glorious

what a glorious summer day we're having in toronto. the temperature is a solid 25, blue sky, blazing sun, the slightest of breezes to keep the air from getting stagnant and suffocating, no humidity. THIS IS WHAT SUMMER IS ABOUT! we just had brunch at the only with the dotytron's pater, mater, and sister. i had huevos rancheros. for the rest of this glorious day, i'm going to spend it sweating inside, courting the swampy meteorological conditions of the florida everglades by cranking my giant canning pot and creating mountains of steam and drippy, humidity inside. all in the name of jarring my strawberry rhubarb jam and chipotle bbq sauce that i made yesterday. fun!

then it's dodgeball, and then the dotytron is going to bike out to meet me post-game and we're going to have a nice dinner together...i'm thinking either mexitaco, or harbord fish'n'chips, or maybe sushi or something...alls i knows is, i want to enjoy a meal outside with my boo, with the sun shining down on us and cold drinks in our hands and tasty food followed by an ice cream chaser. sounds like bliss to me.

we're shooting for an early dinner so we can be home early, go for a walk, and then hunker down with some of the flicks i rented. the dotytron watched "juno" last night, which i've already reviewed. he liked it. i've started a new knitting project and i'm blocking the baby sweater i made for our friends L&I (they had that odd-ball baby shower i went to recently). so when the sun goes down, i'm going to knit the night away, and read one of my new comics i got from the library, and prepare for work...i hope this work week goes by fast...we're vacationing in rochester next weekend!!!!!!!!! i love geneseo vacays. love 'em.

fin.

truth hurts

last night was fun, with some middling turns of events thrown in. the company at sushi inn was good, but overall, i thought the food was pretty over-priced and terrible, even for your standard, chinese-operated sushi place. my tempura was leaden and came to the table COLD, the sashimi was sliced really thin, my salmon teriyaki was also stone-cold, and the salad dressing on the de rigeur iceberg lettuce salad was a barely flavoured kewpie mayonnaise atrocity (and i LOVE japanese kewpie mayonnaise - on tonkatsu). blech. it just seemed ultra annoying because the place was rammed because it's in yorkville - aka the home of the mis-informed and over-paid. the fact that people buy into the aura of yorkville annoys me beyond all measure...so what? so you can eat overprice and poorly executed pan-italian food at sassafraz or sotto sotto? it always reminds me of this girl i worked with at this golf course during university who i went to high school with. she was dating this older (30ish, we were 21 at the time) real estate agent and she was talking about how she couldn't hang out with her old (presumably less sophisticated) high school friends anymore, because: "leslie and i are into doing different things...we like to have a glass of red wine at jack astor's...you know" that basically sums up yorkville to a T.

anyway, the japanese animation series was really good...there were definitely some artistic flights taken. some of the shorts were better than others, with the last one, "franz kafka as a country doctor" by far being the worst because it committed the cardinal sin of being completely incomprehensible AND long. duration and narrative logistics can only work in diametrically opposed symbiosis. when you throw that delicate balance off, you have an interminable navel-gazing ego-fest.

the music video series wasn't very well curated this year. all the entries were from english-language bands, whereas last year featured some entries from other countries. also, did we really need TWO entries from the new pornographers? i certainly don't think so...especially when the videos WEREN'T THAT GOOD, aesthetically or conceptually. i finally heard a vampire weekend song. teh suxz0rz. ditto for goldfrapp, hot chip, and all these other new acts idiots everywhere are going apes**t for. i don't mind the can-con, but i think the video should be visually interesting or funny. entries by the arcade fire were so blatantly indie in their aesthetic and execution that it felt like i'd already seen them a million times before. these videos seemed to be chosen because the curators like the songs, the fact that they were canadian, or were friends with the directors, instead of electing to put together a showcase of really innovative and entertaining videos for the viewers.

ruffneck was a bit of a disappointment. maybe he sold all his good records? he didn't play anything that i haven't heard a million times, and he erred on the side of late 94/95 old skool instead of the 93-94 business my heart truly belongs too. we also saw too many people we knew. overall, that's fine, but there's this one dude who's insufferable. he's always wasted, can't carry a conversation to save his life, mauls at you with his hands, presses his slimy cheek against yours and then covers every exposed surface of your body with a fine spray of beer and vodka-infused spittle. it's DISGUSTING. i physically recoil but he doesn't get the hint. he's been kicked out of 3 apartments for noise violations and had to sell the condo he owned. so yikes. we hung out with him ages and ages ago, and even then, intermittently at best. but every time we see him at a party he talks about how we have to "rebuild something alekrjle394dl;ai" and "you guys should come over, we should hang out again" or "loose cannons canada nazi state" (seriously...he makes NO SENSE). i couldn't deal with the charade anymore so last night when he went on that tip, i smiled, and said to him, "sorry K, but you party too hard for us" and then he started denying it, so i said to him, "dude, you're an alcoholic, it's too crazy for us" and then he got all offended and said that if i wanted to "build up walls and kick him in the head" while he's down, then go ahead. first of all, he's "down" because the government seized control of his bank account (according to him) because he hasn't paid taxes in 3 years or something. second of all, i kind of believe that only an alcoholic would get offended if you told them you thought they were an alcoholic. people who AREN'T alcoholics would tell you to shut up and laugh it off.

anyway, i just got sick of everyone around this poor schmoe using his place for afterparties and making threads on the internet about how it's sooooo funny how out of hand this dude gets and how no one can understand a word he says and no one will tell him that he drinks too much. it's weird and gross. also, i didn't want to pretend anymore and go through the lie of, "oh yeah, for sure, we'll hang out soon" when that CLEARLY isn't the case. and the least i felt i could offer was to tell him that the reason we don't hang out is because he parties too much and in a way that we're not into so much.

i'm feeling pretty good for getting home at 3am and waking up at 8:30. i'm going to meet my friend D and hit the yarn store and try to find a button for this dress i want to wear to my friends' wedding. i haven't seen her in a while and i'm looking forward to it. then i'm going to come home, maybe make a batch of jam, maybe make a batch of chipotle bbq sauce, knit, relax, and make the house as comfortable as possible so that the dotytron can just come in and take a load off after work today.

for dinner i think i'm gong to grill some chorizo, and serve that with blanched asparagus with some romesco. i'm also going to par boil some boiling potatoes and then fry them up in a little pork fat so they get all crusty on the outsides. i don't know what to make for dessert. i feel we should have dessert tonight. i'm making sour cream banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the dotytron's kids for their last class of the school year...maybe there'll be extras of that. i want something kind of cold and mousse-y...maybe a panna cotta? maybe a strawberry mousse pie? but that's too much dessert for just the two of us...rest assured, i'll figure SOMETHING out.

fin.

TETSUOOOOO!!!!!

last night's adventure in anime was wicked fun. the first series, "genius party" featured breathtaking visuals coupled with only occassionally befuddling, non-linear storylines.

one of the directors of the shorts, shinichiro watanabe, was present for the screening. in his opening remarks, he made a heartfelt and impassioned case for hand-drawn animation, over the hegemony of computer-generated 3D that seems to have taken over north american animation to the exclusion of any other iterations. he claims that only with hand-drawn can you see the "soul" of the animator, and to a certain extent i would have to agree. the success of pixar (and i'm an avowed pixar fan), is mostly due to the top-notch writing, characterization, humour and inventiveness of the storylines. the compelling visual aspects are usually confined to the wizardry and "how'd they do that?" wonder (i just watched "monster's inc" this past weekend with my niece and nephew, and the ruffling, indpendent hairs on sully's be-furred body are indeed, marvelous to behold), as opposed to the soulfulness/tangible humanity of the animator's vision. it is rarely the visuals that elicit the emotional response. and the people! forget about 3D animated people...they look horrible, terrible! like stiff, waxen robots when the animators attempt any semblance of realism.

on the other hand, the human characters in watanabe's short film "baby blue" in the showcase (my favorite by far) practically oscillated with the intensity of nostalgic, unrequited love and coming-of-age sorrow for what could have been that it depicts. it was a remarkably potent story for all its' slightness (in essence, it's about a teenage boy who asks his childhood friend to cut school, take a train out to the end of the line and spend the day with him, before he moves away) and it was winsome and touching. the collaboration between the well-chosen music (a pared down, piano and guitar instrumental that reminded me of the score for "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"), visuals, and story, worked together to produce a neat little film whose mood and emotive effects linger long after the movie is done; like the micro reverberations of a plucked string on a cello, vibrating slowly and echoing softly into stillness, filling a room with the impressive weight of its' timbre.

my other favorite film was called "deathtic4" directed by shinji kimura. the aesthetic was a big departure from what most people commonly associate with japanese animation. this was mostly computer-generated, and featured a cute, lumpen, odd-ball cast of endearingly drawn zombies, trying to return a live frog back to its' home, chased by quirky, tricycle riding, moo-ing (you kind of have to see it), red-hatted (and still ominous!) "zombie police".

the only one i really didn't like was this too-long rambling "philosophical" number that read like sartre by way of william gibson (shudders). it was too-long! also, the stunning, layered visuals were marred by this droning voice repeating existential platitudes like: "god. reason. reason is god? doubt is god? reason is doubt" terrible. i will never understand why william gibson became deified. "neuromancer" features some of the WORST speculative fiction writing i've ever encountered. it's interminably boring, droning, hackneyed, and worst of all, commits the most egregious of cliches against the future.

"genius party beyond" was slightly less enjoyable...the visuals were again fantastic, but the storylines veered waaaay off course. some of them were just plain odd and distasteful. this showcase definitely showed studio 4degreesC animators stretching beyond whatever previous conceptions people had about aesthetic characteristics of japanese animation. the showcase as a whole was very different, and there weren't any that i particularly enjoyed or liked or loved.

tonight is dj ruffneck's return! heehee...i'm so so so pumped! you're going to have to peel me off the walls. i fully anticipate waking up tomorrow clammy with dried sweat, with aching palms from banging on walls for reloads and hoarse voice from screaming my little baby chicken head off. first i'm going to see another two sets of short films with the dotytron, bwong, dr. rei and her manfriend. the first one is called "japanese spotlight: emerging auteur animators" then we're going to see "scene not herd" which is the annual one i always go to that features music videos from around the world (but mostly north america...and lately, mostly indie). my work friend K will be joining us, too! this is following a dinner at sushi inn (it's my first time going). it's a big night and a long day, considering i won't go home in between.

good thing i have a clear plate tomorrow! i might head downtown with my friend D and try to find a button for a dress and exchange some yarn at romni wools. other than that, maybe dinner with A&C and S, or else, wallowing at home on the couch with a hungover (and probably cranky) dotytron.

fin.

diamonds diamonds everywhere

well, that was an unexpectedly glam evening (truth be told, i kind of had an inkling that the grandpater and grandmater were going to go whole hog with this soiree). it was more like a wedding reception than your standard, run-of-the-mill "party". 100+ guests were seated at tables in a booked-out chinese restaurant festooned with floral displays and auspicious red bolts of colour shot through with gold lettering heralding to all that this was my grandparents' diamond wedding anniversary. it was a big to-do, replete with corsages for the family members and lots of portraits and a multi-course, mostly seafood dinner that culminated in that rarest of rarities: swallow spit soup (aka "bird's nest soup").

there was a karaoke machine that progressively got louder throughout the night as people got more and more drunk. i'm not big on performing (understatement of the millenium) so i was reluctant to get up and sing, even as my bro and sister went up for a few rounds. even the outlaw bro got up and did his signature tune (frank sinatra's "my way"). at first, we didn't think the dude running the karaoke had more than a single disc's worth of english songs. then we discovered an entire gym bag full. near the end of the evening, i dipped my toe into the waters of toneless and merciless key-induced humiliation and joined in for a rousing rendition of "i want it that way" by the backstreet boys with my siblings. when i had finally screwed up the courage to sing nazareth's "love hurts" (a moment i've been preparing for all my life, really) it was too late, people were leaving, the ship - sailed. it might well be one of the great regrets of my life.

let that be a lesson to you: when a chance to sing "love hurts" presents itself in front of a a drunken, mostly english-as-a-second-language, accepting crowd - DON'T SLEEP ON IT! seize the day! carpe diem!

in other news, we were all dressed up in our finest finery...except for THIS GUY (far left). mini rodney dangerfield over here either didn't get the invite, or somehow crashed this party. let's just say, that within 5 minutes of sitting down, he had already kicked off his mandals. 'nuff said. the little miss, on the other hand, belied her ramona-esque haircut and comported herself with the utmost dignity in her pretty party gown.

tonight for dinner i made a spicy tuna pasta salad with whole wheat pasta, chopped tomatoes, red pepper, scallion, chili oil from my supervisor's jarred chilies, chili paste, jarred italian tuna, parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a can of pinto beans. it was a nice, soothing, easy summer dinner, ideal for beating the heat. i'd post the picture i just took but my camera and picasa don't seem to get along when it comes to uploading any photo sessions involving video onto the computer. picasa tends to seize up...i'm not sure if it's because we're recording video on a really high-res setting. i should probably look into that.

edit: charged the battery on the camera and everything seems a-ok

i'm going to try to hit a late-night yoga class tonight. i've developed a bit of a summer cold and it's pissing me off. nothing is more aggravating than having a cough and feeling sucky right when you should be at your most languid and relaxed. booo to that s**t. tomorrow is the first set of short films in the worldwide short film festival. i'm seeing a double-header called "genius party" and "genius party 2" which is focused around short animated films from a world-renown japanese animation studio (responsible for the "animatrix" and others). i'm going with my friends A&C, and i'm terribly excited as i haven't seen those two in a dog's age. AND i'm going to have dinner with C at tacos el asador. el salvadorean food chased with a bunch of short clips featuring big-eyed, big-haired, sylphs screaming "tatsuyaaaaaaa!!!" in a dream-like, incomprehensible narrative? that's a near-perfect evening if ever i've heard of one.

i'm especially partial to the world wide short film festival because it's one of the first things that the dotytron and i made a tradition of when we first started consorting with each other, and it always reminds me of summer in toronto and living here on my own.

fin.

reflections of, the way life used to be

so, the grandkids are getting the grandparentals a video slideshow for their anniversary. this meant that on friday evening, up at the family estate, we snuck over to my grandparents' side of the house and grabbed their old albums and started going through them to find pictures for the slideshow. it was definitely a strange, disembodying experience that, in light of my recent frustrations with my family (which really was just the general, regular, and routine necessary by-product of the exothermic reactions that happen when you have a family as close, strong, determined, and whip-smart as mine), really kind of humbled me.

i saw pictures of my mom when she was in university, when she was at the age that i am now (having just gotten her law degree!), my mom as a kid, with my dad, my grandparents celebrating anniversaries past and traveling the world and hamming it up for the camera. it was really sweet and touching.

seeing pictures of your parents and grandparents when they were young resitutates them as people in their own right. it humanizes them, makes them more relatable. you realize they weren't always as they are now, as you're prone to remembering them. you become aware of the fact that the trials and tribulations and joys of your life now, they experienced and lived through. seeing those pictures kind of shook me out of my solipsism (one that i think we're all guilty of), of that bad and myopic habit where i think that my experience is so special and unique, and just doesn't translate across generations. it made me that little bit more okay with my mortality, seeing the fullness and richness of their lives. i really felt, on a visceral, molecular level, how much my family is a part of me, and i feel really comforted in knowing and seeing the familial ties made manifest in the generational lines. chinese culture is big into family and legacy; sometimes those ties can feel oppressive and suffocating with the fulsome weight of expectations compacted by the forces of time and history. at other times, that weight provides a grounding sense of pride and a security in the interminable depths of lineage.

the long and short of it is: i kinda want to have kids. this always happens whenever i see my niece and nephew. although my nephew kind of had to be prodded to be reminded who we are. the dotytron had some problems initially because in the month+ break since the last time we've seen them, his moniker, "dodo" has subsequently been used to denote "donuts" and most baked goods. little ze isn't much of an ice cream fan, but he sure loves his pastries and fried doughs. when the dotytron and i were supervising breakfast on saturday morning and asked him, "where's dodo?" little ze gave us a "what chu talkin' about, mang?" look because there were no donuts in sight. he sorted it out and made peace with it later and was calling out for unky dodo when we were playing hide and seek outside.

we had dinner with the dotytron's nany and poppa last night for nany's birthday and they're basically the greatest. i really want them to experience the joy of having babies around again and of seeing four generations together. it's amazing!

here are some pics of the lobster feast. barnacle bill went down with nary a whimper and obligingly turned a bright crimson in his steamy grave. he yielded piles of buttery, rich flesh and heaps of tamale and roe (my favorite parts). soooo good.

dodgeball yesterday was a gong, of course. i ate way too much dim sum at lunch and was burping it up and then got elbowed in the gut mid-way through the game, which didn't help to quell the rising tide of indigestion. i soldiered through and we had a fun time playing, even though we got spanked by my brother's team.

tonight i'm baby-sitting my niece while my sister and outlaw bro have dinner out on the town. we have leftover lobster meat so i'm making new england lobster rolls for me and the dotytron (for the uninitiated, that's lobster meat, chopped and mixed with mayo, celery, red onion, and stuffed in a buttered, toasted, hot dog bun) with leftover salad and potato salad. i'm probably going to make a grilled cheese sandwich for the little miss, since she's a huge fan. this is after we hit the park and before we go on a hunt for the ice cream truck, weather permitting.

tomorrow is the big hoo-ha for my grandparents' diamond anniversary. they've invited like, 100 people...it's kind of a big deal.

in other news: I WON AN AWARD AT SCHOOL!!! i don't know what i won, though? i received an email asking if i was going to be at convocation because i won an award. i'm of course, NOT going to be at convocation, so they're going to mail it to me. i hope it's a cheque!!!!!!! i'm kind of curious what i could have possibly won. the only classes i know i excelled at were: surveillance and identity, information and its' social contexts, and my food course. ????? unless they're starting to give out awards for talking s**t about the faculty, other students, program, and/or slacking off. in which case, i'm graduating summa cum laude with that ish.

fin.

stasis

i'm feeling much better. after a very stressful morning at work with a bunch of stuff flying at me interspersed with phone calls to my sis to work something out for the grandparents' hoo-ha...we've figured out a present and we've got the wheels in motion. still more last-minute and seat-of-the-pants than i would have liked, but i'm nothing if not adaptable (really, i am!).

the baconator lunch helped yesterday. i also went to a yoga class. i thought it was a hatha I class, but i ended up in hatha restorative. it was way too weaksauce for me. i don't need to be restored! i need my hips and hamstrings loosened! we didn't get off our backs the whole 1 1/2 hours! and we probably only did like, 5 postures. anyway, that was kind of annoying, but i guess i cleared my head a bit.

this weekend is being spent up at the mothership with the familia and my sis and outlaw bro and the kidlets who i haven't seen since april. boooooooo!!!! they're so big now!!! and my nephew is such a little butterball and he's talking! tonight we're just eating chinese food takeout (i think). tomorrow if the weather is nice we're packing up and heading back downtown to have a lobster dinner. bwong flew out to the east coast and brought back 10 (!!!!!!) 2lb (!!!!!!) live lobsters which i'm going to steam up and serve with my award-winning potato salad, garlic bread, and a cucumber, tomato, red onion chopped salad (nods to dr. rei!). for dessert i made a strawberry rhubarb crisp with brown butter almond-oat streusel. the crisp smells amazing.

fin.

why are families such gong shows?

seriously. it's always a complete and utter CF whenever my family tries to do something...ANYTHING. it's always last minute, there's no communication, mis-communication, crossed-wires, hurt feelings, yelling, laughing, exasperation, elevated blood pressure, the whole fries supreme. there is never a way of doing things THE EASY WAY. the sane, organized, premeditated way. which probably accounts for my complete and utter conviction that order, tidiness, and a solid work ethic are the combined panacea for all of life's troubles.

my grandparents are having their diamond anniversary on tuesday. no one knows what's going on...my mom is clueless, the grandkids don't know what we're going to get them, what the program is, how the night is going to run...it's enough to make me break out in hives. THIS is why, as nice as a wedding/marriage performance might sound, there's always a visceral part of me that stomps on the brakes at the mere thought of actually putting together an event. i hate it. i hate the stress, i hate trying to talk to my family and make sure everyone's on the same page, i hate how you can't have a serious conversation without one person piping up and turning it into a joke (or, the conversation getting *too* serious and ending in tears and recrimination and the exhuming of childhood traumas and slights long since buried and left to grow and seethe like bacteria culture in a petri dish). i hate being trotted out like a show pony and having people make a fuss over me or anything related to me. gah! i love them and am inordinately frustrated by them at the same time.

i guess like most of the world with the luxury to have psychological baggage, i have unresolved parent issues. due in no small part to growing up in some kind of canadian cottage-country production of "the joy luck club." my mom is kind of like a big kid sometimes (more of a teenager, really) and that can be kind of frustrating. sometimes we don't really understand each other. it might be the elements of my dad in me. in her defense, if **i** was more aware in the moment of my paternal genetic material manifesting itself, it'd be trying for me too. my dad is a right kook.

i'm from a family of kooks. most of the time it's amazing because it's definitely not the boring w.p. experience. but sometimes, there's nothing i long for more than the staid, impersonal, suppressed-emotions, and qualude stiltedness of a waspy family gathering.

tonight's dinner was healthy/cleaning out the fridge style. beans, potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, tuna, avocado, balsamic, olive oil, the oil the tuna was packed in, sea salt, ground pepper.

i'm having lunch at wendy's tomorrow with G and M from work. nothing takes away the cacophony of family concerns like the soothing, insulating, fat-buffer of a baconator. or two.

fin.

cottage in jeopardy!

bad news! the dotytron's stupid teacher's college for jerks is being a fear-mongering nerd brigade and is starting school on like, AUGUST 25TH or some s**t. that's redonkulous! since my family booked a cottage for the last week of august, it was looking for a while there like the dotytron wouldn't be able to make it, which is tragic for a few reasons, not the least of which is that the dotytron NEEDS cottage more than almost anyone i've ever known. it makes him so blissfully happy that it's borderline sickening if it wasn't so gosh darned endearing. and if there's one thing about the dotytron, his enthusiasm and joy are as infectious as an outbreak of c. difficile (incidentally, one of the lamest names for a bacteria, ever. seriously? c. difficile?!? it just sounds so stupid when you hear it pronounced out loud. it's a hot button topic so i'm hearing it a lot at work. and by "a lot" i mean: "twice")

his teacher's college is buck and they're trying to freak him out by saying that if he has a part-time job, he should quit, because the workload is going to be SO INSANE and blah blah blah. they were trying to do some proper scaring straight at the orientation he attended recently, but we got the skinny from J on saturday. it sounds like teacher's college (as we could have guessed, judging by the calibre of people who were in the concurrent ed program at trent) is full of the same, annoying, ann gedes worshiping dingbats that populate library school. aka earnest, middle class, overachieving dorks. dorks who have breakdowns over A- and cry all the way home to their mamas about it. dorks who spend a bajillion hours doing work that it would take your everyday, ordinary, semi-intelligent jane/joe a couple hours of morning-that-it's-due, coffee-fueled, good, old fashioned, making-it-up-on-the-fly, half-assedness to complete.

it's kind of making me want to apply to teacher's college because it sounds like there are so many n00bs so ripe for the pwning. it's definitely bringing out the competitive edge in me.

anyway, we've tentatively re-booked for the week prior, so all is looking right in cottage land.

here's the other thing about the dotytron (and by extension, i'm learning, all guitar-playing assjacks). he has to keep the fingernails on his picking hand longer than most people would find seemly or toward. to add insult to injury, he has to FILE his nails because cutting them i guess makes them brittle or fragile. so, not only does he paint on sally hansen nail strengthener onto the tips of his picking hand (thereby giving them an effeminate sheen), he BLOWS THROUGH nail files like there's no tomorrow. he crushes them. after destroying file after file (and we're even talking about the fancy 8 sided ones that buff AND polish), he tried jerry-rigging his own. this consisted of fine-grit sandpaper, glued to the worn corpses of nail-files past. this consisted of strange sticks poking out of drawers in the bathroom with curling, black, sand-paper steadily un-sticking itself from the base. lovely.

anyway, today i actually cut a chunk out of my nail and i wanted to smooth it down so it didn't snag on yarn while i was knitting.

stupidly, i ask: "do you have a nail file i can borrow?"
answer: "DO I!!!"
*hands me a nail file*
"you can use this one. but you can't touch EXCALIBUR"
even as he says these words, my eyes land on some kind of crystal-handled, velvet sheathed, something which is unceremoniously snatched out from under my nose.
(keep in mind, i didn't even know "excalibur" existed)
"is that one of those ones that never gets dull?"
"yes" even as he says this, the dotytron is lost in some kind of nail-file-ecstasy-induced daydream, reverentially pulling excalibur out from its little draw string velvet pouch and gazing at it with what can only be described as adoration.

i can't believe this guy is supposed to be my soul mate.

tonight for dinnie i made a delicious italiano pasta of white anchovies, chili paste, garlic, lemon juice and zest and parsley. we topped it with toasted breadcrumbs. i got the texture on the "sauce" just right. it was moist but not too wet, coating the al dente pasta strands with a tenacious slick layer of flavour. i made my de rigeur caesar salad, but gussied this one up with shavings of pecorino and crisped, pan-fried proscuitto bits. yum yum yum.

fin.

busy!

i don't know if my life is busier now after being done school or what. i can't decide. it seems like i have even less time than i did before. it's 9:30pm, and we (house-family we) still have to go for our nightly constitutional around the neighbourhood, i'd like to do some yoga, some knitting, and read a few chapters of the driver's handbook. yeah, that's right. after a 12 year hiatus, i'm going back for that ever-elusive G license. i think i'm ready. here's the thing i keep getting hung up on though: when four people pull up to a 4-way stop sign, the "person to the right of you" is supposed to go first, right? THE FOUR WAY STOP SIGN IS BASICALLY A CIRCLE. EVERYONE IN THAT CIRCLE IS "TO THE RIGHT" OF THE OTHER PERSON. even when there's two people who show up at the same time, if you continue around the circle, you're still to the right of the other person. for some reason, i can't shake that and wrap my head around it. it bigtime messes with my head and my understanding of the world.

dinner with A & J on saturday was predictably and routinely as fun and awesome and hilarious as always. in the words of my niece, "oh yeah. i love those guys." this is the dessert that apparently blew J's mind. it's a rhubarb tart with a hazelnut brown butter streusel. it was pretty tasty, but only because brown butter anything is like crack and/or cocaine. this all went down after i went to the roomie's friends' baby shower. i know the friends fairly well, we've had them over for dinner once, and i've hung out with them like, 5 times. it was a little awkward and small talky, but i don't think there's a way that that could have been avoided. the space was REALLY large and the group was fairly small, which facilitated segmenting off. also, because they were such a disparate group, it was a lot of people with very little in common, so it was a lot of quiet, polite chitchat...aka, my nemesis. i never thought i would have said this, but i would have KILLED for some shower games...and i HATE shower games (all kinds of showers: baby, wedding, newly-released-from-prison, etc.)

sunday we picked up the dotytron's new suit (black) and then showed up to play dodgeball only to find that the other team didn't show...so that was kind of a bust. but then we went with some members of my team to korean bbq and dr. rei and bwong came and that was hilarious, if only because it gave dr. rei the forum she so desperately craves to rhapsodize about how much she loves bone thugs -n- harmony.

this is a scarf i knit for my friend in b.c., T. i knit another one of these for myself over the christmas break, but i made mine longer than the pattern suggested. this one i knit to size, and i like it a lot better. it looks a lot neater as a tight, snug, little neckwarmer, so i'm going to frog the other one and reassemble it. i lost my desire to knit for a while, but i've got it back now, and i'm hustling like a mofo getting a baby sweater done so that i can start on my next project.

tonight for dinner i made twice-cooked tandoori chicken wings. i baked them in a yoghurt marinade first, and then grilled them. this served a few purposes, not the least of which was ensuring that the fat from the chicken wings mostly rendered out in the baking process, thereby reducing flareups on the grill. chicken wings are NOTORIOUS for courting the most vicious and char-inducing of flareups. i made a grilled eggplant salad with roasted garlic oil, lemon juice, parsley, mint, and the roasted garlic-oil soaked eggplant (the key to good eggplant is LOTS OF OIL). i also made grilled asparagus, and my attempt at persian rice. i followed dr. rei's instructions but i think the timing and my base rice was off. i boiled it for 10 minutes, but by that point, it was already pretty much cooked. next time, i'm going to boil it for just a couple, if at all, or switch my brand of rice. i also burnt the tah dig (the crusty layer on the bottom), but that showed mad promise. the best thing about the rice was the caramelized onions, toasted almonds, and butter-sauteed raisins. i'm sold on raisins in savoury rice preparations. sold! all in all, i know what i did wrong, and i know how to make it better for next time. so i'm not persian, what can i say?

we met our new upstairs neighbours. they seems really nice and friendly and cute. i'm glad. they're very solicitous and it appears that they're amenable to being bullied by me in all things temperature derived. heehee! score one for lagerfeld's bid to single-handedly reverse global warming!

fin.

i should really know better

by now. i'm an old broad. i've been around a few blocks in my day. WHY DO I STILL EXPECT GEORGE LUCAS AND EL SPIELBERGO TO PRODUCE ANYTHING WORTH WATCHING?!???!! "indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull" is boring to the max. like, i fell asleep and had to wake up and whisper to the dotytron, "where are they?" boring. like, totally brutal, not funny, snoozefest 2010. crappy cgi, stuff that doesn't make sense, stilted dialogue and well-worn, tired, attempts at humour. i hate george lucas. i've been a pretty vociferous spielbergo hater in the past, but last night's waste of $11 and change was the final nail in the coffin.

it was kind of worth it to go to a theatre last night to see young girls everywhere succumbing to the marketing zeitgeist and going apes**t for the "sex and the city" movie. i'm talking like multiple lineups, the washroom packed with girls who were practically teething when the series first started with makeup kits the size of tackle boxes getting done up and creating a screeching, keening cacophony - the air in the varsity theatre last night practically oscillated with pubescent hormones and muddled ideas of femininity. seriously. it was like aritizia barfed all over toronto. hoardes of young girls dressing like a reasonable hand-drawn fascimile of what life in your 30s is *supposed* to be like, minus the styling of patricia field. i saw multiple infractions. crimes against the following:

- bubble skirts
- footless tights
- ballet flats
- too much makeup
- tunics

it makes my staunch feminist heart die a little inside.

anyway, in other news (weird and possibly contradictory topic change alert) the BEST new store opened up on the danforth for clothes. THE BEST! everything is so well-edited and has the sweetest, softest, girlish but modern patterns and lines. it's like it was made for me. dresses with hippie-ish yoking and reigned-in tent shapes, shirt dresses, everything in the softest cotton and t-shirt material, patterned skirts in jewel tones. love!!!!!

in other other news, dinner last night was tasty. C made us zucchini fritters served with sour cream, and broiled eggplant steaks topped with a mix of black olive, chickpeas, feta, roasted pepper, in this balsamic/soy/olive oil sauce. it was really tasty.

i'm feeling pangs of remorse from last night because of poor social behaviour. me, bwong, dr. rei and to a lesser extent the dotytron, engaged in some poor manners by being too hamcamp klik-y and not inclusive enough and i feel badly. granted, we share a different sensibility and frame of reference from our hosts, but i felt like we could have been a little more sensitive. especially because he female portion of that couple comes from a very different background (not like, she's from another country or something, but more like she didn't grow up listening to jungle etc.)

another story from the dotytron's teaching exploits. he told me one day that one of his students had (a little girl, around 8 or so) seemed really withdrawn and sad in class, and wasn't being responsive to talking about. he tried everything, asking gently, seeing if she would tell a friend and the friend would tell the dotytron, and finally, after much coaxing, she said that she was worried about her aunt because her aunt was in the hospital. the dotytron reassured her and told her that it's okay to feel sad and worried, but that her aunt was in good care. the little girl replied that she was really scared because her aunt needed 2 blood transfusions and she didn't know what was going on. the dotytron asked her if she knew what was wrong with her aunt. she said she didn't know.

the following week, she's in much better spirits and comes running up to the dotytron and exclaims, "i found out what's wrong with my aunt!"

dotytron: "what is it"

...wait for it...




....


little girl: "she has menopause!"

i think the dotytron almost passed out with suppressed laughter. the kid must have misunderstood what was happening at the hospital. so funny!

tonight we're having A & J over for dinner. yay! i'm making goat cheese, olive tapenade and roasted pepper panini with a bean salad. also roasted garlic eggplant dip with pita chips, olives, and some kind of rhubarb dessert. i'm thinking a strawberry rhubarb crisp with a brown butter streusel topping. or maybe that same filling but in tart form. we'll see. served with whipped cream.

fin.

the kind of friends you want to have around

are the kind that will drive back cupcakes from a noted bakery in milton, so that you can share a cupcake degustation. my food-obsessed friend J, who i know because we're similarly gastronomically inclined and post on the same rave and rave-remnant themed messageboard, called me out of the blue and stopped by with cupcakes from flourgirls, a noted bakery (he heard of them through chowhound) in milton, of all places. unlike what passes for cupcakes at the cupcake shoppe at yonge and eglinton, flourgirls uses real (cooked) buttercream and taste of fresh ingredients and quality flour and butter.

first, we had b.c. spot prawns that i cooked up in some bacon fat, beer, my old supervisor's chilies, chili flakes, and lots of garlic...with crusty ace baguette for mopping. the bacon that produced the rendered fat was crisped and put into a salad of red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and avocados, held together with my caesar dressing.

then we got into cupcakes. there were vanilla and chocolate cake based ones, with different flavours of buttercream...banana, dulce de leche, chocolate, vanilla, maple. they were delicious. the buttercream was rich and moussey and velvety soft and smooth with subtle flavour. the cake had a nice fine crumb and maintained its' moisture nicely. all in all, they were delicious. side by side, those ARE the best cupcakes i've had in the GTA...except for babycake cupcakes' red velvet, which is extraordinary because they HAVE red velvet flavour and a decent cream cheese frosting. if babycake cupcakes didn't have that going for it, they'd be toast. we did a round robin tasting, cutting each cupcake into three (i saved a third of each one for the dotytron) and taking a bite out of each one, going around the circle twice. it was a good thing we did. the first time, we couldn't taste the banana flavour in the chocolate banana one...the second time around, compared to the chocolate flavour of the previous cupcake, the banana buttercream shined through.

i feel like a chubby chicken again, but that's probably because i'm all pmsy (like clockwork). tomorrow we're getting the dotytron's suit fitted for the last time, picking up a new shirt and tie, possibly, then having dinner at my ex bf's (who has moved/mooched his way into his gf's place) for dinner and then going to see "indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull" *cue john williams*. dr. rei and bwong are coming too! my offering is a strawberry rhubarb lattice pie...and i'll probably grab some vanilla ice cream to go with.

it's so late already! tonight i'm waiting for the dotytron to come home from work and then we're going to smush into bed and watch back to back episodes of "top chef: chicago" top chef is pissing me off this season because they're OBVIOUSLY trying to make a girl win. which is fine. there have been EXTREMELY talented women in previous seasons of the show. this season, not so much. but they keep manipulating stuff to make it happen and it's making me bonkers. the calibre of the cooks this season aren't as high...there were two that stood out from the get go (dale and blais) who are really talented, but the show keeps focusing on the women, who most assuredly are mediocre at best. it's frustrating when you can see the strings being pulled so blatantly. i'm very unimpressed. actually, maybe i'm unimpressed enough to go to bravo tv and post on the messageboards about the show there. and this year, so many of the cooks came from restaurants i'd never heard of (last season, "top chef miami" featured chefs that had worked at guy savoy in las vegas and there were exec chefs of a lot of name places)...this season, they're pulling people from san francisco and there are a lot of TERRIBLE cooks who stuck around for a hella long time, because there WERE so many bad cooks. i'm VERY unimpressed with the show this season. it's bogus. let a woman win on her own merit!

bogus!!!!

fin.

viva!

dinner at mexitaco was tight. but first things first, THIS is how we do staff parties, friends. as predicted, my old supervisor did indeed, go buck. uncle buck, if you will. she made these goat cheese sandwiches, these tortilla pinwheel things (with 2 different kinds of fillings), three different kinds of dips, pickled artichoke and tomato salsa, some saffron shrimp stuff, smoked salmon, my dip and then for sweets: cannolis, english toffee, fudge, my cookies, a fruit platter, dominion chocolate cake (which isn't my favorite. i prefer the "white" cake. with the "white" frosting. only in grocery store cake world does "white" constitute a legitimate and discrete flavour), vegan carrot cake from fresh. it was insane. what was ALSO insane, as K pointed out, was how my old supervisor's "VAY-gan" pronunciation seems to have caught on like wildfire.

then i met up with my friend S from library school, who is moving back to vancouver somewhat imminently (like, on saturday) on my lunch break. then met up with dr. rei and had dinner with her and bwong and JK at mexitaco. ultimately, i'm still not the biggest fan of pure mexican tacos. too dry, guy! me and bwong shared this platter with a bunch of different tacos on it: some with pork and pineapple, beef, mexican chorizo, and this juicy pork. as was my experience at rebozos and el trompo, everything BUT the juicy pork was hella dry. it was still tasty. dr. rei got something that spelled out mexico in sour cream, which was kind of awesome in and of itself. for dessert, we got deep fried ice cream (always a treat), flan (which was terrible...like biting through a school eraser...thick, gummy, and not eggy enough...definitely adulterated with some kind of starch), and my favorite, bunuelos, which was a deep fried flour tortilla cut into wedges, topped with cajeta (caramelized goat's milk...mexico's answer to dulce de leche), and whipped cream.

consequently, i now feel like a piggie of the highest order. further consequently, i was discussing the bruno latour lecture with dr. rei and i was basically on the brink of tears from theoretical inspiration.

here is the summary of his major points:

1) the same tools now trace facts and opinion
2) the same tools allow one to inhabit the intermediary steps between individual and aggregate...both can exist in a cartographic simultaneity
3) virtual witnessing so efficient in the birth of nature...science is expanded to the simulation of all matters of concern. we have the sufficient tools to distinguish what is more partisan than the other
4) for the first time, the data scapes of social scenes begin to catch up with those of natural ones.

when i was described points 1 and 2 for dr. rei, i used the example latour gave of this team at MIT who are doing this topography of hurricane katrina victims and plotting their experiences visually in a way that simultaneously gives you access to aggregate data and their individual experiences. she said that those people might have been at a conference she attended. it's really exciting because this ability to map information and provided multiple points of discrete and collective representation and access collapses that representational entropy i've talked about before. AND, as latour says, for the first time, we can use the tools of empiricism to analyze qualitative information. it bridges the divide between qualitative and quantitative.

basically, when i was talking about it with dr. rei, i got so excited i broke out in goosebumps. conceptually, i'm so enthralled, excited, and invigorated by this. it makes me want to explode, and conversely, hole up in a cave (more ideally, the cottage) with a pile of books and mull it through.

here are my half-assed notes:

- object-oriented question raised in relation to "pragmata" (that is, practice)
- is there a political aesthetics of matters of fact?
- matters of fact versus matters of concern
- what other techniques of representation surround matters of concenr [latour is interested in]
- the nostalgic definition of objectivity suggests that by politicizing science we have polluted science [this is a retrograde belief system, according to latour]
- not science, but a hidden political epistemology
- heidegger: "gigenstand" vs. "ding" [i have to look this up]
- nature is a technique of representation
- the market is a quasi-parliament
- whitehead, alfred north. "the concept of nature"
- ian hacking
- rendering recalcitrance is what empiricism is based on
- starting to change what we mean by taking a position within a controversy
- assemble representative space for controversies
- controversy is the entire spectrum, of which assent and dissent are parts (this is more in line with how europeans use the word "controversy" whereas north americans tend to use it in a pejorative sense)
- link between scientific, artistic, political representation
- is wikipedia written in the first or third person?
- we panic because of the movement from one political epistemology to another
- instead of situating politics as the nightmare why not include politics as a technique.
- "cosmopoliticis" - cosmos to remind us that politics is not just about humans, politics to remind us that the cosmos is not just about nature
- can we move to a second degree of objectivity by using new techniques of information?
- instead of objectivity, use the word "design"
- no need to make distinction between aggregate data and individual
- "quali-quantitative" same tool will allow you to follow simultaneously fact and opinion, "rumours" can be followed with the same precision (due to the power of the tools --> collapses "truth" and "rumour") this has HUGE ramifications for our understanding of objectivity
- "the object is what makes us different"
- matters of fact aren't meant to be generalized, matters of concern CAN be generalized because we are in it
- durkheim (and the follow through of durkheimian thought) is due to bad statistics (!!!!! lol!)
- allow us to translate the space of dissent into an empirical data set.
- turning to the web for a "source" --> ramifications for objectivity in the sense that you simultaneously produce and construct and iterate an objectivity.
- peter slaterdijk's "crystal palace" (as metaphor)...the biosphere --> what it means to be "in" the world, yet has to be artificially supported and encased
- Q: what does it mean to reclaim the world? A: it means to create artificial, breathable, scale size environments/assemblies (YES! i agree...praxis!!!).

i'm always so thrilled to have my belief systems validated by people i consider to be heavy thinkers...and it's surprising how often it comes down to the same thing - that is, small scale changes based on living your praxis.

fin.

unkinked

i treated myself to a massage today, courtesy of the best massager in toronto, so now i'm as limpid and droopy as a dew-filled buttercup. she went to town on my back and butt and calves...got right into those knotted ropes with her elbows and elicited no small number of spastic twitches as she tenderized my flesh. it was lovely. the only problem is that i really really really want to be friends with her but she insists on maintaining the professional nature of our relationship...even though she sent me on my way with a lovely cupcake. she's so cool! and we're basically the same person! type A, food obsessed, organized, addicted to the same tv...it breaks my heart we can't be friends.

i'm experimenting with the closeup feature on the new camera. i don't get most food bloggers and the slavering sycophants they attract. most of the food is pretty standard, just gussied up with photoshop or slr-ing or extreme closeups. last night's dinner is first, featuring these thin links of veal sausage the italian butchers up the street from me make. it was delicious...the veal sausage packed a surprisingly old-beef-like wallop of meaty substance.

it's completely vegan-friendly (the coworker is a vegan, which my old supervisor endearingly pronounces "VAY-gan").

we had a visit from the vet tonight. after the debacle that was last year (time-line it - basically smudge was a rudebwoy and tore the vet's office apart), i decided to revert back to having a vet that does house calls. our old mobile vet no longer does visits to toronto, which is a crying shame, because we ADORED her. she was chummy and great with cats and loved cooking and would actually remember stuff about our lives and our cats. this new lady who showed up was kind of shadesball. she wouldn't take a cheque (cash only!) and charges an $85 fee just to show up to your house, IN ADDITION to the exam costs. she was also pretty brusque and cursory. i wasn't a fan. i'm going to keep shopping around. the good news is that she confirmed my worst fears that the clinic i took smudge to last year was trying to hose me to get his teeth cleaned. she said his teeth were actually fine. humph. i hate it when people try to hose me.

tonight's dinner was a quickie job - oven roasted asparagus with toasted and buttered ace bakery whole wheat baguette with poached eggs and shaved pecorino. i put the boar sausage (smuggled from ital-towns) onto the plate because i thought i might want it, but didn't end up eating it in the end.

now i'm going to take a quickie hot shower to leech out some of the lactic acid released by the manipulations of my masseuse. here are some shots of the garden to keep you occupied. you can also espy the jerry-rigged trellis i've made out of sisal, and old ladder, and bamboo stakes. it's to support our sweet peas.
something tells me it's not going to work as i did a half assed job at best. what the hell do i know about making stuff for other stuff to climb on? huh? i'll tell you what: absolutely jacks**t. i'm going to spend the rest of the evening (what's left of it - where does the time go?!?) reading on the couch to the lulling ambiance of street noises. i love the sounds of traffic and city noises...i find it really soothing. the eerie stillness of the country would really eff with my ability to sleep if the fresh air didn't knock me out first.

fin.

bam bam

okay, so my new thing is worrying about whether or not i'm too old to be doing gunshots and hands-in-the-air, and pounding on ceilings and walls, and calling for rewinds and doing my "brrrrrrrup brrrrrrrrrup" and "blap! blap!" anymore. i kinda don't know how to NOT do it when i'm feeling hype or when the spirit takes me. at the kanye show, i was going buck in that 'ardcore junglist kind of way (and i've been listening to a lot of old mixes lately) and these tit-faced 12 year old girls in front of us kept turning around and giving me the brace-face, perpetually embarassed, "OHMYGAWD" look. eeks! i just don't want to be that 40 year old lady in a miniskirt.

according to the dotytron, i get a free pass because i came up through jungle culture so it's real for me. it would be different if his mom was going off and doing that. although M told this story on saturday of how one of her worst bratty-awkward-teenage kid moments was when she told her mom to stop doing the macarena at a wedding and was all like, "that's enough now." my kid is totally going to be "that's enough now" when i do the gunshots at the kindergarten recital, or when i show up at PTA meetings with home-made silk-screened shirts that say: "*insert principal's name* is bogus".

i totally overexerted myself AGAIN this weekend. saturday i spent the majority of the day bent over at a 90 degree angle tending to the garden and hauling bags of mulch around like a regular, old, tough guy. i may or may not have over-mulched...but the garden is looking foine...i'll post pics of it tomorrow. mulch makes everything look so tidy! i also reorganized a bunch of stuff and potted a bunch of annuals. i think it looks pretty nice and i love being out there and having the space to work with. it's such a luxury. then yesterday i went for a jog, came back, stretched, cleaned house like a mofo (there are little to no discernible effects of my house-cleaning efforts), played the game of my life in dodgeball, and then came home. it was epic. on saturday night, as always happens when i watch "stomp the yard", i got all inspired and tried to crump and probably slipped about 15 different discs in my back and herniated 10 other things. it's not pretty. but i want to try! i might take a hip hop dance class this summer. heehee!

last night was hilares. the dotytron busted out this impression of lauryn hill guesting on a nas track which involves the following: four different baby bjorns strapped around her torso, strumming a guitar IN FRONT of the baby bjorns, having a tilted to the side floppy knit cap, a long denim patchwork jacket, and the clincher, a tattoo of erykah badu on her forehead, striding on stage saying, "this is what i've been up to, y'all!" dr. rei and i literally almost peed our pants. we also watched the premiere of "so you think you can dance" which also resulted in a bit where ian, in the voice of the head judge, nigel, accuses a contestant (that they tried to make feel bad for being fat) of sounding like he's "breathing through a cheeseburger" which is making me LOL as i type the words. hilarious. the dotytron's superhero talent is making up dialogue during television shows/movies that's beyond funny. i also got to rant about how spoken word is boring and lame and always about the POLICE.

there's been a shortage of food pic shots so here it is, all at once. the top pics are of the mini lamb patties i made last monday, which we had with my version of the persian salad and leftover cucumber yoghurt dr. rei made, and bulgarian feta, which we're all in love with now. then i didn't cook again til saturday. those are the little corn arepas and black bean chili with my corn chips and pineapple-filled, pistachio-sugar dusted, fried wontons.

yesterday i made stuffed artichokes with a spaghetti tossed with chilies, lemon, red onions and pecorino. really simple and tasty and fresh, and a salad of endive, radicchio, canellini beans with red wine vinegar and olive oil. again, really simple and fresh tasting. i changed the shape on the wontons and they turned out even better this way and were easier to manipulate in the fryer. they're SO SO SO good. you can eat 10 in a row without even noticing it.

today i've got to go home and prep stuff for some dude's retirement party at work on wednesday. for the retirement party, i'm thinking of making eggplant dip with pita chips and either more of the wontons or salted white chocolate oatmeal cookies. savoury and sweet, can't be beat! i'm making a sausage, fennel, and broccoli pasta with a salad for dinner.

fin.