My Housewifely Duties

Posted on 3/6/2007 by cheesefairy

I now know how long I can live in squalor without feeling motivated to do anything about it: 8 months, 4 days. That’s a remarkably long time. When I had the baby, people / magazines / books said just focus on you…and your baby…don’t worry about the house and I was all uh, no kidding because I’m not what you’d call a persnickity home-keeper. I like things to be clean enough so that I don’t feel like I might get sick just from getting out of bed but I’m not going to sit on the couch under a nursing infant and think wow, all the window-cleaning I could be doing. In fact, having a baby was a perfect excuse for me to be even more slovenly.

One thing Saint Aardvark and I have almost always shared over the years is a similar tolerance for clutter. So if, of a Saturday, I would say, Yii, we should really clean up a little, the odds would be good he would agree. Then we would clean for two hours, things would be sparkly and we would congratulate ourselves heartily over several bottles of beer and a Steven Seagal movie. (OK that last part is more recent, as we acquired for Christmas a THREEPACK of Steven Seagal movies and now we are hooked on the eyebrow-furrowed, trench-coat and martial-arts-robe-wearing vigilante with the voice like a steel rod covered in rabbit fur) (What? Stop looking at me like that.) Of course, the baby has altered both our psychic connection (because of the sleep deprivation) and our priorities (I sit around on the couch all the time now; SA only gets to do it on weekends) so this past weekend I planned elaborate tidying in my head but I had no back-up for when my body inevitably chose inertia over movement.

“We should tidy,” I said.
“Mmmm,” he said, “childproofing,” and performed more leet computer tricks using only his left index finger and a snap of the wrist.
“For sure,” I said and ate some ice cream.

Then we went looking for a CD player instead. I will save you all the trouble: there are no CD players to be purchased anymore. It’s over. You probably don’t care because you probably bought a CD player oh, about 10 years ago when they were relevant but I am here to tell you that it is a major pain in the ass to painstakingly build a stereo system over a 10 year period, leave the CD player for last and then not be able to find one (except the 500 disc changer for $700 and how stupid is that?) for love or money.

As Monday dawned, all I wanted in the world was a tidy living room / dining room area (it’s all of a piece and it’s all of a carpet). So when I was given 4 hours of free time (thanks grandparents!) I didn’t go shoe shopping or drinking or to a movie. I came home and vacuumed and re-arranged and dusted. I’m no fool. If the urge to tidy should lurch to the surface of my brain, I grab that pony by the mane and ride it till it collapses, spit foaming from its soft, pony mouth. Steven Seagal has taught me well.

Posted in home | 3 Comments

Thai Jasmine: You Eat It

Posted on 3/4/2007 by cheesefairy

Nearly a year ago, we moved to New Westminster with one number scrawled on a napkin: that of Bella Pizza’s New Westminster location. As you probably know, it is crucial to have pizza and beer on moving day and we had both of those, though I was unable to eat more than two pieces of pizza and drink more than one or two sips of beer due to the giant baby that was camping in my abdominal region. Here’s us a year ago:

Oh there is so much more crap in our living room now. Wow.

After that, what was left for two people who were tired, very very heavy (just me) didn’t have a vehicle and then, boom! had a baby so couldn’t go out for dinner even if they had the energy to get a cab to a restaurant? Pizza. And morrrrrre pizza. I looked on the web (because we didn’t have a phone book yet – little did I know that a phone book would not have been at all useful as the one specific to Burnaby and New Westminster has a laughable 5 or so pages of menus in its restaurant section, compared to the 25 or so in Vancouver) for delivery food in our new city and found very little information. I found an Indian place called Royal Tandoori and it was good (the Mango Butter Chicken was, like Communism, better on paper) but not fantastic, plus the food gave us tummyaches; now mine I can excuse because of the pregnancy but Saint Aardvark too and he rarely gets tummyaches. We tried “6th and 6th Wonton House” or something like that and it was without a doubt the worst Chinese food I have ever eaten.

One day there was a flyer in our mailbox for a Chinese restaurant in Coquitlam (the next suburb over, to the east) called The Ideal Place but this post is not about that restaurant. (It’s good, though. It has very tasty ginger beef. The true “ideal” place is a restaurant called Golden Great Wall which is within delivery range for those of you in Kitsilano and downtown. If you like spicy, they make an orange peel chicken that is sublime. If you REALLY like spicy, go eat there in person because it’s about 10x as hot when it’s not put in a styrofoam container, for whatever reason.)

This post is a solid, hearty endorsement for a restaurant called Thai Jasmine, located at 406 6th Street in New Westminster. I had walked past the restaurant quite a few times but it was overshadowed somewhat by the Hon’s Wonton House next door. I probably would never have gone in but for the recommendation of Crystal who works in the area and has eaten lunch everywhere there is to eat lunch. (Everywhere. Really.) I met her there for lunch a few weeks back and it was really good. It was so good – and my appetite is so huge – that we ordered dinner from there that very night because they deliver.

We have ordered several times since then and as I was stuffing Friday’s leftovers down my gullet yesterday afternoon and mumbling so goodso goooooood I thought I ought to perform a public service for people like us who have moved from the lush Amazon of take-out and delivery food (the west end, say) to the dry Sahara (New Westminster) and publish my pleasure for future googlers.

For about $30, we had enough food for 2 plus leftovers. We ordered the spring rolls, (presented in one of those little cardboard containers with the handle like you see on sit-coms, which is why Saint Aardvark continues to order them) the pineapple fried rice, which came complete with whole cashews, chicken and pineapple; the Pad King which was veggies and chicken in a ginger sauce and what has become my favourite:Pad Kee Mao which is rice noodles with eggs, pepper, garlic, chili and sweet basil (and your choice of chicken, beef or tofu). I have ordered this several times and it is always pefectly spiced. There is also enough basil so that you actually taste it; a rarity with restaurant food. I also ordered the Tom Yum Kung, a hot and sour soup with chicken, lime, mushrooms and chili; heavy on the lime and chili. It was fantastic. My throat sang with pleasure and my sinuses are truly terrified. I may never have to irrigate them again but if I do, I may use that soup instead of salt water.

The awning of Thai Jasmine reads: Eat Thai Taste Thai Love Thai and we chuckled at this when we first saw it, as well as at the awning across the street which reads, in part,

Licensed
halibut

but now we chuckle no longer for it is true. Thai Jasmine, New Westminster, BC, Canada. You eat it.

Posted in food, new westminster | 5 Comments

This Chair Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us

Posted on 3/1/2007 by cheesefairy

A year ago when I was looking for a nursing chair, I considered a recliner. I thought a recliner would be great because I could sleep in it at the end of my pregnancy when I couldn’t make it up to the 3rd floor bedroom and when I was too huge and uncomfortable besides to sleep in a bed with another person. And then it would be great for sleeping in with the baby on my chest (although you’re not supposed to do that because the baby could roll off you like a football and splat, next thing you know you’ve dropped your baby and everyone hates you) and snoozing in front of the news after supper.

But when I saw the recliner rockers at the department stores I couldn’t do it. They were so ugly. They were all either floral grandma style (the affordable ones) or leather executive style (the expensive ones). They were comfortable, yes. I had to be dragged out of many a recliner at The Bay one Saturday afternoon in my 5th month of pregnancy, already exhausted and proportioned much like Barbapappa . After weighing the choices I decided a glider would be better. Cleaner lines, smooth gliding action, soothing and – most importantly, for some reason – not upholstered. And I do love my glider. I bought it from the side of the road for cheap and it was clean and wood and had a padded seat and oh! the wonderful times I would have gliding. I glided a lot before the baby was born so that when he came out he would recognize the feel of the gliding and be soothed to sleep immediately.

My advice to any pregnant people who are weighing recliner vs. conventional rocker or glider: If you can afford it? Get the recliner. (Go to Value Village. You can afford it.) You are going to spend so much time in this chair you won’t even see it anymore, you will just stagger over to it and be absorbed by it. It will be an extension of your body. It won’t matter if it’s covered in cabbage roses, faux tapestry or green garbage bags. Does it recline? DONE.

Wooden rockers are nice. Gliders are delightful. (preferable to rockers, actually, if you have carpet because a rocker will travel across a carpeted floor and just when you think the baby’s asleep you’ll rock just one more rock and BOOM hit the wall with the back of the chair and BAM that baby’s awake again.) They are classic and elegant and they often come with history. That’s nice. And with a newborn, they’re perfect. Baby’s in the crook of your arm, the stars are in the night sky, hey wow parenthood is spectacular. Even with an older, reasonably sized baby who doesn’t require a lot of attention in the middle of the night, 20 minutes in the glider now and then and it’s back to the warm bed for you. But when the baby gets bigger and freakishly strong and resists sleep with every fibre of its being, when the baby starts making its own decisions re: how to cuddle (upside down, knee in your groin, pinching your neck and with your body contorted like a pretzel to accomodate it) you want something comfortable. You want something you can sleep in because you are never getting out of that chair. You want something with nice soft arms – for your own elbows and for the baby to whack its head against in case the baby you end up with has a tendency to flail and rear its head back suddenly. You want something that will embrace your sore, sad ligimentary situation and cushion instead of punish your ass. GET THE RECLINER. Who cares if it’s ugly. You will be ugly if you don’t because you will develop a hunch at the age of 33 and will walk around moaning, “Oh my bones,” but pretty soon no one you know will listen anymore and you’ll have to complain to the pretend people on the Internet.

Posted in trombone | 5 Comments

Babies. They’re so Ironic.

Posted on 2/28/2007 by cheesefairy

Every night for the past week Trombone has woken between 10 and 11 pm. Saint Aardvark goes down and tries to get him back to sleep but he fusses until I feed him. (Trombone, not Saint Aardvark.) Then he sleeps till morning (usually 5:30 or, this morning, 7.) Every night, without fail, I go to bed between 9 and 9:30 only to be woken by cries just at the beginning of my sleep cycle, ending up asleep for the night around 11.

Finally I worked it out. I’m just going to stay awake until he wakes up, I thought. Yes, I still end up awake until 11 but at least my sleep isn’t interrupted. It’s not the lack of sleep that eats at my soul (this week), it’s the cruel joke that is waking up, thinking it might be early morning then realizing it’s actually 20 minutes after you turned the light out. Groan.

Here I sit, trying to stay up till 10. You’d think it was New Year’s Eve or something. Pathetic. My mind is trying to wheedle me to bed. It says, maybe tonight he’ll sleep through. It says, it’s awfully quiet up there. He slept through the smoke alarm going off tonight – twice! (goddamn overzealous smoke alarms – it’s ROAST PEPPERS get over yourself) But I know the only way to get him to sleep through is to not go to bed. If I stay up till 10 or 11, he’ll sleep through. Because babies are dastardly and do the opposite of what you expect. Oh dammit now he knows I know.

Happy March Eve.

HI!

Posted in trombone | 1 Comment

Bet He Throws a Great Dinner Party

Posted on 2/28/2007 by cheesefairy

Suddenly realizing I had taken the internet equivalent of a turn down a dark, smelly alley, I backspaced hurriedly & left Dr. Jay Gordon preaching to his followers about how [He] believe[s] that eating cheese is worse than eating candy…[and] view[s] it as the ultimate junk food.

Posted in cheese | 3 Comments