 |
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people |  |
  |
||
|
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people | |
|
||
ShinyHappy - Thoughts for March 1st - 15th, 2004
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/15/04 Cold rolls tend to confuse, for some reason.
Interesting and personally happy-making Google search phrase someone used today to reach my site: Cocoa Camino Colin.
Andrew and I had been planning to go out for pho after he came back home from Ottawa. Since making my entry a few days ago about cold rolls, however, I started to crave the kind with noodles in them so tonight we went to Miss Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant we'd gone to with Pez and Sky back in November where I'd eaten half of a noodle-type cold roll for the first time and loved it. We walked in the door this evening and who did we see sitting there but Pez and Skye! We'd normally have sat with them but they were there with some members of Skye's family, so we were seated at a table near them and Andrew and Pez were able to trade some barbs back and forth, which seems to be a mainstay of their relationship. They used to be roommates so have this comfortable 'old married couple' sort of air to them.
Since we weren't at Pho Hung I decided to go with the five spice roasted chicken and cold shredded pork rolls. Andrew went with pho, but decided to go a little wild and ordered the 'brisket and tendon' pho with an order of Imperial rolls. Usually we both get rare beef pho. In a manner similar to Pho Hung, the food delivery was a staggered series of odd events.
First came the bowl of mystery soup which neither of us ordered. It was placed in front of Andrew by a waitress who was gone in an instant, leaving us to ponder it. Eventually Andrew managed to ask one of the wait staff whether it had been given to us mistakenly, and we were informed it was to go with the rice. Since my meal came with rice we figured it was mine and kept it. Andrew ate it after I tried a piece of pork out of it.
So far, so good. Then the waitress brought a platter of cold rolls with shrimp in them. I sent them back with the explanation of having ordered shredded pork rolls, of course, since I hadn't ordered shrimp rolls and very soon after that came my chicken. It was great and I was enjoying it and the rice thoroughly, although I felt a little bad eating before Andrew's main dish arrived. His came not too long after, though, with his Imperial rolls. We asked after my rolls again and the man who'd brought Andrew's food nodded and assured us they were coming.
They came, with shrimp in them again. I asked if they always came with shrimp, and the man said, "Oh, you don't want them with shrimp?" The answer was definitely 'no', and he took the shrimp ones away. Andrew was starting to doctor up his pho and I watched him add the fish sauce and chilies and hot sauce and whatnot, and I noticed that some of the lumps of meat in his pho looked very organ-like. After trying them, he did pronounce them to be some kind of organ meat, but couldn't quite define which organ, which I find kind of distressing since he hadn't ordered it with organ meat at all. The other kinds of meat looked very briskety, however, with lots of clumps of fat and some highly questionable translucent pieces of tendon to add colourlessness, or that's what I'm assuming they were.
Finally my rolls came and I was thrilled. Until I got to the middle of the first one and discovered a pocket of pickled vegetables stuffed in the center that hadn't been there the first time I'd tried the suckers. Not a tragedy as they were easy to pick out, being in a clump as they were. But in the end, my curiosity has been sastisfied and until we move away I do not think I will need to wander from my beloved Pho Hung for Vietnamese food again. I'd rather stick with the sub-par service I'm used to than endure it elsewhere.
After it was over with Andrew and I decided to go see a movie, so we bought our tickets at the Paramount and went around the corner to a pub to kill the hour we had before the movie. We decided to order dessert, and I saved Andrew's egg-intolerant butt by asking if there was albumen in the ice cream. He hadn't thought to ask about albumen as an ingredient, just egg whites and yolk, so if he'd gotten ice cream on his apple blossom I'd have had a very sick Andrew to deal with. As it was, I didn't and we got to go see Hidalgo, which turned out to be a really good movie. It had its few moments of downright hokeyness, but I honestly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. Not too violent, not too over-the-top, but exciting enough that it kept me interested until the end.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/14/04 It is our crowning glory, after all.
Andrew is home and all is right with the world. Or at least, the part of the world that dictates it is better to have Andrew home than not. He had himself a great weekend with friends and family in Ottawa and came home fairly worn out, but happy.
I showed him tonight how amusing some of the Google search phrases are that cause people to stumble over my site. Recently my two personal favourites have been 'Loblaws sushi' and 'Orthodox Jewish princess blog'. If the person who found this page using the last one reads this, please consider emailing me and telling me what you were really looking for and whether you found it. The curiosity is killing me! I've also had people find my page in the last few days doing searches for 'Shovelglove' and 'wussy origin'. Neat!
To continue with the theme of personal grooming specific to hair, I came across a hair-care concept while I was looking up henna sites that I'd never heard of before. It's called C/O (conditioner only) washing, and it's the practice of washing your hair using only conditioner without shampooing first. Sounds crazy, I know, but apparently it works according to this site. Another site that talks about it as a beneficial thing makes it seem unnecessarily complicated, but there's a note at the bottom of the page saying that the one-step C/O wash works just as well. I figure I should include it for the sake of variety, though. Maybe there are people reading this who like to unnecessarily complicate their lives.
I stress about my hair because I have what I call the 'straight frizzies', meaning I seem to have tons of these weird hairs sticking out around my head instead of lying straight and smooth, despite Jen's sweet compliments in the comments. And the texture of my hair always feels a bit dry and crispy, even though using a moisturizing shampoo/conditioner seems to make it even frizzier. I bought a tube of some smoothing stuff, but that just made my hair feel oily. So needless to say, I'm concerned that my hair is unhealthy, and after reading about C/O washing figured, why not? So today I washed my hair using only conditioner, and was pleasantly surprised. It doesn't feel dirty and greasy, which was my main concern. I may want to rinse a little longer next time, but I'm totally willing to do this for the next week and see how well it goes. I wash my hair every day, so I think this will be much better for it.
Updates will ensue!
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/13/04 Estrogen and empty calories make for a fun night.
Tonight was the all-ladies night party at May's place and it was so much fun. There were four of us, and we rented a movie, ate takeout and chocolate and cake, and had a fantastic time talking, just us women.
I like it when there's just one gender in the room. I mean, obviously there are things that are going to be spoken about freely that just might not be if a member of the opposite sex were in the room, although our group of friends are frankly quite candid and open about many, many things. However, there is, of necessity, a certain amount of gender 'editing' that goes on in mixed company that doesn't on nights like the one we just had. It's refreshing to have get-togethers like that, and I really do think they're necessary from time to time.
We rented Mona Lisa Smile and I was pretty disappointed in it. Julia Roberts was much better than I expected her to be, but the film itself was just not great. It was perhaps the worst performance I've ever seen poor Julia Stiles give. She couldn't have been less emotive if they'd carved her out of wood and leaned her against the wall in each of her scenes. Even when she was supposed to be making an impassioned speech to the Julia Roberts character, she didn't change her facial expression at all. On the other hand, Maggie Gyllenhaal was about as fantastic as I've ever seen her. What a babe.
I was going to go right to bed instead of writing this entry, as it's very late and I'm tired as can be, but I'm having an ocular migraine and it's keeping me up. Luckily there's no pain involved (yet), but it's annoying and I'm very glad I don't have to see all that well to type, although there's a fair chance I'll have more typos than usual as my editor is still in Ottawa. I've got the textbook case, too. The visual disturbance is jagged and shaped like a half-moon, sort of, but it's more of a fluorescent blue and orange than pastel, and with rippling light effects going on. Weirdness, weirdness. I haven't had one for years and years. I usually get a killer headache fairly soon afterward, but I've taken my Advil Migraine and am hoping for the best.
I experimented with the cheap henna I talked about yesterday. I bought a packet and hennaed my hair again, getting a much richer shade than I had initially. I didn't really think the change was noticeable, but it was one of the first things May commented on tonight when she saw me. I also don't think that the lighting in our bathroom is bright enough to do it justice, so I'll take her word for it, and Rayna's too, as she commented on it when I got in the car. I also used the henna to draw a little mehndi design on my left palm to test its possibilities in that area, and the results are so-so. I know that with a proper mix I can get much darker results than I got with just henna and lemon juice, but I also did not leave the henna on my skin beyond a couple of hours and didn't wrap it at all, so the stain is fairly respectable for such a half-hearted attempt.
The half-vision seems to be fading now, so I should head to bed and try to sleep through whatever headache follows, I suppose. I still miss my Andrew, but he's coming home tomorrow night. Glee.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/12/04 As the French say: Amour propre.
Lately I've been looking in the mirror at my hair and just despairing. It needs at least a trim right now, badly, but I've been wishing for years that I could do something different with it. I've had basically the same hairstyle since high school and feel like I'm the most unoriginal person on the planet. The problem is, I have no idea what to do with it. It's straight and brown and that's all I really know. I don't know if it needs more or less moisture, more or less body, clarifying, what-have-you. I'm clueless about it. For the sake of sheer maintenance I wash it with the disquieting knowledge that I'm almost certainly using the wrong shampoo and conditioner, I use a blow-dryer until it's mostly dry (not all the way because I don't want to fry it), I part it and hair-spray it into place. And then I pray that it will maintain some semblance of order until I go to bed that night.
During dinner on Survivor Tuesday Rayna and May were bemoaning their curly hair, and I was thinking to myself how I wish I had sexy, bouncy curls. Andrew was rather shocked to learn that in the past I've had some perms. Most don't bear thinking about, but one was just perfect and I miss being able to pull the top part back in a clip without having it slide out limply on the sides like a dead thing. What I am considering doing for a self-mollifying change is giving it a henna treatment. Henna is incredibly good for your hair and since I have such dark hair, it won't be a drastic change, it'll just give it some red tints. At least, this is what I'm hoping.
... time passes
I took a walk so I could run a couple of errands. I had to go to the natural foods store to buy my Cocoa Camino for tomorrow, and I also needed to go to the drugstore to buy shampoo. While I was in the natural foods store I thought to myself, well, why don't I see if there's any promising looking organic shampoo? I found some funky henna shampoo and conditioner that does look promising, but I also found some actual henna! It was right there in the hair-care section and not expensive at all, so I picked up some Colora Henna in 'mahogany' and now I have hennaed hair. And like I thought, it's not a drastic change, but it's there. Yay me!
The henna shampoo and conditioner are supposed to add natural highlights, which is a bonus if that's true, but basically I'm in it for the organic nature of my purchase. As for the act of treating my hair with the henna, well ... it's a messy process that involved a lot of wiping up stray drips and smutches of gritty henna mix from the floor, sink, bathtub, shower curtains, and wall. I love the smell of henna, though. I used to be into mehndi (there are a million spellings of the word 'mehndi', this is just the one I use) and mixing the henna tonight brought back the hours I used to put into drawing designs on my hands and feet. I'm thinking of doing it again, just for fun. There were packets of stuff just labeled 'henna' which I considered buying, but figured I'd better go with something marketed as specifically for hair. The plain henna was dirt cheap, so I think I will buy some for mehndi purposes and see how well it works.
Lastly, and most importantly, I miss Andrew.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/11/04 My name is Keltie ... I live on the second floor.
Today on the phone Alannah asked me about the cold rolls I get with my pho at Pho Hung. I've never described them, and if you've never had one, I suppose the name doesn't sound all too appealing. Alannah's POV seemed to stem from the question of why would one eat a cold roll as opposed to a hot one.
Well, here's a recipe that is similar to the cold rolls I get at Pho Hung, except the ones I get don't have noodles or prawns in them. You can get the ones with prawns, but I don't, of course, and noodles just don't seem to be an option. See, the thing I like best about them is that the wrapper is rubbery, which sounds gross, but oh, is it good. And they hold together better than hot ones, I think. I don't use the dipping sauce that comes with them as I know it has that special 'something fermented that used to be alive' as an ingredient and I'm just not down with that. I'm no vegetarian, but fermenting is a questionable business, and especially when it comes to meat. This is why I have difficulties with fish sauce.
Andrew is leaving in the morning at a ridiculously early hour to catch the train to Ottawa, leaving me to my own devices for a few days. That's fine, especially since it looks as if there's going to be a girl party at May's place on Saturday night, which she has mentioned will involve chocolate. I'm not usually a chocolate whore, but since Cocoa Camino came on the scene I seem to be dwelling on it more than in the past. And we will also likely rent something fun to watch and just be women for a night without any testosterone in the room at all. Noah, as much of a rugged little boy that he is, just doesn't count yet on that level. Sounds fun!
Something fairly cool happened tonight. Andrew was at the train station buying his tickets and I was home doing laundry. We live so close to the laundromat that we can come home and fiddle around here while things are washing and drying, so I was just heading back over to check on the wash. As I reached the door at the bottom of the stairs someone came out of the apartment below us and left at the same time. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there's a mystery musician living below us and often there is a woman singing along with the music. Well, this was a woman, so as we walked out of the building my curiosity overcame me and I asked her if she was the singer.
She looked stricken and immediately asked if the music is too loud. I hastened to assure her that no, it isn't, and that we actually thoroughly enjoy what we hear. Then she just looked embarassed and said that she was the singer, and that she's the one actually living down there. I get a little unclear here on what exactly is going on down there music-wise. It appears that she is mixing music, but we (Andrew and I) do think that there's a lot of live stuff going on. So I'm not certain what instruments she plays, and what's recorded. Andrew, in true stalker fashion, has reported that he saw a bass guitar through her living room window, so she must play it. If she does, she's awesome. We had a very friendly conversation outside of the laundromat and she told me to stop by her apartment any time!
I think she's stalking us too, though, because she said, "Oh, you're from Ottawa, right?" before I'd said anything about where either of us come from. Weird! Our landlady maybe said something to her about Andrew being from Ottawa, but that's a bit of stretch. That, or she can hear everything that goes on in our apartment through the floor. And if that's the case, I think I'm too embarassed to ever talk to her again.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/10/04 Sentimental wallowing is allowed from time to time.
I think I am having what is known as an incredibly boring week. Other than the good times had at Dan and May's place, we've had a very quiet, uneventful time of it after the excitement of the week prior. This is, of course, not a bad thing. You know that saying about 'interesting times', right? However, I think poor Andrew has been having more in the way of excitement than I have, if extreme work-related aggravation and annoyance are considered to be such.
It's given me time to think, which can be good and bad. I can't get over how sad I feel about leaving Toronto. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd really end up living in this city, and now that I do, I literally love it. One of my favourite things about where we live is that we can see the C.N. Tower from our kitchen window. It kind of surprises me how often I look at it, as if checking to see that it's still there. At night I look for the flashing lights that mark where it is. I'm not sure what it is about it, but I love seeing it. I don't even think it's especially attractive or breathtaking, but it means Toronto to me. When I look at it I often think of where I am now as compared to a year ago, and I feel good about that.
Sometimes during days of damp weather, it's clouded out of sight entirely. It's odd when that happens. I can see all the buildings near us clearly, but instead of that big old thing rising up in the distance, there's just grey, empty space, as if the horizon goes on and on. It feels shocking and wrong, and it makes me think about the twin towers and what a constant and horrible jolting reminder their absence must have been to people so used to seeing them every day. To have the familiar, especially something so supposedly permanent and immovable, disappear is uncomfortable and troubling even without such tragedy behind it.
I know that Ottawa will become special to me in the same way that Toronto has. I've said to Andrew that we will probably look back on our first year together in this cramped, uncomfortable little apartment as one of the happiest times of our lives, and I think it's true for so many reasons. Which reassures me that our move to Ottawa will have that same air of discovery and new beginnings that this one did. Andrew will be starting his Master's degree, I'll be going to school the following fall, and we'll be making another new home together. So really, the point is not where we live, but that we'll be living wherever we are together. Toronto will still be here, our friends will still be here, and we will often be here too.
Well. I feel better.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/09/04 S - M - R - T ... I mean, S - M - A - R - T!
With thanks to my friends at Merriam-Webster Online:
One entry found for wuss.
Main Entry: wuss
Pronunciation: 'wus
Variant(s): also wus·sy/'wu-sE/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural wuss·es also wus·sies
Etymology: origin unknown
: WIMP
- wussy adjectiveTonight Dan caused me to have severe nigglings in the back of my mind for the entire evening that I had grossly misused the word 'wussy' in my entry on the 7th. It turns out I did not, as 'wussy' is both a noun and an adjective! Phew! So there, Dan! Andrew says, "Eat it!"
Of course, I don't think there should be eating of anything except delicious cake (or seitan). Dan's a lovely fellow.
May and I had an interesting discussion tonight about, among other things, using sign language with babies before they can talk. I'd heard of it long ago through a story that was fairly negative, so had never really had positive ideas about it, but have realized over time that it has its merits. I believe that it's something I'll want to do with my own children some day. It certainly can't hurt and it appears not to be as laborious a chore as it might sound. It's about making a sign that means 'nurse' when you think the baby wants to nurse, or 'cat' when the baby sees a cat, for example, and doing it consistently, so that when the baby has enough control to copy those signs it's going to be able to use them to communicate before it can speak out loud. This site is all about signing with your baby, and explains how it's not necessary to stick only with American Sign Language, and that you can start long before you expect the baby to start signing in return. I think it's fascinating stuff.
I don't have a lot else to tell about today. Still no word from the temp agency. I'm assuming the job is taken, which has me a bit down. I don't want to dwell on it and have been trying not to do that too much, so it was nice to go to May and Dan's place for Survivor night tonight. There's always a nearly-naked-Noah sighting, which is a pick-me-up because what is more pleasing than a baby with no clothes?
So lastly, I am proud to be able to say that I had half of a Cocoa Camino bar in the apartment for three entire days without eating it. While that may not sound impressive, believe me, it's impressive! I know that I talk incessantly about these bars and anyone reading even semi-regularly wants me to just shut my yap already concerning them, but I really, really, really love them. So waiting until today to eat it was a feat for me. It's been kind of sickening for me to realize just how much of an instant-gratification doofus I had become, so having willpower in even small amounts is nice for me.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/08/04 Fun with solmization.
Well, it's getting to the point where I'm convinced I've been blacklisted. I wrote on Friday that I had a job interview this week. Since there was a question of whether or not I'd be able to get to Brampton, the lady at the temp agency said she'd email me some skillset testing over the weekend to get things started. Nothing from her arrived in my inbox. I called and left a message this morning and haven't received a call back. It seemed on Friday that there was some urgency regarding getting the position filled, so now I'm paranoid that it has been.
Argh.
Anyhow, today was a good day despite that. Not that anything exciting or new happened, or that I even left the apartment, but I had a minor personal epiphany this afternoon. I've been frustrated literally for years because I want to go back to school, I just haven't known what I want to take. It's been getting worrisome, as without a full post-secondary education I've found that I'm quite limited when it comes to jobs that I actually want to do. There are fulfilling, interesting jobs that I know I could do, but employers appear to view applicants without a degree of some sort as undesirable. Otherwise, I'm stuck working indefinitely in call centres for very little money. Not going to happen.
A meandering train of thought and a comment made jokingly to Alannah on the phone during the afternoon combined suddenly to form the realization that I am fascinated by psychology, especially psychology relating to the personality. I'd never even considered psychology as an option before now. I'd thought about philosophy, and sociology/anthropology which seems closer, but is not exactly what it is I'm interested in. What grabs me has more to do with individual reactions to environment. It's why I dwell on the food thing so much, wondering why it bothers people on an almost personal level if I leave a certain type of food untouched. I want to understand things like that more completely. I don't know that my eventual goal would be to become a practicing psychologist, but I'm not ruling that out either.
Baby steps right now, of course.
You know what? I've never explained the nickname factor in my family. We three sisters have nicknames. I'll start with Alannah because she's the oldest. Hee hee. At one point in her life she babysat two cute little boys. The older boy was probably only around three, I guess, and he couldn't say her name properly, so it came out 'La'. It was so cute that we just picked up on it. Later in life after she had her own cute kids the oldest, Kelton, couldn't say my name properly and it came out 'Tee'. I guess it was also cute enough that it stuck. Now Miriam is the youngest, and to be honest I don't really know why we call her 'Mimi', I just know that it wasn't because I couldn't say her name properly. Alannah and I both briefly mispronounced her name as Mir-EE-um instead of Mary-um when she was born. She has to be different, of course, and have two syllables in her nickname, thus undermining our efforts to populate the city of Do-Re-Mi.
I figure I'd better end here because suprisingly I haven't linked to a single thing in this entry and that's gotta be a record!
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/07/04 I'm tired of the cold and snow.
This afternoon and tonight we had some dumb snow here in Toronto. It looked impressive and all that coming down, but doesn't seem to have much staying power. In case I haven't made it clear, I'm so over winter. If I have to spend the next, oh, rest of my life in Ottawa, I want this spring to be early, warm, and as much like paradise as possible! May assured me tonight at her place that the Ottawa winter is nowhere near as bad as the natives make it out to be when they're here in Toronto and scorning what we call our winter, but we shall see.
May is perhaps far less of a wussy than I am.
Alannah sent me a bunch of tattoo designs that she's considering and I ended up modifying them for her to make them a little simpler, which inspired me to modify the one that I'm almost sure I want. Here is the original: solar armed cross, and here is the modified version of it: modified version. I took into account what Colin said in the comments about it not being subtle enough and I think this solves the problem nicely, as well as (hopefully) making it a little bit simpler for the tattoo artist when it comes to transferring it to my skin. I'm not expecting it to alter the pain factor any. Anything over ten minutes long involving my skin and a needle is more than pain enough, thank you, and won't make a real difference in the long run.
Now, I've recently heard some differing views on Shovelglove, the unique exercise system devised by Reinhard Engels, the creator of the No S Diet. He just posted some before and after pictures of himself, however, that speak volumes regarding the effectiveness of his exercise system (Shovelglove and Urban Ranger) combined with his diet program. Check out those sweet abs! I also have to mention that I love the fact that his cats are included in his pictures from time to time. Especially the one on the Shovelglove page.
Sadly, this entry marks the retirement of Alannah's forum, which has been rendered obsolete by the addition of the comments function. It will be sorely missed, mostly by me, I guess, as I was really the only one who posted there save La herself, and then only when I badgered her about not posting there. So if you'd like to take a moment of silence for it, that would be nice, but I'll never really know the difference, will I?
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/06/04 bod-mod and embarassing bed stories
I was thinking about this weblog today and it crossed my mind that I might start to feel like I have to justify my food choices since I'm always talking about where we've gone to eat and what we ate there coupled with the fact that I'm trying to develop better eating habits.
I was dwelling on this because I wrote yesterday that I'd eaten a dessert. Then I thought today, "Omigosh, if I talk about today being an S day, people will think I fell off the wagon yesterday!" Then I thought, "Why do I care?" I don't really care, but I kind of care, if you know what I mean. Last night was a special occasion, which makes it an S day, but from now on I'm not going to explain/defend/justify anything I eat. I don't think anyone reading cares that much.
Which means I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed a half-bar of Cocoa Camino milk chocolate today and it was heaven. Just heaven. Andrew and I were lounging in bed this morning and he suddenly remembered that he had something for my S day. I'd been thinking to myself that I'd have to go buy a bar if I wanted one today, but he jumped up, fished in his backpack and pulled out a Cocoa Camino bar for me. He'd bought it when he went for tea the other day at the natural foods store and kept it as a surprise for me until today. Smart guy, as I may have eaten it the day he bought it otherwise. Oooh, and I will eventually get to pass judgement on the dark chocolate bars as well, as Alannah has order ... I mean, asked me to bring her a couple of bars for her birthday. I'm going to see if she'll let me taste the dark, although she might like them as much as I do the milk ones and smack me down. I suppose it's possible to buy my own dark chocolate Cocoa Camino, since if I don't like it Andrew will eat the rest, but he usually buys dark chocolate marzipan as his sweet treat, which isn't a huge temptation for me, thankfully. So, it's probably best to just wait and see.
Speaking of my elder sister (which I did somewhere in the above paragraph), Alannah and I talked tattoos a bit today. I've known what I want to get for a long time now but have been waiting for the right time to get one, as I'll want to show it off to more or less everyone I know. I'm planning to get a little Celtic cross on the lower left side of my back. I've had two designs picked out for a while now that I downloaded from a great site called Aon Celtic Art in the Free Ware section. The first one that I like is a little fancy, but I like it because it's a solar-armed cross, the four arms being the same length. The second one might be more my style as it's a bit simpler, although it has an extended lower arm. It's simple enough to tell the artist to make all the arms the same, so that's the one I'm probably going to go with. I dunno. I'm open to suggestions. Except suggestions regarding not getting a tattoo.
I haven't played Myst III much lately. During the days I've been trying to focus on job hunting and writing and various other stuff that needs doing for whatever reason, plus Andrew recently got Halo for his Mac and has been playing it quite a bit. I won't say obsessively, but he has a lot of focus when he plays. Focus is good. So my lack of updates on that front have nothing to do with quitting in a pouty huff because it's too haaaaaaard. It's just that life gets in the way sometimes.
This morning I got an early-morning call from my bank. It wasn't anything serious, but I also hadn't updated my address information since moving to Toronto and they wanted that stuff. That should have been fine, but as I'd just woken up I couldn't remember either of my two previous addresses to verify any information and then I couldn't get my current address right either, so Andrew had to correct me in the background. I know them now, but it was kind of embarassing not to know them then, really, and perhaps rather suspicious-seeming to the poor woman at the bank. It couldn't have been more obvious that I was groggy, rumpled, and half-awake, and she probably thought I'd had a hard night's partying under my belt. I had a glass of sangria last night, yeah, but that was it! I swear.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/05/04 I did not eat a small rodent
Today I am excited about green tea and the fact that making it is so much more doable now that we have a kettle. I've discovered how much I like it since frequenting Pho Hung, and I think it's a wonderful discovery because usually I can't abide tea without oceans of milk and mountains of sugar. But since it has a very mild flavour and no bitterness, I like it a lot as it is. So Andrew brought some home yesterday and I have been drinking delicious green tea all day. The link I provided is fairly cautious about the cancer benefits of green tea, so here is a site that is positively giddy about the beneficial nature of green tea. I leave it to you to decide.
I am also tentatively optimistic about the fact that I have a job interview next week. I've been in high stress mode over the fact that I can't seem to find work despite applying for jobs every day, and even the temp agencies seem to have abandoned me. I got a call from one today, though, and was told that I'm perfect in every way for the position they have in mind. It doesn't sound exciting or glamorous, but it's a contract job that pays well, and if I can get it, well, I'll take it. My only concern is that my Excel skills are not superb which could be an issue, and the interview is going to be a bitch to get to as it's out in Brampton and I have no vehicle. The job itself is in Etobicoke, which is at least TTC accessible.
I was talking to John this afternoon for a bit as he's home sick with the nastiness of a cold. He amused me to no end by referring to the No S Diet as the 'No Shit Diet', which I think is entirely appropriate on so many levels. And so very like John to say.
Andrew and I are going out for dinner tonight to celebrate his week of good news. We're going to go somewhere we've never gone to together before, so he narrowed it down to a couple of places, one being a mexican restaurant quite near us. I'm favouring that option internally as I'd love to try another mole dish, but it's Andrew's night and he gets to choose. Usually if it were up to me of course I'd choose Pho Hung, or perhaps Miss Saigon, which makes a really tasty grilled chicken dish that I could eat a lot of if given the chance. But Mexican is very tempting today, for some reason.
... time passes
We had Mexican. I got a great chicken mole dinner that I enjoyed thoroughly, although it was a lot hotter than the last one I'd had. After dinner we thought about going to Dutch Dreams for some ice cream but when we got to the corner of Vaughan and St. Clair we could see that the lineup was out the door and I didn't feel like waiting. Pez and Skye had called to see if we wanted to go see Starsky and Hutch with them, and since we'd been planning to see it with them eventually anyhow we decided to make it a full night out. So we hopped the subway down to Osgoode station and had dessert at The Queen Mother on Queen street before meeting them at the theatre.
It was incredibly mild out tonight and it seemed like everyone felt spring in the air. Yeah, it's Friday night and people are far more likely to be out on the steets, especially Queen, but it was like there was energy everywhere. So different from the bitterly cold nights when everyone hurries along with heads down, intent on getting where they're going to get into warmth somewhere. Maybe it wasn't any different from any other Friday night on Queen street. Maybe I was the one that felt different, but I liked it.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/04/04 I think it means I'm getting old
I found out a few years back that I have sciatica. Now, I learned this from my sketchy doctor in Kingston so it's probably worth talking to my new doctor in Toronto, but from what I've read about it things check out. Luckily, I'm in the 'infrequent and irritating' camp when it comes to pain, but there's a patch of constant numbness on the left side of my left thigh near the knee that I find disturbing. I mean, I know why it's there and all, but touching it feels incredibly creepy. It makes me shudder.
I've been thinking about it more than usual lately because this summer there are things that I want to do that I haven't done for years, like canoeing and biking, and I've been wondering how possible those things are with back complications. The Kingston doctor basically said not to worry about it unless the pain was debilitating, so I didn't, and it turns out she was right. The best thing for it is to remain active without putting unnecessary strain on the back. That's good news for me.
Speaking of excercise, I recently got to see Shovelglove in action! If you know of the No S Diet, then you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, look and see. I walked in the door at Dan and May's and there was a sledgehammer leaning against the wall. The first thing I asked was whether it was for Shovelglove, and it was! Dan showed me a prior but too-heavy version of Shovelglove that he'd made, with brief demonstrations of shoveling, churning butter, and the movement with no name. I don't yet know if Shovelglove is for me. Being an Urban Ranger seems like a nice start. I already know that I love walking, and I'm a firm believer that it's the best excercise out there.
As for the No S Diet itself, I've been making the attempt to follow the basic rules and see where that gets me. No snacks, no sweets, and no second helpings. I haven't been stressing out about portion sizes much as I don't want to overload the habit-forming process, but it's been going really well. I did fly in the face of the advice of the diet's creator and will be making Tuesdays an 'S' day, but that's our dedicated Survivor night and I don't want to miss out on yummy food and drinks with our friends that day. I was conservative, actually, and only had a Coke and a spoonful of cookie dough to count as an S, and otherwise kept to all the other rules. I've burdened Andrew with the thankless task of supporting my efforts without being a nag or making me feel guilty, and he's been amazing. I found myself hypnotically ogling the candy in the kosher section at Loblaws last night and Andrew casually steered us out of there without commenting or anything. I noticed, however, and pointed out how smooth he'd been. There were some chocolate bars that were similar in packaging to the Cocoa Camino bars and I couldn't help wistfully looking.
And as for Cocoa Camino, I'll be eating them, yes, but on my 'S' days, and I cannot have them around the house on non-'S' days or I will eat them. I know my weaknesses, and they are the double C's: Coca Cola and Cocoa Camino.
The verdict is already in on whether Andrew will work six days a week, and the answer is yes. He seems fairly neutral about the whole thing in general as he was already putting in a lot of extra days over the last few months, but of course I can't help but worry about his stress levels. I mean, I may have to start being nice! Seriously, though, his health is paramount and if I think he's coming apart at the seams, I will take steps.
I found this picture of Halo the other day on my computer and I'm not sure why I didn't include it on the page all about him when I first put the site together, but it's there now, with some slight revamping of the format of the page itself.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/03/04 commentscommentscommentscomments
So the biggest, most exciting thing about today is not the fact that I added a 'comments' capability to the site, although it is so freaking awesome that I cannot contain myself. The comments idea was suggested to me by a few people, Alannah and Jen not the least, so I figured I'd go ahead, do the research, and see what was out there. Because I don't use a blogging utility such as, say, Blogger, it's not like I have built-in features to play with. It's all me and Notepad, baby, and I'm not a programmer in any way, shape, or form.
I knew exactly what I wanted, the question was whether or not it existed, and after a few frustrating web searches and playing with the idea of hosting my own blog script on a server, I found Enetation, which was precisely what I'd envisioned, and ridiculously easy to use. It's a free service, but if you make a donation to them you get even more features and perks. I may do this in the future, but for now it's all good. I welcome any and all comments, on or off-topic!
So now I'll be getting to the important part: The most exciting thing about today was that Andrew got the raise that he asked for at work! We knew he deserved one, the question was whether or not there would be major reluctance on the part of his boss. They know that he's going to school in the fall and that they'll be losing him, so things were not clear. Now it all is, and this really has been the week of good news for Andrew. Directly on the heels of this, however, is the proposed idea of his converting to a six-day work week instead of five, with a pay increase on top of the raise to reflect that, rather than cancelling the raise out. Andrew's worry is that I'll be lonely, my worry is that he'll burn out into an unrecognizable husk of the man he once was. The decision is still pending.
Tonight I was talking to the delightful, the lyrical, the hypo-allergenic wonder that is my friend Jerome. He leads a freakishly busy life, but I think that there's always time to look at my blog. So I'm luring him here with promises of a wee treat. Here it is. See, Jerome, it's you, like you'd gone down to South Park. What's that you say? You don't watch South Park? Well ... it still looks kinda like you ... right? Look at your little goatee. Awwwww!
Which reminds me, Jen had created a South Park character generation of herself before she knew I had done so, and posted them both in her blog to show the difference. It's really funny to see them side by side, and Jen's take on it.
We went to Loblaws tonight and I wish there was something interesting I could say about that, but to be painfully honest, there isn't. We bought food, brought it home, and ate some without mishap or misunderstanding. The only thing I can think to mention is that we made a stir-fry and this time I could taste mine, no problem at all. Yay for health.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/02/04 Backseat shenanigans
One of the things I may miss most about Toronto are the random strangers telling me that I am beautiful. This never happened in Kingston. Never, ever, ever, unless a hoarse scream of, "Wooooooooh!" out a truck window counts. However, in Toronto it only happens between my front door and the intersection of Vaughan and St. Clair. Nowhere else. Today I had to walk to the vet's office to get Halo's prescription food. For some reason I hate that walk. I don't know why, as it's no different than any other walk to anywhere else around here, but I just don't look forward to it at all. So I left the house feeling kind of grumpy and reluctant and started walking. I was just getting close to Dutch Dreams when a guy walking toward me stopped and said, "Hello there, beautiful lady!"
Normally I'm the sort to avoid eye contact and pretend like we all have blinders on, but what can you do when someone says that to you? Like I did, blush furiously, smile foolishly, and say hello in return. The first time this happened I was shocked and a little creeped out, as the man wasn't as breezy as today's fellow. He was sweeping the sidewalk near The Occult Shop and stopped what he was doing completely, turned, stared at me in a totally obvious manner and said, "You are a beautiful woman." He seemed very intense, as if he expected some sort of magic to pass between us. It did not.
My theory is that these men are long-hair fetishists (right, Jen? Right?) or something, because it's always directly after I've freshly showered and stepped out the door, so my hair hasn't had time to get messy and wind-blown. If it's not that, then the guys on Vaughan road just love the ladies.
Anyhow, I don't think it's hurt my self-esteem any.
We had another nice evening at Dan and May's place tonight. Often May will pick us up in her car when Andrew is done work if she's running errands or leaving appointments or whatnot. I sit in the back seat with Noah if Andrew's along so he can chat to May, which is fine by me as Noah's easy on the eyes and pretty cool for a nine-month-old. He went through a phase a couple of months ago of crying loudly after I'd get in, however, which was difficult not to take personally, but tonight he was delightful. We ended up playing a game where we said, "Mah, mah, mah," to each other back and forth, with varying pitch and volume, and I think he won. He also held my hand for a while, the little flirt.
Much talk tonight of our eventual move to Ottawa. I admitted to Andrew that I'm feeling conflicted about that, as I'm realizing how attached I've become to this city. There is so much of it that I have not seen or experienced yet, but the friends that I've made and the routines that we've established are all things that I love very much. It feels too soon, even though I knew pretty much from the time that I moved here it would be this way.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
03/01/04 She'd be nicer to Jarrod, I'm sure.
Some days you don't believe in karma, and then you go for a walk to Subway with Andrew.
Firstly, and most importantly, though, today we received great good news. Andrew received his letter of acceptance to Carleton University's M.A. program. We'd been waiting for this piece of positive information for a few weeks now and it's made us both very, very happy. Andrew especially, but I'm very glad to see the weight lifted off his shoulders.
Andrew of course spent the night calling friends and family to share the joy, which took quite a long time in the end. We'd been putting off a trip to the grocery store for a few days already and since Andrew had laundry to do as well, we decided that it wouldn't kill us to put it off again. Having no real food in the house is a minor problem, though, so we, being in a celebratory mood anyhow, settled on going to Subway for nourishment.
We didn't actually get there until about five to midnight as things went, and found them preparing to close up. Of course they didn't tell us to leave, so the woman behind the counter hustled us briskly along in our decision making process. Now, I'd experienced this particular sandwich artist before, and had some misgivings. Sure enough, when I said, "Just a little tiny bit of lettuce," she grabbed a full handful and hid my sandwich under it. So I said, "Less than that, please," and she looked at me like I was asking for incredibly special treatment, but pulled off about a fifth of what she'd thrown on. Then, at the end when I asked for olives she put on very few. I said, "Can I have extra olives?" and she put on about two more with a big sigh.
This is what happened the last time she'd made a sandwich for me, right down to the stingy olives. I know exactly what it's like to work in retail and have incredibly annoying people come in a few minutes before closing time. I've been right there, hating them with every breath in my body and wishing that I had carte blanche to kick their slowpoke rear ends out the door. But because I didn't want to get fired I gritted my teeth, smiled, and was frostily nice unto the letter of the retail law. Hate me all you want, but make my sandwich the way I want it, please!
As soon as we got on the street I started bitching to Andrew about my sandwich woes. I noticed as I ranted that he had very little in the way of sympathy for me. I complained about that too and he laughed with a "C'est la vie," sort of attitude. This pissed me off even more and I got into serious sulk mode about the whole thing. We got home and were in the kitchen when Andrew took his first sip of the fountain 7Up he'd gotten to go with his sub. It didn't go down too well. He got furious and said, "This is soda water!" Apparently they'd turned off the syrup or whatever they do when they're closing up, and had just let him buy tasteless bubbly water.
I didn't let him know I found it funny until a little later.
Now, since I'm talking about eating anyhow, I think I should probably expand slightly on my foodie rant from yesterday having to do with the No S Diet. I talked at one point about advertising and its depiction of skinny people eating high-fat, high-calorie foods with impunity and how that makes the intuitiveness of healthy eating more confusing for consumers. I am not saying with that example that I have my personal responsibility taken away from me by the mere sight. I think that the images that we're bombarded with on a daily basis serve to blur what our notions of acceptable eating habits are, since we're subjected to those far more than we are examples of balanced, nutritious eating.
So, even though we are aware of the basic rules of eating and excercise because we were taught them in school and (hopefully) by our parents, what's pushed at us on a daily basis conflicts with that in a major way. The Superbowl Pepsi ads depicting those divas with their taut bellies and bony arms weren't shilling Diet Pepsi. No, it pictured them sucking back sugar water and exhorting us to do the same. Never mind that they have the availability of personal trainers and the ability to schedule exercise into their daily life as part of their job description, and that their looks are a large part of what they're selling us.
Home
