Signs of the Apocalypse - Ideal for S'mores and other treats

It seems that my name and address have been added to a catalog mailing list and suddenly I am the recipient of all kinds of interesting marketing. I got Abercrombie & Fitch, which will be so handy next time I want a $50 torn polo shirt. I also got a weird little catalog of miscelaneous gadgets that include "The Marshmallow Rotisserie".
Now, I'm not up on my Revelations, or any of the bible for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that the world deserves to be ending when anyone thinks that The Marshmallow Rotisserie is a good idea.

I especially love that everything in the catalog is a "The" - from "The Underseat Rolling Carry-On" to "The Adjustable Pool Recliner" to "The Superior Spa Wear" - the whole catalog is a weird experience. My second-favorite item is "The Turkish Shower Wraps." Because: "While most towels come loose easily, and must be constantly re-tied around the body, these wraps fasten in place, and are fitted with pouch pockets into which lip balm, jewelery, sunglasses or shampoos can be placed." I'm so happy to know that the problem of what to do with my sunglasses while I'm hanging out around the house after my shower, clad only in an annoyingly loose towel, has finally been solved!

Imagine the inventor of The Marshmallow Rotisserie: "Guys, you know what really bugs me? How when I'm roasting marshmallows and I put three on the stick, they all roast unevenly. And all that turning the stick over. What's up with that?" I mean, what the hell? Imagine the kids, unable to continue roasting all three of their marshmallows - naturally, they've supersized and they eat them three at a time now - because the battery died. Or packing that thing on a camping trip. (NB: Anyone who brings The Marshmallow Rotisserie on one of my canoe trips will be marooned on an island with it, and only it.)
Walk into the woods and get a stick, dude.
The inventor of The Marshmallow Rotisserie deserves to be beaten severely. With sticks. No, wait! Wouldn't it be so much more effective if the beating stick had three independant arms, and a motor? Then I could just stand there while the blows rotated at a steady pace, bashing his head in.
Please take me off your mailing list!!! I'm afraid of the end of the world!!!

Pride!

In celebration of Pride, I started the day with a kosher brunch and live klezmer music, and ended it with Bar-be-que Pork Ribs. I'm all about the diversity.
Saw the Pride Parade for the first time in years. It often falls on Canada Day weekend and for many years I went to Ottawa for that celebration. These were my only visits to Ottawa in recent memory and as a result I am certain that Ottawa consists of only a very few things: Irish pubs, Celtic bands, white people waving maple leaf flags, nuns, army boys, and me being very, very, very drunk.
Anyway, back to Pride. Parade went like this: big corporate float/promotion, big city/regional organization being supportive, small walking group of weirdos, big corporate float. Something I've got to say to one performer in a Copacabana outfit: If you want to dress like a woman, you really ought to wax like one too. Say it with me: Bra-zil-ian. I'm not being prejudiced, I just happen to like my homosexuals the way I like the rest of my world: clean, well-dressed and good looking.
It was a lot of fun, though. Full of good feelings, acceptance, and 905-er vicarious thrillseekers.
Highlight was the dude that invaded my personal space and then asked if he could take a picture with us (us being myself and Jenn).
Jenn: You want us to take your picture?
Dude: No, can I take a picture with you two?
Jenn: (big sweet smile) No.
Fucking tourist. Luckily we were rid of him when a naked man went by in the parade and the space-invader nearly shat himself in excitement, digital camera held high above his head, and ran off along the side of the parade snapping wobbly ass to his heart's content.
Actually, the highlight was the firetruck with the half-clad firemen pumping away on the back. Women are so predictable.

God is two people in matching outfits

Ah, weekend. Not so different from my weekdays, these days. While I was grabbing some clothes off the floor, finding a scarf to cover my level 3 bed-head, and heading down to the Market to meet Jessica for some food and fun, something much more interesting was happening "elsewhere". I share:

6 AM (at home)
Thing 1: Wow, we sure did sleep in today, hon. We better get going if we want to make it to the market soon. What do you want to wear today?
Thing 2: I know! How about our blue dolphin shirts!
Thing 1: The ones we bought at Marineland that time? I love those shirts! Remember how it was a close call and they almost didn't have your size? I'm so glad that the girl checked the stockroom. Here they are, they were hiding under the red tiki shirts. I'll go get the tandem bicycle from the shed while you get ready.

9:30 AM (at the market, giddy from an exhilarating tandem bicycle trip)
Thing 2: Oh, look at these wonderful kitchen gadgets, I'm going to pick up a strawberry huller while we're here. And a new spice rack.
Thing 1: I'm going to get some new oven mitts. Shall I get you a pair?
Thing 2: Yes please! Hang on, hon, let's get out of the way of these two young ladies trying to take a picture - we're in the background.
Thing 1: Isn't that cute how they want to take pictures of each other for no reason?

9:45 AM (still at market, after being lost in the crowd for a while)
Thing 1: Look at these yummy ribchops. We should get some and put them in our matching backpacks. Hey honey, do you keep seeing flashes of light and hearing giggling? No? Well okay, let's get some bananas from over there.

Eatin' Sea Spiders

Last night "Cape Breton Beth" prepared Lobsters for us. You really gotta work for that dinner, man. For starters there's the fear factor - while still living and moving, those beasts are freaky. J and I watched from the safety of the kitchen doorway while our hostess chucked them into the pot. Even then, once they're on the table, I half-expect one of those many legs to twitch, or the claw to snap. And stop starring at me, damn it! Luckily we had a good instructor teaching us how to eat a lobster. There's something very primitive about tearing apart the thing you're about to feast on with your hands (and maybe using a hammer at one point - that was really fun. More foods should require a hammer.). It's so decadent, especially with all the dunking into garlicky butter. Mmmm.... The table was decked out in plastic covering, as were we, and in no time there was lobster shrapnel all over the place. The best moment was when J looked down and discovered that his plate was actually completely empty, and dinner was spread all over the table around it, instead.
Partway through the meal, our host thought that it would be a nice thing to point out that lobsters actually belong to the arachnid family. (I just had a flickering thought that I would link through to some site proving that, but then realized that would entail searching the web for arachnids and I have absolutely no intention of stumbling onto any website so devoted. Ick.) Now, deep within, I knew this. I knew that all those legs that articulate in such creepy ways were no accident. All the same, I didn't need it pointed out!
Here's something super freaky:

Lobsters are capable of reflex amputation (autonomy). They can discard a limb to allow escape so as to prevent more serious injury. Lobsters have the ability to regenerate some of their body parts; for example, the claws, walking legs, and antennae. The fact that lobsters are capable of limb loss and regeneration is indicative of a very primitive nervous system and their differential sensitivity to pain compared to humans or other types of animals (they can "drop" a claw, etc. and go off like nothing happened.Could you drop an arm or leg like that?).

Now I'm thinking that maybe we should just leave the lobsters alone, in case they stop being so primitive someday. Or keep eating them to let them know who's boss!

Husband

So there's a heavy word.
Yup, I got me a husband. Why is that weird? Well, it feels like it took a long time to get to it, and it doesn't feel natural yet. In my head I'm still that girl in high school who didn't date. I remember when I was trying to decide if it was alright to call this particular dude my "boyfriend". I was always uncomfortable with the word "Fiance" (I mean, really, could they think of a more awkward word? My friend suggested to me that "betrothed" was pretty bad too, but I kinda dig it) and often reverted back to "boyfriend" during the engagement. Like: "This is my boyfriend. We're engaged." In fact, the only time that "fiance" ever rolled smoothly off my tongue was when I ran into my high-school archnemesis (though I doubt she thinks of herself that way, probably more girl-with-whom-I-have-a-long-and-complicated-history-of-competition, but there's nothing like unadulterated hate to keep things dramatic) and I got to say: "Here's my Fiance" smuggly while she strained through the crowd to try and find her boyfriend. Ha! Take that, competition girl! I don't care if you are a triathelon-running engineer pursuing a law degree! I'VE got a real, committed relationship!
Anyway...
Now I've got me a husband. Despite the fact that I totally love him to bits and never have any intention of us being apart, or like, seeing other people or whatever, it's still a big deal.
Don't even get me started on being a Wife.

Bad kitty!

Is it any wonder that I don't like cats?
Don't be fooled by the overalls and the apparent baldness - that isn't some old man midget, that's ME! At the tender age of nearly-two, in my Grandma's back yard, with her evil evil cat - Gummitch. Even now the name strikes dread into my heart.

My grandma just gave me this picture recently. She took the original into the photo shop and had copies made. Copies. More than one. Considering that Grandma uses a walker, this involved some effort. She thought I might like to have this picture. Why? You ask? If I knew this answer, I would understand a lot more about the world, and maybe about my Grandma, than I do now.

But look at me! I'm so little! I don't even have hair yet! Why did they put me so near Gummitch?! Why did they distract me at such a crucial moment? (Look - look at the trusting, innocent way I'm looking at the photographer!) Why, for the love of god, WHY didn't they just let me go on watering the garden with my little yellow watering can?!

Hospitals are No Fun

...Unless you're with my mom and have got the giggles.

I spent twelve hours at Mount Sinai Hospital today. My mother went in for major surgery. It's routine, apparently, they do it all the time - but for the person going under the knife, it's fairly out of the freaking ordinary. She was in for abdominal surgery - One ovary with a cyst to come out for sure, and once they took a peek inside the ol' tummy, if things looked bad (i.e. cancerous) the whole uterus would be coming out. It was scary before it even started.

We get into her semi-private room after navigating past the bitchy check-in lady. Luckily the room's other occupant is out - in surgery already - so we can get settled our own way. Bed goes up, bed goes down. Bed goes up, bed goes down. We give each other tense raised-eyebrow looks when we hear painful moaning from down the hall.
"Great." Says my mother, "That's a good sign."
"We're right near Maternity," I suggest, "maybe someone's having a baby."
My mother maintains that she would rather give birth than go to the dentist, and thus declares that that was no baby labour, but some poor woman in "big-time pain."
She gets into her icky hospital gown, and tops it with a pretty floral kimono housecoat bought for the occasion. We are not ladies who go gently into the ugly and unfashionable night. I'm distracting her with pictures of my bridal shower on my laptop when a doctor in scrubs comes in. He asks a few questions about her impending surgery and medical history. Then he starts to pitch her on a medical trial they're doing at the hospital for post-op drugs that reduce nausea and vomiting from general anesthetic. I can tell she's a little confused and not really paying attention - like, you're not my doctor so why are you nattering at me? She cuts right to the chase: "You want me to be in a study?" We debate and finally decide to do it, in the hopes that the drugs really would reduce her discomfort on recovery. The doctor asks her some more questions:
"You're not by any chance pregnant?"
Raised eyebrows and look of disbelief. Gestures at me: "Uh, this is my daughter."
We're not sure he gets it. Maybe he believes she misunderstood the question. He soldiers on bravely:
"Are you breastfeeding?"
"Yeah. I'm breastfeeding."
"Really...Oh..." (looks flustered and disappointed)
"No - I'm not breastfeeding!!!!"
The man is humourless. Maybe he isn't used to patients making silly jokes.
Then he describes what will be required of her - it involves answering a little survey about how you're feeling every few hours on a Palm Pilot. My mom cuts him off:
"You're assuming I can use one of those things."
"Oh, it's very easy - if you can use computers" He gestures at my laptop.
"Oh, no no no," my mom laughs, "I can't even turn that thing on." NOW he thinks she's joking. I agree to help with the data entry. Lord knows I've got enough experience with that.
The real doctors arrive to get my mom ready to go, and Dr. Trials scurries away when they give him "what are you doing here?" looks.
Once they've loaded my mom onto the gurney we roll into the elevator, down to the operating floor and then they park her in what feels like a loading bay. "We've got Mrs. M in Dock 3." Ready for shipping. We giggle. Dr. Trials is hovering about, brandishing the Palm Pilot and reminding me to input data. The O.R. nurses shoo him away.
I watch too many hospital dramas, so while I am surprised that my mom doesn't start "crashing" right there in front of me, I am actually relieved when a very cute doctor comes up to talk to her about her surgery. If he's good looking she must be in good hands, right? Then a coldly efficient lady introduces herself as the intern that will be helping. Oooo...the cute friendly one and the icy but talented and ambitious one. I can hardly believe that he doesn't break through her facade with some witty banter and that they don't start making out right there.
Then they wheel my mom off through the doors.
I'm directionless.
I go out on to University Avenue and sit on a planter. I stare at the traffic. It will be at least 3 hours before anyone tells me anything.
I call my dad to let him know she's gone in. I call my mom's best friend and tell her my mom was in pretty good spirits. I call my husband and almost cry.
I'm torn - I don't want to sit in the Waiting Room all day, but I feel like I shouldn't leave the hospital. What if they need me for something? What if she needs me? I decide to run home, eat lunch and be back in a couple hours. It's a beautiful day out, and I'm shocked in the way that people going through personal drama tend to be at all the people out enjoying it. It's all hospitals on University Ave. and I feel like pointing out to strangers that mere feet away, inside those walls, all those walls, people are sick, people are very sick, people are having surgery! My mom is one of them!
When I get back to the hospital, card and fresh bouquet of flowers in hand, I check in with the Surgical Waiting Room. Under my mom's name they have written (daughter) and an extension I am to call. I am totally freaked out. It is too early for her to be out, isn't it? When I call the extension I reach the Paging service for the hospital. They have no idea why I'd have been given their number. Clearly the Waiting Room staff are morons and were supposed to page ME. Clearly something bad has happened. I rush up to my mom's room but she's not in it. I ask the Nurse's Station if they know anything. They say to ask the Surgical Waiting Room. I explain the moron theory, and the nurse agrees. She calls someone, somewhere, and I'm told that my mom is out of surgery recovery and on her way back up to the room. It's not nearly enough info but it's way better than "dead". I have just enough time to arrange the flowers before they bring her in.
It's all good news - they only removed the one ovary, it looks normal, and she's had a smooth recovery so far (no vomiting). She's on morphine (ah, morphine) at the moment but not on a pump. They didn't have to do anything awful like a catheter.
Dr. Trials sneaks in. ("Poor bugger..." my mom says to me in her morphine haze, genuinely concerned, "they wouldn't even let him in the recovery room.") I assure him that I'll do the survey for her, he says he'll be back to do blood tests. Icy Efficient Intern ("Oh, I didn't recognize you without your silly hat!") lets my mom know that surgery went well. My dad pops up from work to see how she's doing. The first thing he does after kissing her hello is slip her wedding band back on her hand. It must have been heavy there in his pocket for the past few hours.
Public Service Announcement: Do not wear perfume or scented products to hospitals. Especially post-op rooms. And when the husband of the woman in the next bed over mentions that it's making his wife feel nauseous, don't lie and say that you aren't wearing any. Even her daughter 15 feet away can smell the cheap spritzes that you've tried to use to hide the tobacco smoke stink, lady.
Surreal moment of the day: We think my mom might puke from the olfactory assault, my dad gets the nurse, who shoves the puke-pan in my hand and leaves. A new nurse comes in wheeling a crazy machine with all sorts of wires and starts attaching electrodes all over my mom. Mom doesn't puke but we try to fan the smell away from her. So there she is, all hooked up to Robbie the Robot, with me fanning her with a barf-bucket. Once the nausea passes, we giggle.
The next few hours are hospital-bland: she sleeps, we chat, she sleeps. Dr. Trials is back a few times ("Oh no, not you again!" exclaims my mom at one point, and tries to hide under her bedsheets). He tries to take blood samples ("That hurt worse than having my ovary out!"). He tells her that at the end of the study, she'll get a small financial reward, like $150. ("Fab!" she declares, "I can get my hair done!") We decide that the theme for the day is "Having Surgery for Fun and Profit".
She got to go home that night.
It was hard to go through it with my mom. I think what upset me the most was that it meant crossing a definite line - while I no longer need to be looked after by her in any significant way, I was not yet ready to switch into the role of caregiver. Yes, she'll recover, and yes, it's temporary, but it was still very hard to be the grown-up to my Number One Grown-Up. She's normally the one who is good in a crisis (except for that one time at the cottage where she cut her hand and she and my sister both just stood there screaming and staring at it bleed), and she's the one who gives good pep talks and acts as champion. I guess it's okay when I put it to good use since I get all of that from her.

Oh my god, baby, it's HUGE!

Yesterday, my husband (ack! more on that some other time) brought home a freakin' enormous television set. I've never seen one that big outside of FutureShop, and now it looms over our living room. Now, I generally believe that TV is evil. I hate how when they're on they suck everyone's attention into them - killing conversation and thought. And yet, our monstrous screen is also a thing of beauty. It's so shiny. I sort of have to love it.

Sometimes, though, when it's just me alone with it in the room, I think it's going to get up and start transforming like a Transformer into a big, mean robot who will eat my brain.


And taking pictures of myself being attacked by our giant TV-bot is hysterical fun!

Saturday Morning = St. Lawrence Market

It was earlier than I would normally choose to leave the coziness of the warm man sleeping next to me, especially on a weekend, but at least since it's summer, it was light out. I strolled out onto the empty streets. The morning was still chilly because the sun hadn't made it over the edges of the high rise condo buildings on my street. I'm always surprised by how many people are on the subway at this time of day on a Saturday. Like me, catching the first train south.
I love the Farmer's Market. I love stepping through the doors and hearing the buzz - farmers talking to people buying food. It's the simplest form of commerce. The earlier you go, the better. It's first thing in the morning when the sumptuous bounty of our country is most in evidence. Fruits and vegetables are still piled high in bright pyramids. Loaves of bread are laid out like presents. Cuts of meat glisten lasciviously in the slants of light that creep in from windows high in the ceiling. When I was little, there was an entrance that I couldn't use because I was afraid to walk by the whole pigs and pig heads hanging in one butcher's coolers. The too-human fleshiness of it was terrifying. It is still disconcerting for this very urban population of shoppers; we are so far removed from the source of our sustenance, and the work and mess that growing it entails. Coming to this market makes me feel more in touch. I buy my tomatoes from the man that grew them. I know who raised the cow for this steak. I've even seen where it grazed when I visited the farm once. This makes sense to me.
I always get a little carried away when I go to the market. It's the bounty. I want to take it all home with me. It doesn't help that I am friendly with many of the vendors, and end up buying mushrooms just so I can say hi and catch up with the Mushroom Girl without her getting in trouble from her Aunt ("I'm helping a customer!"). My shopping buddy, my mother, contributes to the over-purchasing: "so-and-so's asparagus is really good right now" and "We tried those pies last week and they are sooo good." The final straw this week was a flat of strawberries. My mother talked me into splitting one with her ("These ones are to die for!"), and of course I ended up carrying it. A girl with a huge box of strawberries attracts a lot of attention. One guitar-playing busker changed his song for me as we went by, adding in something like: "Strawberry, strawberry, I really love your strawberries!".
The strawberry really sums it up for me. I don't eat off-season berries driven up in an 18-wheeler from California. It's a special treat to wait for the right time of year when the local ones are ready and ripe. It's worth the wait. It's worth the early-morning trip to the market to get them.

I want my brain back.

At the urging and encouragement of one of my oldest friends, who is also one of my most well-accomplished friends and thus well worth looking to for advice and pep talks, I am starting a blog. I already keep a journal, which is personal but not in an embarrassing way (anymore). It should be interesting to edit myself in terms of a public forum, as opposed to the meandering wonderings that I'm accustomed to.
Here's the thing: I want my brain back.
For the past several years, I've been working in the film industry as a member of the camera crew. Quote: "I got into this industry for the glamour, and I'm not leaving until I see some!" Well, I've seen enough, and I'm leaving. I'm getting out. It's like the mob - easier said than done - but I'm sick of doing a job where I don't really get to be smart. Sure, you have to think to be good at it, but there are no real creative rewards and nothing that pushes your thinking into any new ground. Being a member of the crew also tends to make you hard and bitter. The most consistent piece of advice that I received during my apprenticeship was "Get out while you still can." The oh-so-stubborn side of me naturally pushed against this, wanting to prove that I can do it. I consider it proven. Now I'd like to prove that I'm smart enough to actually take some advice.

Last night I went out to a concert - part of the North by Northeast music festival - we saw the awesome Dead Letter Department. Then later some cool cats from Japan. Highlights include the drummer getting naked on stage except for a cock-sock. Then we changed venues and saw some white guys doing hip-hop.
Why does this relate? Besides the fact that seeing live rock always makes me want to learn how to play guitar (not that I have any aspirations at rock-goddess-dom, but it would just be so cool to be able to make music - we all know I don't do that with my singing voice) these guys were all following a dream: making art. Whether it's shouting in a Japanese accent: "I can't hear that sex noise!", dudes rapping that they "do it for the passion, do it for the pain", or Rob from DLD taking us on a sonic walking tour of our hometown, I was really inspired. For a musician, the shouts and claps from the audience make it worth it - there's magic in the give and take of a live show. Yet somehow I think that all these people would keep doing it anyway.
So if there's a lesson to be learned from a too-late Thursday on the town, it's to pursue passion.
I'm getting my brain back!
As for my well-accomplished friend, she's taking a big leap of faith and heading off into the unknown in the next couple weeks. I am proud of her and excited for her. And I thank her for setting a good example!