Light on the eve of the election
12 years ago
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Poverty Budget Tips
I discovered last night that you can get free drinks at the bar without having to crawl out the bathroom window at the end of the night to avoid going home with some random guy who's been paying for them. My brother played his best show ever-solo and oh so very Townes Van Zandt-so I didn't notice that the free drinks were virgins but I'm awfully glad this morning they were.
Lost Angels
Yesterday I finally sent off the piece I'd been working on and Mom and I celebrated with my very own creation, Zucchini Lasagna (recipe below) and a bottle of Lost Angel which is my new favourite wine. It's really intimidating cooking for Mom but I was pretty proud of this dinner.
Mom also took me to hear a piano quartet featuring the youngest daughter of my childhood voice teacher.
The last time I saw Maddy she was a toddler with a huge toothless grin. Now she's a married woman with her mother's musical talent and a beautiful well-dentafriced smile. I felt remarkably old. She played some Chopin, my favourite, and a delicate little piece at the end of the evening that I found enchanting.
Watching her play though I was reminded of my best friend in high school who was also a pianist. She had the same haircut Sara had all those years ago and, from the back, it could have been her playing. I don't think of her often but last night, when I was reminded of her, for some reason I missed her intensely. Not her, per se, I know she's a different person now than she was then, as am I, but I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and wanted to be on one of our long walks talking about politics and religion and philosophy. In truth, I think she ruined me for future relationships with women, my expectations are impossibly high now, but how amazing to meet your kindred soul at all in this vast universe, even if you did only share a brief moment in time.
Zucchini Lasagna
Ingredients
1 Roma tomato
1 carrot
1/2 red onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 lb ground meat
2 T Italian seasoning (Clubhouse)
1/2 jar pizza sauce (Catelli Spicy Garlic)
2 zucchinis
1 small container Ricotta cheese
1 1/2 tsp sage
chili flakes to taste
Method
1) Saute onions until soft. Add garlic. Add meat and brown.Grate carrot into meat. Add pizza sauce and Italian seasoning. Turn element down to low.
2) While sauce is simmering cut zucchini in half and then lengthwise into 1/4" slices. Drizzle with oil and grill for about 2-3 minutes on each side.
3) Mix sage, chili pepper flakes and ricotta cheese together.
4) Place four zucchini slices on the bottom of the pan.
5) Layer meat sauce on top of zucchini slices.
6) Layer another four slices on top of the meat sauce
7) Layer on the ricotta cheese mixture and slices of roma tomatoes
8) Lay on the remaining zucchini slices and top with smoked gouda cheese
9) Cover and bake in oven at 400 until cheese has melted approx. 10 mins.
Mom also took me to hear a piano quartet featuring the youngest daughter of my childhood voice teacher.
The last time I saw Maddy she was a toddler with a huge toothless grin. Now she's a married woman with her mother's musical talent and a beautiful well-dentafriced smile. I felt remarkably old. She played some Chopin, my favourite, and a delicate little piece at the end of the evening that I found enchanting.
Watching her play though I was reminded of my best friend in high school who was also a pianist. She had the same haircut Sara had all those years ago and, from the back, it could have been her playing. I don't think of her often but last night, when I was reminded of her, for some reason I missed her intensely. Not her, per se, I know she's a different person now than she was then, as am I, but I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and wanted to be on one of our long walks talking about politics and religion and philosophy. In truth, I think she ruined me for future relationships with women, my expectations are impossibly high now, but how amazing to meet your kindred soul at all in this vast universe, even if you did only share a brief moment in time.
Zucchini Lasagna
Ingredients
1 Roma tomato
1 carrot
1/2 red onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 lb ground meat
2 T Italian seasoning (Clubhouse)
1/2 jar pizza sauce (Catelli Spicy Garlic)
2 zucchinis
1 small container Ricotta cheese
1 1/2 tsp sage
chili flakes to taste
Method
1) Saute onions until soft. Add garlic. Add meat and brown.Grate carrot into meat. Add pizza sauce and Italian seasoning. Turn element down to low.
2) While sauce is simmering cut zucchini in half and then lengthwise into 1/4" slices. Drizzle with oil and grill for about 2-3 minutes on each side.
3) Mix sage, chili pepper flakes and ricotta cheese together.
4) Place four zucchini slices on the bottom of the pan.
5) Layer meat sauce on top of zucchini slices.
6) Layer another four slices on top of the meat sauce
7) Layer on the ricotta cheese mixture and slices of roma tomatoes
8) Lay on the remaining zucchini slices and top with smoked gouda cheese
9) Cover and bake in oven at 400 until cheese has melted approx. 10 mins.
Friday, April 9, 2010
My Hometown
About a decade ago some fool set fire to the windmill here. This is the restoration. According to my father they finally caught the firebug a few weeks ago.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Ambition
I was whining to my mother on our walk today that I didn't feel I was getting enough work done. I just spent three hours writing and I think the piece that's been evading me is finally complete.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
MIA: Words
I have moments, usually when it's late at night and I'm most tired, when I know that I am only pretending to be a writer. I am not creative enough to be a writer. I begin to wonder what alternate creative outlets I might pursue when the universe reminds me that I would never have the genius to utilize nipples this way. I cry a little and then I just accept that it's my destiny to attempt ingenius employment of adverbalizers forever anon in obscurity. Still, I wish I had thought of it first.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Wordcount
It's the first day of my new job: writer.
I got a lot done today.
I woke up early just as I had planned. I got in a half hour of kickboxing despite my crippled back, vacuumed both floors of the house and did a load of laundry all before breakfast. I was off to a great start.
After breakfast I completed the first of seven modules for one of my specialization certificates, another load of laundry and digitized even more of my life. Still right on track.
After lunch I was left with two options. I could write or, I could fix my bike tire. So naturally I borrowed my mother's John Deere cruiser-style three speed pedaller and headed downtown to the bike shop to buy patches. I felt very Mjiep ala Anne Frank as I cruised down the deserted daytime streets and tried to decide if the lack of traffic in the "Automobile City" was irony or paradox. The bike shop, it turns out, is closed on Mondays but the air smelled of earth and the sun warmed my skin so I wasn't the least upset.
Except that I had run out of excuses to procrastinate. The piece I'm working on is something of a disaster at the moment; I can't seem to stick with any angle I choose from one sit down to the next and today was no exception. I deleted more than I wrote and I was relieved when my mother came home from work and we set out for a walk.
In this city everyone, and I mean everyone, smiles and says hello when you pass them. This congeniality can actually be more tiring than the walking. We walked at least 3.5 km, were nearly mowed down by a trio of Baptist bikers (as identified by my mother, I don't know my Baptists from my Lutherans), and we ate a well-balanced sufficiently tasty dinner before I picked up the laptop again.
I wrote two sentences, deleted two paragraphs and then helped my mother set up the wireless network which I am now using to record the fact that today, day one of my first day at work as a writer, I have written, at the conclusion of this blog post, exactly -15 words.
Maybe I should have slept in.
I got a lot done today.
I woke up early just as I had planned. I got in a half hour of kickboxing despite my crippled back, vacuumed both floors of the house and did a load of laundry all before breakfast. I was off to a great start.
After breakfast I completed the first of seven modules for one of my specialization certificates, another load of laundry and digitized even more of my life. Still right on track.
After lunch I was left with two options. I could write or, I could fix my bike tire. So naturally I borrowed my mother's John Deere cruiser-style three speed pedaller and headed downtown to the bike shop to buy patches. I felt very Mjiep ala Anne Frank as I cruised down the deserted daytime streets and tried to decide if the lack of traffic in the "Automobile City" was irony or paradox. The bike shop, it turns out, is closed on Mondays but the air smelled of earth and the sun warmed my skin so I wasn't the least upset.
Except that I had run out of excuses to procrastinate. The piece I'm working on is something of a disaster at the moment; I can't seem to stick with any angle I choose from one sit down to the next and today was no exception. I deleted more than I wrote and I was relieved when my mother came home from work and we set out for a walk.
In this city everyone, and I mean everyone, smiles and says hello when you pass them. This congeniality can actually be more tiring than the walking. We walked at least 3.5 km, were nearly mowed down by a trio of Baptist bikers (as identified by my mother, I don't know my Baptists from my Lutherans), and we ate a well-balanced sufficiently tasty dinner before I picked up the laptop again.
I wrote two sentences, deleted two paragraphs and then helped my mother set up the wireless network which I am now using to record the fact that today, day one of my first day at work as a writer, I have written, at the conclusion of this blog post, exactly -15 words.
Maybe I should have slept in.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Down the Rabbit Hole
"Even as an infant," my mother likes to point out, "you were fiercely independent. Long before the age most babies should know how to do such things you were rolling your way from one end of a room to the other."
This independence made handing over my apartment keys particularly difficult and these last few days have not been any easier as I've had to rely on the men in my family, who are both reliably unreliable, for help. Aside from feeling frustrated and helpless, I have no stomach for familial politicking particularly when I can see clearly, albeit in hindsight, that it's all unnecessary if I'd only been able to let go of some especially cumbersome things.
Still, I'd say the move went relatively smoothly. I fell down the stairs the day before the move while I was carrying some drawers down to the dumpster. The drawers were wide and awkward and I was unable to see the stairs as I descended. At some point I decided I must be at the bottom and continued forward instead of down. I was suspended in mid air like some cartoon character-Mr. Magoo or Road Runner- as my legs flailed about in hopeless search of solid matter. I then made the curious decision to retract my landing gear by doing hamstring curls and landed squarely on both my kneecaps rather than my feet. I threw my back out in the process and spent moving day in a world of pain; bruised and swollen, there was no good answer for it really but to suck back the Advil and cowboy up princess.
It was raining when I woke up so I considered myself blessed when the skies began to clear about ten minutes before the movers arrived twenty minutes early to pick up my bed. At the end of the day, after handing the caretaker my keys, I hopped into the car to drive away for the last time. Turning the key in the ignition the radio came on and Billy Idol affirmed "It's a nice day to, start again".
I managed to fit in "Alice in Wonderland" with my brother last night. Oh, the infinite ways I adore this movie. I watched the original version several times growing up-it was one of a very few children's stories with a female heroine who was an adventurer-but most of the philosophy of it was quite lost on me at the time. Burton's version though is visually beautiful and the adaptation very Tao. I am already scheming to see it again.
"You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are." -Alice
This independence made handing over my apartment keys particularly difficult and these last few days have not been any easier as I've had to rely on the men in my family, who are both reliably unreliable, for help. Aside from feeling frustrated and helpless, I have no stomach for familial politicking particularly when I can see clearly, albeit in hindsight, that it's all unnecessary if I'd only been able to let go of some especially cumbersome things.
Still, I'd say the move went relatively smoothly. I fell down the stairs the day before the move while I was carrying some drawers down to the dumpster. The drawers were wide and awkward and I was unable to see the stairs as I descended. At some point I decided I must be at the bottom and continued forward instead of down. I was suspended in mid air like some cartoon character-Mr. Magoo or Road Runner- as my legs flailed about in hopeless search of solid matter. I then made the curious decision to retract my landing gear by doing hamstring curls and landed squarely on both my kneecaps rather than my feet. I threw my back out in the process and spent moving day in a world of pain; bruised and swollen, there was no good answer for it really but to suck back the Advil and cowboy up princess.
It was raining when I woke up so I considered myself blessed when the skies began to clear about ten minutes before the movers arrived twenty minutes early to pick up my bed. At the end of the day, after handing the caretaker my keys, I hopped into the car to drive away for the last time. Turning the key in the ignition the radio came on and Billy Idol affirmed "It's a nice day to, start again".
I managed to fit in "Alice in Wonderland" with my brother last night. Oh, the infinite ways I adore this movie. I watched the original version several times growing up-it was one of a very few children's stories with a female heroine who was an adventurer-but most of the philosophy of it was quite lost on me at the time. Burton's version though is visually beautiful and the adaptation very Tao. I am already scheming to see it again.
"You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are." -Alice
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