Informal Polling Week Continues

Posted on 8/15/2008 by cheesefairy

So I’m looking through facebook and there’s a gallery of wedding photos for someone I don’t know but who is friends with a “friend” of mine who is actually a girl who never spoke to me in high school but friended me in facebook and hasn’t said boo since.

Hey I get to fill my schadenfreude boots without leaving the house, I’m not leaving facebook now!

I’m looking at all these photos (bride and groom with doves; bride’s mother in some crazy chiffonade [I think that’s a cooking term but it really describes this dress perfectly]; eleventy-billion brides & groomspeople in alarming taffeta and boring suits, respectively) and everything seems a little off. I finally realize it is that none of these people is smiling with open mouths. So they all, to me, look kind of tense and like it’s not a very fun wedding.

I remember, then, that when I’ve looked at pictures of this particular “friend” and her friends and family, that she, her mother, her sisters and cousins, none of them shows teeth when she smiles. The men do. The men show their teeth but the women all look like they’re clenching something in there. Maybe they are doing keigels all the time? Even at weddings during photo shoots?

They can’t all have bad teeth. The extended family at the wedding included some non-relatives, the women all not showing teeth. I know that in my dad’s village in Italy, the bread is tough and the dentists are scarce so if no one in that village showed their teeth I would understand. But my dad shows his teeth. So does my aunt.

Anyway you know how you think the way you do something is the right and only way until suddenly you are faced with someone else’s right and only way? My question: Do you all smile with your mouths open or closed and is there a reason?

Second question. If you found, in your neighbourhood “Continuing Education” guide, a course called “Empire of Atlantis” the topics within which included: Refugees from the destruction of Lemuria, life in Atlantis and the spiritual characteristics of the people, classes of Atlantean society, the scientific projects of the technician class, the world wide Atlantean empire…and it was only $24 for 2 hours, would you sign up?

How about one called “Your DNA Message Centre”? Apparently magnetic DNA functions as a receiver for messages from other dimensions. Also only $24.

How about one called “Emotional Freedom Technique”? I could learn the tapping! “You will leave the workshop with a new tool to help yourself and loved ones.” (Is it a HAMMER!?)

Would you choose one OR spend the tax return and take all three?

Thanks in advance for your answers; there’s nothing more pathetic than crickets. Crickets. Crickets.

Posted in everything | 12 Comments

Spinach

Posted on 8/13/2008 by cheesefairy

I bought a big bunch of fresh, local spinach yesterday. I bought it because it was big, fresh and local; I don’t have a particular affinity for nor experience with this vegetable. Generally I don’t care for the gritty texture but I know it’s supposed to be good for me and it’s in season and well, now I have spinach in my house.

Last night I put it on pizza with some pepper salami, fresh basil and garlic on top of the mozzarella for a nice roasty flavour. Delicious. I still have a big bag in my fridge, though and I don’t want it to go bad so tonight it’s spinach for dinner.

Saint Aardvark’s go-to for recipes is the Joy of Cooking. Mine is the Internet. This morning I went to the JoC and looked up spinach for some exciting recipe or other. I found an entry about creaming your spinach (this sassy euphemism needs a home!) which does not appeal to me so much, involving, as it does, boiling the crap out of the fresh vegetable and then adding heavy cream and blending it. Don’t get me started on our bad luck with implements that blend. One of these days I’ll be strong enough to give you the whole story.

But what really startled me was that the entry on spinach started with, “One of the more controversial greens, this is believed to inhibit the body’s absorption of calcium…We recommend throwing caution to the winds and enjoying it in moderation.”

First, is there such a thing as a controversial vegetable? I guess if the Joy of Cooking says so. And second, would the solution not be to eat it apart from calcium rich foods? Wild thing! And third, the idea of eating spinach being a way of somehow rebelling against something (cheetos culture?) is just darn hilarious.

If only it wasn’t a really hot day, I’d do the spinach, tomato and cheese loaf. I do love a nice loaf. Even if the recipe does tell you to cook the spinach first, before baking it for half an hour. Would there be any vitamins LEFT at that point? Or are you destroying the iron so that you may better absorb the calcium in the cheese?

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m not even going to check the Internet. I’m going to grill some chicken. Make some couscous. Cut up the grilled chicken to couscous. Add spinach, cherry tomatoes, zucchini. Make a dressing, probably the same one I made last week for a couscous salad; lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper. I might use some orange juice too. Refrigerate. Eat. I share this with you in case you, too, have a big bag of spinach in your house on a very hot day and have no idea what to do with it.

Posted in books, food | 12 Comments

Roomies Wanted!

Posted on 8/12/2008 by cheesefairy

There’s a house in our neighbourhood that recently went through an extreme makeover. It took a few months. I don’t remember what it looked like before but it was gradually transformed into a beautiful, heritage style house; all burgundy paint and black railings and stone pavings. Every time we walked by, it was bigger and more gussied. Landscaping. Fancy tiles. I don’t know what-all. It smelled like Money and Class and Holy Shit That’s A Renovation You Don’t See Every Day with Land Values The Way They Are.

I dubbed it the house of “Richy McRicherpants” the day I walked by and there was a friggin schooner parked in the driveway. Come on, buddy. You couldn’t find a Rolls? (I find I access my construction worker accent quite easily when it comes to obvious shows of wealth.)

A few weeks later, a for sale sign appeared.

I hied me to the MLS and found the listing. $1,650,000.

“Har!” said Saint Aardvark. “How long will it take for that to be reduced?” Because it is a nice neighbourhood but the house is right on the main street, very trafficky, not prime Queen’s Park location like a few blocks east.

Answer: 6 weeks or so. The ominous “New Price!” sign is this week dangling from the board. I remembered the selling agent’s name this time and went to his website, Dennis Timmermeister.com (“If you can say Timmermeister, you can say sold”) and discovered that the house is now only $1,450,000. It has five bedrooms and a 2 bedroom suite below, plus a garage that is “carriage-house-ready.” So I figure we need three families and someone to rent the garage.

Here is the listing. Lovely house. Very large. You might think for $1.4 million they could find someone to write a descriptive sentence better than: “Touched By Tradition, cherished yeserdays, but state of the art tomorrow, walk into past and live in the future,” but you would be wrong.

Posted in , idiots, new westminster | 3 Comments

Record of Semi-Bliss

Posted on 8/8/2008 by cheesefairy

Is there anything better than an ornery infant finally sleeping, an attention-deprived genius toddler being bathed by his father, a pizza on the way and a well-respected, icy cold gin and tonic in hand on a Friday night?

I am struggling to think of something better.

Nope. There is nothing better for me, right now. And so I compose country music-esque ballads in my head.

The dishwasher is broken
the garbage never ends
the kids’ve been yelling all damn day
and I ain’t got no friends
but suddenly this quiet house
is a blanket soft and warm
I’m gonna drink until it’s dark
and sleep in my sweetheart’s arms

oh friday night
friday night
please don’t stop
don’t bring saturday’s light
every moment that passes
brings us closer to the end
and right now it’s just beginning
sadder songs have not been penned
if I don’t see tomorrow
I will die a happy death
because I died in my big bed
with gin upon my breath.

I will spare you verses 2 – 4. A happy weekend to you all.

Posted in music, the parenthood, two! children! | 5 Comments

This is Why I’m Hot?

Posted on 8/6/2008 by cheesefairy

I was blessed with a surprise today. My mother and father took Trombone to their house to frolic in the garden and I went down to only 1 blade for the rest of the day and night.

I read something at ask moxie when I was 30something weeks pregnant with Fresco. It had to do with goats and I’m paraphrasing here; a parable about someone who went to a wise man with a complaint about a too-small house. The wise man recommended the complainer get 100 goats and put them in his house for 2 weeks and then to get rid of the goats. Sure enough, when the 100 goats were gone, the complainer felt as though he had a much bigger house.

That’s what it feels like going from 2 kids to 1 kid. It’s incredible. I recommend it.

Anyway, I have noticed something since I have had 2 kids: when I am out and about with just one kid, I get way more ogling than when I have both kids. I mean both a) pleasant attention from strangers and b) the less desirable “yo baby” ogling. I get double takes. Smiles. Doors opened for me. Honks. Today, someone honked at me.

Sure, I would guess that because of my general slovenliness, slumped shoulders, constant ponytail and terrible odour I am less attractive than I was when I only HAD one child but now that I have two, I don’t see how leaving one at home increases my general attractiveness.

Theories include:

1. Infants are cuter than toddlers.

Usually I have only Fresco. Fresco is 3.5 months old and fairly cute. People smile and awwww at the cute. When I’m out with Fresco and Trombone, people are distracted by the toddler so they don’t smile at the cute or the cute’s mama. Even though I think Trombone is pretty cute too.

2. Method of transportation.

When I do have Fresco he’s in the carrier (how much do I love the ergo carrier, by the way? Holy shit do I ever.) and his feet poke out the sides and OH HOW CUTE are baby feet

counterpoint: but this afternoon I had him in the buggy for a [very hot] walk uptown and he wasn’t even showing. I coulda had a cat in there. To people looking on, it was basically me + buggy. And I smell like milk and drool and sweat. Not that anyone can smell me, but. What are you honking at, weird Mizzle people?

3. I AM more attractive when I only have one child because I am less tense and it took less than 2 hours and 17 animal cookies to get out of the house.

It’s possible this is our winner.

4. One child is sexy. Two children is trouble.

One child: Monkey brain (by which I mean evolution brain, not idiot animal brain) says: She had sex! She might have sex again! With me, even! HONK!
Two children: Monkey brain says: She might need me to support her! With all those children! Look away!

Anyone got theories? Any of you with 2 kids notice this? Anyone think women physically porting around one child are hotter than women porting around two? Anyone think I should get over myself and give my children my full attention?

Posted in more about me!, new westminster, two! children! | 6 Comments