fact: it is impossible to get up to the bridle path area in toronto (the playground and living room of the fantastically rich and fabulous) via the ttc without getting thoroughly confused and disoriented. people there just don't TAKE public transit, so what piecemeal service there is, runs like, every 30 minutes, making us poor plebes late.
the concept for the dotytron's spring concert at the private school that he really likes was "time warp", with each grade doing songs from a different decade and strung together with interludes about time scientists who kidnap this kid and take him to the different time periods. i admittedly give the dotytron a hard time, a lot of the time, because i don't think he does real work (lol!) and then i question why he comes home so zonked. last night was a great experience for the both of us - for me, it allowed me to see all the hours of hard work and the culmination of months of stress and wrangling and blood, sweat, and tears on his part; for him, because me having my epiphany means that i'm going to go a lot easier on him for the next little bit. lol!
the concert was THE CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. i missed the 50s number, but all i gotta say is the kindergarten class did the 80s. they sang "shout" by tears for fears and the little boys were dressed all 80s hair metal with fake tattoos, ripped jeans, etc and the little girls were straight early 80s madonna - with super high ponytails, banana clips, pink streaks, tutus and fingerless gloves. ZOMG. the best shiz ever. parents were losing their minds.
that school has a really high proportion of special needs kids - developmental delays, behavioural issues, autism, asperger's syndrome, etc and seeing the special needs kids singing and dancing brought tears to my eyes and made my heart explode with rainbows. i was sitting in the audience so i had the unique vantage point of overhearing parents say stuff like, "__ has NEVER sung that much at a school concert, ever" and it made me so proud of the dotytron and all his hard work and made me realize how much love parents have for their messed up kids.
i think one of the fears you have as someone who's contemplating parenthood, is that, nevermind the stuff you can screen for (nintendo ds, open neural tube defects, etc.), there's the stuff you can't imagine and fathom that might make your child's life really, really hard - stuff like autism, or asperger's or whathaveyou. that's definitely been one of my fears and a constant, niggling worry throughout this process of gestating the fatburger. but sitting in that room last night, watching parents of ALL the kids, videotaping rapturously, grinning from ear to ear, waving ecstatically at their kids mumbling and fidgeting and yelling into the microphone and talking AWAY from the audience, it really made me realize the power of parental love. parents LOVE their mucker kids with a fierceness that can bring tears to your eyes with the intensity and purity of it. heck, **I** love their mucker kids and that was the first time i'd seen some of them. they were so freakin' cute. granted, i always have been and always will be a champion of the underdog, but the deaf, severely physically and mentally challenged kid banging on the snare drum during the band's performance of the star wars theme was the BEST shiz i've ever seen in my life, hands down.
dr. rei took me out to lunch yesterday for all you can eat indian buffet, where we stuffed our faces and then stewed in a sag paneer and carb purgatory afterwards. i'm so lucky. every day i'm reminded of how lucky i am to have such loving, giving, generous, bright, and funny friends and family.
today i had an appointment with my audiologist. my hearing has IMPROVED since last year somehow, and i had near-perfect hearing - he said i don't have to come back for five years, or unless i notice something amiss. now i'm going to try to squeeze in a final coat of white paint on the one wall and finish packing and sorting out my stuff for my trip to nyc. i can't believe we're going! 5 glorious days away, with pingy and count chocula and my cook friends, and xtina and buns in one of the best cities in the world. i can't wait.
have a wonderful long weekend everyone.
fin.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
the tide is high
not so funny things, ian's grandpa (poppa) is in the hospital right now. we're waiting to hear back on some tests. we visited him tonight. he lucked out and is in the BLINGINGEST hospital of all time. flat screen tvs! wall-mounted, vertical cd player/radios in every room! the nurses don't kick you out when you show up past visiting hours (we got lost on the way there)! he seemed pretty comfortable and was in good spirits, so all we can do is wait. poppa totally tried to discourage us from coming out by saying that it was too far to drive and that we didn't have to come visit. typical old white person routine of not wanting to burden the younger folk. it's so weird.
chinese people are THE EXACT opposite of that. like, if anyone in my family goes in for surgery we're all supposed to take the week off of work and just BE READY to wait on them hand and foot. the chinese old person routine can basically be boiled down to, "i'm old and i've EARNED THE RIGHT to burden the younger folk, now come and do my bidding" which, in my opinion, is kind of the right way to go about things. damn straight you earned it!
on sunday night, at the supper club, we were dining with a bunch of cbc radio enthusiasts who were waxing poetic about the various shows and talking about getting star struck sitting next to cbc radio personalities. so tonight, on the way to visit poppa, the dotytron puts on cbc radio to see what the big deal is. faithful blog readers will know that i've conducted independent lagerfeld cbc tolerance field experiments before. so we finally find the station and it's this woman interviewing the irish president or some shiat about suing that google street cam for invasion of privacy. FOR HALF AN HOUR. listening to it was seriously making me nauseous. i can kind of understand the appeal of say, npr, because then you get folks like david sedaris and al franken and whatnot. plus shows like "this american life" and general funny stuff mixed in with political tidbits. i DO NOT need to hear some irish shacker who doesn't know ANYTHING about the legal/philosophical/political issues being interviewed by the BORINGEST WOMAN ALIVE for THIRTY MINUTES. crikes. i feel like that's the problem with cbc. they spend too long talking to shackers on a surface level about stuff that's uninteresting. all i need is a soundbite: "irish president suing google over alleged privacy law violations in summer 2009 with google street cam" DONE. there you have it. or i need to hear someone like, i dunno, paul virilio or like, zizek talking about. NOT SHACKERS INTERVIEWED BY SHACKERS.
the thing is, if you're not going to give me the level of contextual analysis i need, then i really need you to condense it to a soundbite.
ugh. so finally, when i felt like i was going to barf, i switched it to our new favorite radio station, 97.3 BOOM (formerly CHEZ). it's THE BEST. so i interrupted irish mcgee and cut to this:
immediately, it was like, hands in the air, air snaps, good times a rollin'. i dunno. i don't really feel like i know less about what's going on than people who listen to the cbc. and i have way more hits from the 70s, 80s, and 90s in my life. so i kind of feel like i win?
as we were zooming along the queensway, after circling a bunch of times, and we're like in deep etobicoke/mississauga, we passed a rather desolate stretch and were getting more and more tense, worrying that we were going to drive for 45 minutes and miss visiting hours. then the dotytron suddenly points at a store on the left and goes, "hey, that's where edgar's is" (edgar's is a store that apparently sells his weird yerba mate drink) then he points to the right and goes, "and there's where michael ignatieff lives" (pointing at michael ignatieff's constituency office in a seedy stripmall) lol!
there have been some other random funny things lately, but i can't remember. we ate out tonight, out of laziness and desire to get a quick meal in us before heading out to visit poppa.
tomorrow i'm hopefully going to be able to see the dotytron's spring concert. i'm super-pumped to see the results of his work!
two more sleeps until nyc! getting so excited. my friend who is now the butcher at per se invited me to go to the greenmarket with him early saturday morning, and then offered to give me a behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant! so lucky! i hope that happens. i'll OF COURSE post a ZILLION photos.
tomorrow is my last day of work before my extended long weekend! wahoo! i've got a tonne of loose ends to tie up, though. boo. but dr. rei is taking me out to lunch! wahoo! and our couch gets delivered on thursday! wahoo! but i've got to spend all morning at mount sinai waiting for my hearing appointment. boo. and i should probably try to fit in another coat of white paint on the walls. boo. and finalize arrangements with the roomie for checking in on the cats. boo. and i haven't packed yet. boo.
fin.
chinese people are THE EXACT opposite of that. like, if anyone in my family goes in for surgery we're all supposed to take the week off of work and just BE READY to wait on them hand and foot. the chinese old person routine can basically be boiled down to, "i'm old and i've EARNED THE RIGHT to burden the younger folk, now come and do my bidding" which, in my opinion, is kind of the right way to go about things. damn straight you earned it!
on sunday night, at the supper club, we were dining with a bunch of cbc radio enthusiasts who were waxing poetic about the various shows and talking about getting star struck sitting next to cbc radio personalities. so tonight, on the way to visit poppa, the dotytron puts on cbc radio to see what the big deal is. faithful blog readers will know that i've conducted independent lagerfeld cbc tolerance field experiments before. so we finally find the station and it's this woman interviewing the irish president or some shiat about suing that google street cam for invasion of privacy. FOR HALF AN HOUR. listening to it was seriously making me nauseous. i can kind of understand the appeal of say, npr, because then you get folks like david sedaris and al franken and whatnot. plus shows like "this american life" and general funny stuff mixed in with political tidbits. i DO NOT need to hear some irish shacker who doesn't know ANYTHING about the legal/philosophical/political issues being interviewed by the BORINGEST WOMAN ALIVE for THIRTY MINUTES. crikes. i feel like that's the problem with cbc. they spend too long talking to shackers on a surface level about stuff that's uninteresting. all i need is a soundbite: "irish president suing google over alleged privacy law violations in summer 2009 with google street cam" DONE. there you have it. or i need to hear someone like, i dunno, paul virilio or like, zizek talking about. NOT SHACKERS INTERVIEWED BY SHACKERS.
the thing is, if you're not going to give me the level of contextual analysis i need, then i really need you to condense it to a soundbite.
ugh. so finally, when i felt like i was going to barf, i switched it to our new favorite radio station, 97.3 BOOM (formerly CHEZ). it's THE BEST. so i interrupted irish mcgee and cut to this:
immediately, it was like, hands in the air, air snaps, good times a rollin'. i dunno. i don't really feel like i know less about what's going on than people who listen to the cbc. and i have way more hits from the 70s, 80s, and 90s in my life. so i kind of feel like i win?
as we were zooming along the queensway, after circling a bunch of times, and we're like in deep etobicoke/mississauga, we passed a rather desolate stretch and were getting more and more tense, worrying that we were going to drive for 45 minutes and miss visiting hours. then the dotytron suddenly points at a store on the left and goes, "hey, that's where edgar's is" (edgar's is a store that apparently sells his weird yerba mate drink) then he points to the right and goes, "and there's where michael ignatieff lives" (pointing at michael ignatieff's constituency office in a seedy stripmall) lol!
there have been some other random funny things lately, but i can't remember. we ate out tonight, out of laziness and desire to get a quick meal in us before heading out to visit poppa.
tomorrow i'm hopefully going to be able to see the dotytron's spring concert. i'm super-pumped to see the results of his work!
two more sleeps until nyc! getting so excited. my friend who is now the butcher at per se invited me to go to the greenmarket with him early saturday morning, and then offered to give me a behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant! so lucky! i hope that happens. i'll OF COURSE post a ZILLION photos.
tomorrow is my last day of work before my extended long weekend! wahoo! i've got a tonne of loose ends to tie up, though. boo. but dr. rei is taking me out to lunch! wahoo! and our couch gets delivered on thursday! wahoo! but i've got to spend all morning at mount sinai waiting for my hearing appointment. boo. and i should probably try to fit in another coat of white paint on the walls. boo. and finalize arrangements with the roomie for checking in on the cats. boo. and i haven't packed yet. boo.
fin.
Monday, May 17, 2010
i'm gonna be a great dad
i spent all of yesterday doing fun, house-chores type stuff like making a batch of chicken soup for the dotytron, who is capable of psychosomatic-ing/manifest destiny-ing illness at the slightest provocation or in response to any perceived stress. i also prepped and painted the white wall in the dining room, edging and giving it 2 coats. i also puttied up a hole that resulted from us moving a picture, tidied, dusted, and supervised the installation of new shelving in the bathroom. it was IMMENSELY satisfying, even if sunday will go down in infamy as the time the dotytron made his preggos wife paint the dining room by herself. any time i can wear my home depot painting hat:
and walk around with a measuring tape and level and prep a room for painting and otherwise work on the house on the kind of gorgeous, hot, early-summer day that makes everyone else play hooky from house stuff and flock outside in droves, is a good day. i was seriously born to be a dad. i'm totally going to be angry dad sports team coach. or, futzing around the house in overalls dad. the dotytron has generously offered to step up and be the mom, which is kind of awesome.
here are my painting rules for success. the first rule is really, SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS. which means do all the boring prep work and make sure you have all the tools so that when you're ready to go, you're READY TO GO and all you have to do is paint:
1) USE THE 3M BLUE PAINTERS TAPE. green tape is poo. don't even bother. you're just throwing money away.
2) get one of the paint can plastic lip things:
- you stick it to the edge of the can and then it curves around and lets you get a clean pour
3) get a paint can opener:
4) tape down your drop cloths and do all the boring taping (note: i'm assuming that most people are NOT like me and find taping supremely boring - i am a freak that loves doing this kind of prep work)
5) have all your tools out and ready to go
saturday night was the funnest. we hitched a ride with lolls to kdubs and had a FEAST OF EPIC PROPORTIONS including: grilled sausages, chicken breast, veggie burgers, portobello mushrooms, vegetables, red quinoa salad, asparagus risotto, orzo salad, bacon-wrapped grilled jalepeno poppers, green salad, macaroni salad, chocolate hazelnut mousse cake, and key lime pie. it was so the best. there was also a spirited discussion on the proper use of the semi-colon and hair cuts. lolls also played the marriage ref for me and the dotytron on the way home. it was cute.
however, we got home super-late and i've been battling a low-grade headache and feeling like i need to sleep like, all the time since friday, so i was a bad daughter and bailed on my mum for brunch. i was supposed to take her to the black hoof for breakkie but i knew we'd have to leave the house super-early to get a table and i needed the extra sleep. she was very cute and sweet about it though...even though she woke up at 7AM ON A SUNDAY to make sure she got downtown in time! lol.
this was sunday breakkie:
a bacon, egg, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and mayo sammie on a whole wheat kaiser.
later in the afternoon our buddy L came over to help measure our kitchen and help us conceptualize how the redesign might go. then our supper club met for dinner. i suggested queen margherita pizza. the dotytron got the prix fixe and i got just a pizza. the good news is: they've improved on the bread situation. this time the bread came out and it was nicely toasted and was of a better quality than the tuesday night visit. he started with the capicollo appetizer, which had 2 strips of capicollo, a small pile of diced roasted peppers, and a small pile of olives:
this appetizer was kind of ill-conceived and poorly executed. the peppers were cold and the portion was kind of small. i much enjoyed the ricotta with honey and the potatoes, sausage, and peppers from last tuesday. i can appreciate that they want to change the apps every day, but i kind of think that they should make sure they have a roster of like, 3 or 4 equally good ones, first.
the dotytron got a pizza that was supposed to have spicy sausage, olives, and tomatoes, but was absent the sausage and with no good reason or explanation:
i got the pizza quattro formaggio with funghi, which was curiously absent the funghi:
mine was really good though. the four cheeses (ricotta, fior di latte, gorgonzola, and something else) really melded together nicely. the advertised mushrooms would have definitely added to the dish, but they weren't missed. what WAS missed was the complete lack of acknowledgement that they were supposed to be there in the first place!
the dotytron picked an arugala and pomegranate seed salad for his post-pizza salad:
i have to say, the prix fixe is A LOT of food. the pizzas are pretty big (12") and very filling. i ended up getting a nondescript panna cotta for dessert, served with a strawberry water.
tonight i was working the late shift at work which means i packed my dinner. it was the aforementioned chicken vegetable soup and that moroccan potato, pepper and egg sandwich with harissa that i make:
fin.
and walk around with a measuring tape and level and prep a room for painting and otherwise work on the house on the kind of gorgeous, hot, early-summer day that makes everyone else play hooky from house stuff and flock outside in droves, is a good day. i was seriously born to be a dad. i'm totally going to be angry dad sports team coach. or, futzing around the house in overalls dad. the dotytron has generously offered to step up and be the mom, which is kind of awesome.here are my painting rules for success. the first rule is really, SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS. which means do all the boring prep work and make sure you have all the tools so that when you're ready to go, you're READY TO GO and all you have to do is paint:
1) USE THE 3M BLUE PAINTERS TAPE. green tape is poo. don't even bother. you're just throwing money away.
2) get one of the paint can plastic lip things:
- you stick it to the edge of the can and then it curves around and lets you get a clean pour3) get a paint can opener:
4) tape down your drop cloths and do all the boring taping (note: i'm assuming that most people are NOT like me and find taping supremely boring - i am a freak that loves doing this kind of prep work)
5) have all your tools out and ready to go
saturday night was the funnest. we hitched a ride with lolls to kdubs and had a FEAST OF EPIC PROPORTIONS including: grilled sausages, chicken breast, veggie burgers, portobello mushrooms, vegetables, red quinoa salad, asparagus risotto, orzo salad, bacon-wrapped grilled jalepeno poppers, green salad, macaroni salad, chocolate hazelnut mousse cake, and key lime pie. it was so the best. there was also a spirited discussion on the proper use of the semi-colon and hair cuts. lolls also played the marriage ref for me and the dotytron on the way home. it was cute.
however, we got home super-late and i've been battling a low-grade headache and feeling like i need to sleep like, all the time since friday, so i was a bad daughter and bailed on my mum for brunch. i was supposed to take her to the black hoof for breakkie but i knew we'd have to leave the house super-early to get a table and i needed the extra sleep. she was very cute and sweet about it though...even though she woke up at 7AM ON A SUNDAY to make sure she got downtown in time! lol.
this was sunday breakkie:
later in the afternoon our buddy L came over to help measure our kitchen and help us conceptualize how the redesign might go. then our supper club met for dinner. i suggested queen margherita pizza. the dotytron got the prix fixe and i got just a pizza. the good news is: they've improved on the bread situation. this time the bread came out and it was nicely toasted and was of a better quality than the tuesday night visit. he started with the capicollo appetizer, which had 2 strips of capicollo, a small pile of diced roasted peppers, and a small pile of olives:
the dotytron got a pizza that was supposed to have spicy sausage, olives, and tomatoes, but was absent the sausage and with no good reason or explanation:
i got the pizza quattro formaggio with funghi, which was curiously absent the funghi:
the dotytron picked an arugala and pomegranate seed salad for his post-pizza salad:
i have to say, the prix fixe is A LOT of food. the pizzas are pretty big (12") and very filling. i ended up getting a nondescript panna cotta for dessert, served with a strawberry water.tonight i was working the late shift at work which means i packed my dinner. it was the aforementioned chicken vegetable soup and that moroccan potato, pepper and egg sandwich with harissa that i make:
fin.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
mental health day
i took a mental health/warding off sickness day yesterday. the dotytron is convinced he's coming down with strep throat and thus far, 2nd tri is kind of kicking my ass in the "wanting to sleep 10000000 hours a day/no motivation/feeling logey department" i've also been suppressing all these worries and concerns and not really dealing with my own ambivalence about parenthood, which is manifesting itself in a lot of stress and headaches and falling asleep at my desk at work.
the long and short of it is: i've never been the person who's KNOWN that they want to be a parent and to raise a child. in fact, i've actually veered in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction. i've campaigned actively against marriage and the nuclear family and then somehow found myself doing both in the space of a year. there still is a part of me that hasn't ruled out secretly divorcing the dotytron just so that i can keep my political praxis intact. anyway, everyone is always so stupid-happy for you when you tell them you're preggos that i feel like there isn't even a space for you to voice your own misgivings. like, it's a G-D effin' miracle and any word otherwise makes you seem like a really bad, selfish, person who spitting in the face of evolution and our own primordial genetic imperative.
the only thing(s) that made me start to waver on my position were seeing my niece and nephew and how freakin' amazing they are and how much i love them - that kind of made me feel like i might just want to buy into this whole reproductional ponzi scheme. and also knowing the dotytron and how good he is with the chillun's and how he's going to be a super-fantastico pater familias and how who am i to deny him that?!?
so i'm a hormonal, bad parent-to-be mess right now. talking to the roomie has definitely helped - she assures me that a lot of people feel the way i do - it's just not vocalized much and put into the public sphere much. she also feels guilty because she thinks that a lot of my concerns and hypochondria are stemming from her time living with us and how i know entirely too much about all the things that can go wrong with the whole process. i've been denied the opportunity for the whole ignorance is bliss thing. talking to dr. rei has helped too, although her encouragement is a little less founded in knowledge (ie. she doesn't know what a preemie is) and more in the blind faith that you want in a bestie.
ANYWAY, yesterday i couldn't face the idea of going into work and staring at my computer when all i wanted to do was hide under the covers and not face the world. so i stayed home, slept a tonne, did some small errands, and then made new drapes for the living room, in anticipation of the new couch being delivered on wednesday. this means that on wednesday night, while the dotytron was plugging away at his school stuff, i rearranged the living room, including moving our fully loaded ikea 4x4 expedit, by myself. i think it looks good. it'll look a little full, but still good.
last night we met up with uncle stevie and went to eat sushi at sushi delight. then we came home and caught up on "top chef masters" and passed out. the dotytron thinks he's coming down with strep throat.
today the plan is for me to hook up with our buddy B and go to this arab grocery store, arz, in scarborough, and then prep the dining room and maybe paint the one white wall. then we're heading over to tillers and J's in the kdubs for a bbq/potluck in honour of their pimpin' new bathroom (heated floors!) i made a macaroni salad, based on the dinosaur bbq recipe. i think i might also bring a spinach salad and i'm definitely also bringing a chocolate-hazelnut mousse cake. funzies! the dotytron has a lot of work and is battling sickness so he may or may not be joining me. his loss.
fin.
the long and short of it is: i've never been the person who's KNOWN that they want to be a parent and to raise a child. in fact, i've actually veered in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction. i've campaigned actively against marriage and the nuclear family and then somehow found myself doing both in the space of a year. there still is a part of me that hasn't ruled out secretly divorcing the dotytron just so that i can keep my political praxis intact. anyway, everyone is always so stupid-happy for you when you tell them you're preggos that i feel like there isn't even a space for you to voice your own misgivings. like, it's a G-D effin' miracle and any word otherwise makes you seem like a really bad, selfish, person who spitting in the face of evolution and our own primordial genetic imperative.
the only thing(s) that made me start to waver on my position were seeing my niece and nephew and how freakin' amazing they are and how much i love them - that kind of made me feel like i might just want to buy into this whole reproductional ponzi scheme. and also knowing the dotytron and how good he is with the chillun's and how he's going to be a super-fantastico pater familias and how who am i to deny him that?!?
so i'm a hormonal, bad parent-to-be mess right now. talking to the roomie has definitely helped - she assures me that a lot of people feel the way i do - it's just not vocalized much and put into the public sphere much. she also feels guilty because she thinks that a lot of my concerns and hypochondria are stemming from her time living with us and how i know entirely too much about all the things that can go wrong with the whole process. i've been denied the opportunity for the whole ignorance is bliss thing. talking to dr. rei has helped too, although her encouragement is a little less founded in knowledge (ie. she doesn't know what a preemie is) and more in the blind faith that you want in a bestie.
ANYWAY, yesterday i couldn't face the idea of going into work and staring at my computer when all i wanted to do was hide under the covers and not face the world. so i stayed home, slept a tonne, did some small errands, and then made new drapes for the living room, in anticipation of the new couch being delivered on wednesday. this means that on wednesday night, while the dotytron was plugging away at his school stuff, i rearranged the living room, including moving our fully loaded ikea 4x4 expedit, by myself. i think it looks good. it'll look a little full, but still good.
last night we met up with uncle stevie and went to eat sushi at sushi delight. then we came home and caught up on "top chef masters" and passed out. the dotytron thinks he's coming down with strep throat.
today the plan is for me to hook up with our buddy B and go to this arab grocery store, arz, in scarborough, and then prep the dining room and maybe paint the one white wall. then we're heading over to tillers and J's in the kdubs for a bbq/potluck in honour of their pimpin' new bathroom (heated floors!) i made a macaroni salad, based on the dinosaur bbq recipe. i think i might also bring a spinach salad and i'm definitely also bringing a chocolate-hazelnut mousse cake. funzies! the dotytron has a lot of work and is battling sickness so he may or may not be joining me. his loss.
fin.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
things that aren't normal
1) why am i so obsessed with teen love?!? like, shouldn't i be way past the point of re-reading the scene in the e. lockhart ruby oliver books where the protagonist, ruby oliver, finally kisses her crush object, noel duboise, after a series of high school emotionally overblown, ramped up dramas? i'm an old lady! why do i get that giddy rush of hormonal, wacked-out impulsive bliss at reading a FICTIONAL kissing scene?!? how do i even have ACCESS to that emotional state anymore? isn't that the domain of teenagers and teenagers only and never a 30-something year old shall pass?!? why am i contemplating re-watching "veronica mars" season 1 again to rejoice in THE BEST TEENAGE KISSING SCENE OF ALL TIME?!? am i messed? how am i ready to potentially be a parent? how far am i away from being THIS:
and before you too-quickly leap to the defense of my inner-teenager, in the interests of full disclosure i should be truthful and tell you that i just added denim cut-off shorts to my "must-buy" list:
notwithstanding the fact that my legs are WAY thicker and stumpier than that gamine model's - WHO WANTS TO SEE A FAT, WADDLING, PREGGOS LADY IN DENIM CUT-OFFS AND A SUPER-THIN, GAUZY, AMERICAN APPAREL T?!??!
also, I REMEMBER WHAT HIGH SCHOOL WAS LIKE (kinda.) it was messy. lots of upheaval and social anxieties and situations rife with potential earth-swallowing humiliation. why do i like going back there? maybe cuz it was a simpler time. maybe cuz thinking about whether or not you've got the grades to go to university and handing in ONE THOUSAND WORD independent study project and feeling the dizzying swell of lust when your crush walks by (a crush that you will subsequently, in later, saner years, renounce with every fiber of your being) is way easier than having to call contractors to get quotes and thinking about your hefty mortgage and dealing with the protracted, shifting, testy realities of a long term relationship where you're preoccupied with building and sustaining a LIFE together. i dunno. maybe.
alls i gotta say is: bring on logan echolls. bring on noel duboise. bring on dexter from sarah dessen's "this lullaby"
2) past and passed
after 30-something years of having the two straight, lately, whenever i have to write "past" or "passed" i have to spend a good minute or two thinking about which one i should be CORRECTLY employing. that's messed, right?
3) the internet is NOT your friend when you're incubating a fatburger. all i do is stress that spumante is underweight and that i should be showing more and reading up on pre-eclampsia and preemies and not having enough amniotic fluid and it's enough to make you go crazy. like, who are these people who are incredibly ELATED AND FILLED WITH JOY AND HAPPINESS at the impending arrival of what (to me) is going to be a black hole of all my neuroses and worries?!??!!!
4) the fat little weirdo chronicles continueth
yesterday was a BAD BAD BAD eating day. like, epically bad. first off, allow me to say that i'm NEVER EVER EVER EVER going to eat the "big breakfast" at work again. it makes you feel like hell. it's pretty basic: 2 eggs, 4 pieces of sausage or bacon, 2 of those hash browns like what mcdonald's has, and 2 pieces of toast, for a ridiculous price like $4 something with an 8 oz coffee or tea. i LOVE those hash browns so i finally worked up the nerve to ask our frequently stressed and disgruntled caf cook if i could sub 2 extra hash browns for the toast. and he said yes. which means i ate FOUR hash browns. and then felt unbelievably thirsty, cranky, and stomach-churningly full for the next 3 hours. at least until lunch. just when i was starting to reach a state of gastrointestinal equilibrium, i went with the girls to hernando's hideaway, where i scarfed down 4 flautas - filled with spicy chicken. then felt like hell again. then went for a too-short massage then ordered A THREE PIECE MEAL DEAL, A SIDE OF MACARONI & CHEESE, AND A DEEP FRIED APPLE PIE from popeye's. that's SICK. no wonder i've been feeling unmotivated and groggy.
i haven't run in at least a week and i have no inclination to do so. i haven't done any yoga either so i'm generally a sluggish, sore, tense, linguistically confused, worrying mass of teenage lust.
it's bizarre.
dodgeball game tonight should hopefully set things back on course.
fin.
and before you too-quickly leap to the defense of my inner-teenager, in the interests of full disclosure i should be truthful and tell you that i just added denim cut-off shorts to my "must-buy" list:notwithstanding the fact that my legs are WAY thicker and stumpier than that gamine model's - WHO WANTS TO SEE A FAT, WADDLING, PREGGOS LADY IN DENIM CUT-OFFS AND A SUPER-THIN, GAUZY, AMERICAN APPAREL T?!??!
also, I REMEMBER WHAT HIGH SCHOOL WAS LIKE (kinda.) it was messy. lots of upheaval and social anxieties and situations rife with potential earth-swallowing humiliation. why do i like going back there? maybe cuz it was a simpler time. maybe cuz thinking about whether or not you've got the grades to go to university and handing in ONE THOUSAND WORD independent study project and feeling the dizzying swell of lust when your crush walks by (a crush that you will subsequently, in later, saner years, renounce with every fiber of your being) is way easier than having to call contractors to get quotes and thinking about your hefty mortgage and dealing with the protracted, shifting, testy realities of a long term relationship where you're preoccupied with building and sustaining a LIFE together. i dunno. maybe.
alls i gotta say is: bring on logan echolls. bring on noel duboise. bring on dexter from sarah dessen's "this lullaby"
2) past and passed
after 30-something years of having the two straight, lately, whenever i have to write "past" or "passed" i have to spend a good minute or two thinking about which one i should be CORRECTLY employing. that's messed, right?
3) the internet is NOT your friend when you're incubating a fatburger. all i do is stress that spumante is underweight and that i should be showing more and reading up on pre-eclampsia and preemies and not having enough amniotic fluid and it's enough to make you go crazy. like, who are these people who are incredibly ELATED AND FILLED WITH JOY AND HAPPINESS at the impending arrival of what (to me) is going to be a black hole of all my neuroses and worries?!??!!!
4) the fat little weirdo chronicles continueth
yesterday was a BAD BAD BAD eating day. like, epically bad. first off, allow me to say that i'm NEVER EVER EVER EVER going to eat the "big breakfast" at work again. it makes you feel like hell. it's pretty basic: 2 eggs, 4 pieces of sausage or bacon, 2 of those hash browns like what mcdonald's has, and 2 pieces of toast, for a ridiculous price like $4 something with an 8 oz coffee or tea. i LOVE those hash browns so i finally worked up the nerve to ask our frequently stressed and disgruntled caf cook if i could sub 2 extra hash browns for the toast. and he said yes. which means i ate FOUR hash browns. and then felt unbelievably thirsty, cranky, and stomach-churningly full for the next 3 hours. at least until lunch. just when i was starting to reach a state of gastrointestinal equilibrium, i went with the girls to hernando's hideaway, where i scarfed down 4 flautas - filled with spicy chicken. then felt like hell again. then went for a too-short massage then ordered A THREE PIECE MEAL DEAL, A SIDE OF MACARONI & CHEESE, AND A DEEP FRIED APPLE PIE from popeye's. that's SICK. no wonder i've been feeling unmotivated and groggy.
i haven't run in at least a week and i have no inclination to do so. i haven't done any yoga either so i'm generally a sluggish, sore, tense, linguistically confused, worrying mass of teenage lust.
it's bizarre.
dodgeball game tonight should hopefully set things back on course.
fin.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
no motivation, zero energy
that's pretty much me right now. last night i went to bed at 8:00pm. more correctly, i passed out while re-reading e. lockhart's "ruby oliver" series of young adult fiction (that i adore more than life itself) huddled under an afghan in my freezing cold living room only to wake up an hour later with a crick in my neck and a cloudy mind. i managed to haul myself through the wet wool torpor that made my limbs and consciousness sodden and sluggish upstairs whereupon i announced to the dotytron in as pathetic a voice as i could muster that, "i don't feel so good" and then threw off my clothes and curled under the covers only to wake again at 6:00am this morning when the alarm went off.
on the plus side, i managed to pick up a whole new slew of paint chips for the dining room and they're much more promising. i just have to muster the courage to actually see my vision through and go a deep, dark, green-y teal/turquoise on the walls. 3 walls will be that colour and one wall will be white. technically, it's not even 3 full walls, as 1 of the walls has the archway into the living room and the other wall is mostly the window. do i have the nads to go dark, jewel tones in the dining room? stay tuned and find out!
anything has to be better than the namby pamby slightly too-blue/grey combo we have in there. ugh.
i've read a tonne of books lately, but i have no motivation to review them. i somehow convinced my academic book club (which i'm hosting - eek!) to read "twilight" by stephenie meyer. lol! we'll see how they do. there was some resistance but i'm like, ladies - let's find out what this is all about, shall we? having them come over in the second week of june is giving me a very fixed deadline to work towards in terms of getting the dining room ready. hopefully couch numero dos gets here in time, too. there's nothing like having a whack of people over to get your jazzed to get your house ready.
tonight we had dinner with the roomie at queen margherita pizza. i forgot my camera because forgetting things is part of my life at the moment and i've made peace with it. i have another opportunity to capture the chewy-crusted goodness on sunday as we're taking the supper club there. my capsule review is very favorable. they push the prix fixe on you but will allow you to order pizzas a la carte. some of the pizza topping combinations are lacking (plus one, libretto) but most hardcore pizza heads will tell you that pizza is ultimately about the sauce and the crust. the crust is pretty damn amazing. it's not as uniformly thin as libretto's but to me, has a more textbook correct brawny, puffy chew to it, with some nice char spots on the underside. it's more reminiscent of the naples-style pizza we had in florence (which i know is a locovore/slow foodist's nightmare, but i didn't go to naples, so suck it, aight?)
l'army couldn't make it so we ordered 2 à la carte pizzas and 2 prix fixe. first they brought out terrible, terrible bread. like, IGA generic "baguette" bread - tight, snow-white crumb, no flavour, etc. with olive oil and balsamic to make a slurry for dipping. i'm not particularly fond of dipping my bread in olive oil and balsamic under the best of circumstances and when it's crappy bread, i'm even less inclined. i don't know why they don't just send out pieces of their pizza dough - straight from the wood-fired oven.
one of our antipasti was sausage, red peppers and potatoes which is exactly as it sounds - fluffy skinless yukon gold potato chunks, big pieces of denuded fennel-flecked italian sausage and strips of red pepper in a jolly melange. this was very tasty. the other was buffalo milk ricotta with chopped pecans, cranberries, and honey. we all felt that the ricotta was delicious with the accoutrements, minus the honey - which made everything taste like honey instead of letting the milky sweetness of the ricotta shine through. plus, the cranberries provide a lovely sweet-tart counterpoint, you don't need the heavy, treacly hand of honey on a dish that delicate - throws the whole balance off.
when the pizzas arrived we passed slices around so that we got to try all four. the dotytron's pizza was the best - it had italian sausage, cheese, tomato sauce. the other fantastic thing about queen margherita is the sauce. full of pulpy, bright tomato flavour. i can't remember what the sauce at libretto tasted like. i got a vegetarian pizza that was okay, the roomie went off the rails and got a smoked salmon pizza with mascarpone that was pretty bad (but i don't really think a neapolitan style pizza place should even have smoked salmon pizza on the menu anyway), and we tried l'army's which had proscuitto cotto and olives. i will say the topping combinations at libretto are better - but again, i think if margherita dialed it back to just a few basic topping combinations, they would knock it out of the park. scrap the smoked salmon (ugh), don't do a vegetarian if you've already got the margherita, limit your topping numbers to 3. on the strength of the crust and the sauce alone, i think margherita has libretto beat.
libretto has a more extensive menu though, so they get points for that, but they're also in one of the most annoying neighbourhoods in toronto, so minus points. ultimately, margherita will win because they're a 5 minute walk from my house, they take resos, and no pizza in the world is so good that it warrants a 2 hour wait. and the crust and sauce at margherita are insanely good. you just have to pick your pizza judiciously. i think on sunday i'm going to go the classico route and order a margherita pizza - the pizza standard.
the prix fixe follows up your pizza with a salad, in this case a mixed greens with a honey drizzled pear. the dressing was pretty ace - vinegary and sweet at the same time.
we also split a dessert, "nonna's" tiramisu which apparently is ACTUALLY made by "rocco's" nonna. it was good - boozy and light. points off for the highly unorthodox whipped cream topping. additional points off for being a saucerfull of tiramisu for 7 dollars.
i'll post pics on sunday (if i remember to bring my camera).
here's an installment that we haven't had in a while:
roll call of awesome:
dan style's art prints - available here:
the world maps from these are things:
i love futura font. i think the aqua print would look great in the fatburger's room (or even ours), but we just bought this ork poster toronto print in black and white for the big wall leading up the stairs:
so i feel like the hyper-masculine black and silver one would go better with the colour story i'm developing there. i'm thinking black and greys against the pale-pale grey wall with some black and white significant photos hung with bulldog clips.
this light shade is pretty boss. it's also $950 (excluding delivery)
wylie dufresne. so awesome. we've been watching "top chef masters" and i just love his little face and his mannerisms and the fact that he uses thomas' english muffins in the deconstructed eggs benedict dish at his restaurant wd-50 because he says there's nothing better (and i totally agree - thomas' english muffins are THE BEST.) i think he's super-talented, inspiring, and still totally approachable, unlike cerebro weirdos like grant achatz.
fin.
on the plus side, i managed to pick up a whole new slew of paint chips for the dining room and they're much more promising. i just have to muster the courage to actually see my vision through and go a deep, dark, green-y teal/turquoise on the walls. 3 walls will be that colour and one wall will be white. technically, it's not even 3 full walls, as 1 of the walls has the archway into the living room and the other wall is mostly the window. do i have the nads to go dark, jewel tones in the dining room? stay tuned and find out!
anything has to be better than the namby pamby slightly too-blue/grey combo we have in there. ugh.
i've read a tonne of books lately, but i have no motivation to review them. i somehow convinced my academic book club (which i'm hosting - eek!) to read "twilight" by stephenie meyer. lol! we'll see how they do. there was some resistance but i'm like, ladies - let's find out what this is all about, shall we? having them come over in the second week of june is giving me a very fixed deadline to work towards in terms of getting the dining room ready. hopefully couch numero dos gets here in time, too. there's nothing like having a whack of people over to get your jazzed to get your house ready.
tonight we had dinner with the roomie at queen margherita pizza. i forgot my camera because forgetting things is part of my life at the moment and i've made peace with it. i have another opportunity to capture the chewy-crusted goodness on sunday as we're taking the supper club there. my capsule review is very favorable. they push the prix fixe on you but will allow you to order pizzas a la carte. some of the pizza topping combinations are lacking (plus one, libretto) but most hardcore pizza heads will tell you that pizza is ultimately about the sauce and the crust. the crust is pretty damn amazing. it's not as uniformly thin as libretto's but to me, has a more textbook correct brawny, puffy chew to it, with some nice char spots on the underside. it's more reminiscent of the naples-style pizza we had in florence (which i know is a locovore/slow foodist's nightmare, but i didn't go to naples, so suck it, aight?)
l'army couldn't make it so we ordered 2 à la carte pizzas and 2 prix fixe. first they brought out terrible, terrible bread. like, IGA generic "baguette" bread - tight, snow-white crumb, no flavour, etc. with olive oil and balsamic to make a slurry for dipping. i'm not particularly fond of dipping my bread in olive oil and balsamic under the best of circumstances and when it's crappy bread, i'm even less inclined. i don't know why they don't just send out pieces of their pizza dough - straight from the wood-fired oven.
one of our antipasti was sausage, red peppers and potatoes which is exactly as it sounds - fluffy skinless yukon gold potato chunks, big pieces of denuded fennel-flecked italian sausage and strips of red pepper in a jolly melange. this was very tasty. the other was buffalo milk ricotta with chopped pecans, cranberries, and honey. we all felt that the ricotta was delicious with the accoutrements, minus the honey - which made everything taste like honey instead of letting the milky sweetness of the ricotta shine through. plus, the cranberries provide a lovely sweet-tart counterpoint, you don't need the heavy, treacly hand of honey on a dish that delicate - throws the whole balance off.
when the pizzas arrived we passed slices around so that we got to try all four. the dotytron's pizza was the best - it had italian sausage, cheese, tomato sauce. the other fantastic thing about queen margherita is the sauce. full of pulpy, bright tomato flavour. i can't remember what the sauce at libretto tasted like. i got a vegetarian pizza that was okay, the roomie went off the rails and got a smoked salmon pizza with mascarpone that was pretty bad (but i don't really think a neapolitan style pizza place should even have smoked salmon pizza on the menu anyway), and we tried l'army's which had proscuitto cotto and olives. i will say the topping combinations at libretto are better - but again, i think if margherita dialed it back to just a few basic topping combinations, they would knock it out of the park. scrap the smoked salmon (ugh), don't do a vegetarian if you've already got the margherita, limit your topping numbers to 3. on the strength of the crust and the sauce alone, i think margherita has libretto beat.
libretto has a more extensive menu though, so they get points for that, but they're also in one of the most annoying neighbourhoods in toronto, so minus points. ultimately, margherita will win because they're a 5 minute walk from my house, they take resos, and no pizza in the world is so good that it warrants a 2 hour wait. and the crust and sauce at margherita are insanely good. you just have to pick your pizza judiciously. i think on sunday i'm going to go the classico route and order a margherita pizza - the pizza standard.
the prix fixe follows up your pizza with a salad, in this case a mixed greens with a honey drizzled pear. the dressing was pretty ace - vinegary and sweet at the same time.
we also split a dessert, "nonna's" tiramisu which apparently is ACTUALLY made by "rocco's" nonna. it was good - boozy and light. points off for the highly unorthodox whipped cream topping. additional points off for being a saucerfull of tiramisu for 7 dollars.
i'll post pics on sunday (if i remember to bring my camera).
here's an installment that we haven't had in a while:
roll call of awesome:
dan style's art prints - available here:
the world maps from these are things:
i love futura font. i think the aqua print would look great in the fatburger's room (or even ours), but we just bought this ork poster toronto print in black and white for the big wall leading up the stairs:
so i feel like the hyper-masculine black and silver one would go better with the colour story i'm developing there. i'm thinking black and greys against the pale-pale grey wall with some black and white significant photos hung with bulldog clips. 
this light shade is pretty boss. it's also $950 (excluding delivery)
wylie dufresne. so awesome. we've been watching "top chef masters" and i just love his little face and his mannerisms and the fact that he uses thomas' english muffins in the deconstructed eggs benedict dish at his restaurant wd-50 because he says there's nothing better (and i totally agree - thomas' english muffins are THE BEST.) i think he's super-talented, inspiring, and still totally approachable, unlike cerebro weirdos like grant achatz.fin.
Monday, May 10, 2010
the weekend wrap-up
this weekend was extremely tumultuous on all fronts: meteorological, emotional, physical, familial.
friday night featured the "thunderstorm of our lives" as dr. rei called it and a class A meltdown from yours truly. upon coming home and finding that the dotytron had been home all day, and having been given an extremely minuscule list of things to do, one of which consisted of doing the dishes, which he had dutifully done, but had NEGLECTED TO EMPTY THE GUNK FROM THE SINK TRAP, i promptly lost my mind and went on a classic, karl lagerfeld on the birth control pill-era tear. seriously. there were so many eff bombs dropped that if there was an international body tracking such things and mapping them GIS-style, there would have been a noticeable spike and surge centred squarely on our house. lately my recourse of choice when having hormonally induced meltdowns is to resort to stuff that references the coming year of upheaval and how buck it's going to be having to look after an eating/s**tting machine 24/7 and how if the dotytron can't pull his weight now, then how is he going to do it THEN, when i'm going to be exhausted and leaking and at my wits end, etc. etc.
ultimately, the increasingly diminished sensible, sane, rational part of me that exists as some vestigial memory of the pre-incubator karl lagerfeld knows that i'm being somewhat ridiculous (i'd put it at 70%). it also knows that i lucked into having a partner that is quite capable of pulling his weight and even if he isn't as mindful of the labour that goes into maintaining a house to the level at which i am accustomed, he is MORE than capable, and outright enjoys, the prospect of impending fatherhood much more than most (read: i) - so i know that if the sight of a dirty house is making me go crazy, at the very least i can feel very comfortable that the dotytron will look after the fatburger while i get down on my hands and knees and hand-wash the floor (yes, i hand-wash the floor because i'm just that crazy.)
once the maelstrom had exhausted itself we headed over to dr. rei and hanbo's first stopping to grab some provisions from poutini's.
i got two small regular poutines and 1 small "the works" which is a regular poutine with sour cream, chives, and bacon bits. the portions were a wee bit on the small side, for the price, but for the basic poutine, it's pretty decent, $4.99 for the small, but $6.99 for the large. the works is ridiculously priced, $6.75 for the small, and $9.19 for the large. NINE DOLLARS FOR POTATOES AND SOUR CREAM. what the eff? i was annoyed by how long the order took to be ready - there were maybe 2 other people there and i waited 15 minutes. unless you're starting FROM SCRATCH with each order (and i know they're not, because the guy was frying pre-blanched fries) then there's NO REASON IN HELL why it should take 15 minutes to do the second fry on an order of french fries, add cheese curds, and add gravy that's in a gravy-warmer, ready to go. i do think smoke's poutinerie has more generous portions. the cheese curds at poutinis are good - really large, chunky, squeaky curds, but the gravy! the gravy is pretty bad. SO THICK. like, KFC chicken gravy thick. like, mostly flour thick. it was globby and the only thing you could taste was salt. i'd personally rather have swiss chalet dipping sauce, st. hubert's gravy, or even canned gravy - at least something with some FLAVOUR other than salt. overall, i'm glad i tried it but i'm not sure i would ever go back.
NFA was pretty good. truth be told, i was coasting on a high of getting hit on at the club while secretly being 3+ months preggos. AND dancing. AND getting home after 2am. it was glorious! the rest of the camp had a decent time although ayres was under pressure to play randoms for the drake crowd that kept filtering down and stomping on people's feet with their stilettos and being totally smarmy "keys to the vip" clubwear dudes from oakville and taking a zillion pictures of their lame-ass bachelorette party. highlight for me was hearing this tune:
it's on my thursday night dodgeball mix and it makes me go crazy.
second highlight of the night was seeing the dotytron getting hunted like a defenceless baby seal by this super-trashy, oshawa looking girl wearing a self-ripped "i <3 NY" t-shirt that she had turned into basically a bikini top. she wasn't club trashy per se, she was more like, tonnes of black eyeliner, and tattoos and piercings and tight black pants trashy. she had her sights on him from the get-go - even before we hit the dancefloor and were standing on the stairs, she came up and basically presented herself to him and stood in front of him all awkwardly giving him the "come f**k me eyes." then when we finally WERE on the dancefloor at a certain point she planted herself in front of him and was all grabbing his butt and grabbing his neck to pull him in close to talk while me and dr. rei and bwong gave each other "LOL" eyes and LOL'd. it was awesome. the dotytron just kind of stood there and gave dead fish until she gave up. 2 seconds later her face was in some other dudes' crotch doing a dance that is very unbecoming on white people but that somehow seems fine if you're like, at a dancehall jam. HI-LARIOUS. the best was the dotytron gazing off into space with his arms limply at his sides as she groped and pawed at him. i felt kind of bad and contemplated helping a brother out but then i realized he's a grown-a** man and he should be able to take care of hisself.
saturday was a bit of a write-off. we were exhausted and under-slept and we had to do our grocery shopping in pissy weather and i went on a ridiculous mission to ikea to get these small lack shelves for our bathroom (they're forever going out of stock) so that we can move all the supplies we have sitting outside the bathroom in a small plastic drawer organizer onto the shelves and clear out the hallway some more. then we bought a stroller off of craiglist because some crazy rich lady was giving an insane deal.
i know it's kind of crazy to already buy the stroller. and it feels jinxy. but it was such a good deal! we weren't going to pay $1000 for a stroller because i draw the line at shelling out that much coin for something that doesn't have an engine (seriously, that's 1/6 what we paid for the captain.) but the problem is that people on craiglist who sell strollers are n00bs and they're selling to n00bs so they'll knock off like, $150 for a USED stroller but people will actually pay it and it's super annoying. anyway, we found the model that we liked and it was probably the most ideal craigslist scenario. a rich lady (doesn't want to recoup her costs) who wanted something smaller, was super-high strung about her first kid (the stroller was barely used and immaculate) and who was super-conscientious so she let us wheel it around and take it for a test drive and gave us the original bill of sale and whatnot so that we got the warranty. she'd only had it for 5 months. anyway, we got it at a significant discount and no tax and so we felt like we got a really good deal. we got the uppababy vista:
the pros are it comes with a bassinet, handles like a bugaboo, has a telescoping handle that's tall enough for the dotytron, and comes with the rain shield, bug guard, and a seat that you can switch to forward or rear facing, plus huge amount of under-seat storage. the cons were that the 2009 model retails for $799.00 PLUS tax. that's just insane, as far as i'm concerned. we were totally going to go for a peg perego but i have to say, there is a bit of a difference in the handling and maneuverability between the $300 strollers and the $500+ strollers. the lady also threw in the car-seat adapter.
the funniest part was smuggling it into the house because we haven't really told the neighbs yet. i feel like they're not on the first-tier need to know list...but somehow it keeps coming up which means that i have to keep saying stuff like, "if we ever have kids [then we'll do such and such]" and then have the dotytron give me the superdramatic *rollseyes* around their backs. lol! the point is, we got a top-of-the-line stroller for the same price (roughly) as a mid-range stroller and this one is pimped out AND the handles extend enough for the dotytron, which is kind of a big thing. also, this stroller holds its value well (see craiglists n00bs above) so i'm like, i could even turn around and sell it again on craigslist and make a pretty tidy profit.
we were supposed to see 2 hotdocs on saturday but due to another hormonal meltdown and a SNAFU with our tickets i made the dotytron leave and so we came home and watched "top chef masters" and i baked a batch of those mona's mother's mother's cookies and drank milk and slept for ages and ages. it was bliss.
sunday for mater's day we had momma and poppa d and ehmdo by for brunch - i made spinach, refried bean, scrambled egg, and monterrey jack cheese breakfast burritos and a bob evans sausage, red pepper, and potato hash:
ehmdo brought fruit, we drank coffee (even though i had the fixin's to make caesars) and then we loafed around until it was time to play dball for s-dawg's team whereupon i played a SICK-ASS game. we had NO subs and had to iron-man it the whole game - they had a bunch of people from the intermediate league sub in on their team so that they had MORE people than us and we still whipped their behinds 15-11. it was awesome. i've been doing MORE showboating than usual lately because it feels EXTRA good ducking and dodging and catching and getting people out knowing that i'm preggos. it's kind of the best.
sunday night we had dinner with my grandma and grandpa and the fam-bam up in markham at asian legend. good times.
also, the crazy thunderstorm and wind on saturday BROUGHT DOWN A TREE on our street. i think some people are like, trapped in their houses! it was crazy! basically the tree was about 3 ft in diameter and a 1/2 of it split off and fell onto two people's houses, bringing down a power line. it was scary. our neighbours (the ones we're attached to) have a GIANT tree in their yard - like one that's easily 4ft across so we're a little paro about it now. we took a look, it doesn't look like it would split in a way that would damage our house - mostly the deck. apparently they had an arborist come by and take a look at it and give them a quote for cutting it down but it was going to be 10,000 or something like that (!!!!!!!!!) i'm sure our home insurance would cover this - especially since it's not even on our property. we should probably call and check that shiz out, though.
it's been super-wintery cold out lately so for dinner tonight i made us a split pea and ham hock soup (ham bone leftover from the hamcamp klik bday dinner for dr. rei) with corn, zucchini, and monterrey quesadillas to use up the pounds and pounds of guacamole i made for the sunday brunch. we also got up early and went for a run this morning, so i'm feeling pretty healthy.
fin.
friday night featured the "thunderstorm of our lives" as dr. rei called it and a class A meltdown from yours truly. upon coming home and finding that the dotytron had been home all day, and having been given an extremely minuscule list of things to do, one of which consisted of doing the dishes, which he had dutifully done, but had NEGLECTED TO EMPTY THE GUNK FROM THE SINK TRAP, i promptly lost my mind and went on a classic, karl lagerfeld on the birth control pill-era tear. seriously. there were so many eff bombs dropped that if there was an international body tracking such things and mapping them GIS-style, there would have been a noticeable spike and surge centred squarely on our house. lately my recourse of choice when having hormonally induced meltdowns is to resort to stuff that references the coming year of upheaval and how buck it's going to be having to look after an eating/s**tting machine 24/7 and how if the dotytron can't pull his weight now, then how is he going to do it THEN, when i'm going to be exhausted and leaking and at my wits end, etc. etc.
ultimately, the increasingly diminished sensible, sane, rational part of me that exists as some vestigial memory of the pre-incubator karl lagerfeld knows that i'm being somewhat ridiculous (i'd put it at 70%). it also knows that i lucked into having a partner that is quite capable of pulling his weight and even if he isn't as mindful of the labour that goes into maintaining a house to the level at which i am accustomed, he is MORE than capable, and outright enjoys, the prospect of impending fatherhood much more than most (read: i) - so i know that if the sight of a dirty house is making me go crazy, at the very least i can feel very comfortable that the dotytron will look after the fatburger while i get down on my hands and knees and hand-wash the floor (yes, i hand-wash the floor because i'm just that crazy.)
once the maelstrom had exhausted itself we headed over to dr. rei and hanbo's first stopping to grab some provisions from poutini's.
NFA was pretty good. truth be told, i was coasting on a high of getting hit on at the club while secretly being 3+ months preggos. AND dancing. AND getting home after 2am. it was glorious! the rest of the camp had a decent time although ayres was under pressure to play randoms for the drake crowd that kept filtering down and stomping on people's feet with their stilettos and being totally smarmy "keys to the vip" clubwear dudes from oakville and taking a zillion pictures of their lame-ass bachelorette party. highlight for me was hearing this tune:
it's on my thursday night dodgeball mix and it makes me go crazy.
second highlight of the night was seeing the dotytron getting hunted like a defenceless baby seal by this super-trashy, oshawa looking girl wearing a self-ripped "i <3 NY" t-shirt that she had turned into basically a bikini top. she wasn't club trashy per se, she was more like, tonnes of black eyeliner, and tattoos and piercings and tight black pants trashy. she had her sights on him from the get-go - even before we hit the dancefloor and were standing on the stairs, she came up and basically presented herself to him and stood in front of him all awkwardly giving him the "come f**k me eyes." then when we finally WERE on the dancefloor at a certain point she planted herself in front of him and was all grabbing his butt and grabbing his neck to pull him in close to talk while me and dr. rei and bwong gave each other "LOL" eyes and LOL'd. it was awesome. the dotytron just kind of stood there and gave dead fish until she gave up. 2 seconds later her face was in some other dudes' crotch doing a dance that is very unbecoming on white people but that somehow seems fine if you're like, at a dancehall jam. HI-LARIOUS. the best was the dotytron gazing off into space with his arms limply at his sides as she groped and pawed at him. i felt kind of bad and contemplated helping a brother out but then i realized he's a grown-a** man and he should be able to take care of hisself.
saturday was a bit of a write-off. we were exhausted and under-slept and we had to do our grocery shopping in pissy weather and i went on a ridiculous mission to ikea to get these small lack shelves for our bathroom (they're forever going out of stock) so that we can move all the supplies we have sitting outside the bathroom in a small plastic drawer organizer onto the shelves and clear out the hallway some more. then we bought a stroller off of craiglist because some crazy rich lady was giving an insane deal.
i know it's kind of crazy to already buy the stroller. and it feels jinxy. but it was such a good deal! we weren't going to pay $1000 for a stroller because i draw the line at shelling out that much coin for something that doesn't have an engine (seriously, that's 1/6 what we paid for the captain.) but the problem is that people on craiglist who sell strollers are n00bs and they're selling to n00bs so they'll knock off like, $150 for a USED stroller but people will actually pay it and it's super annoying. anyway, we found the model that we liked and it was probably the most ideal craigslist scenario. a rich lady (doesn't want to recoup her costs) who wanted something smaller, was super-high strung about her first kid (the stroller was barely used and immaculate) and who was super-conscientious so she let us wheel it around and take it for a test drive and gave us the original bill of sale and whatnot so that we got the warranty. she'd only had it for 5 months. anyway, we got it at a significant discount and no tax and so we felt like we got a really good deal. we got the uppababy vista:
the pros are it comes with a bassinet, handles like a bugaboo, has a telescoping handle that's tall enough for the dotytron, and comes with the rain shield, bug guard, and a seat that you can switch to forward or rear facing, plus huge amount of under-seat storage. the cons were that the 2009 model retails for $799.00 PLUS tax. that's just insane, as far as i'm concerned. we were totally going to go for a peg perego but i have to say, there is a bit of a difference in the handling and maneuverability between the $300 strollers and the $500+ strollers. the lady also threw in the car-seat adapter. the funniest part was smuggling it into the house because we haven't really told the neighbs yet. i feel like they're not on the first-tier need to know list...but somehow it keeps coming up which means that i have to keep saying stuff like, "if we ever have kids [then we'll do such and such]" and then have the dotytron give me the superdramatic *rollseyes* around their backs. lol! the point is, we got a top-of-the-line stroller for the same price (roughly) as a mid-range stroller and this one is pimped out AND the handles extend enough for the dotytron, which is kind of a big thing. also, this stroller holds its value well (see craiglists n00bs above) so i'm like, i could even turn around and sell it again on craigslist and make a pretty tidy profit.
we were supposed to see 2 hotdocs on saturday but due to another hormonal meltdown and a SNAFU with our tickets i made the dotytron leave and so we came home and watched "top chef masters" and i baked a batch of those mona's mother's mother's cookies and drank milk and slept for ages and ages. it was bliss.
sunday for mater's day we had momma and poppa d and ehmdo by for brunch - i made spinach, refried bean, scrambled egg, and monterrey jack cheese breakfast burritos and a bob evans sausage, red pepper, and potato hash:
sunday night we had dinner with my grandma and grandpa and the fam-bam up in markham at asian legend. good times.
also, the crazy thunderstorm and wind on saturday BROUGHT DOWN A TREE on our street. i think some people are like, trapped in their houses! it was crazy! basically the tree was about 3 ft in diameter and a 1/2 of it split off and fell onto two people's houses, bringing down a power line. it was scary. our neighbours (the ones we're attached to) have a GIANT tree in their yard - like one that's easily 4ft across so we're a little paro about it now. we took a look, it doesn't look like it would split in a way that would damage our house - mostly the deck. apparently they had an arborist come by and take a look at it and give them a quote for cutting it down but it was going to be 10,000 or something like that (!!!!!!!!!) i'm sure our home insurance would cover this - especially since it's not even on our property. we should probably call and check that shiz out, though.
it's been super-wintery cold out lately so for dinner tonight i made us a split pea and ham hock soup (ham bone leftover from the hamcamp klik bday dinner for dr. rei) with corn, zucchini, and monterrey quesadillas to use up the pounds and pounds of guacamole i made for the sunday brunch. we also got up early and went for a run this morning, so i'm feeling pretty healthy.fin.
Friday, May 07, 2010
I HATE YORK UNIVERSITY
and i haven't even started it yet! so frustrating.
firstly, the program administrator is a TOTAL flakebot supreme. like, speaks in a sing-songy voice, doesn't remember anything about your client file, and gets all "i can see why you're upset" as soon as you say anything remotely ON TOPIC OR ASK A POINTED QUESTION no matter your tone of voice! i hate having to say, "i'm not upset, i just don't understand what you're saying." lol! she's so disorganized and she is the most scattershot person i've dealt with in post-secondary education in a long time. like seriously?
then, the program director is a total shacker who acts like his program is the shiznit. they keep congratulating me for getting in, "congratulations, this is a very competitive program" and i'm like, ummmm...ACTUALLY IT'S NOT. it's for working professionals, the minimum grade requirements are a B+ in your final two years of undergrad (nevermind that i got straight As in my previous masters), so it's kind of like fake grad school for mature students. stop being so high on your own juice. as if they wield so much power! a program that has to extend the application deadline TWICE by as much as TWO MONTHS is not one that's got people beating down the doors. lol! get over yourselves. i've been emailing back and forth with him asking him questions on how i should proceed with spumante on the way and he's all like, "well, if you recall from my presentation at the information session, the MINIMUM expected attendance is EVERY CLASS" and i responded to the effect of, "ummmm...i was the ONLY PERSON TO SHOW AT THE INFORMATION SESSION, and as such, didn't get the formal presentation but asked you my specific questions about the program" lolz.
then i feel a little bad cuz i remember how sad he looked sitting in that room by himself with a powerpoint all loaded up and ready to go. but i'm ALSO like, I SAW YOU IN THAT ROOM ALL BY YOURSELF, don't conveniently forget that i saw that no one showed up and that i'll actually BUY that this program is sooooo in-demand and that people are beating down the door to get in.
ANYWAY, the annoying thing is that these are my options, given that the fatburger is making an appearance in november:
1) THEY DON'T ALLOW YOU TO DEFER, so miss a whole year and reapply next year
2) accept the offer, start in the fall, pay the $2000 term fee, APPLY for a leave of absence, and then pay $200 FOR EACH SEMESTER of my leave.
^^^ with this method, there's a chance that the director might consider that a "false start" and then make me re-do the work or kick me out AND i'd have to wait the full year's cycle for the courses to be offered again
3) accept the offer and go balls to the wall and hope for the best.
i'm leaning towards #3. as dr. rei says, if she's going to bet on whether or not i can do something i've set my mind to, she's always going to err on the side that i can do it. lol! i've also spoken to people who are doing the program (colleagues at work) and they're like, yeah, the profs totally accommodate people missing classes all the time because of work commitments. since 1 course is offered 6:30-9:30pm downtown once a week, and the other course is 1 saturday, 9-5 a month - i figure the chances are good that i'll only have to miss 1 or 2 of the weekly classes and maybe just 1 of the monthly ones, and i'll pump my way through the rest of it. and lean on my friends and family and their babysitting/housecleaning services :)
it's not like there's NO PRECEDENT IN THE HISTORY OF GRADUATE STUDIES for extensions/allowances/accommodations to be made in the face of life events (or in my case, as the queen of extensions, with some b.s. reason like "shiz is getting too real") which is what the program director is making it out like. again, get over yourself.
so i'll probably miss a few classes in november/late october. classes only run into the first week of december anyway, so it's not even a deal. i think i'll be fine. i mean at this rate, NOW IT'S EFFIN PERSONAL and nothing inspires me more than a grudge match/schooling someone/proving someone wrong. i just have to get myself some slick-a$$ electrical pump and pump my way into a MPPAL.
i love my sis because she reads the blurg and then in phone conversations she'll tell me about how i got details of her life wrong and then i have to promise to post a correction. so yeah, she didn't get 3 months mat leave. she said it was like 6-8 weeks, tops. consider it corrected, T!
last night's dodgeball was aces! we ended up accidentally messing up and playing the intermediate team, while the intermediate team in the gym next door played the rec team that we should've been playing. here's the thing, even with 2 new members on board (people who were on the team but hadn't been able to make it to the previous games) - WE WON! wooooooooooooooooo!!! by a significant amount, too! what what!
it was the best!
tonight the goosetang clan is going to rise from the ashes like dumbledore's phoenix fawkes and go to see dj ayres (of the rub) at never forgive action at the drake:
so pumped! it's going to be aces! we're considering it a success if we make it to past 1am. we're meeting up with those guys at dr. rei and hanbo's pad and then having dinner at poutini or massimo pizza and pasta or mother india and then heading out for some old skool hip hop dancing fun. i feel like i'm leaning towards mother india right now, just because i know that by 8pm i'm going to be STARVING and that i don't necessarily want to make a whole meal of poutine, in light of last night's dietary indiscretions.
the next couple of weekends are kind of insane and jam-packed.
this weekend we've got brockin' out going down tonight, tomorrow is 2 hot docs, sunday is a mother's day brunch with dotytron's fam-bam and then asian legend dinner with my fam-bam.
dinner with the roomie and l'army on tuesday, massage wednesday, dodgeball and beers thursday, dinner with friends S & P on friday, kdubsguelph hangs on saturday, supper club on sunday.
then a whirlwind 4 days with a dinner with our friends S & A before heading to NYC over the long weekend, which we tacked an extra day onto to make extra-long. NYC is going to be THE BEST, because not only are we staying with pingy, but dotytron's good buddy count chocula is down there doing his masters in jazz playing at NYU and is there, and xtina and buns are going down, and i have 2 cook friends down there, and my foodshare friend M is also heading down that weekend. i've got our restos planned out - it's going to be light on the insane-tasting menu type places and more on the neighbourhood-y joints (like, $60/person instead of $250) interspersed with cheap, $20 meals of hot dogs, pizza, momofuku crack pie, gelato, etc. interspersed with buying us new kicks at century 21 and me some fat person clothes at uniqlo and jcrew and built by wendy and maybe some fun stuff at pearl river mart. interspersed with a tonne of jazz music and hanging with the best people on earth.
then we're back on tuesday for a midwife appointment and then hooking up with J & S to see sharon jones and the dap kings. then around for 2 more days before we decamp to geneseo for a long-desired visit with that crew. which is going to consist of mass amounts of five guys burgers & fries, delmonico's, brian's USA diner, aunt cookies subs, pizza pauls/mama mia's, cheesecake factory with some shopping at target, the jcrew outlet, and marshalls for discount designer gear.
and then onward into summer!
FUN!
fin.
firstly, the program administrator is a TOTAL flakebot supreme. like, speaks in a sing-songy voice, doesn't remember anything about your client file, and gets all "i can see why you're upset" as soon as you say anything remotely ON TOPIC OR ASK A POINTED QUESTION no matter your tone of voice! i hate having to say, "i'm not upset, i just don't understand what you're saying." lol! she's so disorganized and she is the most scattershot person i've dealt with in post-secondary education in a long time. like seriously?
then, the program director is a total shacker who acts like his program is the shiznit. they keep congratulating me for getting in, "congratulations, this is a very competitive program" and i'm like, ummmm...ACTUALLY IT'S NOT. it's for working professionals, the minimum grade requirements are a B+ in your final two years of undergrad (nevermind that i got straight As in my previous masters), so it's kind of like fake grad school for mature students. stop being so high on your own juice. as if they wield so much power! a program that has to extend the application deadline TWICE by as much as TWO MONTHS is not one that's got people beating down the doors. lol! get over yourselves. i've been emailing back and forth with him asking him questions on how i should proceed with spumante on the way and he's all like, "well, if you recall from my presentation at the information session, the MINIMUM expected attendance is EVERY CLASS" and i responded to the effect of, "ummmm...i was the ONLY PERSON TO SHOW AT THE INFORMATION SESSION, and as such, didn't get the formal presentation but asked you my specific questions about the program" lolz.
then i feel a little bad cuz i remember how sad he looked sitting in that room by himself with a powerpoint all loaded up and ready to go. but i'm ALSO like, I SAW YOU IN THAT ROOM ALL BY YOURSELF, don't conveniently forget that i saw that no one showed up and that i'll actually BUY that this program is sooooo in-demand and that people are beating down the door to get in.
ANYWAY, the annoying thing is that these are my options, given that the fatburger is making an appearance in november:
1) THEY DON'T ALLOW YOU TO DEFER, so miss a whole year and reapply next year
2) accept the offer, start in the fall, pay the $2000 term fee, APPLY for a leave of absence, and then pay $200 FOR EACH SEMESTER of my leave.
^^^ with this method, there's a chance that the director might consider that a "false start" and then make me re-do the work or kick me out AND i'd have to wait the full year's cycle for the courses to be offered again
3) accept the offer and go balls to the wall and hope for the best.
i'm leaning towards #3. as dr. rei says, if she's going to bet on whether or not i can do something i've set my mind to, she's always going to err on the side that i can do it. lol! i've also spoken to people who are doing the program (colleagues at work) and they're like, yeah, the profs totally accommodate people missing classes all the time because of work commitments. since 1 course is offered 6:30-9:30pm downtown once a week, and the other course is 1 saturday, 9-5 a month - i figure the chances are good that i'll only have to miss 1 or 2 of the weekly classes and maybe just 1 of the monthly ones, and i'll pump my way through the rest of it. and lean on my friends and family and their babysitting/housecleaning services :)
it's not like there's NO PRECEDENT IN THE HISTORY OF GRADUATE STUDIES for extensions/allowances/accommodations to be made in the face of life events (or in my case, as the queen of extensions, with some b.s. reason like "shiz is getting too real") which is what the program director is making it out like. again, get over yourself.
so i'll probably miss a few classes in november/late october. classes only run into the first week of december anyway, so it's not even a deal. i think i'll be fine. i mean at this rate, NOW IT'S EFFIN PERSONAL and nothing inspires me more than a grudge match/schooling someone/proving someone wrong. i just have to get myself some slick-a$$ electrical pump and pump my way into a MPPAL.
i love my sis because she reads the blurg and then in phone conversations she'll tell me about how i got details of her life wrong and then i have to promise to post a correction. so yeah, she didn't get 3 months mat leave. she said it was like 6-8 weeks, tops. consider it corrected, T!
last night's dodgeball was aces! we ended up accidentally messing up and playing the intermediate team, while the intermediate team in the gym next door played the rec team that we should've been playing. here's the thing, even with 2 new members on board (people who were on the team but hadn't been able to make it to the previous games) - WE WON! wooooooooooooooooo!!! by a significant amount, too! what what!
it was the best!
tonight the goosetang clan is going to rise from the ashes like dumbledore's phoenix fawkes and go to see dj ayres (of the rub) at never forgive action at the drake:
so pumped! it's going to be aces! we're considering it a success if we make it to past 1am. we're meeting up with those guys at dr. rei and hanbo's pad and then having dinner at poutini or massimo pizza and pasta or mother india and then heading out for some old skool hip hop dancing fun. i feel like i'm leaning towards mother india right now, just because i know that by 8pm i'm going to be STARVING and that i don't necessarily want to make a whole meal of poutine, in light of last night's dietary indiscretions.the next couple of weekends are kind of insane and jam-packed.
this weekend we've got brockin' out going down tonight, tomorrow is 2 hot docs, sunday is a mother's day brunch with dotytron's fam-bam and then asian legend dinner with my fam-bam.
dinner with the roomie and l'army on tuesday, massage wednesday, dodgeball and beers thursday, dinner with friends S & P on friday, kdubsguelph hangs on saturday, supper club on sunday.
then a whirlwind 4 days with a dinner with our friends S & A before heading to NYC over the long weekend, which we tacked an extra day onto to make extra-long. NYC is going to be THE BEST, because not only are we staying with pingy, but dotytron's good buddy count chocula is down there doing his masters in jazz playing at NYU and is there, and xtina and buns are going down, and i have 2 cook friends down there, and my foodshare friend M is also heading down that weekend. i've got our restos planned out - it's going to be light on the insane-tasting menu type places and more on the neighbourhood-y joints (like, $60/person instead of $250) interspersed with cheap, $20 meals of hot dogs, pizza, momofuku crack pie, gelato, etc. interspersed with buying us new kicks at century 21 and me some fat person clothes at uniqlo and jcrew and built by wendy and maybe some fun stuff at pearl river mart. interspersed with a tonne of jazz music and hanging with the best people on earth.
then we're back on tuesday for a midwife appointment and then hooking up with J & S to see sharon jones and the dap kings. then around for 2 more days before we decamp to geneseo for a long-desired visit with that crew. which is going to consist of mass amounts of five guys burgers & fries, delmonico's, brian's USA diner, aunt cookies subs, pizza pauls/mama mia's, cheesecake factory with some shopping at target, the jcrew outlet, and marshalls for discount designer gear.
and then onward into summer!
FUN!
fin.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
chub chub
ugh. today was NOT a good eating day for me.
first, my cinqo de mayo dinner plans changed to something much more thematically sound than the previously described moroccan sandwiches on account of the rain kiboshing our plans to go out to hear some straight-ahead jazz last night. the dotytron was mad stressing so i think another night out was too much for him to think about. i made corn, zucchini, and monterrey jack enchiladas, sauced in a poblano cream sauce with a last-minute addition of crumbled chorizo on top:
it looks like a hot mess because i over-sauced and over-baked it so that the corn tortillas absorbed too much sauce and started to break down too much. doesn't matter, it was freakin' delicious.
today is when things went off the rails a bit. i started off the day with a regular sized breakfast. 3 slices of malt toast with butter, a glass of o.j., a glass of water. then i got to work and G treated me to a big breakfast, which is 2 eggs, 4 links of sausage, 2 pieces of toast, and 2 hashbrowns. then i bought myself lunch and got chicken fingers and fries with gravy. then i came home and decided that since spumante was obviously demanding a diet of high fructose corn syrup, GMO carbs, 3000% of my daily recommended sodium intake, and feedlot beef, that i might as well go whole hog and succumb to my long-denied need for burger king.
so i got the steakhouse XT burger and a poutine. and now i feel like hell:
the dotytron got the angry whopper which was ultimately the better call, as it's a promo item that's based on the whopper patty - whereas the XT is based on this new patty which is nowhere near as beefy as the whopper patty, even if it is thicker. the whopper patty is the bomb. i should never forget that.
now onto the flubbiest game of dodgeball evers.
fin.
first, my cinqo de mayo dinner plans changed to something much more thematically sound than the previously described moroccan sandwiches on account of the rain kiboshing our plans to go out to hear some straight-ahead jazz last night. the dotytron was mad stressing so i think another night out was too much for him to think about. i made corn, zucchini, and monterrey jack enchiladas, sauced in a poblano cream sauce with a last-minute addition of crumbled chorizo on top:
it looks like a hot mess because i over-sauced and over-baked it so that the corn tortillas absorbed too much sauce and started to break down too much. doesn't matter, it was freakin' delicious. today is when things went off the rails a bit. i started off the day with a regular sized breakfast. 3 slices of malt toast with butter, a glass of o.j., a glass of water. then i got to work and G treated me to a big breakfast, which is 2 eggs, 4 links of sausage, 2 pieces of toast, and 2 hashbrowns. then i bought myself lunch and got chicken fingers and fries with gravy. then i came home and decided that since spumante was obviously demanding a diet of high fructose corn syrup, GMO carbs, 3000% of my daily recommended sodium intake, and feedlot beef, that i might as well go whole hog and succumb to my long-denied need for burger king.
so i got the steakhouse XT burger and a poutine. and now i feel like hell:
the dotytron got the angry whopper which was ultimately the better call, as it's a promo item that's based on the whopper patty - whereas the XT is based on this new patty which is nowhere near as beefy as the whopper patty, even if it is thicker. the whopper patty is the bomb. i should never forget that.now onto the flubbiest game of dodgeball evers.
fin.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
happy cinco de mayo, peoples!
guys, our bodies are WACK. i think i'm in the second trimester now and it's like instant good times. it changes on a dime - all of a sudden i'm back to staying up to midnight and being all fine and dandies. it's been like this since saturday night. i'm excited for my increased productivity.
last night i came home and made empanadas, filled with pork loin, sautéed onions, peppers, smoked paprika, and green olives and tomatoes. they were SUPPOSED to have eggs in them but SOMEONE never checks their text messages and didn't pick any up from the mennonites - they were pretty good but i cheaped out and didn't put wine in the dough (i didn't want to open a bottle of wine to just use it for the dough), i also mixed in some whole wheat flour (which the dotytron wouldn't let me live down), which also changed the texture a bit:
i did some creeping in and met the new neighbours renting the house next door. i also found out that the house is native subsidized housing. whoops. i guess we should have asked that! ah well - the new people moving in seemed nice - the kids were well dressed and seemed polite and she drove a mini-van. she also seemed concerned about the welfare of her children, which was reassuring. lol! we were feeling a little weirded out finding out we bought a house right next to subsidized housing - i figure we could've paid even LESS for lil' ugmo - but then we talked about it and ultimately, we bought in a gentrifying neighbourhood - what else can you do? you live in a city with mixed incomes - that's the nature of toronto - unless we suddenly become millionaires and move to riverdale, and even at that, i know a lady who bought on riverdale but lives next to a government housing complex where someone got shot this past year.
there's no telling what's happening in the house next door, really. it could NOT be subsidized housing and the person could do all kinds of crazy shiz to their place. and it's not just our problem, it's the whole street's problem. there's mad street gossip going on about the corner house on the street - apparently it's also subsidized housing and the people in there are flat-out drunks. like, your friends break into your house while you're passed out from boozing and steal your laptop drunk. also, one of the neighbs (who's kind of WT herself) found the 2 year old daughter of the renter standing in the street in a dirty diaper with no one watching her, brought her inside only to find everyone wasted and passed out and called the cops on their butts and they might have gotten their kids taken away - which is super-sad and problematic (CAS as an institution is kind of dodgy from what i hear) but at the same time, i'd call the cops on my own butt if i did that, so fair's fair.
if things get rugged with neighbs, i figure you just get all "burbs" on their butts. i have no problems calling the cops/by-law officers for any number of minor infractions and harassing people out of town. lol! the good thing about a house in toronto is that no matter what - in a neighbourhood like leslieville which is rapidly gentrifying, we'll be able to sell and sell well. so if it gets unbearable (and something tells me we have a really high tolerance for stuff that would bug random uptight peeps), we can always sell, make a fortune, and move to kdubs or like, oakville. lol!
last night we saw the documentary "david wants to fly" which is about this giant german nerdlinger dorkus who chooses to dress like a rejected extra from the film "newsies" (seriously, why are german people all giant dorks?!?) who is obsessed with david lynch and is trying to get his nascent film career off the ground. struggling in his personal life with his relationship with his fellow german (and equally dorky - hey europe, wearing stupid hats and looking like you just discovered the wacky stylings of mayim bialik circa her "blossom" heyday isn't doing your world profile any favours) girlfriend, and knowing that david lynch is a vocal proponent of transcendental meditation, he decides to find out what TM is all about and how he can incorporate it into his own life to become as successful as david lynch.
the doc was an epic fail on many counts.
a) the filmmaker protagonist was a GIANT dork. like, of the non-endearing, non-charming ilk. just a total, off-putting dork in the nerd-cousin you're embarrassed to be related to, kind of way. gratuitous shots of him and his gf (they have an off-on relationship) making out and mugging for the camera and talking about how much they love each other was sickitating.
b) the filmmaker was a total n00b filmmaker. no wonder you're not as successful as david lynch. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE MOVIES. lol! the editing was SO invasive that some of the ham-fisted "jokes" (which i couldn't believe the audience laughed at) were as patently contrived as the reaction shots in "the office" but used with sincerity, instead of all meta, the way those faux-doc shows do it. no finesse to the filmmaking at all
c) i felt that the filmmaker was being total captain obvious about the whole enterprise. being all shockface that TM is a charlatan's game is ridiculous and a very facile argument and not "investigative journalism" as he claims. ooh, people give them money! oooh, no one knows where the money goes! i felt like he kind of created a straw man that he could then take apart with really blunt, stupid, a-critical instruments (this is what happens when you totally fund all post-secondary education in your country and everyone can get a phd - the calibre goes WAY down.) it's like dissing scientology in this day and age. or organized religion in general. quelle surprise, batman.
after the film, the dotytron was all like, "i kind of can't believe that someone as critical as david lynch would become such a vocal proponent of a movement that doesn't stand up to ANY criticism" and i was like, what about lynch's movies makes you think that he's critical? his films are STRANGE, and thought-provoking, and plumb the depths of the psyche and the subconscious and play with themes surrounding the perversion of the american dream - but there's nothing critical about them, per se.
in the words of men on films: "hated it!"
we both felt the same way.
tonight the plan is to eat a quick dinner (moroccan potato, egg, pepper and harissa sandwiches) and then head out to ronceys to see the dotytron's friend play some straight-ahead jazz.
we'll see whether we're up for it. if we do - that'll make 4 late nights in a row (we've got late dodgeball and then team beers tomorrow, friday night we're going to old skool hip hop night)!!!!!
fin.
last night i came home and made empanadas, filled with pork loin, sautéed onions, peppers, smoked paprika, and green olives and tomatoes. they were SUPPOSED to have eggs in them but SOMEONE never checks their text messages and didn't pick any up from the mennonites - they were pretty good but i cheaped out and didn't put wine in the dough (i didn't want to open a bottle of wine to just use it for the dough), i also mixed in some whole wheat flour (which the dotytron wouldn't let me live down), which also changed the texture a bit:
i did some creeping in and met the new neighbours renting the house next door. i also found out that the house is native subsidized housing. whoops. i guess we should have asked that! ah well - the new people moving in seemed nice - the kids were well dressed and seemed polite and she drove a mini-van. she also seemed concerned about the welfare of her children, which was reassuring. lol! we were feeling a little weirded out finding out we bought a house right next to subsidized housing - i figure we could've paid even LESS for lil' ugmo - but then we talked about it and ultimately, we bought in a gentrifying neighbourhood - what else can you do? you live in a city with mixed incomes - that's the nature of toronto - unless we suddenly become millionaires and move to riverdale, and even at that, i know a lady who bought on riverdale but lives next to a government housing complex where someone got shot this past year.there's no telling what's happening in the house next door, really. it could NOT be subsidized housing and the person could do all kinds of crazy shiz to their place. and it's not just our problem, it's the whole street's problem. there's mad street gossip going on about the corner house on the street - apparently it's also subsidized housing and the people in there are flat-out drunks. like, your friends break into your house while you're passed out from boozing and steal your laptop drunk. also, one of the neighbs (who's kind of WT herself) found the 2 year old daughter of the renter standing in the street in a dirty diaper with no one watching her, brought her inside only to find everyone wasted and passed out and called the cops on their butts and they might have gotten their kids taken away - which is super-sad and problematic (CAS as an institution is kind of dodgy from what i hear) but at the same time, i'd call the cops on my own butt if i did that, so fair's fair.
if things get rugged with neighbs, i figure you just get all "burbs" on their butts. i have no problems calling the cops/by-law officers for any number of minor infractions and harassing people out of town. lol! the good thing about a house in toronto is that no matter what - in a neighbourhood like leslieville which is rapidly gentrifying, we'll be able to sell and sell well. so if it gets unbearable (and something tells me we have a really high tolerance for stuff that would bug random uptight peeps), we can always sell, make a fortune, and move to kdubs or like, oakville. lol!
last night we saw the documentary "david wants to fly" which is about this giant german nerdlinger dorkus who chooses to dress like a rejected extra from the film "newsies" (seriously, why are german people all giant dorks?!?) who is obsessed with david lynch and is trying to get his nascent film career off the ground. struggling in his personal life with his relationship with his fellow german (and equally dorky - hey europe, wearing stupid hats and looking like you just discovered the wacky stylings of mayim bialik circa her "blossom" heyday isn't doing your world profile any favours) girlfriend, and knowing that david lynch is a vocal proponent of transcendental meditation, he decides to find out what TM is all about and how he can incorporate it into his own life to become as successful as david lynch.
the doc was an epic fail on many counts.
a) the filmmaker protagonist was a GIANT dork. like, of the non-endearing, non-charming ilk. just a total, off-putting dork in the nerd-cousin you're embarrassed to be related to, kind of way. gratuitous shots of him and his gf (they have an off-on relationship) making out and mugging for the camera and talking about how much they love each other was sickitating.
b) the filmmaker was a total n00b filmmaker. no wonder you're not as successful as david lynch. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE MOVIES. lol! the editing was SO invasive that some of the ham-fisted "jokes" (which i couldn't believe the audience laughed at) were as patently contrived as the reaction shots in "the office" but used with sincerity, instead of all meta, the way those faux-doc shows do it. no finesse to the filmmaking at all
c) i felt that the filmmaker was being total captain obvious about the whole enterprise. being all shockface that TM is a charlatan's game is ridiculous and a very facile argument and not "investigative journalism" as he claims. ooh, people give them money! oooh, no one knows where the money goes! i felt like he kind of created a straw man that he could then take apart with really blunt, stupid, a-critical instruments (this is what happens when you totally fund all post-secondary education in your country and everyone can get a phd - the calibre goes WAY down.) it's like dissing scientology in this day and age. or organized religion in general. quelle surprise, batman.
after the film, the dotytron was all like, "i kind of can't believe that someone as critical as david lynch would become such a vocal proponent of a movement that doesn't stand up to ANY criticism" and i was like, what about lynch's movies makes you think that he's critical? his films are STRANGE, and thought-provoking, and plumb the depths of the psyche and the subconscious and play with themes surrounding the perversion of the american dream - but there's nothing critical about them, per se.
in the words of men on films: "hated it!"
we both felt the same way.
tonight the plan is to eat a quick dinner (moroccan potato, egg, pepper and harissa sandwiches) and then head out to ronceys to see the dotytron's friend play some straight-ahead jazz.
we'll see whether we're up for it. if we do - that'll make 4 late nights in a row (we've got late dodgeball and then team beers tomorrow, friday night we're going to old skool hip hop night)!!!!!
fin.
Monday, May 03, 2010
according to wii fit
my wii age is 46 (i had the heroin hands when i was doing the calibration and my centre of gravity was all kinds of messed up.) the good news is, that according to the genetic juju people at mount sinai, my eggs and fallopian tubes have a reproductive age equivalent to a 15 year old. i'm still kind of thinking they might have gotten the results of the first trimester screen mixed up - but i think i'm just too superstitious.
this weekend was super-busy but super-fun. on saturday we saw another documentary, "cooking up dreams" which is about the unifying cultural significance of food in peru. it uses food as the basic unifying thread tying together the disparate cultures of peru (japanese, african, indigenous, spanish, mestizo) and champions the unique ingredients of the amazon. both high-end chefs and the cooking of the jungle are given equal attention...i thought it was great - it elicited a few reactions: intense hunger, desire to try peruvian food, desire to travel to peru. here's the trailer:
saturday night i got to scratch my hong kong style cafe itch (cha chaan teng) so we went to phoenix - the location on woodbine. i ordered a million dishes. usually at these places, you can get a "set meal" which includes a soup, some kind of bun, and a hot beverage - they're known for serving stuff like ovaltine and horlick's (the brit influence in hong kong) as well as a hot, very milky tea.
i upgraded ONE of my entrees to the set meal. the soups are generally something creamy and a borscht. i got the "seafood bisque":
this was a sweet-ish, thick, tomato-y bisque with bits of shredded crab. i drank this so quickly that the dotytron didn't get more than a couple of bites.
i also ordered a baked porkchop rice in cream sauce on rice (which has bits of scrambled egg mixed in.) this wasn't the best iteration of this dish that i've had - sometimes they mix in frozen veggies which breaks up the cream sauce but it was still really good. tender, fatty pork chop cutlets and a sauce reminiscent of the goop served on the classic yin-yang rice dish.
this was my ox tongue spaghetti (my SECOND entree) which again, while satisfying, was n't the best rendition of this dish that i've ever had. more veggies would have been nice and the sauce was really just canned tomato soup or something - it's always kind of tomato soup-y, but they usually add a little something something to gussy it up a bit. anyway, imagine super-tender pieces of ox tongue on a bed of spaghetti with ketchup/tomato soup sauce. i know it SOUNDS gross (and the dotytron certainly thought it WAS gross) but i like it.
dotytron got his beef flank malaysian curry with rice. so good.
then we met up with my little bros and we saw "kick-ass"
can i first say that we're finally feeling the results of the hollywood writer's strike? the summer movie previews have been A** ON A STICK. how many times do i have to see the trailer for "the expendables"? or "macgruber?" so brutal! there's nothing coming out this summer that i super-duper want to see. i mean, obviously "iron man 2" and maybe "salt" and definitely "eclipse" for kicks - but there aren't enough summer blockbuster tent poles. laaame!
anyway, "kick-ass" was okay. not really memorable...people were laughing in the theatre but i think it trades a lot on your ability to find an 11 year old saying the word "c**t" - i find those kinds of cheap laughs not really my style. i get it: it's shocking! the violence was pretty stylized and graphic - but i was kind of meh about the whole thing - it was empty spectacle and not particularly all that clever or winning (unlike say, rdj as tony stark in "iron man") it wasn't that it wasn't entertaining, it was just kind of forgettable overall.
the next morning we got up at SIX THIRTY AM to be keeners and to plant all the stuff we bought on saturday in the garden. the neighs were losing their minds. lol! this is what it looks like now that we mulched it tonight:
we put in a hydrangea and a wackload of perennials - some bee balm, some echinacea, some shasta daisies, and some creeping ground cover to hold in the edges of the garden, which are elevated. we also bought some blue fescue, which i like because it looks like a cute little sea urchin. i'm not doing food growing - there isn't room for that in the front and i didn't know how to elegantly divide the garden between food and flowers...we went the easy all perennial route. we also chunked up stuff from momma d's garden that she generously donated and planted that.
we mulched it tonight because we wanted to get a good rain in before we locked that moisture in - it's been so dry this april! the stepping stones we bought at this place called milliken farms, across from pac mall - we were going to do flagstones but the concrete circles were $3/piece! can't beat that. i think i'm going to lay out planter boxes along the lip of the enclosed porch and do herbs in there. it's looking pretty good! we'll shore up with a tonne more bulbs in the fall and see how things settle into place - we didn't pay much attention to when things bloomed, so we might have a spectacular late-summer show but nothing in early summer. it's a work in progress, right?
anyway, the neighbs are losing their minds about it. ha! the lady attached to us just had someone come in and give her a quote on designing their frontage - which i think is kind of ridiculous for such a tiny patch of ground, but whatevs.
after our morning being insane-o early riser gardeners (in our defense, we find it really relaxing working in the garden), we headed out to meet buns & xtina at stockyards for breakkie. now, we've been there before for dinnie and had a fairly negative experience, but the brunch card
was too irresistible for a southron hound like myself. we WOULD have been on time (seriously, getting up at 6:30am on a sunday for a 9am brunch date? how could we be foiled?!?) except the dotytron refuses to ever check traffic and weather on the 1s (on am 640) and thus always gets PWNED driving - so we got owned by a stupid sporting life marathon down yonge street, which we HAD to cross to get to the west side of toronto. so aggravating!
xtina had the biscuits and sausage gravy which was a GIANT portion of creamy, crumbled sausage milk gravy on a split biscuit (biscuit was a leetle tough, but very tasty) served with soft-scrambled eggs. it was definitely the biggest portion of the day. she also got a side of the pit beans.
the dotytron and i went halfsies. he got the smoked meat hash which comes with two deep fried poach eggs (poached eggs that are lightly dredged in a sesaoned flour and fried) and a chive sour cream. this was REALLY good as well - the hash was basically almost mashed up potatoes mixed with smoked meat - so it didn't have any distinct potato-yness left to it - but it was hella tasty.
me and buns both ordered the "eggs tommy" which is a split biscuit, topped with andouille sausage, deep fried poach egg, cajun shrimp and a lemony hollandaise. it was also delightful. my only quibble is that the twice-cooking of the egg requires you to poach the egg way under so that it emerges from the fryer with a runny yolk intact. one of the eggs i received wasn't runny anymore, which is TOTALLY the point of an eggs benny, right? the andouille was fan-freaking-tastic in there. so good!
because i'm a giant hog, i also got a side of their house sausage - which consists of very thin patties of seasoned pork - the main seasoning i could taste was salt, so they could up the spice blend a bit more (sage, thyme, etc.)
it was really quiet in there - i was expecting a madhouse because toronto is SO brunch crazy and they've been written up recently in the free weeklies. i don't know if it was the rain, or the early brunching time, or where it's located, but it was very quiet - even when we left around 11ish it wasn't that busy - which is pretty darned ideal if you ask me. i hate lining up for brunch.
we spent the afternoon watering our garden and doing small house-y finishing things - hanging pictures, etc. and then we had dr. rei and hanbo over for dinner.
i made ginger-pear jam glazed ham, roasted asparagus, a mint and pea puree and scalloped potatoes and fennel with cheddar cheese. the scalloped potatoes were exceptionally good. i also made that orange cake again, this time upping the zest amount to 2 oranges' worth as well as increasing the sour cream by 1/4 c. i baked it in a 9" pan (i'm not sure how you'd fit it in an 8" pan) and frosted it with chocolate buttercream. it was a big hit. i could eat that thing all day. the recipe is at the end of the post.
today i spent a good chunk of my lunch hour on the horn with daycares putting spumante on the waiting list as well as calling contractors. it was negative fun.
for dinner i made us a spring pasta of spaghetti with the last of my chunk of guanciale, sliced artichoke hearts (so much prep!) and grated parm. we also had olive garden salad because i love it so.
fin.
--------------------------------------------------------
1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
zest from 2 medium sized oranges
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- preheat oven to 350°F. grease a 9-inch round baking pan and line bottom with parchment, and then grease parchment.
- beat together butter, sugar, and zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer until creamy, about 2 minutes. add eggs 1 at a time, beating until incorporated and scraping down bowl.
- stir in sour cream and orange juice, then add remaining ingredients stirring until just combined.
- transfer batter to baking pan and bake in middle of oven until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 to 40 minutes.
- cool cake in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack. discard paper and cool.
- frost as desired.
notes: this would be equally tasty for an afternoon snack with just a dusting of confectioner's sugar, but could be gussied up with cream cheese frosting, an orange syrup (orange juice, sugar, maybe some orange liquer, heated together - poke holes in top of cake with skewer and pour syrup on top), chocolate ganache, or my favorite, with chocolate buttercream.
this weekend was super-busy but super-fun. on saturday we saw another documentary, "cooking up dreams" which is about the unifying cultural significance of food in peru. it uses food as the basic unifying thread tying together the disparate cultures of peru (japanese, african, indigenous, spanish, mestizo) and champions the unique ingredients of the amazon. both high-end chefs and the cooking of the jungle are given equal attention...i thought it was great - it elicited a few reactions: intense hunger, desire to try peruvian food, desire to travel to peru. here's the trailer:
Cooking Up Dreams (Trailer) from Guarango on Vimeo.
the director was there and he was so cute! such a smiley, good natured dude who you could tell was so happy to be there. i'm definitely putting toronto peruvian restos on my "to eat" list. it doesn't look like there's that many - the two main ones are el fogon and el plebeyo.saturday night i got to scratch my hong kong style cafe itch (cha chaan teng) so we went to phoenix - the location on woodbine. i ordered a million dishes. usually at these places, you can get a "set meal" which includes a soup, some kind of bun, and a hot beverage - they're known for serving stuff like ovaltine and horlick's (the brit influence in hong kong) as well as a hot, very milky tea.
i upgraded ONE of my entrees to the set meal. the soups are generally something creamy and a borscht. i got the "seafood bisque":
then we met up with my little bros and we saw "kick-ass"can i first say that we're finally feeling the results of the hollywood writer's strike? the summer movie previews have been A** ON A STICK. how many times do i have to see the trailer for "the expendables"? or "macgruber?" so brutal! there's nothing coming out this summer that i super-duper want to see. i mean, obviously "iron man 2" and maybe "salt" and definitely "eclipse" for kicks - but there aren't enough summer blockbuster tent poles. laaame!
anyway, "kick-ass" was okay. not really memorable...people were laughing in the theatre but i think it trades a lot on your ability to find an 11 year old saying the word "c**t" - i find those kinds of cheap laughs not really my style. i get it: it's shocking! the violence was pretty stylized and graphic - but i was kind of meh about the whole thing - it was empty spectacle and not particularly all that clever or winning (unlike say, rdj as tony stark in "iron man") it wasn't that it wasn't entertaining, it was just kind of forgettable overall.
the next morning we got up at SIX THIRTY AM to be keeners and to plant all the stuff we bought on saturday in the garden. the neighs were losing their minds. lol! this is what it looks like now that we mulched it tonight:
we put in a hydrangea and a wackload of perennials - some bee balm, some echinacea, some shasta daisies, and some creeping ground cover to hold in the edges of the garden, which are elevated. we also bought some blue fescue, which i like because it looks like a cute little sea urchin. i'm not doing food growing - there isn't room for that in the front and i didn't know how to elegantly divide the garden between food and flowers...we went the easy all perennial route. we also chunked up stuff from momma d's garden that she generously donated and planted that. we mulched it tonight because we wanted to get a good rain in before we locked that moisture in - it's been so dry this april! the stepping stones we bought at this place called milliken farms, across from pac mall - we were going to do flagstones but the concrete circles were $3/piece! can't beat that. i think i'm going to lay out planter boxes along the lip of the enclosed porch and do herbs in there. it's looking pretty good! we'll shore up with a tonne more bulbs in the fall and see how things settle into place - we didn't pay much attention to when things bloomed, so we might have a spectacular late-summer show but nothing in early summer. it's a work in progress, right?
anyway, the neighbs are losing their minds about it. ha! the lady attached to us just had someone come in and give her a quote on designing their frontage - which i think is kind of ridiculous for such a tiny patch of ground, but whatevs.
after our morning being insane-o early riser gardeners (in our defense, we find it really relaxing working in the garden), we headed out to meet buns & xtina at stockyards for breakkie. now, we've been there before for dinnie and had a fairly negative experience, but the brunch card
was too irresistible for a southron hound like myself. we WOULD have been on time (seriously, getting up at 6:30am on a sunday for a 9am brunch date? how could we be foiled?!?) except the dotytron refuses to ever check traffic and weather on the 1s (on am 640) and thus always gets PWNED driving - so we got owned by a stupid sporting life marathon down yonge street, which we HAD to cross to get to the west side of toronto. so aggravating!
it was really quiet in there - i was expecting a madhouse because toronto is SO brunch crazy and they've been written up recently in the free weeklies. i don't know if it was the rain, or the early brunching time, or where it's located, but it was very quiet - even when we left around 11ish it wasn't that busy - which is pretty darned ideal if you ask me. i hate lining up for brunch.
we spent the afternoon watering our garden and doing small house-y finishing things - hanging pictures, etc. and then we had dr. rei and hanbo over for dinner.
today i spent a good chunk of my lunch hour on the horn with daycares putting spumante on the waiting list as well as calling contractors. it was negative fun.
for dinner i made us a spring pasta of spaghetti with the last of my chunk of guanciale, sliced artichoke hearts (so much prep!) and grated parm. we also had olive garden salad because i love it so.fin.
--------------------------------------------------------
orange cake
from gourmet magazine, 2004
serves 12
1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
zest from 2 medium sized oranges
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- preheat oven to 350°F. grease a 9-inch round baking pan and line bottom with parchment, and then grease parchment.
- beat together butter, sugar, and zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer until creamy, about 2 minutes. add eggs 1 at a time, beating until incorporated and scraping down bowl.
- stir in sour cream and orange juice, then add remaining ingredients stirring until just combined.
- transfer batter to baking pan and bake in middle of oven until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 to 40 minutes.
- cool cake in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack. discard paper and cool.
- frost as desired.
notes: this would be equally tasty for an afternoon snack with just a dusting of confectioner's sugar, but could be gussied up with cream cheese frosting, an orange syrup (orange juice, sugar, maybe some orange liquer, heated together - poke holes in top of cake with skewer and pour syrup on top), chocolate ganache, or my favorite, with chocolate buttercream.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
things not conducive to raving
1) incubating a fatburger
but let's do things sequentially, shall we? thursday was a little bit of a crazy day as i had to bring all my dodgeball stuff, my contributions to book club, AND a giant cupcake caddy with me on public transportation...as my friend J said when she dropped me off at the subway after book club, "i feel like i'm sending you away to camp!" lol! giant knapsack, 2 side bags, purse, and cupcake caddy.
we totally lost our dodgeball game by 1 STINKING GAME! to a total n00b team, playing short-handed, with only 5 people: 3 girls, 2 guys. it was tragic. they tied it up with 1 minute left in the game and at the end, when the buzzer rang, they had ONE more person on the court than us, which means that they won by some stupid technicality. if we had had even ONE more person, it would've been OVER for them. oh well...if we play them again, it's going to get silly. they're going to get spanked. but...i REALLY hate losing to teams i KNOW we can beat.
i guess i can indirectly blame book club for my lack of mustard last night. we were book clubbing until PAST 11pm!!! that's the latest i've been up since i found out about spumante. it was buck. i didn't get home until after midnight. it was insane-o. of course i woke up at my usual time (6ish) so i got minimal sleeps and yesterday was a bit of a busy, errand-y day, which meant that by the time i had eaten dinner, i was SPENT. i've said it before and i'll say it again: WHY CAN'T NIGHTS START AT 9PM AND GO TIL 1AM?!? that's IDEAL! the thing that kills you is the pre-drinking time when you're WAITING to go out - that inertia is hard to battle.
anyway, yesterday was a little buck. woke up, went for a 3km run, waited for a contractor who NEVER SHOWED UP, got an hour long massage, and then met up with the dotytron to head downtown to see our first hot docs, this movie "babies" - here's the trailer:
it was pretty cute! my favorite babies were the namibian one and the mongolian one. the white baby was the boringest. so privileged! and its' parents were sooooooo san francisco liberal - like at one point the baby smacks its' mom upside the head and the mom just coos at it. it wasn't even that much of a BABY at that point - it was at least a year old. they also took the baby to some baby and parent singing group where they were singing what sounded like aboriginal songs about mother earth (english-ified, of course.) i mean, it's not like it WASN'T cute at all, but it was the least interesting by far. it also goes to show you how much in the west we fret over our kids and worry. namibian baby was chewing on rocks and animal bones in the dirt. and mongolian baby was plunked down amid livestock and going bare-butt most of the time. we westerners totally over-think things, i think.
at book club there was a whole discussion about daycare and about the problems one of the book clubbers was having finding a daycare near her where they do infant care (like, from 12 to 18 months) and how she didn't want to move the kid at 18 months to a different daycare and uproot the schedule. i was like, "but aren't they like, pretty adaptable?" and there were some murmurings of agreement but also my friend J said that they're having attachment issues at 12 months anyway. i dunno...i kind of feel like, there are babies who grow up in like, palestine or the congo - humans in general are SUPREMELY adaptable, i don't think that the upheaval of sticking your kid in a new daycare at 18 months is a) even going to be be remembered and b) going to be even an issue. COMPARED TO GROWING UP IN PALESTINE?!?!!!!!! c'maaaan.
the dotytron and i are also way more into fear-based parenting than the ladies in the book club. i don't even call it fear-based parenting - it's like setting a baseline of acceptable behavior and not pandering to children. THEY'RE CHILDREN. YOU tell them what's what and the expectations of how to live and behave within your family unit, which serves as a baseline for their eventual interactions in society. and the foundation for that is RESPECT and DOING WHAT I SAY BECAUSE I'M AN ADULT AND I SAY SO. i don't understand negotiating with children. you don't negotiate with terrorists, and children are basically miniature militant extremists. i don't think my mum and big d would have ever FATHOMED pandering to us. which isn't to say we weren't spoiled and given so many different advantages, but the dotytron is full of stories of sending home notes with kids telling them to practice their instruments and the kids coming back with NOTES FROM THEIR PARENTS excusing them from their homework. that's what leads to a culture of entitlement folks. and no work ethic. that, right there.
mum and big d would have never even conceptualized taking MY side over my teachers...the very thought is ludicrous. i also believe in making kids work.
anyway, we'll see what happens to our beliefs when the time actually comes - they'll probably all go out the window! you'll see a gradual series of micro-capitulations until we're fully at the mercy of the whims of the tiny despot. lol!
after the doc i accompanied the dotytron to his after school program and then we went on a mission to real mccoy burgers and pizza in scarborough to get the mojo burger, which is an 8 oz homemade patty with cheese and bacon. we also got a whistle dog, which is a hot dog with cheese and bacon. the place is even smaller than johnny's, if you can believe it, with no option of eating in, which means we were RACING to get the food home in time. the plan was to side our burgers with an order of the mexican fries from great burger kitchen, but since those fools don't have a working phone number online, we ended up opting out of the fries to get the burgers home quicker (it still took us a half hour to get home.)
my review? delicious. different from johnny's in the sense that this is a real hamburger and not one of johnny's frozen patties - johnny's represents an ideal in the classic, greasy spoon, burger shack-y kind of burger, whereas this burger is much brawnier and meatier - on account of being a 1/2 lb of meat and all. the bun was perfect - a little soggy from the ride home but still had enough support for the weight of the patty and toppings. it was delicious. just what the doctor (read: the fatburger) wanted.
then i proceeded to pass out from around 7pm until 11pm, waking up intermittently to find the dotytron watching "jersey shore" which he just discovered like, 2 weeks ago and is totally obsessed with. lol! then we shuffled off to bed. we officially are le suck. i've been complaining and complaining about the lack of good old skool parties for YEARS. a prime candidate (probably THE prime candidate) comes along and i can't get off the couch. le sigh. it will get better - it HAS to get better. i have to believe that i will one day dance and go out again because i'm NOT ready to throw in the towel yet, ya hear?
today we're going to see another documentary, "cooking up dreams" then doing some garden-based errands and then meeting up with my mum for dinner - i've been craving hong kong style cafe food (also known as cha chaan teng for the tea, "cha" served there) like crazy. so i think we're going to go to phoenix so that i can get my ox tongue spaghetti, baked porkchop rice and malay style beef tendon curry on (and maybe hainan chicken rice, too???) then we're meeting up with my bros to see a movie. s-dawg gets back this afternoon and is having chova drive him (à la tony stark in "iron man") to a hero burger to eat "real" food. lol! i can't wait to see s-dawg and hear stories from sri lanka!
best get crackings.
fin.
but let's do things sequentially, shall we? thursday was a little bit of a crazy day as i had to bring all my dodgeball stuff, my contributions to book club, AND a giant cupcake caddy with me on public transportation...as my friend J said when she dropped me off at the subway after book club, "i feel like i'm sending you away to camp!" lol! giant knapsack, 2 side bags, purse, and cupcake caddy.
we totally lost our dodgeball game by 1 STINKING GAME! to a total n00b team, playing short-handed, with only 5 people: 3 girls, 2 guys. it was tragic. they tied it up with 1 minute left in the game and at the end, when the buzzer rang, they had ONE more person on the court than us, which means that they won by some stupid technicality. if we had had even ONE more person, it would've been OVER for them. oh well...if we play them again, it's going to get silly. they're going to get spanked. but...i REALLY hate losing to teams i KNOW we can beat.
i guess i can indirectly blame book club for my lack of mustard last night. we were book clubbing until PAST 11pm!!! that's the latest i've been up since i found out about spumante. it was buck. i didn't get home until after midnight. it was insane-o. of course i woke up at my usual time (6ish) so i got minimal sleeps and yesterday was a bit of a busy, errand-y day, which meant that by the time i had eaten dinner, i was SPENT. i've said it before and i'll say it again: WHY CAN'T NIGHTS START AT 9PM AND GO TIL 1AM?!? that's IDEAL! the thing that kills you is the pre-drinking time when you're WAITING to go out - that inertia is hard to battle.
anyway, yesterday was a little buck. woke up, went for a 3km run, waited for a contractor who NEVER SHOWED UP, got an hour long massage, and then met up with the dotytron to head downtown to see our first hot docs, this movie "babies" - here's the trailer:
it was pretty cute! my favorite babies were the namibian one and the mongolian one. the white baby was the boringest. so privileged! and its' parents were sooooooo san francisco liberal - like at one point the baby smacks its' mom upside the head and the mom just coos at it. it wasn't even that much of a BABY at that point - it was at least a year old. they also took the baby to some baby and parent singing group where they were singing what sounded like aboriginal songs about mother earth (english-ified, of course.) i mean, it's not like it WASN'T cute at all, but it was the least interesting by far. it also goes to show you how much in the west we fret over our kids and worry. namibian baby was chewing on rocks and animal bones in the dirt. and mongolian baby was plunked down amid livestock and going bare-butt most of the time. we westerners totally over-think things, i think.
at book club there was a whole discussion about daycare and about the problems one of the book clubbers was having finding a daycare near her where they do infant care (like, from 12 to 18 months) and how she didn't want to move the kid at 18 months to a different daycare and uproot the schedule. i was like, "but aren't they like, pretty adaptable?" and there were some murmurings of agreement but also my friend J said that they're having attachment issues at 12 months anyway. i dunno...i kind of feel like, there are babies who grow up in like, palestine or the congo - humans in general are SUPREMELY adaptable, i don't think that the upheaval of sticking your kid in a new daycare at 18 months is a) even going to be be remembered and b) going to be even an issue. COMPARED TO GROWING UP IN PALESTINE?!?!!!!!! c'maaaan.
the dotytron and i are also way more into fear-based parenting than the ladies in the book club. i don't even call it fear-based parenting - it's like setting a baseline of acceptable behavior and not pandering to children. THEY'RE CHILDREN. YOU tell them what's what and the expectations of how to live and behave within your family unit, which serves as a baseline for their eventual interactions in society. and the foundation for that is RESPECT and DOING WHAT I SAY BECAUSE I'M AN ADULT AND I SAY SO. i don't understand negotiating with children. you don't negotiate with terrorists, and children are basically miniature militant extremists. i don't think my mum and big d would have ever FATHOMED pandering to us. which isn't to say we weren't spoiled and given so many different advantages, but the dotytron is full of stories of sending home notes with kids telling them to practice their instruments and the kids coming back with NOTES FROM THEIR PARENTS excusing them from their homework. that's what leads to a culture of entitlement folks. and no work ethic. that, right there.
mum and big d would have never even conceptualized taking MY side over my teachers...the very thought is ludicrous. i also believe in making kids work.
anyway, we'll see what happens to our beliefs when the time actually comes - they'll probably all go out the window! you'll see a gradual series of micro-capitulations until we're fully at the mercy of the whims of the tiny despot. lol!
after the doc i accompanied the dotytron to his after school program and then we went on a mission to real mccoy burgers and pizza in scarborough to get the mojo burger, which is an 8 oz homemade patty with cheese and bacon. we also got a whistle dog, which is a hot dog with cheese and bacon. the place is even smaller than johnny's, if you can believe it, with no option of eating in, which means we were RACING to get the food home in time. the plan was to side our burgers with an order of the mexican fries from great burger kitchen, but since those fools don't have a working phone number online, we ended up opting out of the fries to get the burgers home quicker (it still took us a half hour to get home.)
my review? delicious. different from johnny's in the sense that this is a real hamburger and not one of johnny's frozen patties - johnny's represents an ideal in the classic, greasy spoon, burger shack-y kind of burger, whereas this burger is much brawnier and meatier - on account of being a 1/2 lb of meat and all. the bun was perfect - a little soggy from the ride home but still had enough support for the weight of the patty and toppings. it was delicious. just what the doctor (read: the fatburger) wanted.then i proceeded to pass out from around 7pm until 11pm, waking up intermittently to find the dotytron watching "jersey shore" which he just discovered like, 2 weeks ago and is totally obsessed with. lol! then we shuffled off to bed. we officially are le suck. i've been complaining and complaining about the lack of good old skool parties for YEARS. a prime candidate (probably THE prime candidate) comes along and i can't get off the couch. le sigh. it will get better - it HAS to get better. i have to believe that i will one day dance and go out again because i'm NOT ready to throw in the towel yet, ya hear?
today we're going to see another documentary, "cooking up dreams" then doing some garden-based errands and then meeting up with my mum for dinner - i've been craving hong kong style cafe food (also known as cha chaan teng for the tea, "cha" served there) like crazy. so i think we're going to go to phoenix so that i can get my ox tongue spaghetti, baked porkchop rice and malay style beef tendon curry on (and maybe hainan chicken rice, too???) then we're meeting up with my bros to see a movie. s-dawg gets back this afternoon and is having chova drive him (à la tony stark in "iron man") to a hero burger to eat "real" food. lol! i can't wait to see s-dawg and hear stories from sri lanka!
best get crackings.
fin.
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