulz is spinning in his grave.

It’s been a jam-packed start to summer vacation.  We’ve had a lovely couple of weekends.  The Big Yam, being the risk-averse, self-preservationist soul that he is, has not been a fan of his new two-wheeler.  He’s been very much against it.  Our neighbour gave us a Co-Pilot Wee Ride bike trailer (like a tandem bike that attaches to the parent bike), so we hooked that up, loaded the twins into the Chariot, and spent a windy morning at the beach two Saturdays ago.  It was so nice, even if the beach did stink, and even if the whole process of setting up, packing, and tearing down did take just as long as the time spent at the beach itself.  

One Saturday we met MHui and co at the new Guu in North York and we brought the Big Yam.  I hyped him up about it and pitched it as a restaurant where “everybody yells at you” and he was so thrilled with the novelty of taking his shoes off in our section. 

Proof that the Dotytron and I have very different ideas of fun: on Father’s Day, me and the kids were booted out of the house so he could sleep in (until 7:30am) and then wax his car (???)  Last night, I went upstairs to read (current bedside reading: Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal – I am so fun!  Party time!) and went back downstairs near midnight to find the Dotytron eating all dressed chips I didn’t even know we had and watching Adventures in Babysitting, “It’s SUMMER VACATION!” was the answer I got in reply to my raised eyebrow.

SUMMER VACATION INDEED! This past week was intensity in ten cities.  I took the days after Canada Day off and it was non-stop action.  Canada Day: park hangs, bike ride, frantic street party prep, taking the Big Yam to see Inside Out, and then the Street Party – which was exhausting.  The next day: first Micelli Monday of the summer – Children’s Discovery Centre, home, nap, swimming, dinner.  Then the next day, my sister and her family and my youngest brother and his gf Aunt Viv (has to be said in your best Fresh Prince of Bel-Air voice), and my mom came over and we went swimming and we hosted dinner and then the boy nephews slept over.  The next day, we went to a memorial service for the Dotytron’s uncle, went back to my mum’s house, had dinner out at Congee Queen, then BACK to our hood for ice cream, games, and another round of nephew sleepovers.  Sunday we woke up, took the kids to the Farmer’s Market, then to my grandma’s nursing home for a birthday lunch, then grocery shopping, then home, then swimming, and then I STRAIGHT UP PASSED OUT AT 8:30PM FROM BONE-TIRED EXHAUSTION.  

It was the good kind of exhaustion.  On our way back downtown on Saturday, as I drove onto the off-ramp of the highway, dusk settling into the nooks and crannies of the Don Valley Parkway, a car filled with sticky, sun-kissed and rice and lobster e-fu noodle-stuffed children, I had one of those moments where I marveled at my life.  Sometimes, I have to turn to the Dotytron and say, "When you were in high school, did you ever think you'd be an adult, driving in a minivan to get ice cream, with KARL LAGERFELD from Markham High and our 4 year old and 2 year old twins?!"  

 We've had my friend E staying with us for the past few days, and now the 2nd edition of Micelli Monday is happening, followed by the most ambitious weekend of life: TWO NIGHTS OF PARTYING for me and the Dotytron.  TWO! WHO AM I?!?  We are planning on hitting a rave on Friday night followed by an EDM festival with my youngest bro on Saturday.  If we manage to survive to tell the tale, it will be a legendary feat.  The kind of weekend that sustains two former partiers through years and years of 6am wake-ups and bleary, weary contemplations of how to fill the interminable hours that stretch before us on a rainy weekend day.  The stuff that will make us feel forever young again.

Sorry, didn't mean to end this on a downer.  We are going to try to suck the marrow out of life this weekend - will report back.

Fin.

Identity

I have been mildly stressed lately by the following:
1) How few pie baking days there are in the summer (pie season) in relation to how very many pies I want to bake (and eat), not even considering ones that I would like to make multiple times
2) How many New York Times articles I want to read
3) How meagre my many vacation days seem in light of the fact that I had TWO SUMMERS OF MATERNITY LEAVE (TWO!). Summer babies are the best, guys. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

So the whole Rachel Dolezal thing burning up the “news.” It’s not really what I would consider to be “news” but it is the current hot button issue for getting the talking heads a’ talkin’.

Let me contextualize my take with this preamble. When Pingy and the Roomie were over, we had a big conversation about transgender issues (kick-started by the big Caitlyn Jenner reveal that had happened the day before the dinner). Pingy had taught a girl who identified as a “cisgender polyromantic woman” and Pingy, bless her patrician heart, was all like, “What does that even mean?!” So we parsed it out (short story – I think poly-romantic means that the person felt they could fall in love with anyone, a distinction that’s made against the body-parts oriented context of identifying as “homosexual” or “bisexual” or “straight.” I was a little bit weirded out that Caitlyn chose to reveal herself in ye classic exploitive, sex bomb fashion and it kind of offended me as a feminist. The Roomie made the point that since she’s now a woman, she could be objectified like women are. Errr…is that progress?

Then I read this: What Makes A Woman, and the author identifies some of the ways that I situate the transgender movement. If, like me, you consider binary gender distinctions a total social construction (and I do), then I feel like the transgender movement is a temporary way station en route to the total negation of social gender constructions. We are moving towards a point when you won’t “feel” like you were born in the “wrong body” in a way that’s related to gender. Maybe you’ll want a penis, that’ll be cool – it will just be like wanting to wear coloured contact lenses. It won’t be about gender. You won’t feel like you’re in the wrong body, because being in any body won’t MEAN anything in particular, insofar as your gender is concerned. Great. We get that. We’re all on board, right?

So when Rachel Dolezal identifies as “black” but isn’t “black” per se – why can’t we apply the same logic? Being black isn’t a quantifiable thing, it is arbitrary and sloppy language for having more melatonin than (what? What’s our baseline here?) than others. There is no genetic underpinning for race – it’s even more of a social/cultural construct than the concept of gender. Before it came out that she might not be the greatest person (suing Howard for discrimination, possibly making up claims of harassment and discrimination), then if she wanted to identify as black, then why not? What’s the big deal? People accused her of trading on the oppressed while still having the security of her white privilege. Yet, people don’t accuse women, who transition into being men, of trying to hop on the tails of patriarchal privilege. No way. If you did suggest that, then you, like the author of the New York Times article above, is accused of being transphobic. I think there’s a gap in my understanding here that I would like someone who does consider the New York Times article transphobic, to illuminate for me, because as of right now, I’m not getting it. I think it’s because I do so believe in the social construction of race, but this quote from this Washington Post  article gave me pause:

“Race is a social construct. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real as a lived experience in America, and it wasn’t constructed out of thin air. On this broken foundation, African Americans led, created communities and built a movement that transformed, and strives to further transform, America for the better.” 

I think I do have a tendency to jump forward to the world that exists in my head, and assume that this is the norm (or should be) for everyone. This is a classic problem for me. My mum has told me since I was a kid that I have a problem seeing things from other people’s perspectives. Her working theory is that I was delivered by forceps (I was a breach baby with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck – which in earlier days would have had me killed for being a witch), and that the forceps crushed the empathy part of my brain. The Dotytron and the Roomie generally endorse this theory. LOL!

Anyway, yes, race is a lived experience with real results, but even knowing that, while I don’t want to avoid questioning and problematizing Rachel Dolezal’s motives and privilege, I’m curious about why, as a theoretical exercise, a white woman choosing to live her experience as a black woman is substantively different than a woman choosing to live her experience as a man. Insert your thoughts here.

[edit: in light of the horrifying, racist, terrorist murders of Cynthia Hurd, 54; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59; I would like to further underline my solidarity with people who are living the lived experience of race and the very real, deathly implications of it.]

When I read the profiles of the people who were shot, I cried and it makes my heart hurt. I’m also angry. I am enraged by the entrenched, institutionalized racism that infects the world generally and the United States in a particularly acute fashion. I am sickened by the “friends” of the shooter who blithely passed off his racism (the unspoken subtext of the articles reporting their comments is that they themselves share his views, if not the desire to act on them?) and are quoted as saying things like, “He was racist, but I don’t judge.” Probably because you’re a white supremacist bigot yourself.

The other night we watched the documentary After Tiller, which is about the last 4 doctors in the United States who still perform late-term (past 20 weeks) abortions after the murder of Dr. Tiller at his church by a pro-life fanatic. It was admittedly, a sympathetic portrayal of these doctors, feminists all, and the women who seek their assistance. The doctors seemingly didn’t undertake the task lightly and neither did the women – very often there were compelling medical reasons (fetal abnormalities that would grossly impact their child’s quality of life, shortened life expectancies) and social reasons (rape). To see these people put their lives on the line to offer a legally protected right to women was inspiring. To see the lengths that people are willing to go to out of misogynistic ideology was repellant. The film doesn’t really tell you anything you don’t already know or suspect, but it is an important voice in the diminishing conversation for women’s reproductive and bodily rights.

Now on to more mundane matters. Last weekend we celebrated the twins birthday for the fourth or fifth time, with Momma D and Ehmdo and the Dotytron’s Nany (the kids’ Great Nany D). I love me some Great Nany D. She is a treat. She is mostly well of body and very sound of mind and I just GET her. She’s so practical and prosaic and her parenting advice is almost always sound. She’s a very relaxed, non-intensive mother parent who has been through 4 kids and consequently, just gets it, ya know? She doesn’t get fussed if the kids are loud or misbehave and has a generally “eh, so what” attitude about little ones that I love. I picked her up from her place in the west end as she shouldn’t be driving anymore and she kept up a steady stream of companionable, interesting chatter. Aside from some mild racism (the old person kind) and social conservatism she’s the greatest. Momma D made corn on the cob and I gave each baby half an ear. Nany wanted to know if it was buttered. I said, no. Momma D said, “they don’t need butter.” Nany: “Well of course they need butter, it makes it taste better.” I said, “Well, we don’t give them butter on their corn so they get used to eating it without, and then when they’re older and they already like the taste of corn, we can add butter and it will be even better.” Nany stopped, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “That makes no sense.” LOL!!! I about died laughing. So good.

The Big Yam’s best friend at school, F, is like a negative version of the Big Yam. They share similar wide, closed mouthed smiles and eyes that disappear into crescent moon squints. “F has white hair” the Big Yam told me, early on in the school year. He is a white-blonde kid and has a similar bowl cut. It’s a little sad because F goes away to Europe all summer. “F’s going to Plogg, soon” the Big Yam informed us the other night. Need I also mention that F has a million allergies and always speaks with a stuffed up voice?

I spent the bulk of the one beautiful day we had last weekend driving across town to grab Nany and so this weekend I’m trying to make it so that I actually have time to savour my weekend. I want to take the kids to a picnic at the Scarborough bluffs or on the beach, for a long bike ride, for a garden putter. We have plans to eat dinner with MHui and her family and for Father’s Day, I’m fulfilling the Dotytron’s greatest wish and making ourselves scarce for a big chunk of the day.

The muumuu and America's Next Top Model posing beside me so smyze-ing his heart out.

Here’s what we’ve been eating lately:

Moco loco for dinner!  Spam, fried eggs, gravy on rice!

Lamb rogan josh and muttar paneer

I am going to talk about this dinner at length because it was so delicious and because it came to me in a dream and I executed it and it was “the stuff that dreams are made of” (when you read that line you actually have to sing it out loud in your best Carly Simon voice, which I know you have in your back pocket, at the ready, just in case. THAT IS VERY WISE OF YOU). 

Here’s the thing about Cobb salad: it’s like, fake salad. Minus the blue cheese, which I’ve become less enamored of as I get older (being less tolerant of strong blue cheeses and having to wear bike shorts under my skirts are two of the harbingers of old age that I’m the most bummed about), it’s basically like a breakfast sandwich, minus the bun. What’s NOT to like about bacon, chopped hard boiled egg, avocado, and tomatoes and chicken? Sauced in a creamy, mayo-based dressing (or in my case, a buttermilk dill dressing) and with some chopped romaine to avoid a talking-to from My Fitness Pal, you’re good to go. Here’s where my dream came in, though. In my dream, I had replaced the standard cubes of cold, chicken breast in the classic Cobb salad with buffalo fried chicken. *Pulls record back on turntable*. 

Yes. Genius! I took boneless, skinless chicken thighs, the existence of which, in quantity, is but one of many reasons why I will never give up my Costco membership (seriously, like, 5lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs for $20?! Get outta here!), soaked them in a buttermilk brine, tossed them in some seasoned flour jacked up with some cornstarch and a bit of baking powder, and then fried them in lard. Once they were crisp I took them out, let them drain on paper towel, and then dragged each one through a mix of equal parts butter and Frank’s Red Hot (which, spoiler alert: IS BUFFALO SAUCE. You don’t have to buy it pre-made!), before arranging them lovingly on the salad. The resulting dinner salad was spicy, cool, crunchy, substantive, and each bite was different, which is generally one of my salad prerequisites. I will definitely put this on the rotation again (which means we’re lucky if I get to it before summer is up).

Strawberry shortcake made with Claudia Fleming's genius shortcake recipe.  It is so good, guys.  The perfect sweet biscuit.  Crisp edged and so, short, almost like a shortbread crossed with a biscuit.  Sturdy enough to soak up copious macerated strawberry juices and absolutely lugubrious with softly whipped cream.  

Shrimp and tofu pad thai

Ottolenghi's cauliflower cake is delicious.  It's also Quincess' platonic ideal of a vehicle for vegetable consumption.  That kid loves a quiche/cake/vegetable patty/fritter like no one else.

Fin.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid

As a birthday present to the twins, and to ourselves, we went out and bought a DNA test for the Wonder Twins.  Almost everyone who met them didn’t believe that they were “identical” twins (in twin talk, the technical term we were given for our guys was “monochorionic [subset of monozygotic – one egg – means they share a placenta] diamniotic [each in their own amniotic sac]).  They came out looking very, very different (refresher below), with Lindsay always kind of looking like a party turtle and the Quincess always looking like a sweet, introspective little elven scholar.   So we threw down for a DNA test, swabbed their cheeks, mailed it off, and the results are: 1,678,126,819:1 that they are identical twins, and the probability that they are monozygotic came back at 99.999999%.

CRAZY.  That means if one of them committed a crime they could pin it on the other one.   AND NO ONE WOULD BE THE WISER. 

 Pensive, and tired at their brother's spring concert, where the music teacher likes to do the annoying thing of using the kindergarten kids as pawns to keep the parents there for the whole show.  It's the worst.

The other night, in bed the Dotytron asked me which one of our kids was the least like us.  Whenever we do this exercise, we always think about our answer, then simultaneously blurt it out on the count of 3.  For some reason, this practice has facilitated decision-making in our household for years and years.  When you’ve been together as long as the Dotytron and I have, and your pheromones are all mixed up, funny things happen where you start singing a song out loud at random and the other person had just been singing the previous line, IN THEIR HEAD.  It’s probably a mix of biology and culture – we’re moving in the same milieu and that has to have an affect the way our synapses fire and the degree of overlap in our frames of reference.  Anyway, on the count of 3, we both blurted, “Lindsay.” 

Afterwards, I felt SO BAD.  This DNA testing exercise taught me that biology and genetics are just one part of the equation.  Maybe they would have looked identical if Lindsay hadn’t been fatter or if Lindsay hadn’t been sitting on Quincess in my womb or if Quincess didn’t have the stiff neck (torticollis) and the head flattening and the small ear.  There were so many environmental factors that changed the way their shared DNA expressed themselves in physical traits, why wouldn’t it be the same for other traits?  Like their personalities?  From the day they were born we’ve been boxing them into little categories – Quincess is the quiet, cerebral one, Lindsay is the boisterous, kinetic one, and if you’re painting with a spray gun then yeah, maybe that’s all true, but then you create this world of comments and expectations and immerse them in it and maybe they start to become what you say they are, not because they were like that intrinsically, but in the same way those Japanese cube watermelons grow into the box they were put into.

I don’t want to do that to my kids.  But is it inevitable?  In the same way that living, loving, and being with the Dotytron for almost 15 years has made us into this freaky mind-melding machine?  Maybe that’s just what it means to be in a unit – regardless of the relationship.  You start a new office, you take on some of the attributes of the work culture there.  You’re in a marriage, you start to absorb the other person.  You make a family, and the electrons that are moving around each person’s atomic core, their intrinsic, unchanging and unchangeable selves get swapped with everyone else’s electrons and that’s what holds the structure of your family in place – these atomic bonds (grade 11 chemistry is really reaching here, it’s been a while).  Maybe that’s what happens.  Maybe that’s inevitable.  Maybe.  I just want my kids to be able to grow into whatever shaped watermelon they want to (within reason). 

An early birthday celebration for the Wonder Twins

Family bonds came to the fore this past weekend.  We went down to Geneseo and my mom came down and so did my brother, Bruce Wayne.  It had been a while since we’d all been there at the same time and it was so fun.  We were only missing Big D and my littlest brother.  I love my family. 

 

My mum. "STEEEEEE-RIKE!"

The idea was to spend the weekend in Geneseo betting on ponies at the Belmont Stakes (which we did last year on the babies’ birthday, and won 10-1 odds on our winning bet) and hopefully pad their RESPs like we did last year.  Well, last year we bet against the favoured horse and we did the same this year, although we shouldn’t have, given that the odds were favoring American Pharoah 3:2.  Anyway, we tried to get all fancy this year and ended up losing so we’re going to regroup, and next year, just place a simple bet on the horses who have names that we like. 

We also celebrated the Wonder Twins’ actual birthday down there, and ate a lot, and hung out a lot, and I picked up the best muumuu of life that I bought off of Etsy that has upped my happiness quotient by about a million.  This mission also included us delivering our queen size memory foam mattress to my sister, which was no small feat and involved me going into beast mode, wrestling the mattress out of our bedroom at home, down the stairs to the main floor, and then holding  it in place in the most ungainly fashion while we wrapped it in duct tape.  Then we smushed it into the trunk of the van.  It was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.  Never underestimate what I’m capable of in beast mode.

Brothers in batik

The Wonder Twins at 2.  SO MANY WORDS.  Lindsay picks up a new word or five a day, seemingly.  He loves our neighbour, Grace and her daughter, Evelyn, whom he calls Ev’lee in the sweetest voice.  When he goes outside he asks, “Gayce?” and then when he sees her he goes running over with his bow-legged leprechaun run and gives her a giant hug.  It’s pretty sweet.  We hear a lot of “self!” and he’s very independent and wants to try doing new things and loves pretending to skip and jump rope.  He finds Quincess pretty funny.

 

Quincess Harry Potter

Quincess isn’t picking up words as rapidly as Lindsay (or he might be, but doesn’t like saying them aloud), but he is full of jokes, one of which consists of saying: “hot dooooooog” whenever I ask aloud what we should eat for dinner and then cracking up.  He’s a scrawny little muscleman and loves to hang off of things and be a pretend gymnast.  He generally practices safety and asks for “hand” when he goes down the stairs.  His little voice is the so sweet and dear and when he does something funny he has a way of darting his eyes from side to side rapidly to gauge the audience reaction that’s so funny.  He’s a little imp in every respect. 

The two are starting to become more aware of each other and it’s the most heart-warming thing listening to them giggle and chatter and screech when they’re about to go down for a nap/bed.  In the pic above, you can see how charmed Lindsay is by Quincess and vice versa.  Lindsay does bully Quincess a bit but Quincess gives back what he gets almost as often.   Quincess loves eating sweets and basically smashes cake into his face as fast as he can, whereas Lindsay shows great enthusiasm for cake, shouting, “CAEK!?!!?!  CAEK!!!” whenever he sees one, but being highly tentative and not very interested in eating it.

At this age, they’re both better eaters than the Big Yam was, probably because their diet is strictly controlled by me.  They love rice and pasta of all varieties. 

This summer, barely started as it is, has been a good one so far.  We went with our neighbours to Doors Open Toronto and checked out a subway repair yard and best of all, the RC Harris Water Filtration plant, which is a beautiful art deco building that was featured prominently in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of the Lion.  Public infrastructure should always be so beautiful. 

Neighbours and buds since birth

 We took JJ and S’s kids out with the Big Yam for a night out to give their parents a break.  We got tickets to a U of T astronomy “planetarium” talk and ate a dinner of hot dogs and French fries and then got ice cream from Sweet Olenka’s in Kensington market.  Just look at this adorable crew:  

We’ve been outside playing almost every night the weather permits.  The kids are knocking on each other’s door, lollipops and freezies are distributed, whatever the reigning street craze (currently jumping rope and double dutch) has to be explored with parents AND kids joining in.  Last night we got most of the kids going in some whiffle ball and because I find making giant bubbles one of the most relaxing experiences (it’s my version of tai chi), we had that going as well:

We are going on a long weekend camping trip with our neighbours.  I know, I know.  It sounds like hell, but I think the kids will enjoy it so much it’s hard to say no.  Plus, it’s a good chance for us to practice camping and try it on for size in a low stakes way before we invest in full-on portage-style outdoorsing. 

Last week we had our friend Pingy in town and so we got to have dinner with her and the Roomie and the Roomie’s new baby twice in a week.  There were long, long group therapy sessions about intensive mothering and domestic distribution of labour and how the Roomie and I are controlling freaks (what L’Armi calls “faux easygoing”) when it comes to anything in the domestic sphere and division of labour. 

This past spring was often…tense between me and the Dotytron.  The Dotytron thinks that I finally reached my breaking point or the point at which the amount of things on my plate finally overwhelmed my superhuman coping/organizational/project management capacity.  A Master’s degree on mat leave?  No problem.  Massive kitchen and bathroom reno with 3 kids?  I got this.  Massive reno, 3 kids, financial constraints, and a new, challenging job?  THAT DOES IT.  I had nothing left in me to give, no more softness or patience and it showed.  I didn’t want to have conversations – I was in full military delegation mode and my expectations were high and tolerance for deviation from my expectations nonexistent. 

Anyway, now that the renos are mostly done, we’ve bought a replacement Captain Save-A-Ho (who is LITERALLY a replacement Captain – we bought the same car, but like, 5 years younger [still minimum 8 years old though] and a manual version), and summer and its languid promise of beach days, cottage vacays, and Micelli Mondays, I’m much more relaxed (or, as relaxed as I get) with only two major stressors on my plate (new job – to be discussed in the future, and the kids…always the kids).

While visiting my sister I was my niece’s “running buddy” on a 5km race she did.  I had fully intended on getting some practice runs in beforehand, but it didn’t happen.  I’m proud to say that I finished the 5km (letting my niece set the pace) and didn’t feel the need to stop, or walk, and could have gone faster and made better time (but I’m not a jerk – this was about my niece, not me) after almost a full year of no running.  My working theory is that I because I generally handle stress well, my body is pretty conditioned to be in flight or fight mode so my ticker is either in a) good shape or b) in brutal shape from unnecessary wear.  I’m proud of my niece for finishing a 5km (something I didn’t do until I was in my early 30s) and it inspired me to get my butt in gear and start running again, if only so that I can justify to My Fitness Pal all the pies I plan on making/eating this summer.

I’ve been slacking on the food pics lately.  Don’t think this means I will EVER STOP POSTING FOOD PICS.  I’ve been food pic strong for forever!  OG food pic proponent! 

Seized soft shell crab season by the..shell?  These are fried, and put on olive oil toast with old bay mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and sliced tomatoes with boursin and Hawaiian black pepper

Roasted asparagus, proscuito, poached eggs and hollandaise toast

Black bean burgers with red pepper feta dip

We made ravioli one night - ricotta pea in a pancetta sauce - time consuming and semi-worth it

Papardelle with scape pesto, a fried egg, and pine nuts.  

One of my favorite Hawaiian meals: moco loco.  Spam, on white rice, topped with a fried egg and canned gravy.  Delicious.

Me, and my muumuu, and my favorite wiener dog smyzeing his eyes out

Fin.

Catching up

We’ve had a few blasts of warm weather, and while the projected 27 degrees forecast last weekend was making my doomsday-inclined heart palpitate – seriously the California drought is no joke!  How are people not freaking out about this MORE?!?  WHY IS THERE GRASS AT COACHELLA?!?!!!??? – when I’m given to a more superficial frame of mind (often), my thoughts have turned to spring summer style.

This year Lagerfeld is going in a bit of an unexpected direction.  Well, not really that unexpected, more of a return to the silhouette I favored in my rave days of dressing like a boy on the bottom/pocket square on top.  I recently bought a long-sleeve vintage Vision Street Wear t shirt and that’s forming the foundation of the look I’m going for.  Think Stacy Peralta, think Gleaming the Cube, think long shorts, blocky kicks, So-Cal, 80s.  I love me a long, bulky shorts like you wouldn’t believe, my favorite pair being a pair of Canadian army surplus fatiques that I chopped to a mid-calf length about 15 years ago and have been wearing ever since (moving the button on the waistband incrementally from year to year, of course).  I’m going to intersperse this with my usual Mrs. Roper, muumuu, tent dress routine – a habit I can’t shake.  Except now, bike shorts under the dresses are part of my life because my thighs rub together and that’s just the way s**t goes, sons.

If you still stubbornly read a lot of blogs (and I do), there’s a brand that bloggers of a certain ilk go crazy for, and I just don’t get it.  Ace and Jig.  They make $300 jumpsuits that look like tea-towels you find at the cottage.  I don’t get it.  If the patterns were distinctive, it’d be one thing, but they all kind of look like Turkish linen towels to me.  Y’all know I love me a Mexican Oaxacan embroidered dress/top like the next hippie, but something about the type of fabric pattern on the Ace & Jig stuff just doesn’t turn my crank in the least.  They’re like the worst possible serape blankets you could have, but you’re wearing them.  It’s like a faded cactus, wilting in the sun.  

The Wonder Twins do this odd thing where they trade off weeks of being a giant PITA.  Last week, it was Quincess, who was INCONSOLABLE during dinner every night.  Now this week, he’s been the sweetest little dear, happily eating lots of whatever is put in front of him, while Lindsay Lou Lou is a pill and screams for “Ohk!” [yogurt] and then upends everything on his tray when I don’t give him what he wants.  He also wants everything “whole!” and as soon as he’s done eating yells, “SCHIIIIIIDE?!?” [outside] where he puts on a bike helmet (“hat! Haaaaaaat!!!”) that’s 10 sizes too big and stands on a Radio Flyer 3-wheeled scooter, giving everyone cow-eyes until they opt to ruin their backs by bending over and pushing him around.  Quincess’ preferred outside activity is to push around a little baby carriage and then wait for you to turn your attention elsewhere before running into the road and laughing maniacally.  Meanwhile, the Big Yam is off in his own world playing superheroes and screaming that he’s not ready to ride a bike for a million hours.  It’s a really relaxing vibe we’ve cultivated.

Last weekend we had a visit from SMckay and the Dotytron hosted a bourbon night with his teacher friends.  While he was prepping that, SMckay and I gave the kids freezies and took them to the park, which resulted in this line from the Big Yam: “Come in my face, freezie! Come in my face!”  It was kind of awkward.  This tends to happen when SMckay comes for visits.  The last time, she was supervising the Big Yam’s bath and said something like, “No standing in the tub!” and he said, “Yeah, you do, to wash your butt and your wiener.  What’s a wiener?”  SMckay: “Oh dear.” 

Saturday morning I went with her to see the Basquiat exhibit at the AGO.  I’m glad SMckay gets me to the AGO and my art history roots.  The Basquiat exhibit was kind of amazing.  I went to the Alex Colville one and was intellectually into the exhibit because the exhibit was well curated, but I’m not generally into Colville’s style of work.  Basquiat’s work is something I would hang in my home.  Keith Haring is too cartoony for me, but Basquiat’s work is very visceral, and politically charged, and manages to be so on-the-nose, now, 30 some-odd years later.  The audio commentary was wack.  A lot of Toronto beat poets and academics who were simultaneously over-intellectualizing but also missing some of the obvious points in the works.  Commentary on a  piece that counterbalanced the a Native American with an African American man in shackles focused primarily on the very obvious statement about slavery, while failing to pay attention to the very clear parallel being drawn between the oppression of the two peoples, and how their cultures were effaced by white people.

We had my mom and brother and his fiancée over for a Mother’s Day dinner on Saturday and it was fun.  Bruce Wayne’s fiancée got me an awesome mother’s day present in the form of the best dinosaur planter/terrarium ever!  It’s amazing and I love it and love the colour.  That aqua blue/green colour is a favorite of mine and pops up in other things I have:

Mother’s Day was a bit of a gong show.   The original plan had been to keep it low key and chill.  I got an awesome card from the kids (all orchestrated by the state) and the plan had been to go and get dim sum and then to Pacific Mall to get a new iphone case for me.  In my heart of hearts, I should have known that Mother’s Day dimsum would be a gong show, but I quashed those misgivings.  We had gone back and forth on plans to see Momma D on Mother’s Day, and finally called her with our impromptu dim sum plan, planning on being home to put the twins down for their nap so I could work on my quilt and just putter (my favorite thing in the world). 

The plan went horribly, horribly awry.  The first place we went to, had a lineup out the door, and I was #57 for a table (I think they were at 20).  So we packed up and went down the street to some random place, which I think stays in business based solely on taking the overflow from the better place.  There were 4 or 5 groups ahead of me, and so I grabbed a number and told Momma D and the Dotytron to take the kids to a patch of grass by the parking lot while I waited.  Cut to 1 HOUR LATER, to me standing behind the hostessing stand and acting as the hostess, because the restaurant staff were completely inept and were handing out numbers but not managing the restaurant flow.  People were cutting the queue and sitting down at tables as they were being cleared, so as far as the restaurant was concerned, because no one was managing it properly, tables were never available, because it was just a constant flow of unethical people plonking their jerk butts down.  There was no order.  After an hour, with everyone hungry, we left.

Somehow in the process, Lenny had his wrist wrenched and was in pain, so he bawled the whole way back (we called an audible on the whole mission).  There was talk about going to a different dim sum restaurant on the Danforth (a place that does mostly takeout and has maybe 2 tables), but I put my foot down.  Anyone with kids knows that you don’t take hungry, confined kids to a second (sit-down) location.  Poor Dotytron.  Momma D and I are very different in our approaches and I think he felt conflicted by trying to appeal to us both.  I knew though, that if we had gone to the restaurant, it would have been incredibly stressful dealing with a place that in all likelihood has no high chairs or is kid-friendly, when the kids were all on the verge of melting down.  I also know that the bulk of the work managing them would have fallen on me, and while I don’t put stock in Mother’s Day (especially after this one), I do know that I should at least get to decide not to put myself through that.  Instead we went to a park, I got us pizza, and we hung out and watched the kids and it was lovely.

This week has been a monster.  My blood pressure has been skyrocketing at work and I’m feeling kind of tender and sore about it.  I’m looking forward to that extra day.  We have a fun one planned, too – movie night tonight at home, visits with Tillers and Jen tomorrow and their lovely kids, dinner at Momma D’s house (do-over!), fireworks in the park with the neighbours on Sunday, and hopefully a walk at the Scarborough bluffs with Dr. Rei and family.

 [edit: As it now takes me three weeks to write a single post, I’m including the post-Victoria Day weekend wrap-up in this one]

Our long weekend was extremely fun, but also filled with back-breaking BS labour that you have to do when you have a house – ie. sanding and sealing our deck.  That being said, it looks SO DARN GOOD and even though all I wanted was to throw money at the problem, in the end, it only took us about 4-6 hours?  We went with a clear sealant and I’ve never been happier.  The Dotytron was trying to convince me that we have to get a colour on the cedar because otherwise, it’s going to discolour, and that’s what we did 3 years ago, but I’m so glad we went clear – it looks so hype:

Visits with Tillers and Jen were so nice – we went to the park, they brought amazing homemade bread and burrata (!) and I tried to make friends with salad (despite Dotytron’s vocal objections).  The guys went to a new craft brewery in the ‘hood and then we filled up a bucket and let the kids go to town while the young-young ‘uns napped the afternoon away. 

Our planned fireworks on Sunday were a bust.  This was our fourth go-around organizing street fireworks and this is the first year we’ve ever been hassled by the cops.  I think it’s because we’re such a finely tuned machine.  Watermelon slices, blankets, popcorn for the kids, a bucket of sand, about 25 people – we were conspicuous and we got the attention of bike cops who told us we had to shut it down.  We were allowed to set off one more and then had to pack it up.  I was saying that the Dotytron should have lit them all off at once and shouted, “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” which would have been so funny!  Just imagine?  A white guy in Leslieville, holding his fist up and shouting “black lives matter” in response to being told to not light fireworks?!  So good. 

Scarborough bluffs mission was also a bust, but a hilarious one, in the grand tradition of M-R-I-H shenanigans.  At first, we were going to skip the bluffs because Dr. Rei and Dotytron were obviously in the mood to do nothing but sit around and talk about 90s hip hop for eternity.  Then, we opted to go to the beach as an alternative, but it was BUCK (obviously), so we ended up heading to the bluffs anyway.  As we passed a long line of cars snaking seemingly parked bumper-to-bumper on their way OUT of the bluffs, the Dotytron went into doomsday apocalyptica mode (which is the worst Dotytron mode of life) and was all like, “We’re idiots! We should abort!  Each car we’re passing is an hour of our life! Why did we do this?  This is so dumb, etc., etc.,”  We got to the bottom, couldn’t find parking, and realized we should turn tail and head back up, so we did, only to have Hanbo entreating Dr. Rei to at very least, Google a picture of the bluffs to show him, and the Dotytron was still going strong in doomsday mode and was (seriously) trying to convince me that I should call the police, tell them that a thousand people were stuck at the bluffs and needed their help to direct traffic and get out.  LOL!  It was epic.  In the end, it was fine, the line of cars moved relatively quickly and it didn’t break bad like we had thought it might. 

We ate Chino Loco’s at home.  The Big Yam, who had been angling for a brownie all day, couldn’t stomach his dinner and so was all angst-ridden about forfeiting his right to a brownie dessert.  He’s a forward thinking chap, though, and asked what we were eating for dinner on Tuesday.  I said that it was going to be rice and a sauce, similar to the deconstructed burrito he was turning his nose up at.  “AGAIN?!?!!!?” he cried, “COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” which was such a pure expression of supreme disappointment and dismay that the whole table broke down laughing.  “AGAIN?!??? COME ON!!!!!” will never not be funny.  Lately, in the same vein, he’s started shouting, “DARN IT!!!” when he’s frustrated, which is equally hilarious.

Meanwhile, these two little monkeys are routinely flouting doctor’s orders and engaging in mad bed jumping pre/post-nap:

I find this video simultaneously revolting AND compelling

We got a piano!  Best decision we've ever made, best addition to the house (including our children, j/k j/k j/k).  That's Linsday in his shirt from the Apollo Theatre that Momma D bought for him.  Our piano is a Heintzman from the 1930s that we bought for $250.  It's a beautiful piece and I love the way it looks.  It needs a tuning but needs to acclimate to our house first.  The cost of moving was as much as the piano.  

Droopy drawers

"WHOLE!!!" is this guy's eating rallying cry - which basically means that he wanted to eat a pork chop on the bone.

I made Smitten Kitchen's baked chickpeas for dinner a couple of weeks ago, and have since made it a few more times.  It makes the perfect work lunch.  Middle Eastern spiced chickpeas, served with dollops of yogurt tahini dressing, labneh (always labneh), and the classic Middle Eastern tomato-cucumber-red onion-mint-parsley salad, dressed with lemon juice, and mixed with crunchy pita chips - Smitten recommends homemade, but I used Stacy's naked pita chips, which are perfection.  It's like Middle Eastern nachos.  I will say that I think it's not necessary to bake them - I simmered subsequent batches on the stove with the lid ajar until almost all the liquid was evaporated and it worked out just fine.  This is the platonic ideal of summer food.  I love this dish so much.  

Fin.