Couple of questions and pie

Peanut butter pie. From this recipe. On the right, I improvised with Reese squares from the Reese bar. The pie on the left was sent to work with spouse. Every time I have a slice (once per day) I moan helplessly and shriek, "THIS IS SOOOO FUCKING GOOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"


You know, the most exciting parts of my day, week, month, whathave you are mealtimes and potential sex times. What about you? What are the most exciting events for you these days?

I'm wondering about the future of this blog and blogging in general so I made a little poll (my first!) I think it will only work for one day though:

Your title What is the future of blogs? They will disappear soon, in fact, they have already been around too long. They will morph and be eaten up by social networking sites such as Facebook. They are here to stay, but only the most robust, or most narcissistic will survive. It will stay pretty much as it is now, an option among many kinds of internet content. They will continue to increase in popularity and become the primary sources of information. view results

The six random things meme that I never did

The Rules
1. Link to the person who tagged you who in this case is Phronk who is also known as Mike.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (Not doing this, consider yourself tagged if you're reading)
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. (See parenthetical above)
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. (Oh alright)

1. Since leaving home on my 18th birthday, I have never lived anywhere longer than 5 years. The closest I got was 4 years and 10 months in the first house we bought in Long Beach, Ca. We've been in this place for nearly three years and I'm already feeling the itch. I wonder why I'm like this.

2. The top musical genres on my ipod are Jazz (by way far), Latin, Brazilian, Electronica, and Dance. The top ten most played tunes are all jazz and all instrumental.

3. Sometimes I wonder about wondering and then it's like when you are between two mirrors and they reflect you into infinity except that you can never really see the infinity; either your head is blocking it or it turns out of view.

4. One of my pinkies is removable. Here watch:



5. I've gained 20 pounds (officially now) since I quit smoking 2 days shy of nine months ago. I'm hoping that tanning the fat will be a good strategy. Having seen this technique employed by others, it seems like a worthwhile effort. Spouse says I'm a behemoth, but that's only because he's still fatter than I.

6. I think scrotums are like parmesan cheese, both are delightful but don't get too too close or the Parmesan cheese will smell like vomit and the scrotum will look like this:

(it was too ugly and marring the page)

(Number 6 goes with a wink and a nod to Snooze for this post.)

It you are, tagged you be.

A walk to the park

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday that I had to go out for one of my long walks. I headed east to the botanical gardens. It was so nice, I only wore a sweatshirt and I was surprised to see the ponds still frozen at the gardens. The birds seemed confused walking around on the ice.

I took this shot because you can see the stadium from two vantage points. The funicular runs up the "spine" of the inclined tower.

Cattails from last season. Everything just gets frozen in place once winter descends, which if I recall correctly, happened quickly and brutally.

My cheap haircut and cheap sunglasses. Who cares? I had the sunshine and bossa nova blaring.

I took a lot of tree pics. They look so strikingly bare against the blue sky. These willows will produce an opaque canopy of leaves in May.

I had promised myself not to spend any money which is why I walked to the gardens but then instead of walking back home the way I came, I decided to loop back via the Promenade Ontario, which sounds far classier than it is. That's how I ended up at Value Village trying on dress pants. I scored TWO pair that fit me perfectly for $5 apiece. I don't really consider that spending money, more like winning it. Have a lovely Sunday peeps.

Snippets

* Favorite Bizarro's of the last season.

* When I was little, I used to hear the war games going on at night in Camp Pendleton. I always thought it was Godzilla out and about. Boom Boom Boom, is he getting closer?

* It got up over 50 degrees yesterday and I was sweating like a pig in my winter coat. Yay, spring jacket time.

* I think I'm going to vote from now on based on the following criteria: would I let this person babysit my kids? (I know I don't have any but still)

* "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008 (Who knew he was prophetic too?)

* Almost vulgar word verification:

* Two different classes this week told me I was the best English teacher they've ever had. It sure feels good to hear things like that especially since we all teach alone so we don't know how we are perceived compared to others.

* Often times when Serge says "We need this," I quietly insist, "Maybe next year." I figure if we can do without it for a year, we really don't need it after all. (This is how I've scored another year out of our cheap patio furniture.)

* Did you know that ALL men are capable of breastfeeding? It's true.

Odorless vomit and stuff

We just hid from the Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door. We're not sure they were, we didn't see any watchtowers. But literature was kindly left in our mailboxes. Once we stopped hiding on the floor (our computer room looks onto the entrance way to the building) we came back to our desks. That's when they returned, a father and 10 year old son duo, to drop the friendly literature off. I don't even want to go out and check what it is. I find what they are doing about as heinous as if I tried to convert someone to be gay. Serious heinousness. I don't begrudge you your beliefs (much), but if I want to know about them, I'll ask.

Gosh I sound cranky. Actually it's been a pretty nice couple of days. Warm (for here) weather and good night's sleep. I just love most mornings where I wake up around 5:30 but don't get out of bed for at least another hour. So luxurious. In the smoking years, I HAD to get up once achieving any sort of consciousness. To smoke, naturally. I'm starting to find some major differences in life now, now that smoking is no longer a part of it. It's amazing how every single day revolved around "getting my fix". So sad in a way. I'm trying not to pity too much though, as spouse is still steadfastly addicted. My sense of smell seems to become more acute daily, and I feel like Grenouille in Perfume, loving the intensity of the odors, good or bad. Yesterday, there was a huge pile of vomit in the metro, just beneath the pay phones attached to the wall. There was absolutely no smell and I found this odd, so I kept sniffing at the air trying to find the tell tale vomit smell. I started to move closer but then I stopped myself from approaching the vomit and sniffing, I mean that would be weird, right?

One last thing, you know the Reese bar I mentioned the other day? The unbelievably delicious limited edition bar? Well I went out yesterday to score some more from the Dollarama. And they are gone! I went to 3 different Dollaramas too and they were all sold out. They had the jumbo reese, the easter egg reese and the "whipped" reese log, but no bar. Dangit, I knew I should have bought more when I had the chance. But maybe now I can avoid the man girdle thing.

Aqua Globes

Every time I saw these on TV I wanted one. But since we have a no buying from the TV rule in this house, I never bought any. (In Vancouver there was a "As Seen on TV" store which I browsed.) What a great idea right? I mean you can water your plants for up to 2 weeks which is perfect for vacations and bad memory. (I didn't notice the "up to" until I had the box home.)

So can you guess what they don't tell you about the product? It seems to work fine and everything once you get the water into the globe but here's the problem. It takes forever to fill the darn thing because you only have one tiny hole to fill it up with and in order for the air to come out while you fill, it just takes a long time and you waste about 3 gallons of water doing it. Really, I had to laugh as I stood at the sink for five minutes trying to get the water in. Okay, so now you've been warned. But they are kinda pretty, no?

That's all I got this am. It's my early day and I'm already running late. Here check out my kind of Funniest Home Video:

Bye bye winter

It's finally sinking in that WINTER IS OVER! No more sub zero arctic blasts, no more blizzards. I know I'm tempting fate saying this, but I can just feel it this year, it's done. You know what that means - BBQ season commences. It's going to be a spell before we actually dine outdoors, but since we bought a new bbq yesterday, we officially started by cooking a marinated bavette (flank steak? skirt steak? butt steak? I can't recall now in English) on the new toy. (And I'm still poor, the bbq is one year no payments or interest.) I thought it was pretty neat to be bbqing when there was still a bit of snow on the deck too.

So this winter wasn't as heinous as last year's. It was pretty rough for a couple months, but how quickly a few budding trees serve to erase the memory. Also, this is the very first year spouse and I didn't fight over heat. The last fifteen years have seen him too hot and me too cold. We never really figured out how to work the thermostat in our home despite having been here for three winters now. Oh you'd think it was a simple matter, setting the temperature on the thermostat - intuitive even, but you would be wrong. No matter what we do, it always seems to revert back to some previously entered setting. One day, Serge got cold and fucked with it and somehow got it unlocked and he was able to set the temperature at 22C/72F. (It is now locked at that temp, he doesn't know what he did.) I have to admit, it was a little warm at times at night, but at least I didn't freeze all winter like last year when it was stuck at 19C/66F.

Here are two things that ARE truly heinous. I did my US taxes yesterday, which basically means I say what I earned and that I paid income tax here. Then the total due is 0. Here's a hoop, now jump through it, because it's the LAW. Lame. The limited edition Reese Bar is so dang good but oh so bad for you. I'm doomed this Easter what with the Reese eggs and now this. I'm gonna need a girdle for the cruise.

Weekend update

We watched Rachel Getting Married on Friday night. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, it was a far darker tale than I had imagined. And so real. Almost too real. It reminded me of a Henry Jaglom film in a way, it all seemed so tragically accurate and spontaneous, this disfunction and heartbreak that infect so many families at one time or another. It's not one of those movies where it ends and you feel uplifted, no, it's more like one that haunts your thoughts for several days. I recommend it.

We had a nice din-din last night at MIL's house. Here you can see Serge guarding the deviled eggs which are quite possibly the finest egg preparation there is - that is if you don't count soufflés of course.

We sat around talking about the upcoming cruise we're taking in 79 days. Tigars, MIL's dog hung out with me most of the time. I swear that dog is even more clingy to me since Sara died. Here look how cute he is following me to see what I'm up to.

There's not a whole lot else going on around here this weekend. It's snowing again this morning, oh joy. It looks like just a dusting though, so hopefully that'll melt off by this afternoon.

Here's hoping you're enjoying a lovely weekend.

Money blah blah

I need to institute a "no buying online" policy while imbibing. That's how we ended up going to Chicago in January, and now it' s how I've bought myself a ticket to a concert that begins at 10:30pm. See, I'm always asleep at that hour and now I've committed myself to an event that BEGINS at that time. Really, what was I thinking? At least I've got a couple months to prepare so maybe I'll have a strategy worked out whereby I'll be able to stay awake for it. Anyway, I was listening to his music when I got the bright idea to see if he would be coming to town as part of the Jazz Festival, and lo and behold he was. Then when I checked for "best available" tickets and a seat in the back row came up, I panicked and bought it thinking they were nearly sold out.

Let's not even bring up the fact that I swore off concerts altogether already.

At least I didn't buy the dolphin swim at the same time. I was also checking out the activities available on the cruise we're doing in June. I have always wanted to swim with the dolphins, but have never done it because it's so darned expensive. So this trip, it's only available at Nassau and starts at $200. But Nassau also has this place called Atlantis, which looks like a combination aquarium/amusement park/beach. So if you want the run of the place and swim with dolphins, it's $269. You only live once, I know, but that just seems like an obscene amount of money. Anyone been to Atlantis there? And any New Yorkers want to join us? It looks like you can go for less than $100 a day. June 9th, details here.

Sad and alarming

I can't believe she died. Man, when it's your time, it's your time. Who'd think a little trip and fall (in the snow!) could kill you. It saddens me this morning to find out that she's dead at 45. She wasn't my favorite actress or anything, but tragedy is tragedy, and well, quelle tristesse.

Yesterday we were talking about climate change in class and I had asked everyone to research something on the topic. Some of the information is really astonishing. Like the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 20% since 1960, and this rising is accelerating. (The debunkers would say humans had nothing to do with this rise.) Another alarming statistic is the estimate that we have decimated 90% of all marine animals in the last 150 years. In other words there are not "plenty of fish in the sea", there are only 1 in 10 fish in the sea left. Overfishing coupled with overpopulation, oh yeah, 240,000 human beings are added to the world population EVERY DAY! Not here of course, but still. Anyway it was really depressing. One interesting line was, "If every person in the world lived like an American, the fossil fuel supply would be exhausted in 15 years." Basically, in the next 25 years, we are going to have severe shortages of fresh water, food and fuel. So get out there and enjoy today.

You never know, it could be your last.

Quick question

Spring does a couple of things to me. It makes me want to clean and hornifies me. Not at the same time, mind you. As for spouse, I think it softens up his heart. I caught him looking at Labradoodles on the internet. (Cross between labrador and poodle) He was actually looking for our next breed of dog. Yay!

What does spring do to you?

Umbrage taken, plus more gratitude

You know what's really irritating? To find out Youtube has muted the video because you had a song on while you made the video. Plus they don't even bother to tell you. Yesterday when I was uploading the video, I purposely did not mention that Rihanna's Disturbia was playing in the description of the video. That's because one time when I mentioned the artist and song for a collage I did of the gay pride festival here, the actual band took umbrage and requested it be removed. Youtube kindly offered to replace the soundtrack with something uncopyrighted. So now I try not to mention the music. But when I scrolled through my past videos yesterday, I saw that the song Urgent that I lipsynched for y'all had been muted, and they didn't even tell me. Sheesh. Oh sure you can see dozens of people mangle the song karaoke-ing Urgent. But you can't listen to it while watching my video. (I suppose you could play it yourself and try to match to the screen though.) THEN, I saw that the New York collage that I did had been flagged, and I got this screen:


I didn't mention the song at all in that one, so they must have some crawling music-matching robots poring over the videos to detect copyright infringement. No problem if you mangle their song, just don't play the original. The absurdity of ego, and lawyers of course.

On a brighter note, I got a really nice letter this weekend that I wanted to share.

There are many different kinds of blogs, some are about the person: I did this, I did that, I met this person. You know...me, me and little bit more about me. Some are more journals of discovery: I felt this, I thought that, I learned this. Some are political: I believe this, I don't believe that. Your blog is all of these and more, it is informative, fun and interesting. I cannot tell you how many things I've lifted from your blog and printed out to hang on the refrigerator, in the bathroom etc. I think it was seeing the pictures of Montreal that you've posted and reading about your adventures across the city that rekindled the desire to visit there again, not having been there for at least 15 years or more. Would I have done this, made plans to visit the city, made reservations at this restaurant if your blog hadn't been there? Probably not, because your blog is unique.

Most of us tend to minimize our affect on the world around us. It's only after someone passes away that we look at their past life and see all the people who were affected by it. That recently happened to me with my mom. I looked around at all the people at the viewing, from all the different places and times in her life, and I realized what a vast reach she had. In the midst of my sorrow I realized that she would have loved it, she would have loved seeing all the those people talking to each other, trading stories and catching up. And who's to say she wasn't there enjoying every second of it?

Not wanting to be too deep, because a blog should be a fun thing to do, you send out ripples. They travel across miles and borders and cultures. Most go on and play themselves out, some encounter another object along the way and slightly transform that object or themselves. That's what your blog does and I want to let you know how much I appreciate it everyday.

Merci,

Carl

And if that wasn't enough (it was, I was deeply grateful to receive such feedback) yesterday's post seemed to help another fellow in town. I like the idea that I'm putting positive energy into the world. Knowing that, it makes plugging along on this here blog thingy that much easier. And it's a great way to start this week, the VERY last one of the winter, YAY!

Sunday means gratitude

There are so many things to be grateful for. And there doesn't have to be a specific entity to be grateful to, what's important is flexing that gratitude muscle. Why? Because it's good for you and prevents you from turning purse-lipped and uptight. I generally thank the universe, as that's least conflicting for my brain. I don't see much evidence of a monotheistic construct in the universe, so for me, I'm just grateful for ALL OF IT. Take the picture above. Success! I successfully made whole wheat bread yesterday. Still a tad on the dense side, but nearly perfect. I was on the phone with dad last week and he reminded me of a time long ago when mom made her wheat bread and I was transported back to my childhood and the smell of that bread filling the house, the butter slathered slices warm from the oven sliding down my throat. So I just had to try her recipe (which I had had all the time in the family cookbook on the shelf) even though it called for scalded milk. I didn't know what scalded milk meant. I learned and now I know. I'm grateful for friends I can call up to find out. (Mom was "gone fishing")

I'm grateful for good friends, like the kind who invite you over for dim sum. Because I'm nice, I'm not posting pictures of Dan, but we enjoyed a lovely evening at his place eating bread and dim sum, sharing wine and laughs.

The sky treated us to a lovely view from Dan's place at sunset. We are right on schedule for maple syrup season and these are the days we get above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. I hope they have a bumper crop this year as the price has doubled due to several poor harvests.

Remember it always feels better to be grateful for the things you have than resentful for the things that you don't. It's not always the easiest mindset to keep, but definitely the healthiest.

Finally, you can dance along with Serge and I as we cross the Jacques Cartier bridge listening to Rihanna. This was taken yesterday on our way to Dan's place. Have a lovely Sunday peeps!

12 of 12

The first thing in the morning means coffee and blog. It's hard to be creative when it's still dark outside.

On my way to the kitchen for my second cup of coffee and to prepare my toast, I saw this bug unlike any I've ever seen before. I wonder where he came from since it was 14F outside. He must have come from inside, but where? I thought he was cool looking but Serge came in then and squished it.

Breakfast of champions - cheez whiz on toast.

Off to work I went, crossing the train tracks as usual. I always think of Java when I cross now.

I just missed my train, hence the empty quai on my side of the station.

It was a bright, sunny day which, in March, means it's spankingly cold outside. This is downtown near my class.

Inside the building where I teach (the world trade center) they have this statue fountain that reminds me of Italy. OMG bare breasts. Would this fly in your office building/shopping center?

After teaching I came home and decided I had to do something with those bananas. There's all you need for some fine banana bread.

And here's all you need for tortilla espanol. This makes me think of Madrid, and hence Frank.

Serge got home very frustrated because it took him 45 minutes to get home. The distance is walkable in 20 but he had the car. There were some accidents clogging things up evidently. When he arrived, he jumped on the martini preparation.

Dinner. Tortilla espanol, caesar salad, sliced tomatoes and warm banana bread for dessert. A light beaujolais to drink with.

Finally, Survivor! I was sad to see Spencer go. Even though he stayed in the closet, the other boys smelled the gay on him and booted him out. Sorry Rox, I don't like JT anymore. Ooga booga you broke a tooth, hail to your manliness.

Nothing to read here

I wish I had something to entertain you with today. Tomorrow should be better because today's the twelfth so I'll be snapping pictures throughout the day for you. I had a miserable day yesterday because I had woken up from a nightmare the night before at 3am and that was it for sleep that night. I blame myself though. See, I received a nice little package from Johnny who was trying to help out with my insomnia issues I was complaining about a few weeks ago. It was a dream catcher and he told me to put it near the window. Well I didn't do that, I put it up near the computer. Then the terrible nightmare. I don't consider myself superstitious, but yesterday I put the dream catcher in the bedroom and voila, I slept 9 hours uninterrupted. Thanks Johnny!

It is impossible to keep up on the blogs every day. I have over a hundred posts a day to sift through and this is just too much. I need a blog assistant to help me do this. Plus there's facebook, or timesuck, whatever you call it and then I signed onto Twitter. It's too much! I can't do it all even though I want to. I've got a stack of unread books sitting here too that I would LIKE to read one day. Any suggestions on how to do it all without losing your sanity? What if I just read 30 bloggers instead of 120? That would probably help, but then I'd be mired in guilt, useless as that is. Guess I'll just keep plugging along until something gives.

Dirty pigdom

I read on someone's blog (I know whose, but not sure this is the kind of attention wanted) that there was going to be a sharing of porn amongst friends and in order to save any embarrassment, to have the accumulated porn from the group done anonymously. Then he mentioned having thirty gigs of porn on the computer. That sounded like a lot to me so I just had to check my porn file. (Oh stop ladies, every man has one, or at least every man under fifty. Yes, even your husband.) I don't know how to feel about the fact I only have 1.10 gigs (hardly worthy of that "s"), of porn on the computer. Should I be proud of my prudishness? Gloating in my purity? Or ought I be ashamed by a seeming lack of libido? My steering clear of dirty pigdom. I know one thing, ever since X tube, I haven't downloaded anything from anywhere. (Are you all feeling a little itchy now, like this is getting into too-much-information territory? Because no one is chaining your eyeballs to the screen. Mom.) The one lousy thing about xtube is that all the really good porn is cleansed off of there and the hot Bel Ami scene you saw last week is now gone. I can't say that I would be against the idea of a porn collective, but I would want to be anonymous if I participated in such an activity. (I don't want people to discover I'm as vanilla as I look. Yeah, right.) I'm thinking like you pass around a portable hard drive, fill it up and then let everyone download that which isn't theirs. Which caused a problem for the aforementioned, though not specified, blogger because he had fastidiously sorted his porn and named each file with the same alpha-numeric format. So that made it so all his porn would be evident to the other fellows. I hope he finds a way out of that dilemma.

So fess up, how many gigs you got in that folder?

Toasted breakfast stuffers

The sun is getting high in the sky finally. The trees will remain bare until May though. It was in the 40's F yesterday, so I went on a long walk and enjoyed the nearly tropical conditions. I saw a guy wearing shorts and I thought, "Let's not exaggerate." Then I chuckled at myself for sounding like an old curmudgeon.

The Subway shop across the street put out a banner announcing that they now have breakfast from 7am. Even though we live on a busy street, I've noticed no one stopping in for breakfast. This seems logical to me, I mean Subway is really not the first thing that comes to mind in the morning. I see that they offer something called "fresh toasted breakfast stuffers" which I can't imagine could be anything other than a sandwich. I mean it's Subway after all.

What else? Serge talked me into upgrading to a balcony on the Bahamas cruise in June. When I say talked me into, I mean that he said, "I'll pay." I kept saying that we should try an interior cabin once because if we like it, we can save a bundle on future cruises. Funny about future cruises though, because at the end of each one, Serge says, "This is the last cruise." And I agree, saying we should try an all-inclusive resort in Cuba or Mexico next time. And then that all goes out the window when a good deal comes along.

We've been busy boys

Sheesh but it's dark now in the morning. I'm not so sure I like it. What was wrong with waiting until the end of the month to do this? I wonder what lobby was behind this decision because I don't think energy is being saved. The first thing I did this morning was put up the heat.

Yesterday, we culled three giant trash bags of garments from our closet. There were items from before we moved to Canada and a belt that I got 21 years ago. It all looks so clean and organized now and we have almost zero summer clothes so clothes shopping will be in the offing. (Even though I loathe shopping for clothes.) Since we booked a cruise to the Bahamas yesterday, we will certainly need some summer wear. Did I say we booked a cruise? Yes, yes I did. I cut out this ad from the paper this week advertising a trip to New York with an 8 night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. It seemed terribly cheap at $1100 Canadian everything included, taxes, round trip transportation and more. We're going with Serge's mom and her boyfriend. $1100 Canadian is about $850 US today. What a deal! Now I'm stressing a bit about how I've got to reschedule 9 classes that I was supposed to teach at that time. I'm sure the students will understand.

Can I just say how delighted and amused I was by the comments on the previous post? Making others gag is one of the funniest things to me. That video that I took down actually made me gag, and I just wanted to share that with you. Those that expressed disappointment at having missed the video were sent the file by email. I love to spread the joy. And to those who think that video was bad, I've got another that puts that to shame, because it's totally real. I'm not convinced the one I posted was real, nor for that matter, two girls one cup. I think they blasted themselves clean with a power enema and then shoved some brownie batter up there. Do you really think they're eating poo? I don't. I'm not posting or sending the REAL poo video, as it's just too horrific and those that I have shown have been scarred for life. Consider yourself lucky.

Hungry? Here's another shot of din-din. Shake and bake chicken thighs, rice and salad. Twas delicious. We are digging on the new Uncle Ben's rice pouches. Two minutes in the microwave and it's perfectly cooked. Happy daylight savings Sunday!

Some memories

Yesterday I went out and bought 2 external hard drives so that Serge and I could back up our computers and stop burning disks for that purpose every month. That meant that I could reload old photo files that I had burned onto disks years and years ago. It has been really cool looking at the 1999-2003 pictures. Those early digital photo files are so small! Anyway, I've chosen a few to trot out today, starting with our old loft.

We both miss living in the fabulous loft. It was so huge I could ride my bike around inside. Sara loved running from one end of the loft to the other too. We don't regret selling it though as the building was undivided and the unit above us was illegal. Plus it was $600 a month to heat in the winter. I think that was the last time Serge worked out even though I invite him down to the basement frequently.

When I first started teaching, I taught a new class each month. They were intensive 20 hour per week sessions and at the end of the month I always took a class photo. In many of them I have a tie on, but in the blistering summer the formal wear came off. This is my favorite one though. We are still in touch with Salvador but not Asako. The Japanese nearly always make the peace sign in my photos. I never really understood why.

Of course there are hundreds of Sara pictures which made me cry again. I loved this one where Serge had fallen asleep.

Oh and I can remember thinking I looked terrible in this picture. I don't know what kind of mental malady I had because looking at it now I think I look good. We really don't appreciate what we have until it's gone, do we?

Finally, and I can't believe we burned this onto disk, here is a video that is way way way not safe for work. Enjoy!

(You're too late - it's been deleted due to the extreme poor taste.)

Here, go do this maze instead. I made it to level four, can you?

Ugh and yay

I hate grading and evaluating. I just want to give everyone full marks for showing up. Life's too short to have someone tell you you suck and that you should work harder. Everyone is different anyway, so how is it just that I evaluate your skills, I mean I can't possibly know if the work you produce is good for someone like you since I'm not you. It's the same at the workplace. Sure there's room for improvement on everything we do, if there weren't, we'd cease being imperfect creatures and instead be gods. (Though even the gods, I suspect, are less than perfect.) I think the individual probably is far more aware of the places in his/her life that need improvement the most. This is true for me anyway. I really don't need you to tell me too.

I've figured out how to achieve chore harmony. He loads the washer and dryer, I remove, fold and put away. He loads the dishwasher and I remove and put away. I think he has the better deal, but at least I don't have to look at the sink and say "this is my job".

This that and the other

Oh all right I'll post today. I was trying out this taking Wed and Sat off from the blog but since I feel as though I cheated yesterday, I figured I'd go ahead and throw something at the screen this morning. It's sunrise season again and the first rays traverse the entire apartment in the morning. At the winter solstice, the sun comes up so far to the right, the building behind us blocks the horizon. Then it slowly marches left until, at the summer solstice, it rises behind another building blocking the horizon on the left. Right now it's coming up right behind Mont St Hilaire which looks like a muffin on the horizon in the distance. Is this putting you back to sleep?

I was able to get reservations at the new Cabane à Sucre (sugar shack) that Martin Picard is opening. He's the genius behind the cuisine at my favorite restaurant and I can't wait to see what he does with the concept. They were already full for the season and they haven't even opened yet but I was able to jump on a cancellation in April. Yay! I'm going to spend a month looking forward to that meal.

I was reading over at Rox's place yesterday about her conflicting feelings about Facebook. It's true that it's weird that your family, friends, workmates and virtual friends all meet together in one place and can see the communications between one another. Sometimes someone will post on my wall and I'll think, "Is this appropriate for the whole world to see?" And then I remember that I have nothing to hide. Clearly you know this, if you're a reader of this blog. Still, I'm amazed that people use the "wall" far more often than the "send a message" function which keeps the communication private between you and the receiver. Anyway, it's a fun place to play word games (if you start a lexulous, wordscraper or scramble game with me, I'll be happy to play, and beat you) but the more I'm on there, the more I think it's a royal time sucker. And, I suspect that it will overtake blogging as a way of keeping in touch. Progress and all that don't you know. Happy hump day peeps.

Quick question

If it's not okay to talk about sex in too much detail during prime time, how is it okay to mention a "decrease in semen" as a side effect for Flomax, the drug that helps you pee better. Mommy, what is semen?

Another nothing weekend

Look how cute the honey is. He was just waking up from his usual Sunday afternoon nap. He was tired because he had worked himself into a frenzy to make cake. I think this is the first time he's ever made cake for me and I really don't know what set him into motion on this. Best to just gratefully accept and skip the wondering why with him.



Watch how he just barely tolerates my filming of him.

Here we go with food again. See, when it's nut-shrinking cold here we just stay inside all day. I know we should get outside and embrace the season, but that's just not what we do. We stay all cozy inside and cook and eat and play games on the computer. Don't be jealous. Here you see the ingredients for la tartiflette. Potatoes, onions, bacon and Sir Laurier d'Athabasca cheese. A little olive oil to fry up the potatoes and then put them all into a casserole dish and bake for 10 minutes so the cheese gets all gooey. No salt nor pepper necessary. I would eat this daily if it weren't so obviously unhealthy.

Even the butt coffee smells good this morning. (sorry, you know I just couldn't resist.)

Anything goes around here

This week is finally over. I have been so busy the last four weeks, teaching all week and prepping all day Saturday, doing the chores on Sunday that I am really looking forward to this week's hush. See, I just finished up an intensive monthlong series of classes and have a light schedule this week before another intensive starts. I don't think I'm going to take on quite so much the following intensive as this month kicked my butt. I'm behind on everything and returning emails and phone calls has been very difficult to accomplish, let alone being able to read everyone's blog updates. I feel like the train plugging along but carrying twice the normal load. (I took the picture because I liked how the colors cheered up the dreary winter scene.)

(I would like to invite family to skip this paragraph.)
Friday night we had a friend stay the night. She was involved in some marital discord and thus we ended up spending the evening showing her our self intoxication methods. Turned out she was far more skillful with the joint rolling. I felt like SUCH an amateur. Hate that. We even convinced Serge to take a puff which he almost never does. Laughs ensued. I just don't understand why weed is demonized. You could use a little! We took a bunch of pictures like this one and Serge called out a word each time. This one was "la peur".

On Facebook, I keep getting shown this creepy baby ad. How can a third of people get the question wrong? I see two eyes with two sets of eye tattoos above. I've never clicked on the ad though. I refuse to click on ads.

What else? I finished the thirty dollar chunk o cheese yesterday. God that shit is good. It's called Monnoir which I remember by translating to "my black person." I'm sure this is wrong in about 2 thousand ways, but last time they were in town I asked for monmoine thinking it was my monk and I got all these quizzical looks. I'm sure Monnoir doesn't mean my black person though it does mean best cheese in the world. Too bad you can't have any.

Okay one last thing. Someone sent me a link to this blogpost. It really is good for a laugh. I picked up a new euphemism which I'll be using now. Time to go, I've gotta go make some butt coffee.