Finding Cake Again

I can't remember where I read it, or when, but I do remember reading that the moment you realize you will never read in Remembrance of Time Past is the moment you realize you are no longer young. So I set it to read it a few years ago in a bid to LIVE FOREVER. Now that I'm two years older, I realize that literature doesn't work that way. But in spite of my time-ravaged face and (presumably) worsening eyesight, I've rounded the corner on the final book of Proust's work.

So, I asked for madeleine pans for Christmas. Cheated out of eternal life, I wanted at least to be able to dunk a fresh-baked madeleine into a cup of tea the moment I hit the final period. And thanks to that timely gift and Julia Child's recipe for Madeleines de Commercy (reproduced on hungry sofia ) I think I will be able to.

French recipes for baked goods are, of course, fussy as fuck, but these are worth it. They "humped" perfectly in the oven, and once cooled had a slightly crunchy exterior that was perfect for soaking up tea. Or forcing you onto a journey of remembrance, as the case may be.

Even Smitty approved.

Always Moving, Never Resting

A few weeks ago, the owner of my current building sold the house. With these glad tidings (for the landlord) came the sad tidings that all of the renters would have to vacate the building. Our little ramshackle house was going to finally catch up with the rest of the street, and return to being a single dwelling for some well-heeled, well-educated family.

My roommate and I are okay. We will be moving, with the collection of cats, to a nice place at St. Clair West and Bathurst. There's an ice cream parlour and Filipino bakeries in the area, so I'm getting ready to let my pants out. Unfortunately, before I can do that, I need to pack up. Again. It's a process I should be familiar with, given the recent timeline of my life:

August 2010: Pack up 6 years of Montreal living; return to Guelph
September 2010: Move to Victoria
April 2011: Move to a new place in Victoria
September 2011: Move back to Guelph
February 2012: Move to first apartment in Toronto
August 2012: Move to second apartment in Toronto
January 2013 (proposed): Move to third apartment in Toronto
May 2013 (proposed): Give up; move to Fort McMurray... forever

But I don't really feel like I have another move in me. Probably because I moved into an apartment with what appears to be six waiter's friends and an apocalypse-appropriate store of red lentils, and who knows where it should all be packed and why.

So, if you know me in real life and you happen to be in Toronto the first weekend of January, please lend a hand. My sanity depends on it, and I can pay you in lentils. 

In the Bleak Midwinter

This week brought to you by the colour grey.

I wanted to post something cute and quirky, but ever since Friday, all I can think about are all those little boots and mittens, that are probably still on a cloakroom floor. When things like this happen - tragedy that seems like it should have been written, not lived - the general consensus is that it makes you think. About what? Judging by my friends on Facebook, it's an even split between gun control, mental health advocacy, and a deep aversion to ever reading the news, ever again. I find myself falling, distressingly, into the third camp. The first two issues are crucial, but even together they don't seem enough. And every time someone re-posts a simplistic condemnation of the "media" to their wall, the arithmetic gets worse. So, I'm not sure what to do. I go out, I keep busy, and then I write here, hoping to connect, in a warm room which keeps the cold at bay.

Domestic Thursday: Double the Bubbles

 Today was supposed to be a day of rest. With a doctor's appointment scheduled for the morning, I decided to take the whole frigging day off. My guidelines for when and why to choose work? If I will be spending as much time on the bus as I will at the job, then I might as well not go. And all was well, all was good, yoga classes were planned and library fines paid off... and then I called Rogers.

Nearly two hours of combined hold time later, I was done. Not only with that telecommunications company, but with the day. I didn't much feel like browsing the very limited beer selection in my neighbourhood LCBO for this week's installment of Domestic Thursday, so off I went to 3030.

This Red Ale is the first Church-Key beer I've covered on this blog, and it's an odd one. Not flavour-wise - it's a pretty mild red ale, noticeable carbonation, and a high note that made me think peach. It was just a little strange to have it in the context of the last Church-Key beer I had tried, which was the rather intense Holy Smoke. This one needs something else. Hockey, maybe. Or food.

And on to my related domestic endeavour... the production of closet beer. It's a maple stout, and so far it's merrily fermenting in my closet. I keep on threatening to call it Pride Beer once it's bottled and out of the closet. And hopefully, some of you will threaten to punch me for making such an awful, awful pun.

This Is Why I'm "Curvy"

In spite of my better judgment, the online dating profile persists. At the very least, it's been an interesting sociological experiment, from confusing mating rituals - God bless the man who worked KFC into a pick up line - to what an algorithm thinks is my type. Which is somebody who loves food. More than they could ever love me. Every time OKCupid barfs up another potential suitor, it's inevitably a white dude, with a beard, who mentions kimchi in his profile.

Now, I like to eat. And I really like to eat kimchi. But as excited as I am to try out good restaurants, I secretly love bad food almost as much as well-done ramen. A recent article on the AV Club reminded me of this - and now I'm sharing it with you all, in case you want to forward it to OKCupid's algorithm robot.

1. Wine gums. I once ate a pound of wine gums in what was probably, if I'm being generous with myself, an hour. I tried to undo the effects of this decision by then eating one slice of pizza, a case of food calculus that only made sense in my head, and never to my digestive system.

2. Popeye's Chicken Dinner. Everybody loves Popeye's biscuits, but I'm all about the coleslaw. Fuck the biscuit. Just give me two styrofoam bowls of coleslaw and some friend chicken bits, and I'm a happy, lipid-high lady.

3. Chicken McNuggets. I don't know why McDonald's felt compelled to proudly announce to the world that the McNuggets were "now" made with white meat. What the hell was I eating before? Oh well, even if it was ground-up donkey, it's still delicious when dipped in honey. Side note: you can't get honey for dipping in the UK. I now understand why my American friends fought to free themselves from British tyranny.

4. Kraft Dinner: Anyone who follows the box and divides it into four servings is a liar. Each box feeds 1.5 people, or 1 person who's depressed post-breakup.

5. Tim Horton's Bostom Cream Donuts: The crappiness of my workday can be gauged by which donut I've ordered. Sour cream plain? I'm on the ball! Honey crueller? Things are getting dangerous. Boston cream? I can probably be found crying in the bathroom.

Domestic Thursday: Future Past Edition

It's the 100% Instagram Edition, celebrating my glorious arrival into the present!

First, the beer:

Black Creek has a new beer available in liquor stores - Dray Horse Ale. It's supposed to represent the brewing traditions of Canada in the 1820's, and comes with a history lesson on the side of the bottle. The taste is very malty - with a chocolate flavour that might even be a little peaty. Like all of their beers, it's low on carbonation. 

Then, the knitting:

This orange blob has been keeping me company on all of my recent bus trips. It's Knitty's Que Sera pattern, worked in some vintage yarn I found at a liquidation centre years ago. It's nice, simple knitting now that I have the lace pattern memorized - except for the time I realized I put the button hole in the wrong place, and had to rip back two inches of lace worked in grabby mohair yarn. I survived though, and I am a stronger woman for it.

And here's my completed Summer Flies shawl. Finished just in time for... November. Oh well, there's always summer 2013!

iBuy It

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Because tomorrow is the day I will finally break down and buy a smartphone. Soon I will be Instagram-ing photos of all of my meals and using the word "app" as if it was a form of punctuation. Or whatever it is that kids do these days - I have been so steadfast in my self-imposed technological dungeon, where I get lost traveling to new places, never know a restaurant's Yelp rating, and can't resolve simple trivia questions, to really know what people do with these things. I'm sure they're awesome. I'm sure eventually my hand will grow around my iPhone, and it will sense my every urge, and then tweet it. But before I forget what my life was like pre-iPhone, let us take a moment to mourn my life B.P. Yes, it was filled with hours of tedium and confusion, but also the pleasures of getting lost along the way to a bike store, scurrying across a Victoria highway, and running into a pair of quail bobbing along the road.

Coming Out (Musically)

Back when I toiled in the pits of porno-doom, everybody at the office was convinced that I was an out and proud lesbian. As a lazy heterosexual, who didn't want to end up like Tom Cruise - protesting a little too much - it took a while to deny the reports. And I didn't help myself by reading Patricia Highsmith in the break room. Memories of the saddest twentysomething flirtation with lesbianism ever - all of the labels, none of the sex - came rushing back today.

Back then, I made the mistake of mentioning to my deskmate Will, the hero of my life and the only legitimately gay guy there, that the night before had featured a kd lang binge. He immediately set to cackling. "You're not helping yourself," he chortled. Well, if not helping myself means denying kd, I'll march in your damn parade. I've always felt like music snobs look down on her for some reason. Which is ridiculous. Vocally she's a ringer for Patsy Cline, and her Hymns from the 49th Parallel is a 11-song defense of the cover as art form. That's where you'll find the song I've been playing all day, her take on Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You." So let go of your pretensions, and give in to a Sunday morning of perfectly wrought melancholy. You can have happy brunches next week.

In the Cards

A few days ago, this landed in my inbox:

Subject: It's Time for Your Tarot Reading

$20 is all it takes to get a reading by UofT's renowned tarot reader. (Really! Look…Proof that I'm renowned! http://www.hrandequity.utoronto.ca/new/otc2/otcwdk.htm)

As always, 100% of the proceeds are in support of UTM's United Way campaign.

My first reaction was something along the lines of "Ah! Spammers!" Then I realized it was coming from the university listserv, at which point my reaction was something like "Ah! Foucauldian spammers!"

Once I realized it was on the level though, I was intrigued. In spite of my skeptical nature and schoolgirl crush on science, I own a tarot deck. Then again, if you were ever an awkward girl in high school, who had rented The Craft on VHS, you probably own a tarot deck too. It was the reader's endearing profile that eventually tipped me into asking for an appointment. If I couldn't spend time with a comic book-loving knitter and write the whole thing off as charitable giving, what the heck is the point of being alive? And, on that note, my life is/was a big hot mess, so maybe the cards would have the answers.

On the man front: I probably won't have a serious relationship in the next year, and I tend to focus on unattainable men. This last fact was indicated by the three of cups, which depicts a man gazing fixedly on a cup's mirage, ignoring the two decent ones at his feet. This, of course, was hardly news to me. In fact, the cup-o-vision has a name, which I won't share. I've also been neglecting my health. And the bad news didn't stop there. The cards also revealed that A FRIEND WOULD BETRAY ME. Will it be one of you? If it's not, and I get married and get in shape during the coming year, I am totally demanding a $20 refund from the United Way.

Bus Love

In the interests of my own emotional survival, I've cultivated a bus crush. If I take the bus to work at a certain time, or back eight hours later, I'll see him. Pale, bearded, probably undernourished, he'll be reading a book. I'll open mine in sympathy.

After six weeks, that's the level of intimacy we've achieved.

And I'm fine with that.

If I actually had to talk to him, and find out what he was reading, it could ruin everything. He could be gay, married, gay and married, or worst of all, be in the middle of reading a terrible book. My love is strong and true, but probably not strong enough to survive Atlas Shrugged. I would also have to confront the fact that my passion is one of convenience. Ever since I slung books at my university bookstore, I've nurtured crushes on coworkers, as a patch whenever the work, or even the paycheque, was not enough. Unfortunately, this didn't work out so well in Victoria, where I had no office options, few local options, and probably ended up fixated on a longboarder because of all that. I have a similar problem with my current job, but the Commuting Reader seems to be the solution.

I just pray he never buys a car.