in which the spirit of the season

escapes us (but is regained)

flash back to early last week - dinner is made, a stack of 50-odd xmas cards sits on the table, envelopes at the ready, return address labels printed at the UPS store, the annual newsletter obligingly waiting to be folded. i summoned the dotytron to sign and stuff cards. the dotytron: much aggrieved because we had just finished sending out the last of our thank you cards from the performance. as we plodded our way through them, tempers began to run short, glib phrases eluded us, we were forced to retreat to the comforting, bland pablum of stock holiday well wishes. "i don't know what to write!" the dotytron exclaimed, throwing down the pen in frustration. "just write SOMETHING" i hissed (need i tell you dear reader that i was well into what the dotytron calls, "monster mode"?), those are for our B-list friends ANYWAY." at which point the dotytron looked at me and the ironic weight of that statement settled into the vacuum of our ill-humour. lol!

the dotytron also said this past week, "they're not friends, they're just PEOPLE." ha!

the holiday concert dog and pony show is another thing that's turning us into miserable scrooges. poor dotytron's pedagogical philosophies and praxis are being trampled in the wake of turning miscreants into a cherub choir with non stop rehearsals and drills - all in the name of appeasing doting parents.

all i really want to do is be in my flannels and drink hot chocolate and mulled apple cider and eat warm cookies and hearty winter foods with my feet in sheepskin slippers and a ball of yarn by my side. the one thing the "where the wild things are" movie got right was how delightful it is to sleep in a pile.

so...s-dawg has been pestering us for the past few weeks to go see "the blind side." - every time we talked about what movie we were going to see, either over the holidays or at that particular convergence of the siblings, he was always pushing for "the blind side" while we were saying anything else: "up in the air" "the fantastic mr. fox" "sherlock holmes" "avatar" - thus, when i opened my email inbox yesterday morning the first thing i was confronted with was an accusatory email from s-dawg with a link trumpeting "the blind side"'s sleeper overtaking of "twilight: new moon" at the box office this past weekend and how we were all basically the worst people on earth for not trusting his sound advice! ha!

the xmas cards have been mailed...i've got 99.9% of my shopping done - i just have to wrap the last few presents. after this weekend both holiday parties with the dotytron's maternal and paternal extended families will be in the can and i can just REEELAX. my baking is 80% done...i just have to do a batch of salted caramels and a batch of cream cheese brownies and make 2 dips on saturday to bring to the party. i feel like i can relax. i'm going to put our new flannelette sheets on the bed tonight and our new duvet cover and i'm hoping i can coax the dotytron to go out skating after dinner so we can come home and drink hot chocolate and watch tv in the blinking glow of our xmas tree. i'm feeling pretty good! so the spirit of the holidays has been restored, as it always is, by the peaceful restful period that always follows in the wake of "monster mode." a little bit of (shrill) (tense) (snippy) pre-holiday pain for a lot of gain.

the moral of the story is: most of life's problems can be solved with the right bedding (and lists and preparation and sheer, iron-willed resolve and determination.) i'm a bedding junkie. i want as many outfits for my bed as i do for myself.

so i started a book club at work. the first book we read was joseph boyden's "three day road." this was a lovely, moving, deep, rich book - a perfect book club pick because it's the kind of book where as you start talking about the book, you pull a thread that connects to a theme and the whole story starts to tangle and unravel and wind itself in densely woven allegories and motifs that become available and knowable only through the discussion.

it's the story of two aboriginal boys, close enough to be brothers, one of whom returns from world war II, heavily addicted to morphine and is met by his aunt, who takes him on a 3 day canoe ride back to their home. on the trip, recollections of the war and his aunt's history are alternated and gradually laid out, trapping within the net of the narrative a greater examination of the residential school system, racism, the affects of war, humanity. it's a beautifully written literary novel - at once savage and sparse, meaty and elegant. i usually shy away from serious canadian fiction - the "canada reads" kind - not generally my cup of tea. come to think of it, heavy literary novels haven't been my cup of tea since like, undergrad. that's the good thing about a book club - it forces you to read things you might not otherwise.

after delving headlong into Serious Fiction...i ran out and grabbed sarah dessen's latest, "along for the ride" practically on the day it came out. what to say about a new sarah dessen that i haven't already said about her other works? this one was good, not as good as my two favorites, "this lullaby" and "just listen" and not as bad as the ones i don't like, "that summer" "dreamland" - it falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. by now there's a fairly predictable formula - over a summer, teenage girl going through Serious Stuff meets a boy who helps her deal with her ish, open up to her vulnerabilities, expand her horizons - they fall for each other, minor misunderstanding ensues, they resolve issues in the end with a greater understanding of kinship, friendship, family.

i know it sounds trite and predictable and pat. in the hands of a lesser author, it might very well be. but somehow sarah just gets the balance just right. it's moral and ethically sound but not preachy, cool without being totally outrageous and sensationalist like gossip girl, safe but not cliché, real without being too "this is the diary of a teenage drug addict." it's beach reading of the highest order.

the next book club book was andre dubus III's "the garden of last days." he also wrote "the house of sand and fog" which went on to become a film that was lauded in Serious Film Circles. this title was recommended by a woman in the group who abruptly left the group days before the group was supposed to meet - the way it works is the person suggesting takes "ownership" of the work and agrees to come up with some discussion questions, so we were a little loss leadered. this was okay. i found it a bit of a trial to get through. it documents the lives of variously seedy/lost drifter types of characters whose lives are vaguely interconnected because they orbit around a strip club frequented by one of the men who would go on to participate in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

i mean, intellectually, I GET IT. depraved americans, for whom you feel pity and at once respect their earnest, blundering, well-intentioned ways. the humanizing of the terrorist, the way our lives are just babel-crash-amores peros - we're just fragile little beings so distant from each other, separated by race, history, culture, not knowing how alike we are in our futile, scrabbling, frantic, brief existences on this planet. i found it hard to sympathize with any of the characters and thus, to care. as the book club talked it out, we teased out what the author might have been getting at, but overall, it didn't go over very well.

by this point, we were well into my summer reading, and the next few definitely show it.

i couldn't get my hands on the newest installment in e. lockhart's ruby oliver series fast enough. i LOVE e. lockhart. sarah dessen is kind of a "good girl" writer. she writes about pretty typical experiences, the protagonists are nearly always tall, willowy white girls from solid middle class families, and it's the kooky best friend who is ever even remotely alt. e. lockhart writes about a more relatable high school experience from the true underdog's point of view - i can see myself in her high school more than in the ultra whitebread american one of sarah dessen's world. this book is like candy. i love how lockhart writes about ruby's parents, her friends, her reactions. i love ruby's pop-culture obsession and how she's so neurotic and flawed and imperfect and messed up and has really crackpot reactions to situations that make total sense if you've ever been a teenage girl. i love the footnotes - they're funny and not at all pretentious. i'm already salivating for roo number 4, titled "real live boyfriends"

okay that's enough reviewing for me today. the next ones coming up are doozies and then i went into a solid fall comic book phase which i'm only just now getting myself out of.


tonight for dinner we had perogies with onions and bacon and a spinach salad with avocado, shallots, toasted pumpkin seeds, and a maple-balsamic vinaigrette.

roll call of awesome:

the grain edit blog makes me beyond happy. i'm in love with everything on it. the current holiday giveaway they're sponsoring hepped me to all these amazing graphic artists/illustrators/designers.

the everything okay poster by mine. from the site: "This poster is the first in our series of art prints dedicated to exploring the OK-ness of things. It features 67 thoughtfully conceived pie graphs, each depicting a different statistic which may (or may not) be OK." the colours would go perfect in the living room, above my chrome rocker.

this print from wonder thunder. can you tell i'm super into acid yellow right now???


jez burrows work.

the "visible robot" print by brian flynn.

dora drimalas' work makes me yearn for infinite wall space.

lumadessa's whimsical, charming, graphic, blocky bird prints.


christopher lee's collection of beast prints.

this adorable print from christopher bettig/the mountain label - etsy shop here.

the "things i like" print from skinny ships/richard perez printed at valhalla studios, the same people who tad carpenter (designer of my cute hi! whale print) is associated with.

that's enough eye candy for one day! in another world, where i am rich and have miles of walls, i will have all of these.

fin.

the difference

between decorating the tree with my family and the dotytron's family:
- when you go decorate the tree at momma and poppa d's house, there's christmas music playing, hot chocolate is being made, ornaments are delicately pulled from their papery cocoons and placed on the tree, the very act of which calls forth a stream of reminisces and memories.
- when you decorate the tree at MY house and your mother and s-dawg happen to be present, you're silently gritting your teeth and battling through a headache as you're alternately told that your ass is fat (thanks, mom) and the two of them mock you for being "norman rockwell"-y while they splay themselves on your couch and loudly haggle over various cell phone plans. your mother will intersperse the wheeling and dealing with demands for leftover food to take home. food which she spent the better part of the dining portion of the evening proclaiming: "it's not very stroganoff-y. it's not creamy enough, you know? and the meat pieces are too large. i mean, i LIKE it, but it's just not a classic stroganoff." le sigh.

i love my family, but it's VERY trying to come home from a day of work and grocery shopping by bike in the freezing rain to that dynamic. especially on a day when all i wanted to do was nap and eat and burrow under the downy coverlet of my bed and while away the hours without ever having to call upon the supporting services of my vertebrae.

in times like these, i turn to best week ever to provide some relief:

lol! the tiger woods voicemail slow jam.

how to cry forever, courtesy of orphaned orangutans the part about that image not being a still of clint eastwood from the end of "grand torino" had me shooting beverage out of my nose. lol!!!

this is the by product of our decorating:

and here is the pork stroganoff that wasn't a classic stroganoff (with egg noodles and brussel sprouts roasted with bacon and apples):



it's too early in the week to feel this ruined.

i'm going to be coming at you hard tomorrow with about 6 months' worth of back-dated book reviews. watch out!

fin.

the tree skirt

that almost killed me. but before we get to that, let's start sequentially.

friday was the funnest day ever...we headed down to guelph for miss smckay's birthday party which featured THREE birthday cakes!

this was my contribution:



on the other side it said "l'chaim!" lol! (smckay has a thing for being jewish, even though she's kinda not).

cake #2:

cake #3:

there was also some of this (potentially NSFW):


it was fun seeing the whole kdubsguelph crew...i'm wondering again why we don't live in the tri-town area.

i was finally able to gift C with her knitted gifts...i made her some fingerless mitts/armwarmers:

saturday morning i had breakkie with my mom and then we trucked all the way into the scarborough hinterlands to go to a t-fal/krups/rowenta warehouse sale which was THE PITS. they had like, 8 different things for sale. wtf? what a waste! also, my mom is such a chinese mom it's the best/worst. she basically spends her time in my home engaged in variations on the following pursuits:

a) demanding that i make her meals that she can take home
b) complaining that i'm ungrateful for not doing the above
c) grilling me on how much various items in my house cost
d) telling me that whatever i paid is too expensive and you can get it cheaper somewhere else
e) critiquing my taste in furniture/accessories/clothing/face

lol!!! p.s. that's what goes down when we're getting along.

dr. zhivago night was kind of the best, although mid-way through the day, when i was wrestling with my 8 foot long QUILTED tree skirt that i had resolved to make out of flannelette i turned into a bitter bean, or as the dotytron called it, a "foul owl" - i was SO CRANKY! because it was turning out like poo! i'm such a perfectionist AND i'm ambitious that the predictably poor execution of my first quilting project made me angry to the BONE. i was so mad! but realistically, my first quilting project should have been something small and square, not something 4ft across, circular, and made up of triangular pieces. zomg. i spent so much time on the thing!!! it ruined my life!

but i was rescued by dr. rei, hanbo, and L and a night of russian themed foods:

that's chicken kiev, properly barfing herbed butter, a quick cold dilled pickled beet thing, some sautéed red cabbage and potatoes romanoff which are THE BEST. so freaking good! you take cooked potatoes, peel them, shred them, and mix them with a s**tf**k load of sour cream, cheddar cheese, scallions, dill, and salt and pepper and bake it. holy crap. so good.

my charlotte a la russe turned out so-so. i unmolded it too early:


i wasn't super big on the flavour. i brushed the lady fingers with frangelico (probably my favorite liqueur)...but the chocolate bavarian cream wasn't flavourful enough...it could have used some espresso or more chocolate. my sister used to make an almond bavarian cream the recipe for which i think she got off the knox gelatin packet that was SO FREAKIN' good...i should try to recreate it.

then we talked mad smack about tiger woods and chaz bono (p.s. listening to that phone message that tiger left on his mistress' phone is HILARIOUS - what a dork!) and settled down to watch dr. zhivago. we got 1/2way through. holy crap that movie is long! there's a 10 minute "overture" at the beginning which is basically an orchestral movement playing while there's a painted backdrop pronouncing "overture" displayed. there's also an intermission! we stopped at that point, which was already 2 hours in. i have to say, i wasn't feeling it. i feel like it was lacking character development - it basically went through a series of disjointed events in the life of dr. zhivago without much in the way of analysis or elucidation. maybe the time for that kind of film-making style has passed? either way, i didn't believe in dr. zhivago's relationship with lara (who is a complete tit, by the way). people were pretty drunk on white russians at that point, so it was still pretty funny.

then we slept in this morning, missed my friend's baby-unveiling meet'n'greet, and barely got out of the house in time to get our errands done before the dotytron had to hightail it up to richmond hill to play "hotel california" with some students of his from the school that he quit last week. lol! we got a balsam fir because it was IMPOSSIBLE to find a fraser fir that wasn't 7 feet tall. our tree turned out pretty cute! we also got a cheapie $10 tree stand and some lights. so...here's the big reveal...this is my tree skirt of doom (p.s. i spent no less than 12 hours working on this thing):


it's pretty anti-climactic. it's horrible...the stitching is so crooked and it's so fugly...although, i'm looking forward to the day when my skills are good enough that i want to make another one and my kids (?) or the dotytron stops me and says that the ugly tree skirt is an xmas tradition.

i also finally took some finished shots of my cocoon loop scarf. i usually just wear it long and loose like a big, knitted loop accessory around my neck, but it's nice that you can double it up for extra warmth...you can also wear it as a snood, if you like!


now i have to go make a million mini banana cupcakes for the dotytron's work, my mom's hearing clinic, and momma d's side of the family's annual xmas potluck afternoon hoo-ha. then i'm going to sit my butt down on the couch and knit and watch mindless tv. and glare balefully at the ugly tree skirt of doom.

fin.

yay day off!

so the month of december is going to be buck. we (the royal we) knew that. is it ever anything but? this week has been/will be insane. i entertained twice already! S came over on wednesday night for dinner and a visit. i had planned on making a cream of cauliflower soup with paninis, came home, walked up to the fridge, pulled out the head of cauliflower ... only to discover that it was ROTTEN TO THE CORE. gross! i was mortified. i also didn't have a backup plan, so i was floundering and then S swept in and made a quickie indian "kraft dinner" - a bean and potato curry that we had with steamed white rice, a dollop of my ridiculously expensive and ever-so-dear sheep's milk yoghurt (which is AMAZING with curry), and a squeeze of lemon juice.

as i told her later, it's a measure of how comfortable i am with her that i only lost 4 hours of sleep stewing over my bad hostessing that night. i've been flagellating myself over it ever since. it's just SO NOT ME. it was a very hearty vegetarian meal though, and i was grateful. thank goodness i had tonnes of extra mini-cupcakes to offer. S said it was indian karma because i refused to let her bring anything. lol!

we also marveled at the strange and unsettling sight of the two ugly jonas brothers (round-face jonas and flat-iron jonas) introducing cute jonas (that's nick jonas to the most of us) who then sang a song BY HIMSELF. we were totally weirded out. this was during the grammy nominations live concert. luckily, S fired off an email to her 14 year old sister who set us straight, stat.

that night we also had an unexpected drop-by from the dotytron's sis and her friend. full house!

here are some shots of the open house:




p.s. that's only a fraction of the food. T goes NUTS! i made only a fraction of the food (aren't my mini-cupcakes [top photo] cute?) i was telling people that when i used to work in professional catering, we would NEVER make this staggering variety of items...because it MAKES NO SENSE (but tastes so good). i was working the night shift on tuesday night and stayed til 10pm and basically ate a dinner of cookies and punch. l'chaim!


last night we fired off the rest of our xmas cards and i started cutting out the pattern for my quilted tree skirt. yes, you read that right. today involves: getting up, baking off cookies for my massage therapist, a massage, baking smckay's b-day cake for tonight, frosting said cake, making a charlotte a la russe for tomorrow's russian dr. zhivago fest, making a batch of fake english almond toffee, making drapes for the dotytron's room, making my quilted tree skirt, making my felt wreath, and hopefully doing some knitting and making my festive garland. also making time to do a small round of grocery shopping and re-upping on xmas cards because we RAN OUT. holy cats!

this weekend is gangbusters. tonight i'm going to smckay's b-day jam in guelph. then tomorrow morning i'm meeting my mum for breakkie and then we're going to this t-fal warehouse sale. then i'm coming home and hosting dr. rei, hanbo, and architect L for dinner (russian-themed). then we may or may not watch dr. zhivago. there's also our friend O's 30th birthday party. AND we were invited to another holiday mixer at another friend's house that we have to bail on. sunday morning we're going to see my friend C's adopted baby (incidentally, the people hosting live in dr. rei and hanbo's building! which obviously means that an early morning nicky nicky nine doorsing is in order) then we have to get our xmas lights, our tree lights, tree stand, and tree and set that up. then we rest.

phew!

which basically means that i have to get cracking NOW.


p.s. last night we watched "autism: the musical" a documentary about a program run by a woman in california - she takes autistic kids (her own son is severely autistic) for 20 weeks and produces a variety show, with songs and skits. it's crazy. it was really moving to see the effect that having an autistic child can have on the family dynamics and a marriage. a lot of marriages didn't seem to survive. the kids ran across the whole spectrum. there was one kid that i kept insisting was just eccentric but that the dotytron claimed didn't have the cognitive abilities to be able to function autonomously. the other kids though you could totally tell had some kind of disorder. did you know that stills' (of crosby, stills and nash) son has aspbergers? he's in the documentary. the rest of the night consisted of me trying to make the case that some people we know were autism spectrum and getting the dotytron to agree with me. one of my principal arguments for this one dude was because "he doesn't know when he's boring people" lol!

the rest of the night was spent reading the "blue pages" out of the ontario teacher's magazine, or as the dotytron calls it, "us magazine for teachers" - it basically lists all the charges or people who've been put up for disciplinary action and what the outcome was. it was HILARIOUS. one of the teachers was charged for repeatedly (over a 10 year span) touching the buttocks of colleagues, which he blamed on his "poor eyesight" LOL!!!!!!!

fin.

baking for work

is not as much fun as baking for fun. yesterday i was home all day to prep for my work's open house. i made:

- peppermint swirl marshmallows
- vanilla marshmallows
- blanched asparagus spears (for asparagus and proscuitto)
- smoky red pepper feta dip
- mini devil's food cupcakes with mint cream cheese frosting
- egg salad filling for these little egg salad cups
- herbed cream cheese for smoked salmon crostinis
- my ultimate chocolate chip cookies

and i feel like there's more but i can't remember. it took me ALL DAY. i woke up at 7 and didn't eat breakfast until 2pm. exhausting! last night i had my friend L from library school over for dinner. there's a permanent full-time position opening up at my work and she wants to apply and i want to work with someone i like and not someone who's going to be on my jock. i originally had congee on the menu but i figured 1000 year old egg and pork congee was a little weird for a first-timer at our place so i went with a baked pasta with meatballs and ricotta and mozzarella. and a i made a caesar salad and served extras of the mini-cupcakes.

the dotytron makes me laugh so hard. he came up as i had the first batch of mini-cupcakes out and he took a look at them and said, "what are these little buggers? they're a-dor-able!" but in a sing-songy way that i replay in my head and it makes me laugh out loud. i like partnering up with a guy who uses adorable as a descriptor for little cupcakes.

we went skating with the kids. ummmm...i suck. not having skated for 20 years really takes a toll. mi ankles! aaaaannnddd...i'm super afraid of falling so i doubly suck. i just have to practice more. it's finally taken a turn for the cold around these parts so hopefully the rink will be up and running soon. the weekend was fun - we went for midnight karaoke at pacific mall. i was super afraid of getting accosted by triads and getting capped. the place we went to was super cheap and on the verge of bankruptcy. i was pretty cranky at first as it was way later than my usual bedtime, but it all worked out in the end - totally bummed they didn't have heart's "these dreams" or enough toto for our liking. s-dawg's a-ha voice is amazing, as is his alphaville. lol! there was a $90 minimum on the room so the dotytron ordered a pitcher of johnny walker black label, which was listed as $36 (the fine print said the "pitcher" was 9oz) and we ordered some water. then he thought we were way under so he ordered more waters and the WORST FRIED FOOD ever. then we got the bill and it was like, $200!! so we had to talk it over with the owners because we didn't understand how ordering a pitcher for $36, turned into an entire bottle of johnny walker for $108, even though the dude came in, poured the bottle of johnny into a carafe and left with the bottle. like, if we were buying a full bottle of johnny walker, why wouldn't you give us the bottle? why decant it into a carafe? it was mad sketchy.

speaking of toto, this one goes out to my hairdresser, Smckay:



so obviously today i'm going to be gorging on bite sized foods. i'm going to try to keep my impulses in check, if i can. but that's not likely. I CAN'T RESIST BITE-SIZED FOODS! the open house is kind of a big deal, it's our big social event of the season and it's highly anticipated by staff and clients alike. i hope it goes off!

i did a lot of work on the haus yesterday. we're pretty much done for what we can do now. look at our landing strip:


it's a lot less austere than it looks in the photo. i also did some exploratory drilling and hung two coat racks in our enclosed porch. they're screwed into anchors into a really thin piece of masonite, but i think they'll hold, as long as we don't hang our lead coats there.

we put up our bedroom shelves on sunday night, which also involved exploratory drilling. into the brick. that divides our master bedroom from the neighbours'. at 10pm at night. oops! i hope they don't hate us.

wish me luck on not being a fat little weirdo!

fin.

what the-

i'm starting to get spam comments on my blog? what the hell?!??? this can only mean one of two not terribly exciting things. 1) there are actually THOUSANDS of people reading this blog and the traffic and linking to and fro has finally caught the attention of evil spammers and trolling bots; 2) there are spammers out there that have canned searches for the following terms: "chinotto" "nemesis" "lagerfeld" "dotytron" "bucktown" - which is kind of commendable from the creativity standpoint.
guys...it's almost a new decade. in the 2000s. like, what the f88k?!? i remember when the 80s changed to the 90s it was totally a big deal and i flipped through a people magazine retrospective that was lying in my house and marveled at the 80s and wondered at what strange and wondrous things the 90s would bring. and now we're like, TWO DECADES PAST THAT. i'm old, sons!

i'm old enough to start being a fiscal conservative! so david frum was on george strombo's show (p.s. i hate george strombo) and was talking about how the right wing in america has moved away from its fiscal underpinnings and has been coopted by the loonies (i'm paraphrasing) who are interested in issues that aren't part of the realm of the traditional right (ie. like whether science is a discipline, shmashmortion, etc.) so true! guys! i'm all for fiscal restraint! i'm all for pulling up the bootstraps and buckling down and the value of hard, honest, labor. p.s. this is not an endorsement of david frum - it's a general commentary on how the whole political dialogue is being coopted by peripheral, reductive, polarizing dichotomies between talking (shouting) heads and we're losing our sense of nuance and winnowing away at our capacity to critically engage and imagine. so sad!

dr. rei and i were talking about marking rubrics today. another issue of classification! tell people what they need to get an A - try to legitimize and standardize the qualitative by subsuming it in our worship of the quantitative. ugh. i remember the first time i came across one - it accompanied my A paper on top chef that i wrote for my sociology class. "demonstrates a creative understanding of key concepts discussed during the term" - whaaaa??? i was so confused. if i was to go back for a phd in information studies - it would definitely be something to do with my representational entropy model - the slippages that occur between rubrics, metrics, and classification systems and the material things they attempt to fix, define, relate.

okay, i'm currently in LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE with my dining room. love it. love love love it. the dotytron is way more cognizant generally of spending a mint on something and then wanting to preserve it - he gets it from momma d, i think. she once graciously offered me a table pad for our former dining room table and i never used it once. i'm of the opinion that stuff is meant to be used and you shouldn't be buying stuff that might potentially get mucked up a bit. not that you shouldn't take preventative measures, mind. anyway, i've caught him wiping at stray water droplets with his sleeve so i'm going to make place mats for the table. i think i'm going to make it out of toile/lace patterned oil cloth, since the marimekko stuff i pine for goes for $50 US A YARD!!!

i wanted something with a tight enough pattern that it wouldn't compete with the rest of the room's elements. i didn't want it to be HEY LOOK AT MY CHERRY PRINT PLACEMATS! but i didn't want them to be plain, either. i thought the black toile would be a good compromise.

i'm spending the weekend at the crumbling family estate. my sis is up after her turkey day. so pumped! we brought our skates. we're going for AYCE hot pot and asian legend tonight. we're going to see "the fantastic mr. fox" - hopefully.

i love these songs:

the best is the prolonged, tortured, "oooooooooohhooooooohhh"

video under copyright











this video is also under copyright...but it's worth it because the accompanying video is HILARIOUS. lol x 1000000000000000000!!!!!!!!

we're going to montreal with dr. rei and hanbo and bwong. to celebrate the birthday's of hanbo and the dotytron. to eat at au pied du cochon (the trip was precipitated by my panic at an unsubstantiated rumour i heard that they were closing in the new year). to hang with my favorite people. to go on a road trip. i've instructed everyone to make two cds for the road featuring their personal favorite singalong songs. these are definitely on my short list.

the best is the other night in the car when the dotytron asked me if billy idol's "white wedding" was a euphemism for something, or if he really thinks it's a nice day (in the meteorological sense) for a white wedding. lol!

happy weekend all! squish someone you love!

fin.

can't talk...

too busy putting together ikea furniture with "gs to gents" in the background *shoots self in face* that show is HORRID. it's so mind-numbingly BORING. i had a class A wigout last night putting together our dining room tables while the dotytron lolled around on the couch like a strangely lanky seal. i very rarely indulge in mindless tv watching - like, watching something just to WATCH SOMETHING so when the dotytron does it or when i'm trying to accomplish something and that's happening in the background, it puts me on edge. since i was already putting together ikea furniture and was ALREADY on edge, i was a seething ball of barely suppressed (and frequently unleashed) rage. my mulled apple cider was too sweet! i didn't want to go into the basement to get the drill bits! my butt was sore from sitting on the ground! it's too hot in the house! COULDYOUPLEASEJUSTGETUPANDGETMETHEDRILLBITSCAN'TYOUSEEI'MPUTTINGTOGETHEROURFURNITURE?!?????!!!!

i apologized soon after the meltdown (once the chairs were done). it wasn't even a big meltdown, it was just another in the long line of classic lagerfeld and dotytron he said ("why do you have to do this now?") she said ("i'm doing it now because i want it DONE and the least you can do since YOU'RE not the one doing it is get me the small thing i want to finish the job!") testy, snippy scenario. the point is: i got my dining room chairs done. phew! i had lunch with dr. rei yesterday and she was remarking how people always ask her how her friend karl lagerfeld manages to cook dinner, make a billion crafts, etc. and how dr. rei has come to the realization that it's because i'm INSANE, and the most organized person she knows. lol! what really drove it home for her was this past summer, when we went for lunch and i was buying stuff in chinatown, and she asked me what it was for, and i said the meal, and she asked if that's what we were having tonight, and i said no, it's for two weeks from now. lol! i AM insane. and yet, 95% of the time, my insanity doesn't cause me any stress and i REALLY ENJOY it. i love being organized. i love updating my calendars. i love being a little puttering busybody. in another life, i SHOULD have been the heir to martha stewart's throne.

so, for the dining room chairs, i ended up going with these ones:

ikea gilbert, in white. they're in restaurants all over the place, pretty affordable, sturdy, comfortable, and they go with our vaguely modern mish-mash aesthetic. plus i really liked the contrast of the stark white with our dark table and the clean modern lines with the heaviness of our harvest-y table.

i'm still not happy with our dining room colour. what i wanted to be a cool, blue-grey turned more baby's room blue. a little too saccharine. i think i want to punch it up and make it more teal-y/turquoise-y blue...the exact colour in this youtube video (wait for a few seconds in, to see their kitchen colour) would go really well with the purple wall in the living room:



i'm in LOOOOOOOOOVE with our new plates. being the thrifty little parker that i am, i had originally planned on going to tap phong and loading up. then i was snooping around on crate and barrel online and found that they were having a sale on their essential dinnerware. they sell them in 16 piece sets (4 4 piece sets: 8.5" salad plates, 11.5" buffet plate, 7" bowl, and mug)...so i got 3 of those (to make 12 place settings) and then bought for extras of the plates and bowls (i didn't think i would ever need 16 mugs). we like entertaining at home so i wanted a big set, plus my family alone is 10 people and growing. anyway, ALL of that (16 buffet plates, 16 salad plates, 12 mugs, 16 bowls) in microwave and dishwasher safe porcelain okay for ovens up to 300F, was $200 INCLUDING DELIVERY. score me!

i can't bear overpaying for stuff. it makes me mental. i have two sizable williams sonoma gift cards that i can't even use because every time i go in there, their stuff is so ridiculously overpriced that i literally can't bring myself to "waste" the gift cards in there when i know i can get the item for cheaper somewhere else. it's seriously highway robbery in there - i don't even find it fun, the way other people seem to - for me, williams sonoma is not the cook's playground...it's the dilettante's playground. it's not fun over-spending. you can't take the chinese out of me! it's the same when people ask me if i'm going to trick out my kitchen when i reno with a viking range or all the rest. i mean, yeah, if i had unlimited funds a subzero would be nice, i guess? and a viking or thermidor range? but seriously? i'm not the kind of person to go buck like that. i've been banging out amazing meals on my crappy GE gas stove at the old apartment and now the made-in-mexico discontinued line moffat we inherited at lil' ugmo and i'm doing just fine. cooks can cook anywhere. fancy gadgets are nice, but not necessary, and i don't see the value for it. it's like when dilettantes go and throw money at a new hobby and get TOP OF THE LINE recording equipment or the best golf clubs - why don't you develop your craft/hobby first before going out and shelling out the big ducats? i feel like that's one of the ways you can differentiate between people who are serious about their crafts and people who think that throwing money at a leisure activity will solve everything.

tuesday night we had the ex roomie and l'army over for dinner - it was nice! i miss having her around. i made a root vegetable/squash mash (sweet potatoes, yukons, butternut) mixed with the leftover dill sour cream from borscht the night before. i made beer-braised smoked mennonite sausage and kolbassa with caramelized onions, as well as cabbage and apples braised with some salt pork. for dessert i pulled out a frozen log of pecan shortbread i had from last xmas (!) and sliced and baked those off. having frozen cookie dough that's either pre-portioned or the slice and bake kind is really, truly, a godsend.

last night i went to ikea and got to ride on the rickety wooden ikea bus. the dotytron met up with me and we bought the chairs and some picture frames (yay, credit!) and then headed home to leftovers. i'm not good at this leftovers game. to give you an idea of how bad i am at cooking for two, i ate leftover muttar paneer. we had that like, a week and a half ago!!! i finished it off.

tonight is dodgeball and it's my dodgeball boyfriend's birthday so we're going out someplace after for food and drinks. i'll stay out for a bit (to eat) and then high-tail it home to hopefully finish writing thank you cards and packing for the weekend. team geneseo is coming up! yay! after thank you cards are done then it's time for xmas cards - gadzooks! but that's easy because it's not as much handwriting and profuse thanking.

i have a whole passel of book reviews to do, but first let me say that our tv watching has started to plumb new lows. we've gotten semi-hooked on dr. drew's "sex rehab" on much music. it's the worst/best! the other "celebrity" (loosest possible definition of that term) rehabs are tough to watch because they're kind of depressing and harrowing because of the physical effects of withdrawal. but sex rehab just seems a lot sillier. even though when you start to get into the people's histories it gets really dark. so i think we're going to stop watching. also, dr. drew is the worst psychologist/psychiatrist ever. he gives you this really patronizing, faux-concerned, duck lip/nod combo that would make me turn TO an addiction, not FROM it.

fin.

what a lovely weekend

we were incredibly spoiled this weekend with much friends, food, and laughter. it was jam-packed but i'm glad we went to each and every thing on our packed roster - the quality of the company this weekend was unparalleled and i would have felts its absence keenly had we flaked out and bailed as we are generally wont to do.

saturday i worked steadily and busily - crafting a unified wrapping aesthetic for my xmas prezzies this year and working very hard to have a substantial chunk of my shopping done so that i might meet my self-imposed end of november deadline. looks like things are proceeding nicely! zellers was an unexpected and long-neglected ally - they have such cheap stuff! i couldn't believe it! so i zipped around and did errands and also bought myself a cheapie pair of hockey skates. last weekend's tottering around on the ice in my birkenstock clogs, gazing enviously at the dotytron's big bird form gliding on the ice at the arena made me hanker to revisit my own ice dancing past (i never danced on ice). the fact that there's an outdoor, public rink at the very bottom of our street was another incentive. post-work skating will definitely replace post-work running as my exercise of choice (i never ran after work). especially since skating lends itself to such plummy, norman rockwell delights as hot chocolate, mulled cider, and freshly baked cookies après skate (running lends itself to sweat, puffy face, and boredom).

saturday night we trooped over to L's house on the west side (did you know that keele is a place?!? and it's in the GTA and not like, mississauga?) and were treated to a moroccan feast - a chickpea and chopped salad thing, some sweet potatoes, some cold beets to start. followed by a chicken bastilla - flaky phyllo dusted with cinnamon wrapped around shredded warm, chicken, studded with the brightness and acidity of pomegranate seeds. i'd read about bastilla before but never tried it. i was never sure because it's always spoken of as a sweet, meat preparation and i wasn't sure that i'd be able to reconcile my expectations that a meet pastry be savory. it was delicious!

late at night (we were served the entrée at 11:30pm!) we tucked into steamed couscous with a lamb tagine, featuring lamb cooked into submission swimming in a saffron infused broth with chunks of tender zucchini and squash. it was so good! and how ambitious and brave of L to host 15 people at the innaugural saturday night supper club! we're going to miss next month's meeting but i think it's our turn to suggest a spot in january or february. bwong came too - he's got supper club written all over him. it was really fun - most of the ranks were made up of people we went to high school with and there was an easy camraderie as we caught up and talked. another person who was there was my friend, C's partner's brother, who i believe is dating L! small world!

speaking of which, shout outs to C and his family - they recently adopted an adorable little girl from china. i can't wait to meet her in person! how do i know C? he and my sis went to undergrad together - small world, six degrees, pay it forward, blah blah.

so despite the fact that the dotytron made up in whiskey what he was lacking in food whilst we waited for our late supper on saturday and was therefore suffering from a well-deserved hangover, we got ourselves up bright and early and went to school bakery and cafe i've reviewed school bakery before, but since my last time there, they have expanded their menu and serve most of their items on plates and not tiny iron skillets - improvement!

birthday girl C got the four cheese omelet soufflé with bacon, home fries and pepper biscuit. i nabbed a bite as the server was clearing the dishes away. yes, you heard that right. when the server was clearing away the used dishes i asked her if i could have the last bite from my friend's meal because you can take the girl out of the china but you can't take the china out of the girl.

the dotytron had the potato sausage omelet with melted brie, home fries, and pepper biscuit. i had a bite, it was good.

A had the blueberry pancakes. they looked really purty.


if you are me and you love hollandaise (which you would, because you would be me, and i love hollandaise like few other things) then you have a propensity to order benny whenever it appears on the menu. but if you were also me and you saw the words "toasted coconut pancakes with caramel sauce and whipped cream" you would find yourself faced with an epic quandary, maybe more epic than deciding between ribs and brisket. if you were me, you would try to find a reasonable solution to your quagmire and you would ask the server if it's possible to get a half order of the pancakes. you know, something seemly, ladylike, toward (ie. the opposite of untoward). when the server tells you that they don't do half orders, if you were me, you would then make the perfectly sensible solution to order a SIDE OF A FULL ORDER OF TOASTED COCONUT PANCAKES. especially if you were me and had just eaten a LAMB TAGINE LESS THAN 9 HOURS PREVIOUSLY. lol!

the eggs benny was nice - they make a very lemony hollandaise with a good amount of acidity - it's rare. i was less enthused to see the deli ham gracing my pepper biscuit but the egg was poached perfectly. i'm also a little less than impressed when i'm giving sweet potato homefries and there are not crusty bits. it's HARD to get crusty bits on sweet potatoes due to the high sugar/moisture content. they tend to cook quickly and mush up before they brown and crustify.

the pancakes were good, but as i later confirmed with A, we both agreed that it would be nice if the auxiliary flavour (in his case the blueberries and in mine the caramel) could be interspersed between the layers in the stack and not just poured on top because after you've eaten around the edges, the middle gets kind of dry and doughy.

either way, it's a pretty good spot - i'm more inclined to go back than i was the first time i went. although i really, really hate waiting in line for brunch. actually, the older i get, the more i really really hate waiting in line for anything.

then we headed over to lil' ugmos so that A & C could see the place and we met up with S and 3 who were there to drive my hair towards bangs-ville and do man stuff, respectively. 3 was a godsend. he basically worked his little keister off putting up the firefly pendant lamp which looks AMAZING over our crate and barrel dining room table, which thankfully, isn't too large for the space at all (i was getting worried for a bit). i think once we re-do the kitchen and open up the wall between the dining room and kitchen and put in the peninsula, it's going to be even MORE in proportion but right now you wouldn't think that the table was out of place. but i love love love my lamp! we just need to get a dimmer for it. and we went all privileged northern hemisphere and threw compact fluoros to the wind and put in filament bulbs because they look stunning in the glass globes.

S gave me the best hair cut ever. seriously, that girl is so talented. i look like a different person and got LOADS of compliments today. the key will be whether i can maintain it - but even if i can't - who cares? i had one glorious day of looking like a hot little kitten.

today was gangbusters at work, as per usual. oy. i'm part of way too many projects. i had lunch with dr. rei. my lunches with dr. rei make my work week. i'm skipping french class just to be able to go. we don't eat. we just get together and walk around and talk. i've gotten most of my xmas shopping done. i just need to get a few small things but otherwise, we're donezo.

tonight for dinner we had to get our health back on track after eating richness and fat all weekend. i made us red cabbage borscht with dilled sour cream and cheddar sage drop biscuits. the dotytron loves borscht. he got super excited when he found out we were eating it.

now i'm going to write more thank you cards. in the words of me, "stick a gun in me, i'm done."

fin.