Archive for September, 2009

• Curse Of The Espe Wallets

  Date: 2009.09.29 | Category: sometimes I ramble | Response: 7

  A few years ago, when I was still living in Toronto I fell in love with a wallet. It was white and had red cherries on it. The snap closure on it was a cherry. I big puffy heart loved it.

  It was an Espe wallet. I love their line of wallets. They are fun and whimsical but still practical. That is not always an easy combination to find. And oh I loved that white cherry wallet. Shopkeepers and cashier and waitresses commented on it often.

  Then I went to Europe. On one of the last days there my wallet vanished. We suspect it was pickpocketed somewhere on the Champs Elysses. Losing my credit card, ID and wallet full of Euros was bad enough, but I felt sad about losing my lovely little wallet.

  I reverted back to using an older wallet. It was fine but a bit big. I was hoping to find another cherry wallet but they weren’t making them anymore. So I bought a red Espe wallet with a monkey on it a few months after I got back from Paris. It was cute but I didn’t love it the same way I had loved my cherries.

  For my birthday this year my best friend gave me a black Espe wallet, also with a monkey on it. It was very cute and I promptly switched to using it. It was the wallet I had in San Francisco this weekend for BlogHer Food. It was the wallet I had when I got on my first flight, from San Francisco to Montreal, to come home. It was the wallet that I had on the plane when I bought the worlds worst roast beef sandwich (I ate the meat out of it, that was it).

  It was the wallet that was gone when I went to Second Cup at Gate 49 to buy something to eat (finally!) in the Montreal airport.

  Gone.

  I sat on the floor while the carrot cake sat on the counter mocking me and frantically searched for my wallet. It wasn’t there. I got panicky because I was tired and hungry and OMG was it really happening again? (A very nice Muslim man tried to buy the carrot cake and bottle of water for me but I was too busy freaking out to take him up on his very kind offer.)

  I promptly dumped everything out of my backpack. It was still gone. I went back to security, they hadn’t found anything. They took me to the Air Canada check in where a very nice Air Canada representative called the plane and they hadn’t found it. She called various other places in the airport and nothing. She took my info and sent me on my way back to my gate. By this time I was pretty much bawling because I was tired, and stressed and hungry and OMG I couldn’t believe it happened AGAIN.

  I went through security (again) and had a break down (again) when I couldn’t get my zipper to close on one of my bags. I got to my gate (again) and called Lee and broke down (again). Then 20 minutes later I boarded my very short plane ride to Ottawa and came home. We stopped on the way home to buy Clamato so I could make myself a good strong Caesar when I got home and bought Chinese food from Golden Palace so I could finally freaking eat something.

  I have that red Espe wallet sitting at home. It’s cute. But it’s going to the Salvation Army the next time we make a donation. I love Espe products. I think they are adorable. But no more Espe wallets for me. I am cursed.

• The Joy of Cooking

  Date: 2009.09.24 | Category: What's for Dinner? | Response: 3

  After Lee and I ran away to City Hall earlier this year people seemed to want to buy us things. Lee had foolishly thought this wouldn’t happen and so convinced of it was he that he actually bet that it wouldn’t. Needless to say he lost that bet and ended up buying me Chinese takeout and watching an evening of chick-flicks.

  When Lee’s aunts wanted to know what to get us we weren’t sure. We weren’t exactly prepared for people to ask us what we wanted. The short answer was that we didn’t need anything but that generally didn’t fly so well (though we gave it a good effort). So we pondered. We decided that if Lee’s aunties insisted on buying us something and wanted to know what we wanted we should probably tell them something. We decided that a copy of The Joy of Cooking would be nice. It was a big gaping hole in our cookbook collection. One day we came home to a lovely wrapped package containing the 75th anniversary edition of The Joy of Cooking.

  We’ve flipped through it a few times. Used it for reference a few times. Lee has used it to make French toast. But mostly it just sits there and acts rather intimidating with it’s plethora of recipes and 2-inch spine.

  So, since I’m running away this weekend to attend a food blogging conference (I’m a food blogger at heart if not so much in reality) I’m putting out a foodie question to all of you. I know that The Joy of Cooking is one of the most popular cookbooks out there and pretty much everyone has one.

  What’s your favourite recipe(s) from it? What recipe(s) have you eyed repeatedly but never tried? We need someone to set us on The Joy of Cooking path.

• I have a special talent

  Date: 2009.09.16 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 4

  Indeed I do. It’s very impressive really.

  I can tie myself in knots.

  Now before you tell me how cool you think that is I should probably point out that I mean this in a very non-contortionist kind of way. I tie my muscles, mostly in my back, into knots by sheer will.

  It got so bad that a few years back I had to go to an RMT for six months. Thankfully covered by insurance but I probably would have still gone anyway, actually I think my doctor would have made me. Upon prodding my back she told me that muscle wasn’t supposed to feel like bone. Who knew?

  My coworkers used to think it was so great that I was going for a massage. “It’ll be so relaxing,” they said. I couldn’t convince them otherwise no matter how hard I tried. The truth was it was pretty damn painful. I’d immediately go home, pop some advil and take a hot bath. And do it again the next day. Oh yes, that sounds like fun.

  My RMT was very impressed with my talent. He said he’d never seen anything like it. He actually took it pretty easy on me. There were spots he full out avoided…until that day his hand slipped and he hit a particularly nasty knot. He gasped louder than I did and apologized immediately because he knew he had really hurt me.

  He also highly suggested I find another talent. And possibly exercise more or meditate or something to destress. (I found quitting my job two years later worked wonderfully.)

  It’s not as bad as it used to be but every now and then it flares up. Like right now. Apparently my back does not appreciate being strapped into rides at the country fair.  The day after I could barely move my neck. It’s not quite so bad any more but there’s this other really annoying thing that’s happening.

  You know how when you get cold your back tenses up a bit in-between your shoulder blades and it just feels uncomfortable? That’s how I’ve felt for the last three days.

  I am really, really missing my RMT.

• The red-headed boy

  Date: 2009.09.11 | Category: Things I Don't Understand | Response: 2

  He had red hair.

  It was the first thing I noticed about him. We redheads notice others. He was tall. Pale. He looked like he probably smiled more often than not. He looked tired, like he had just rolled out of bed and headed off to class.

  He wasn’t supposed to be there. We were huddled around outside our French class. It had just moved to a new location and there used to be a Spanish class in the same location. He was in the Spanish class but he hadn’t know it moved.

  He saw us huddled. Heard our whispers. Saw how upset everyone was. Then he heard the words “Twin Towers.”

  His head jerked up. “Did something happen?” he asked as he approached us.

  “Yes,” we offered tentatively. Words came out haltingly. Hijackers. Planes. Attack. Towers. Crash.

  Gone.

  He turned pale. “My mother works there,” he said in something that was between a whisper and a gasp. He looked like he was going to fall over.

  “Go!” we said. “Get to a phone. You’ll have trouble getting through but just go.”

  He ran.

  I don’t know if he got through to his mother. I don’t know if she was one of the people who got to work late that day. Or who stopped for a coffee like my coworker’s father. I don’t know if she was there or if she got out.

  I never spoke to him again. I saw him across campus once or twice but I don’t know.

  That is the memory that sticks with me the most of September 11, 2001. More than me uncharacteristically turning on the television that morning as I got ready only to see the first tower come down and the second one get hit and then watching that come down. More than the decision to go to French class because I needed to be around people and not huddled around a television, alone. More than coming back from class to find my ex, who hadn’t yet moved out, in bed with another girl. “The world was ending,” he said. More than yelling at him on the phone hours later. “Where are you,” he yelled. “We were looking for you in case there were more attacks. We’d go to the country with my sister.” “Like hell,” I said. More than going to work and begging to start early because I needed to do something. More than looking at an evening edition of the paper because of the day’s happenings, the first I ever remember there being.

  More than anything I remember the red-headed boy and hope that his mother got out.

• First day of school

  Date: 2009.09.01 | Category: sometimes I ramble | Response: 5

  I miss the way the first day of school of school feels.

  I spend 18 straight years having first days of school. I remember the first year I didn’t go back it was weird, but not too weird because due to my job I was still on campus all the time. Back to school time was the busiest of the year for us, followed with a close second to the beginning of the actual year when the second semester started. I was out of school but still tied to the schedule. For those years it wasn’t so much a start to something, but an end and I was just so happy to see the end of all that overtime that I didn’t miss going to school at all. (Though I did find myself with an awful lot of hours in the day…that’s when I taught myself to knit.)

  The year after I left that job, September was weird. I moved mid-September so I had something to distract me. It was still a shiny new start.

  But now, closer to decade after graduation than not, I feel like I’m missing something. I miss the fresh start to the fall. The crisp new clothes (even when they weren’t trendy). The new haircut (which was mostly not disastrous). The school supplies. Oh the school supplies! (Yes, I am a nerd.)

  And most of all I miss the excitement. The crisp air marked that a change as coming, that a year was looming in which everything was possible. It was a year where things could change if you really wanted them to (or at least that’s what you told yourself). Much more so than January 1, it feels like change. January 1 generally just feels cold.

  Resolutions should be made in September, especially ones that involve school supplies. And new 101 Things lists. (Tempting, very tempting but no. I’m not doing it. I don’t think…)