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.

Googling your childhood house

Did you know that you could do this? It's not available in all areas, but if they have the street view function, you can see what your childhood house looks like. The first one is where I spent the years from when I was 3 until 12. My bedroom window is behind the unhooked trailer.

I remember the Gonzalez's lived next door and I used to play with Matty, a kid similar in age to myself. I got into trouble once because I told him my Dad said that his dad was a loudmouth. Truth is, I didn't really know that was an insult. Of course this got back to Matty's dad, who then got back to my dad. I think I got a spanking for it. I certainly never forgot about it, as I don't any perceived injustice to myself.

Then we moved up to this house. In fact my Mom still lives here. My bedroom window is at the top left. It's now their office. Next door was a kid named Jeff. We were pretty inseparable for a couple of years until we got in a fight and he and his friend beat me up. When I ran home crying, I remember my mother refusing to console me. The way she saw it, if there had been a fight, I must have been at fault somehow. After that Jeff and I were no longer friends. I got beat up two other times in high school, but I kept those events to myself.

We should make this a meme. Go ahead and google your childhood house(s) and post it along with a memory. Consider yourself tagged.

Nada mucho

There's this little hidden place downtown, it's a chinese take-out in fact, but they also have a salad case and you can choose any four for four dollars. I usually splurge and pay the extra dollar for the diet coke. This is the combo I most often take - tabouli, spinach salad, nicoise, and greek pasta. You know it's a slow news day when I lead with a picture of lunch.

There was all kinds of hubbub where I was working yesterday and the place was crawling with reporters and newsfolk. That's because the biggest pension fund in Canada announced how much it had lost in 08. Turns out they were very bad pension fund managers and lost a quarter of the funds, or 40 billion dollars. It wouldn't be so bad if like funds lost a like amount, but the average loss was only 17%, making this big news.

It's snowing here again this morning. I can't even tell you how done I am with winter. The sun rising higher in the sky isn't even helping, it's just making it all the more blinding out there.



Serge and I both found the segment funny on the gags show last night.

Smell my meat

Have you guys heard about the Whopper perfume? It's not new, they were selling it before Christmas and apparently it was selling very well. I only found out about it when I was researching news based listening exercises for my students. This has actually turned out to be a great classroom activity as we discuss perfume and smell. Before I play the news item about the burger perfume, we discuss possible new fragrances from a gas station, fast food places and more intangible things like our childhood, peace and the 21st century. Then I play the news item about the new perfume, Flame, which you can see at the Fire meets desire website. (Get it?) Anyway, you would think that this would be what, a novelty or a gag gift of some sort. They are full-on serious about this and if you listen to the news story you'll hear of a young man quoted saying, "I'd like the body spray better if it had the smell of extra cheese." This always gives us the giggles in class. Anyway on the site you can (virtually) spray the perfume and the scene changes to all of these romantic settings, the beach at sunset, a roaring fireplace, hearts and angels and champagne. Clearly they are trying to say that smelling like a hamburger is romantic, right? But then, mixed in with the romantic settings is Mr Burger King himself taking a bath and beckoning you to join him. If you scroll through enough of the scenes, you will see Mr Burger King popping the cork on the champagne and pouring it on himself. It is all just too bizarre! Which of course means that I just have to get some. My favorite slogan on there is "behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat." I don't ever wear perfume, ever ever ever. In fact, I try to always buy unscented things.
(alert, bad segue, alert)
Just the other day we were really low on soap and I had forgotten to pick some up while I was out shopping so I asked Serge to get some while he ran another errand. I should have known better. I didn't recognize the shape of it when I noticed it in the shower yesterday morning and then the smell was not too strong and I almost praised him for a good soap selection. Until. The soap didn't seem like it wanted to be washed off, and I just couldn't get that squeaky clean feeling. Ugh, what the hell kind of soap did he buy? I rummaged in the trash afterward and found it: Olay Body, softer, smoother skin in 7 days. Serge, in case you missed that memo, we are not females! Olay? As in OIL of Olay? Great, slathered an oily substance all over me. I kept smelling my arms all day and I could still smell the "soap" on me when I went to bed. I have buy soap on my list today, but then you already knew that.

A smidge of narcissism

It's been a pretty lazy weekend. I still did my workouts though. Only sickness or vacation gets in the way of the exercise regimen. I brought the camera down to maybe do the dancing video I considered doing. I'm sorry but the basement is just too ugly a spot for that. Besides I look like a total retard. And not in the funny retard way, more in the cringe and feel sorry for the guy way.


To make up for it. Here's me shirtless after the workout. Still in the ugly basement though.


It was a snowy day yesterday and as I was coming up from the basement, I had my camera in hand and so was able to catch this shot of a mom dragging her kid around town. As you might have guessed, strollers don't work all that easily on snowy, icy chunk filled walkways. It's a pretty common sight to see parents using little sleds for transport. I have a feeling the kids dig it too. I think they call it a traineau up here.

I was all ready for the Oscars with my caesar salad and fish filets. I only made it about 45 minutes until I fell asleep. Now I'm going to go check out who won. Have a lovely Monday.

By the numbers

* This is my 1209th post.

* 7089 cigarettes have not been smoked by me in the last 237 days.

* Yesterday spouse put together my second website. (You're reading the first.)

* We spent $11 on the lotto since the jackpot was $48 million.

* 0 is the dollar amount we won.

* 800 megabites remaining on my ipod. This makes me reticent to add more music unless it's really good. It's kind of like Elaine on Seinfeld where she had to decide if the guy was sponge-worthy.

* 3 is the number of solid night's sleep I've had this week.

* $49 is how much it's costing per night at the Sheraton in Petaluma Easter weekend. We're going to do a little wine tasting in Sonoma before the family reunion that week. God I love Priceline.

* 5 inches of snow are forecast today. How much is a condo in Florida now?

* 4 US dollars will get you 5 Canadian dollars today.

* Gas is 84 cents a liter today. About $3.20 gallon Canadian or $2.56 US per gallon which feels cheap even though they are still reaping enormous profits.

* 33 hours of solitaire have already been played on the ipod. I hate that it tracks the number of hours, but I love that it tracks your winning percentage.

* I win solitaire 16.8% of the time.

This and that

This was on my way to work yesterday. We've had about the same quantity of snow this year as last (record breaking territory) though there is less on the ground because we've had a few bouts of rain which diminished the snowpack. Yesterday's snow was the wet clingy kind.

I always think it looks like cotton candy when it clumps on the trees like that. Even though it's pretty, I'm looking forward to it being GONE. That's not going to be for another six weeks though.

Thanks for all the pattings on the back yesterday. I'll be fine. It's good to taste a bit of disappointment and sorrow at times, you know, to keep those muscles in shape. It was a sweet sort of melancholy yesterday, born of the same sense of loss I had with Sara, but different and far less severe. There was some happiness too. There was a big cheese tasting going on near one of my classes and I was able to stop by and sample a couple dozen varieties from local producers. My favorite farm was there too so I bought my favorite cheese. A thirty dollar chunk because outside of events like these, you can't get the cheese, you have to go to the farm to buy it. I may have consumed a bit too much when I got home if my body's (non) reaction to the morning coffee is any indicator.

Trying no to be disappointed

Am I the only one...Who sits there saying "Shutup Paula, shutup Paula " over and over while watching American Idol? How can every single thing out of her mouth be such drivel?

Then again maybe I'm being too harsh. See I got some bad news yesterday (which could actually be good news, we never know until later) regarding the government job I've been eying for the last two years. It looks like the blog shall live. I got my test results yesterday and failed. Actually I did just fine on the "Ability to Communicate Orally", which incidentally was the only thing they told me I was going to be evaluated on. But apparently there was a second purpose to the test that they did not specify and that was "Evaluation of Personal Suitability". I thought I was being scored on how I communicated, not the specific answers to the hypothetical questions posed. It all makes sense though now. I scored lowest on "Solid team player" which I take to mean "pompous asshole". It's probably true, I mean I haven't had a boss in 10 years so I don't have to have team playing (cough* bullshit *cough) skills. I'm kind of bummed not to have the opportunity to triple my salary, but at least I've still got the 4 months off a year. That's worth quite a bit I figure. I'm trying not to beat myself up over it, but I'm human so I'll be down on myself for a few days at least. It's funny too because yesterday before I got home and received the failure letter I actually said to myself, "The more I teach, the better I get at it and the more I enjoy it." It was a totally true sentiment, so I suppose it's just as well.

A student asked me a question I didn't know the answer to yesterday. What is the plural of computer mouse? Computer mice doesn't sound right, but I have no idea if it is or not. Any idea anyone?

This is posted at the unisex bathroom. I found it amusing. I still pee standing up, but I'm sure to wipe any splashed drops from the seat.

Workout blather

You know what I love about working out at home? Dancing between sets with complete abandon. Since I have the workout room set up in the basement, I don't have to worry about anyone catching me dancing and I get to listen to the tunes that make me move the most. Sometimes I get so into a song that I end up going nuts dancing the way I used to do when I was a kid, which is really not dancing but more a wiggling and writhing whilst jumping up and down. This used to crack my dad up when I was a kid and I hadn't learned inhibition yet and he would coax me into "dancing" for him. When do we learn inhibition anyway? I wanted to say from school but em homeschools and her kids learned it just fine. Sometimes I amuse myself since I have a mirror down there and I dance like Donny Osmond in that Weird Al video. I keep meaning to make a video of myself but I don't think I would be able to let all inhibition go and show you the real thing. I've already danced for you anyway but maybe one day I'll do one like Donny did. Sometimes people ask what I do for cardio and I usually say nothing, but I think the dancing counts. I don't see why dancing wouldn't, I mean the whole goal of cardio is to maintain an elevated heartrate and respiration rhythm, no? And it beats the elliptical any day, talk about boredom and torture perfectly melded.

Do you have a time and a place where you can dance and feel the music like electricity in your veins and you become helpless before it like a marionette? If not, you should find one. It's great therapy for the soul and for me, the main reason I look forward to my workouts.

Monday monday

We went to a seriously overpriced cafe for breakfast yesterday. We decided to try a new place instead of going to one of the tried and true breakfast joints we usually go to. (It goes without saying that this wasn't my idea, I'm the stick in the mud who always wants to go back to the same place, seated as I am in the if-it-aint-broke-don't-fix-it section.) I was delighted to see tabasco on the tables but couldn't actually bring myself to put it on my overcooked omelet. That color just isn't right. And the ketchup I suspect was being refilled with an inferior brand, the way it speckled the glass is not the way Heinz usually does. Plus that label is a long way from brand new.

Look, we are so pasty white that we overexpose photos naturally. The rest of the day we didn't do much although I did go down to the library to take back the Keith Jarrett Koln Concert album and pick up a few more cds. I had heard a track of his on the radio and it turns out that that album is one of the all time jazz greats from the 70's. Every time I hear some music I like I rush out to investigate it only to find out it is from 30 years ago or more. Case in point: I picked up some Vince Guaraldi yesterday and really dug one of the albums. Turns out it was produced in '62. Before I even walked the earth. At least the Jane Monheit I got is from this new(ish) millenium. What else? Dinner was leftovers and we watched Tout Le Monde En Parle last night. I'll catch up on the Simpsons and Desperate Housewives tonight. Have a lovely Monday peeps.

Weekend food

People seem so interested in our suppers, so I took pictures. Above you see Friday night's which was sliced roast beef, asparagus and salad. I was surprised from the last post that so many have not prepared an artichoke before. It's so easy too. You put it in a pot with an inch of water and, crap I can't remember what it's called in English, put in a "marguerite" to keep the artichoke elevated above the water, cover and steam the thing for an hour to 75 minutes. (You'll probably have to add some water a couple times during the steaming.) Then to eat it, you pluck the leaves (you know it's done when they are easily pluckable) and scrape the soft flesh off with your teeth from the bottom of the leaf. I like to dip it in a bit of mayo, but butter is also good. Then once you've done all the leaves, you get to the best part, the heart, which you moan in an orgasmic way while consuming.

Last night's supper was far less amenable to photography, but here you see Serge acting all sinister while he prepared something he had learned from the chef at his work. (There is a cafe as part of the complex where he works.) It had chicken and potatoes and onions and lots of cream in it. This morning I can say that there was too much cream, because although delicious, it doesn't seem to have progressed very far down the pipeline. By the way, the filthy ashtray is not mine, spouse has been very good about smoking at the stove with the vent fan on (incidentally called a "hotte" in French) which he will do for another month or so until it warms up a bit and he goes back to smoking outside.

It was that stupid made-up holiday yesterday, so I snapped a pic of the two of us. Winter complexion, bah. We sat down to dinner and watched Vicky Christina Barcelona which I think I liked even better the second time around. Woody has aged his craft well. Since it was Saturday and all, dessert was a possibility (now I'm thinking maybe that's what clogged the pipeline) and I whipped up this microwave brownie in a cup thing that I saw in the paper a couple weeks ago. So easy, fast and yummy. If you want hot cake in a flash, all you do is:
Mix 4 tbs flour, 4 tbs sugar, 2 tbs cocoa and dash of salt in a coffee mug. Then add 2 tbs oil, 2 tbs water and 1/4 tsp vanilla and mix. Microwave on high for 1 -1 1/2 minutes. Let cool for a couple minutes. Enjoy.

12 of 12

Okay so I went ahead and took pictures all day yesterday. Here I am in the morning getting ready to get into the shower. Serge was sleeping at the time and I was going to post the picture of him here in his slumbering pose but he forbade it. I can see why, it wasn't all that flattering. So you get to see half naked me instead.

I've weighed that exact amount for 8 days running now. Perhaps I've reached stasis. Weird though how it looks as though my right foot is swollen.

All prettied up and ready to go to work. I have got to get a haircut today. This has just been added to my list.

A whole year and the orchid doesn't bloom. Then finally it started to.....only to shrivel up and die before opening. Any idea why the thing would change its mind?

A quick breakfast before heading out. I'm on a Cheez Whiz kick right now, though I would spurn this on veggies as the lid suggests. Every time I read it I think "adds vegetability to people."

The one outdoor shot I got. It rained like the dickens all day long. I got this on the bus by opening the window when we were at a stoplight. This caused some consternation for the passengers near me.

My first class is in a building shared by the Institute of Beers. I always wonder what goes on in there.

After that class, I rush down to the World Trade Center for my lunchtime class. They've got a piece of the Berlin Wall displayed down there. I didn't know what it was for a long time because I never stopped to check it out. One good thing about 12 of 12 is that you discover things that were right under your nose all along. Montreal too had its own wall surrounding the city a couple hundred years ago.

Done for the day so it's down into the underground tunnels leading to the subway.

Here comes the train!

Home. Time to play my turn of Scramble with Steven.

Finally, din din in front of the tv. Twas pretty good last night with artichoke, filet mignon (on sale) mac n cheese (stouffers) and a little salad to assuage the guilt over the fattiness of it all.

To see others who have participated this month, check out Chad's blog where this all started.

Title of blogpost

It's the 12th today so I suppose I should take a bunch of pictures for 12 of 12 but it's a rainy day and I'm working all day so I think I'll skip it this month. We'll see. I didn't post yesterday because I had nothing to pontificate on. Not that today is much different mind you, but since I don't teach until 9:30 this morning, I've got some time to check in here in blogaritaville. Am I allowed to use that word you coined Kevin? I did get kind of excited yesterday when I read in the paper about Tourisme Montreal hiring a bunch of bloggers for the tourist season to vaunt the city to the world. They even have a spot for someone to cover the gay scene. Although that intrigues me, it would mean that I'd have to attend all the circuit parties and that just makes me tired to even consider. I'm much more interested in covering the dining scene but there are already a bunch of bloggers up here doing that. Still, I would LOVE to get paid to go out to eat and do interviews with chefs and make videos of hot restos around town. If I had the money, I'd probably do it anyway.

I did a preliminary run on the taxes over the weekend. Ugh. Although I make chump change, and you'd be aghast if I told you how little I make, I still have to pony up a fourth of it. Since I work on contracts, I don't have anything taken out of my pay. Now it's time to pay the piper. We turned a small profit on the buildings which kind of sucks since last year we had a big loss (we replaced doors with a bit of money from the refinanced mortgage) and that made our tax burden quite small, though I still paid thousands. What's really ridiculous is that the US wants money from me too. Even though there is a tax treaty between the two countries, if you're self employed, the states want you to pay them too. So ridiculous. I mean what am I getting for those taxes? As I reread this, I'm seeing a lot of buts, even thoughs, stills and sundry other contrast introducing connectors. I wonder if I speak that way too.

Open every days

One of the local bloggers-slash-journalists does a post once in a while called "Trouver l'erreur" because there are often mistakes when a French speaker writes in English. There is this perception here that since the official language is French, it's not all that important to be perfect when writing in English. This is of course hogwash, particularly when you are trying to sell something. Do you want me to focus on your message or your incompetence in writing in English? It's not like there aren't any English people here who could proofread your copy, but apparently that's an unnecessary step. Here's one flyer that is notoriously riddled with errors. Once I circled them and dropped them off for them to see. They subsequently made some improvement such as "this week's specials" instead of "this week specials". This week though, they added some language and once again it is clear they didn't check with an English speaker before publication.

Does anyone know what "recently out of proposal" and "pension retired" mean?

They want me to come and see their cars alone. What? Can't I bring a friend?

Better days

Yay for melatonin. Though I do feel a bit groggy this am, I did sleep through the night. I had a chat with the pharmacist and she gave me some heavy duty ones from behind the counter and told me, "Don't worry, this really works well." I don't care if it's the power of suggestion or the placebo effect, whatever gets the job done is fine by me.


Dinner was marvelous as I knew it would be. Though I was intrigued by the Tripe Pizza, I ended up ordering the catch of the day, Aile de Raie, which sounds oh so much better than the English "Skate". The ex had the cassoulet while Serge got the lamb. The appetizers were tomato tart, bison tartare (to maim for) and a special foie gras that had a buckwheat pancake, baked beans, cottage cheese and I don't know what but the flavor combo was to die for. We shared a delicious Maple Syrup Pie for dessert. Nobody was very happy when I whipped out the camera as you can see by the look on spouse's face.


Here's a sign I came across from some site that features signs from around the world. I love being adventurous when eating out which is why I almost got the tripe pizza. I have no idea what fried pimple is but I'm thinking they made a mistake with pickle. Boiled cake sounds kind of weird, but hey, it's cake, how bad could it be?

Finally, something I've been meaning to post since last week. Here's a clip from a recent Jeopardy episode (my guilty pleasure) where Alex made a joke. Gosh it was a groaner.

Drivel

We're both up way too early for a Sunday. I just can't seem to get a good night's sleep these days. Serge says it's because I'm stressed about being so busy and he's likely correct, but what to do? Suffer, that's what. Sigh. At least there's nothing major to accomplish today, save the marketing and some heavy duty puttering around the house. Tonight we're going to my favorite restaurant. The ex is in town for a conference so spouse and I are taking him there. I doubt we'll get pictures because the ex is quite controlling when it comes to the picture taking. (Read: no pictures allowed.) But it will be fun to catch up. Lately, we've both been reunited with long lost college buddies via, you guessed it, Facebook. So we'll likely gossip about those people over foie gras.

I spent all day yesterday putting together the course outlines for the classes that started last week. All ten of the new classes. Ugh. At least now the planning is done and all I've got to do is execute, which after 7 years of this, I could do blindfolded. Smile, you're on stage.

It's raining and 40 degrees outside. Practically tropical. Of course it won't last long, it's supposed to be back in the single digits by tomorrow morning. God this is boring. Is this what it has come to? Talking about insomnia, paperwork and the weather? I don't know how you've stuck it out this far, but I'll try to do better tomorrow.

This that and the other

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