Things I Am Excited About

Or, Reasons I Don't Want To Have This Baby Yet, Because Doing Things Is Way Easier With Her In Self-Watering Mode:

Lunch with our friends Grayson and Caley tomorrow, whom we have not seen since, I'm going to say, July.

Dinner with our friends Carl and Anna and their two hilarious children tomorrow (Gemma makes me feel like I am Very Good With Children, when really she is just Very Good With Adults).

Lunch on Friday with my Fun Friend Alicia Who Is Going To Med School Far Away, as well as Anna (again!  So much Anna!) and Fritha who I haven't seen since, oh, let's say, September.

Probably we will go for at least one walk along the Vedder River, which is lovely and weirdly full of eagles (the walk, not the river).

Christmas Eve service, in which we try to find a Church That Doesn't Butcher The Carols In The Name Of Cool, Because We Just Want To Sing Along And Don't Care For Your Guitar Soloing.

Chinese food after the Christmas Eve service, in which we cheerfully complain about the carols and the butchering thereof.

Stockings on Christmas morning.  Also, Joel's mom's eggs benedict.

Spiral ham for Christmas dinner.  Ham is disgusting, people.  It is slimy and fleshy and tastes like undercooked bacon.  The only serviceable ham is a spiral ham, and that is TO DIE for.

More presents on Boxing Day morning.  Also, my mom's eggs benedict.  With leftover spiral ham.  And probably we will watch Spartacus or Planet of the Apes or The Ten Commandments or whatever else Charlton Heston movie is on A&E.

Extended Joel-family gathering on the 27th, in which there will be mashed yams with cheese, and carol singing.

Extended my-family gathering on the 28th, in which there will be that game where you steal the presents and everyone is ruthless about it.

New Year's Eve.

And then ok yes, we can have a baby.

The festivus beginneth!

I know, sometimes this blog devolves into Things I Ate While I Did Stuff.  But you know how I feel about holidays (hungry), so don't expect that to change soon.

Joel came home Saturday and we went to the German Christmas market with his family and he had the currywurst and I had the weisswurst which I NEVER would have ordered if I'd been looking at it because it is The Zombie Hot Dog (i.e. it is dead-flesh-colored) so I will spare you a photo but it was veal and pork and that is DELICIOUS and instead, here is a nutcracker.

And then Joel had a pretzel and I had a waffle on a stick because I make more delicious choices.

And then we took this photo, which we take every year.

Tradition!  And then we had a baked apple YOU GUYS.  Baked apples.  With hot vanilla sauce.  Somebody bring me another one.

And I sampled some pickled garlic and it was weirdly amazing and I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT SO.

And then last night we went to the VanDusen Botanical Garden Festival of Lights with my family and Joel and I had never been and it was OVERWHELMING.

But festively.  Lights!

And music!

And mini-donuts and cider and hot chocolate!

And the Mistletoe Monster!

Let the non-stop celebrating continue apace!

New Bewts.

I needed new Serious Business Boots because my old ones

(these ones)

have lost a lot of the insides and now they eat my ankles and make me bleed.  So.

I freaking love Sorels.  I can't even tell you.  But Serious Business Boots are for the three times a year it snows plus the one time it sleet-snows and then the one time we go sledding.  I cannot spend $200 on boots on the best of days, let alone boots I wear five times a year (for the next forever).

But then today I was in the Old Navy picking up a Christmas gift and I saw a decently Sorel-ly pair for $70.

$70 is still too much.  YOU GUYS.  So much money.  But I thought to myself, I will wait until Boxing Week and I will remember that these are here and then I will come back and hope they still have my size.

And then I saw the All Boots 60% Off sign.

$27 is ok by me.  Let it snow now.

They can't all be winners.

I'm starting to think my Pies and Tarts cookbook might be kind of terrible.  Every recipe I've made from it so far has been either DIFFICULT or LABOR-INTENSIVE, and none of them has been azmazing.

The Crème Brûlée Tart was no exception, and what's WORSE is that if they'd thrown in one extra step, it would have been a thousand times easier and there'd be less brûlée on the bottom of the oven.  Oooh, and it would be in the tart still, which would help with the crust-brûlée ratio!

action shot!  I am badass at stuff

Because ultimately, the crust is just there to operate as an edible bowl, not to equal half the dish.  Maybe I need a deeper tart pan.

Regardless, it was very pretty

and easier to serve up than a traditional brûlée

but sacrificed the this-is-just-custard-and-sugar simplicity that makes brûlée So Very Good.

(This is not to say that I didn't come home and eat the last piece just now, or that I didn't enjoy it.  It's EGGS and CREAM and SUGAR and then you TORCH it.  Come on.)

I could brûlée all day.

My Fun Friend Alicia got into med school, which is awesome for her but terrible for me because she got into med school in the Caribbean (which, despite sounding like earning a degree online, is Actually Legit) and takes off very shortly, leaving me with fewer fun people within shouting distance.

Anywert, I took her to Pied-à-Terre for Fancy French Appies and Fancy French Desserts to celebrate and she had never had crème brûlée so we fixed that.  And at one point she's like, Amazing, obviously, but is this a particularly good crème brûlée and I was like, Well, yes, but it's almost never bad.  It's baked custard, for crying out loud, with a burnt sugar crust.

And then last night my book club met at the Six Acres Café in Gastown and, after our usual poutine and popcorn and mac & cheese (with a gorgonzola hot pot thrown in for variety) we turned to the desserts.  And there were five of us in the Dessert Camp and five desserts on the menu, so we got One Of Each.

Whatever, you love pictures of my food.  They are, from top left, a crème brûlée (obvs), a lemon tart with whipped cream and raspberry coulis, a sundae with dulce de leche and candied nuts, chocolate cookies with caramel whipped cream, and the feature dessert, a cranberry-apple streusel on a custard base.

elapsed time: 38 seconds

Myarm.

I had planned dessert for tonight's Thursday Night Dinner earlier in the week and I see no point in changing it, even though it's a Crème Brûlée Tart.  All the custardy burnt sugarness of crème brûlée in an easy-to-serve buttery crust.  I'll let you know  how that goes.

The indignity.

When I want to roll over in bed, I have to slide a hand under my belly and flip myself like a pancake.

I get that if I had a car I wouldn't have this problem.

Dear bus driver,

I'm sure, as a bus driver, that you know a lot about driving the bus.  But as someone who TAKES the bus, I know a lot about taking buses, and I'm not totally sure you do.

I'm not sure you know, for example, that the bus you are driving is, for most of the people on that bus, the sole way they have of getting where they are going.  Like work.  Or class.  Or aqua-fit.  And I'm not sure you realize that if you drive a fairly infrequent bus, like the 110, the ramifications for you not picking up a passenger are slightly more dire than if you drive, say, the 99, which comes every two minutes.  Waiting an extra half hour makes you LATE for shit.

And I'm not sure you realize that my aqua-fit class is what keeps me from feeling bad about all those scones I ate yesterday.  NOW I HAVE TO FEEL BAD ABOUT THOSE SCONES, bus driver.

And I get that your bus was full-ish, but the bus at this time is ALWAYS full-ish.  Every other bus driver has found a way to pull over and let me on.  Usually they get on the horn and ask everyone to move back because, and you might be new to this, there is always room at the back of the bus.  The back of the bus is like Northern Saskatchewan.

Next week the pool near my house re-opens, and I can get there on my own legs and will no longer need your bus-driving services.

Checking things off.

I scratched 'eat a wild animal' off of my life list tonight, although the elk that I ate was almost certainly not wild.  I would still like to eat something that was, you know, shot the other day, but this was a tasty start.

Crows are the bats of the bird family.

Back when I used to do zumba (so, last week.  I think I am probably done now) I would meet Alicia at the gas station and we would drive out to Surrey for class, and I was always one bus early to meet her because I am COMPULSIVELY PUNCTUAL so I always have ten minutes or so to wait and it would always be right at Crow Time.

I couldn't even begin to capture how many crows, because I would just keep showing you the same photo over and over and being like, and this is ten seconds later, and this is ten seconds after that.

It seriously looks like this from the time I get there to the time I leave.  It isn't even a murder, it's a MURDER of murders.  THOUSANDS of crows, I can't even.  Where are they going?

It's secretly kind of awesome.

Loan saga.

I FILED AWAY my Repaying Student Loans file yesterday because I have been APPROVED for not making any payments out of our non-income for the next six months.  VICTOIRE!

But.  So you can't apply for repayment assistance until you have signed your loan consolidation form, but even though I went online and changed our address last summer WELL before we moved, they still sent the loan consolidation form to Victoria.  When I phoned in September to see where it was, I changed my address again with the girl on the phone, and they re-sent the form.

To Victoria again.

I phoned a few weeks later to see where it was, and changed my address AGAIN, and then phoned back two days later to make sure it had been sent to the right address.  MEANWHILE.  I filled out the application form for repayment assistance, wrote the required letter explaining how I live on no income, and FAXED these things in along with a void cheque.

The void cheque is important, because the application was first and the void cheque was last and the letter was IN THE MIDDLE, but when I phoned a few days later to check on the status of my application (I became an extremely diligent phoner) they were all, We just need a letter explaining how you live on no income.  And I was like, DUDES I SENT IT.  And I can see losing the tail end of something or the first page of something but you think the stuff in the middle is safe.

Anywert, I faxed it off again, received my loan consolidation form, mailed that PRIORITY because by now it was late October and my repayment period began in November, and tracked it.  I sent it on a Monday, CanadaPost marked it as having arrived on the Wednesday, I phoned in on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to see if it had arrived.

On Friday she was still telling me that a form takes two business days to make it into my file, and that even though almost three full business days had elapsed, I should phone back on Monday.  Monday arrived, NO FORM!  So I talked to a supervisor and he gave me a fax number and I faxed in the duplicate copy I had been sent for my files, waited two days, and phoned in again.

FOR THE FIRST TIME I talked to a gal who is like, No, neither of your forms are here, and that is weird.  Damn right it's weird.  Because I MAILED one and FAXED one and STOP LOSING MY STUFF THIS IS IMPORTANT.  My payments are $700/month, and (needless to say) without an income I cannot make them.

So the helpful gal acquired me a new supervisor who was like, This has been happening to a few people.  But here, fax it to THIS fax number RIGHT NOW, and I will go STAND BY THE MACHINE and when it comes through I will mark it as received in your file, and then forward it on to the appropriate parties.

So I DID and the next day I phoned in and ALL THE PARTS OF MY APPLICATION WERE THERE.  I did a hooting dance and sat down to wait the five business days for it to process, which expired YESTERDAY at which point I received a letter informing me that I will not have to make any payments until April, at which point I can feel free to perform the whole song and dance again.

I will take it, and gladly.

She is ruining my hilarious old-people time.

Ok so I've been doing Aqua-fit because LOLZ and also because I like cookies + not being fat, which ultimately = exercise.

ANYway.  My pool is closing for three weeks, which is a side-complaint and not the point, and today was my last class before the closure, and it was taught by THAT GIRL THAT I DON'T LIKE.  Because there's the ONE girl who teaches every day at 9:30, so whichever days I decide to go I go in that time slot because she is excellent.

And then last Friday because of the holiday but also THIS Friday because WHO KNOWS that OTHER girl was teaching, and ok.  The one girl trusts me to not over-exert myself, and will be like, You can do this or to make things harder you can do this.  The other girl will be like, If you aren't feeling up to it today, or if you are pregnant, you can do this.  Otherwise, do this.

And the things she assumes I can't do are weirdly things that I can TOTALLY do, like frog-jumps (you...uh...you jump?  And bring your legs up to either side like a frog?  You basically leap-frog the water).  Frog-jumps were custom-made for the bellied, because your legs go to the sides where your belly is not.  But then during the ab work, she says to me, If this is too difficult for you then you can just lie back and bring your knees into your chest when HAHA CLEARLY I CANNOT.  That is, in fact, one thing I can't do.  Your eyes should be able to tell you that.

Which, ok, aqua-fit is what they tell you do to when you are pregnant.  ERGO, part of the training probably has to do with How To Deal With The Pregnant.  My first class with the girl I like, she comes to me beforehand and is like, When we're doing this you can do it this way or that way, and here's how you can work around your belly, and make sure you stay in the deeper water to cushion your girth, etc.  But this OTHER girl has no idea what to do with this Pregnant Thing in her class (I think I stress her out a little), and also does not understand basic physics.

But when she looks right at me and is like, If you are pregnant don't do this, I feel bad being like, I know better than you, child.  Which is how I would feel if I just did the thing anyways, so I usually do squats or whatever she tells me to do, even though doing squats in the water is the NEXT CLOSEST THING TO DOING NOTHING.  And I must give her A Look because today she's like, After you have that baby you can do all the frog-jumps you want.

ALSO her routines are super-boring, because she only has, like, six moves and we just do them over and over, AND she's not loud enough to be heard over the music, AND she doesn't shout motivationally at us, AND she doesn't wear a sports bra under her bathing suit so I sort of feel bad for her boobs whenever she's demonstrating things out of the water.  But mostly its the squats I hate.

Six weeks and counting.

When I get my body back (and not, like, my sexy body, but the body of which I am the sole inhabitant) I will:

- drink a beer
- dye my hair
- do a sit-up
- eat all manner of dubious street-meats
- and what else?

I am doing terribly at this.

Yesterday we did All The Things and then today we had All The People over to watch the footballs.  Also, I MADE footballs.

They were filled with oreo.  And cream cheese.

You wish.

Still good!

Sneaking in with an eleventh-hour post!  Look at me nablopomo.  Except that I have nothing really to tell you.  Um.  Oh yes, I am WINNING at LIFE.  I will tell you about my student loan saga another day when I'm not so sleepy, but so the dishwasher was leaking for REASONS UNKNOWN and the threat of hand-washing loomed LARGE but I fixed it.  And by 'fixed it' I mean my dad figured out the problem, and the problem was me, and I am MUCH MORE EASILY FIXED than a dishwasher.

I will carry on being reckless with the number of forks I use.

I cannot handle the TINY-NESS of these things.

On Sunday my mom threw the fetus a party, and my aunties and my cousins came, and my in-laws and my sister and her in-laws, and my neighbor and her daughter and my Robyn (between two night shifts) and my Laura (who drove all the way from Abbotsford) and now the fetus has enough party dresses to last her at least a year.

Gifts ranged from the practical

to the delightfully impractical

and if she ends up accidentally being a he, he is going to have nothing to wear.  Except maybe this leopard-print number.

There's something about tiny hats and tiny shoes, because people can't not buy them.  I now have loads of both, and I will not complain because AIEEE SO TINY.  Also, I want to roll around in a heap of swaddling blankets.

Mum asked the internet what our babies would look like, and the internet spat out THIS, which is why you never ask the internet anything.

I was looking at these pictures later with Joel, and I was like, Holy cats, I am so pregnant.  Because I can't usually see myself except top-down, and from up here my belly is overshadowed by my ridiculous breasts.  But lo, I am pregnant indeed.

7 more weeks(ish), yo.

NaBloPoMo Redux

Hee hee, oh my.  THAT lasted a whopping day before I fell off the wagon.

And now it's late and I am a-sleepy, but I will have an actual post for you tomorrow. For now, rest easy in the knowledge that deep-fried pickles are not just a gimmick

but are, in fact

ridiculicious.

(This is not just the pregnancy talking, as even the girl who doesn't like pickles liked the deep-fried pickles.  The smoked-jalapeno ranch probably helped.)

A week late, a dollar short.

Remember, remember in past Novembers when the NaNoWriMo people have written a novel in a month and we NaBloPoMo people have contented ourselves with blog-posting every day for a month?  I had sort of forgotten about that until just right now, but!  Let's give it a go, yes?

It balances out all the mini-Oh Henry!s I have eaten/am about to eat.

I have been doing Zumba with a girlfriend for the past four weeks or so, since right around the time when I had to stop running, and it. is. hilarious.  It's mostly made up of very sexy dance moves, or straight-up aerobic moves scuttled to look like very sexy dance moves (at one point Alicia and I turn to each other and are like, We are not fooled.  These are just jumping jacks).

And any chance I had of being uncomfortable doing sexy dance moves in a well-lit, highly-mirrored room on a Tuesday morning is eradicated by the company I keep (several older Asian women, occasionally one dude in his late 40s who obviously comes with his wife, two East Indian women who have got to be in their 50s) and by my hilarious belly.  I have added at least a quarter of my former self ONTO myself and am splendidly large.  It makes my boob-shimmy highly effective.

ALL THAT TO SAY Alicia works Tuesdays now, and while I could feasibly bus my way out to Surrey for Zumba, I am much more likely to hit up the Aqua-fit just up the road.  AQUA-FIT!  I used to aqua-size with a girlfriend when I went to UBC, and we would laugh about having the corner on the young, able-bodied, non-pregnant market.  NO MORE.  Now it's just seniors and the slightly infirm and my fat self.

And everyone says that being in water when you are massively pregnant (seriously.  Massive.  I have two more months bigger to get HOW IS THIS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE) helps take the strain off your back and they are not wrong.  I am buoyant.  However.  No one mentions the sudden and debilitating resurgence of gravity when you get out of the pool.  I have never felt so heavy in my life.

I have a real doctor, but she's way over there.

I don't know what pregnant women did before The Googles.  The search terms I have googled in conjunction with 'pregnancy' are legion, and mostly disgusting.  Some of the lesser-embarrassing ones include 'pregnancy and nosebleeds' (super-common!), 'pregnancy and migraine auras' (not terribly uncommon!), 'pregnancy and losing an eyebrow' (commoner than you'd think!).

And I knew that lower back pain was a thing (because come on, these boobs.  If I were my lower back I'd be a jerk about it, too), but I've been having extremely localized pain in my mid-upper right back.

'pregnancy and mid-upper back pain'...hey, that's totally a thing!  Except everyone is like, Yes!  I have that!  And my doctor doesn't know what to do about it!  So looks like we'll just have to suffer through, ladies!

And then a few of them are all, It's trapped gas, or a pinched nerve.  At any rate, do X and Y to try to expand your rib cage, and that should help.

It helps.  Thanks, Dr Googles.

Sunshiiiiiiiiiiine

Stanley Park was lovely yesterday.

And adorably verminous.

Oh look, a Lost Lagoon!

Oh look, more beasties I should probably not want to cuddle with my face, but do!

Queen of Tarts

We had Thanksgiving last night because, as I have mentioned previously, my family cares little when the actual holiday is, and because Joel and I were in Whistler on actual-Thanksgiving with his family (Whistler on a sunny day is puppy-central and I petted all the ones).

Ok and at BEA I picked up this Pies and Tarts cookbook:

It's round (der) and every page spread has a recipe on the left and then a PICTURE OF THE ENTIRE PIE on the right.  I freaking love food pictures (and you are like, Really.), so I also got this cookbook in the Pizzas edition (same deal, but pizzas).  It was so hard for me to not grab All The Cookbooks at BEA because even though I don't really USE them (I have an internetz, after all), I find them so aesthetically pleasing.

Anywert, yesterday I pulled out my Pies and Tarts to find something to make for dessert, finally settling on a chocolate mousse tart.  Chocolate mousse, I could drink you with a spoon!

Also, there were raspberries at the store, and they did not cost a million moneys.

But ok, the mousse part took, like, an hour, and had eleventy ingredients, and there was a lot of stirring in a double boiler over barely simmering water, and whipping and folding in and then whipping of other things and folding those in, and it was very delicious but very rich and also the recipe made maybe twice as much as necessary.

I'm not totally sure what to do with all that leftover mousse.

And then the frostingy bit to go 'round the outside was just whipped cream with cocoa powder and some powdered sugar.  It took maybe three minutes, and was nothing like as heavy, OH AND ALSO WAS AMAZING.

What I'm saying is, for lazier days I will definitely just whip some three-ingredient faux-mousse and pour it on an oreo crust.  Hey presto.

Edited to add: tart was very good yesterday, but exponentially better the next day.  Maybe because I haven't spent the previous three hours 'sampling for quality' and 'making myself sick.'

Closed on Mondays, but open Tuesdays.

I haven't had all the donair in Victoria, but I feel safe saying that The Donair Shop does indeed have the best donair in all of Victoria.

In hopefully unrelated news, the amount I can slouch without my boobs resting on my belly is approaching nil.

Before she's even on the outside.

Totally annoyed with the baby last night for the first time (discounting those 'Lousy baby, can't have a beer' and 'Lousy baby, can't lie face-down' and 'Lousy baby, shoving all my stomach acid into my esophagus' moments) because I was awake at 3 (as one is) and she wouldn't calm. down. 

Like, after I drank the Toxic Diabetes Juice (To Test For Diabetes, But Kind Of Also To GIVE You Diabetes) yesterday, it was like popcorn popping in there.  And I dig.  You have just had your first taste of candy-for-breakfast, you clearly need to climb some walls.  (Uterine walls.  Ugh.  Sorry.)

But in the middle of the night you need to settle for a few desultory kicks, maybe a bit of backstroke.  Mostly, though, you could practice sleeping.  And then *I* could be sleeping.

Victoria, I have missed your face.

I have been in Victoria for four days and have hiked Mt Doug three times.  Because it is Victoria, it usually rains on us while we are hiking, and then by the time I've gotten home and showered it looks like this:

Victoria is a contrary beast.

When I'm not hiking, I go for a lot of coffee.  Or Erika (the woman at whose house we are staying) and I go for lunch.  I should have asked her years ago for eating advice, because she knows all the good places, like the alleged best donair place in town (it is tragically closed on Mondays.  We may go there next week, or I may never confirm it's 'best donair' status).  At any rate, we had to settle for a smoked meat sandwich and poutine, which we shared, obviously.  I mean, come on.

La Belle Potate, you guys.  Serves mainly truckers and mechanics and hungry pregnant women.  Will give you extra pickles if you appear to be gestating.  The non-small poutine seemed like a mistake, but upon further reflection (the next day at lunch, while we ate the leftovers crisped up in the toaster oven) was probably the right idea.

In which I catch you up.

Mes amis, I have been neglecting you.  It has been...busy is the wrong word.  Full, maybe.

I went to see Robyn and Meredith and to pick Robyn's brain re: car seats and cribs, and to nibble on Meredith's fat baby arms.  Also, we had pulled pork.  Lucky for the arms.

I went to see my doctor and am still pregnant and appropriately fat, which counts as a successful visit in my books.

Anna came to visit and I picked HER brains re: post-maternity boobs, and we each bought a lovely blue-and-white-striped dress, which I will wear as a shirt.  One day I will do a post for you on my regular-clothes-as-maternity-clothes, because it's been working out well.

Also, I bought fat-pants.

They are comfortable like I can't even tell you.  And yet?  Most of me is still like Ugh, pants.  So I also bought leggings in a larger size, as to not have two waists.  Leggings-and-dresses feels very like the leggings-and-oversized-shirts of my childhood, only classier.

Have I mentioned that the family (boo and Darren, Matt and Gillian) all comes over for dinner on Thursdays?  And that company requires dessert?  Someone, possibly Amy Sedaris, compared raw ground beef to a woman putting on her stockings, i.e. it is the stage of the process that you should never let anyone see, because it taints the final product.  I feel that way about a lot of steps in food-making.  Like, no one needs to see the cinnamon buns when they are just a sheet of dough slathered in butter, with my hands all up in them (what.  You don't use your hands to spread the butter?).  Even seeing them at this stage is a bit deterring.

But there are about thirty seconds between them coming out of the oven and them being eaten, and those thirty seconds are required to frost them.  Besides, the lighting is bad then anyways.

Mum and I went to Target today.  I freaking love Target.  I have mostly been subsisting on non-maternity wear because maternity clothes are expENsive and also they come in sad colors and make me sad, unless they are LIZ LANGE FOR TARGET!  Target, why you no come to Canada?  You better re-make the hell out of those Zellerses you bought.

Also?  Someone bought teeny pink polka-dotted shoes.  I'm not going to name any names, but it sure wasn't me.  Yet.

We stopped at Five Guys Burgers on the way home, and somehow I missed the memo about the 'regular' burger being a double.

Mum got the 'little burger' in the background.  It was regular-burger-sized.  The fries were nothing to write home about

but the burgers tasted like being invited over by someone who is very good at bbq, and also has an enormous condiment-and-toppings table.  Also, my burger was, like, five dollars.

Now I am packing to go to Victoria for two weeks, and Joel is coming home tomorrow, and it is highly likely that I will nap between now and bedtime.

It is a wide and varied place.

Last night I went to the Richmond night market, which is all fried squid heads

and mushroom shoots wrapped in beef strips

and pork brains sui mai

and scallops with wasabi mayo

and steamed buns filled with pulled pork

and incongruous cowboys

and smoke and haze and shouting and rain.

And then this morning I went to the Granville Island market, which is all $110 handmade totes and paperies and hats with tulle and carefully-stacked fruits.

And I ate fried treats at each.