Raclette-licious!

Intratubulettes!  Did I ever tell you about my life list?  Right, so, one of my non-quantifiable life resolutions is to Use The Things That I Have to Make My Life More Fun.  Joel and I got a raclette set for our wedding and *shhh* haven't used it yet, so one of my quantifaible-and-check-off-able life resolutions was to have a raclette party.

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A raclette set is a tiny indoor grill with little trays on the bottom.

Ours are itty-bitty, we were trying to feed seven people, so even though our set came with two, Morgan and Shannon brought over their massive one.  The main deterrent in raclette is all the prep work, because you literally have to chop a thousand things. 

It's really no more work than, say, making a massive stir-fry, except that you end up dirtying every bowl in your house.  Do not attempt this if you don't have a dishwasher.

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All the usual suspects were present: peppers, onions, mushrooms, broccoli.  This being our first hosted raclette, I thought we'd play a game called Will It Grill (that being a misnomer, becasue of course it will grill.  The real question is whether it will taste good afterwards).  To that end, I threw in a few rogue vegetables like leeks, edamame beans, and eggplant.  All were surprisingly tasty (full points go to the grilled leeks), which may or may not have had something to do with the roasted garlic and herbed butters that ended up everywhere.

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So!  Grilling.  We accidentally kept the teeny ones quasi-segregated into vegetables

and meat.

The large one was omnivoricious.

But what of the teeny trays on the bottom?  That is where you throw some cheese to melt so that you can pour it over your...whatever.  Or you take your grilled whatever and put it on a slice of bread with some cheese, and put that in the teeny tray and roast it.  There are no pictures of the teeny trays because I was eating what was in them.

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The other problem with raclette, related to the myriad of bowls, is space.  There will almost be no room on your table for your plates.  You will have to relocate your beverage station to a side table, and if someone brings a leetle gasoline pump to mix cosmos in, so much the better.

In keeping with the spirit of Using Things Because I Have Them, I busted out the napkins that Gnoe sent me from the Netherlands. 

My instinct is to totally hang on to these and hoard them forever, because when will I have such terrifically Dutch napkins again?  But life is for living and napkins are for using, and raclette is a Swiss dish and while I KNOW THAT SWITZERLAND IS NOT THE NETHERLANDS, it's near enough.

So!  With all the grilling and melting and more grilling and prodding, raclette takes hours to eat.  Make sure you have plenty of time, and excellent company.

Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor hail...

Bonne 2010, mes amis.  Welcome to the new year.  I have many things to say re: Christmas break and caramel squares and that one run I took which totally justified bringing my sports bra all the way to the  mainland, because I felt fantastic afterwards (ok, I felt horrible, but that is because I ran with a belly full of eggs and sauce.  Maybe two hours later I felt fantastic), but for now all you need to know is that I've found my mail.

I'VE FOUND MY MAIL!!!!

Because we stopped getting mail round about the time the construction on the moat started OVER A MONTH AGO.  Apparently the mail carrier won't come to your door if your door is blocked by eight hulking neanderthals who (despite being construction-workers-for-hire) suck at tools, and even after those neaderthals have vacated the premises, the mail carrier won't come if your front walkway was removed and replaced with a sea of mud and gravel and mud and mud.  Not even if you try to lure him with a make-shift plank path.

So before Christmas Joel and I trekked out to the Big Post Office Downtown to see if they had our mail, but all they had was a security guard who went to go talk to a guy who said there was a note in our file which meant either that our mail was either being held or re-routed, but if it was being held, they didn't have it, and if it was being re-routed, they didn't know where to.

We put it out of our minds for the next 12 days because Christmas is not a time for fretting, and we were on the mainland and couldn't do anything about anything.  So.  We got home on Saturday night, and as we're approaching the house Joel is all, I expect a huge mess, and I'm all, I EXPECT STEPS!  They spent that whole WEEK before we left saying things like, Only a few more days until STEPS, so I expect STEPS to have been procured in our absence.

No steps.

It turns out that the construction crew quit the day after we left, for reasons I will not get into here.  So it doesn't look like we'll be getting any steps in the near future, which means that all of my shoes are ruined every time I leave the house, and also my MAIL!  My free books!  My ebay purchases!  And our heating bill still comes to us through the door and not through the intrawebs.

So.  We headed back down to the Big Post Office this morning and talked to the security guard who talked to the guy who got us our mail (wheeeee!  But also without asking for any ID which, yikes) and who told us to install a mailbox on the driveway.  I'm wondering if we can't just put out a tupperware container and write 'Mailbox' on it?  Maybe I will make for it one of those little red flags.

Aaaanyhoodle, that's about the only thing we can do re: Our Wacky House.  For the rest, we can just go back to being inconvenienced while our landlords try to sort things out.  This whole thing will be hilarious in retrospect, I'm sure.

Updatey...but not really.

Heyyyyyy kids, what've you guys been up to lately?  Me?  Not much...bit o' this...

Little o' that...

Couple a' doors that lead to nowhere...

And I made churros.  Ha cha cha.

They look like tasty snakes.

I was not at home to witness whatever madness happened at the house today.

Don't be alarmed if the house smells like smoke, the note says.  It is all taken care of, the note says.  You might want to air out the upstairs.

This is becoming a saga.

No poo-related misadventures today, but a guy hit himself in the leg with a saw and they hauled him off to the hospital, so.  Things are never not exciting around here.

In other, less bloody news, I got a nifty gifty in the mail yesterday from THE NETHERLANDS!  Sweet, right?  Only don't click on the moat-link in that post because it'll just bring you back here and then you'll be caught in an infinite loop.

In which I am weary of my castle

This thing with the moat is getting way less fun.  It was actually only fun in the first place because I could go around saying I have a moat!  And that has about eight seconds worth of appeal.

ANYhoodle, 98% of this story will involve poop, so if that offends you you should probably turn away now.  Still here?  Ok.  So since this started we've been all, Should we be doing laundry, should we be running the dishwasher, but we assumed they would tell us if we shouldn't because we live upstairs.  But today they turned the water off without telling us, so after I unwittingly wasted my only flush on a pee, I took a huge poo and had no way of dealing with it.  Also, I had to pee again.

A surprising number of people recommended peeing in the moat, which, guys, it is AROUND MY HOUSE.  Besides which, I already sort of inadvertently did that yesterday.

So I mentioned how one of the guys knocked a hole in a ground pipe so that the pipe had a little skylight, through which we could watch our toilet-flushings flush, right?  Ok so yesterday I took a poo and then peeked out the window just to check seriously I don't watch every time I flush.  But it's a lucky thing I did this time, because apparently they had unhooked a pipe in preparation for fixing it but then did not fix it and a bunch of water came rushing out of the pipe onto the ground and I'm pretty sure my poops were in it.

Luckily, there were no dudes around at that time, and somewhere during that day they fixed the pipe (probably because they found poops in the moat).  But surriously, I am too old for these sorts of adventures. 

Where are my crocodiles and where is my drawbridge?

HA!  I thought I'd been totally negligent and not mentioned the flood in the basement AT ALL yet, but I definitely did.

SO!  Flood in the basement = we have a moat.  This is not a euphemism for something less medieval, we have an honest-to-goodness moat.  I could put crocodiles in it to eat the prowlers and any fractious serfs. 

I do not understand the ins and outs of house repair, but something something draining something ok, I can't even pretend but apparently all the things that have to be replaced are right hard by our house, and a good bit down.

So.  A moat.

It goes around the whole house and is about half as deep as I am tall and as wide as maybe three of me and the other day there was a guy in there with a blow-torch (also not a euphemism.  Seriously, a blow-torch, and he was torching things).

There are dudes all over the lawn all the time now.  And the other day the house shook and whatever machine was machinating stopped and there was a bunch of general cursing and then someone who sounded managerial swore AT someone and now there is a hole in one of the ground pipes so that when we flush our toilet, you can look out the window and watch it go.  I try not to have the poops when the lawn-dudes are around, but I refer you to above: they are here all the time.

Also here was a wood chipper, because apparently if your house floods you need to cut down the tree that is furthest from the problem, and chip its ass.

I imagine that for the basement troll (who is now the swamp troll, due to the basement's swampy nature) these past few weeks have been hell on wheels, but aside from the near-constant noise, the inability to walk around our curtainless kitchen in my ratty jammies, and my chronic need to furtively photograph the vehicles, we haven't been too inconvenienced.  Sometimes I dream about owning a house, but in times like these I am only too grateful that renters aren't responsible shit.

Things I do not recommend

Yesterday I made a cauliflower-cheese pie and farmer sausage for dinner, and then an apple cake for dessert.  I also cleaned the bathroom.  And then Joel and I went to a movie and the reason I'm telling you all this is because an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters could not begin to describe the sausagey-appley-baked-cauliflower smell, underthreaded with a strong hint of chemical, that greeted us when we got home.

In Memoriam

Weep!  Oh, lament for the Little White Car that was.  Mourn its tight turning radius.

Take comfort in the trips that were, in the journey to The Gorge to see Dave Matthews and then back again that same night, in which we were pulled over twice. 

Delight in the voyage to Seattle to see the Woodland Zoo hippos (more plentiful than Vancouver's own), and the side-trip to the outlet malls in Tulalip on the way home where I bought my black Roxy flats, which I wear to this day.

Rejoice that we did not die that time we got caught in a blizzard on the way home from Washington.

Though it was a near thing.

Marvel that we survived the trip to Victoria in the Great Inconvenient Snowfall of '08.

Ponder how much snow this lower-mainland car has seen.

Oh Little White Car.  I will not miss the way the seatbelt on your passenger side didn't retract so that it always got caught in the door.  I will not miss your lack of air conditioning or cruise control.  I will not miss the HNNNNNNN sound that your right blinker made, or the shhhk shhhhk shhhhk shhhhhk sound that we could never place.  I will not miss the way that, no matter how dressed up we got, you always made us look like po' white trash.

But I will miss putting my feet on your dashboard.  Enjoy the scrap heap.

Alright, this is usually the part of the game where I would eulogize our little white car (may peace be upon it) which we took to the scrap heap yesterday, but instead I would like to complain about Canadian Tire.  Should you, dear friend, ever find yourself in our neighborhood with car trouble, you might be tempted to pull into the Candian Tire.  It is SO CLOSE!  I adjure you, dear friend.  Push your car, if you have to, that extra couple of miles to Somewhere Else.

So, the Kruegers bought a new car and gave us their old car, so that we could get rid of OUR old car, and then Joel went to insure what is now our new car, and then drove it straight to Canadian Tire, because what is this thing it is doing?  And the guy at the Tire was all Hrrm harrum belt hmmm hum missing teeth hhhhem needs to be replaced immediately, cost you about $900.

And I'm not going to tell you what we pay for rent every month, but it is NOT VERY MUCH MORE THAN THAT!  So nearly a month's rent to fix our veeeehickle?  Alas.

But then Joel's dad hopped the ferry this morning to come have a look-see, and replaced a doo-hicky here and a whazzit there and one long day later, the car runs like a top.  The 'belt' had all its 'teeth' and also that was not the problem.  *sigh. of. rage*

So...we have a new car now!  That's thrilling.  It has twice as many doors.  If we come to pick you up, I will not have to get out so that you can get in.  Also, it is a full four years younger than our old car, so you can suck it, 1988.  I will probably eulogize Little White Car tomorrow, though, because I am ensaddened to see it go.  I have an over-active nostalgia muscle.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 2.0

Things in the mail yip yip yip! 

Ok, so the whole issue of internet-friends vs. real-friends has kind of gotten blurred for me by this point.  Stephanie is a real friend who I have never met in person.  Yet.  Also, she had Cancer of the Ta-Tas this time last year.

I didn't really know Stephanie that well before all these shenanigans, but back in August when the doctors were all, Hrmm hmmm we think you might have cancer, I emailed her all, Hey, I know I don't know you very well but the doctors think I might have cancer and what do I do?

And then I emailed her again when they wanted to cut me open, and then I emailed her again when we found that I had cancer on the real.  And through all this she emailed me every few days to say kind and encouraging things and and talk me down from my Tree of Panic then tell me hilarious stories about her biopsy (this after mine almost made me faint).  It turns out that long, pokey needles give you the almost-yacks across the board.

Aaaanyhoodle, she emailed a bit ago to tell me she'd sent me a 'little something' in the mail, and then today I got a BOX but I was running out the door to catch a bus and the whole time I was out I was all Eeeeee I have a present at home!  (I am ridiculous about presents.)

So I get home and open it and there are THESE THINGS:

A Bookmarks magazine, which everyone always raves about but which I've been too poor to buy, a copy of the Cake Wrecks book, the site of which has been part of my daily larf for ages and the book of which Joel is leafing through as we speak, and then Jen Lancaster's Such A Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or, Why Pie is Not the Answer which I have heard good things about and also, UNREASONABLY LONG TITLES!!  AMUSEMENTS!

And then also some chompy monster magnets that act as bookmarks, and then also exotic coffee!  And I know that 75% of you are all, Dude, it's just Dunkin' Donuts but we do not have a Dunkin's in Canada and now 90% of you are all, Dude, it's just from the Merica and didn't you used to live, like, half an hour from the border and didn't you used to LIVE IN THE MERICA?  But at least 10% of you are with me in this, all, SQUEEEEEEEEEE treats from other countries!!

Not pictured there is this cranky mug:

Because I am using it.  It is perfectly shaped for my hands.

Stephanie!  It has been raining all day and I got stuck downtown in the wrong jacket and I don't even care.  I am filled with delight (also, coffee).  Many, many thanks.

Blogging is hard

The new druglings aren't as shiny and helpful as I hoped, so I have the raging aches again.  It's like I'm coming down with the flu every evening, only I never actually get it.  Ah me.

Also, it looks like my radiation won't be until the new year, and I'm pushing for late January so that I don't have to go on a low-iodine diet over Christmas (low iodine = no salt and no dairy and no processed foods and no fun).

Also, our basement has flooded and so the troll has dug two enormous holes beside the house.  I'm not totally sure why the holes, but they keep him busy and he seems less pissed at us now.

I need to blog earlier in the day when I have not got the glooms.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Treats in the mail!!!  I cannot TELL you how much I love treats in the mail! 

So, purple, right?  Purple goes with everything.  Purple is the new black, except that all of my purple is either summer- or very-early-fall-related.  Except that now I have purple gloves and a purple scarf!

And then also, festive magazines!  I am addicted to holidayesqueness.  I wish every month had a theme, so that I could be all, It's November!  That means bacon and turquoise all month! 

Jane, Andie, Christine, thanks so much for this and for all the emails.  You guys are the best writing-group-that-never-talked-about-writing-or-even-really-books-because-there-are-so-many-other-things-going-on.  I wouldn't trade you for the world.

I wish I had more for you.

That thing that I ate the other day:

The chef tried to make a monkey out of my sour cream and almonds.  It looks like a Wild Thing.

Hrm hum.  What to tell you, intrawebs?  I wrote a paper today.  Also, I went to the gym this morning and do NOT feel like shit at the time of writing (8:17 in the pm), which is a welcome change.  The bigger, better, badder drugs are working.

Also, how awesome would it be if I got one of these?

And then named it Bruno?  I would need a yard.

Monkey's Brunch

My Large Paper is due tomorrow, so this will necessarily be short.  But I ate this thing today and I wanted to feed it to all of you.  So say you take a skinny omelette and fill it full of sauteed bananas and brown sugar and then roll it up like a crepe and top it with sour cream and toasted almonds and fresh bananas and cinnamon?  Tasty or not tasty?  DUDE, totally tasty.  And I have a raging sweet tooth, especially when it comes to breakfast, so there is little in the way of sugary morning eats that I won't relish.  But this was an unreal combination of sweetness and eggyness.  If I weren't dying of the fullz, I'd totally eat another.

Also, there were pan fries.  And harvest toast, with apple butter.  *dies*

Do me this one favor

Can you all please start watching Glee so that we can talk about how awesome last week's episode was, how it was overflowing with everything that is great about the show (Kurt hitting a high-F, Rachel being told she's irritating, teamwork solving everything, the pathos of Kurt's mechanic-dad dealing with Kurt's gayness, the kind-of-sweetness that is how much Puck wants to take care of his baby-mama, wheelchair dancing, Principal Figgins) and how it was totally devoid of everything that is wrong with the show (Mrs Schuester, the whole fake-pregnancy storyline entirely, Emma and Mr Schue making dopey eyes at each other, uninspired numbers with no real choreography, that fake-pregnancy bit, Mr Schue rapping, fake pregnancies)?

Kthx.

Exertions

I ran a mile today.  I sort of felt dumb going all the way down to the gym for my 12-minute run, but I mostly felt dumb because I put my t-shirt on backwards and didn't realize it until I was on the treadmill, and it was really obvious but too late to switch it.

Also, the doctor gave me better drugs today.  Tomorrow I plan on building an igloo out of sugar cubes.

A minute, please.

Ok, so I know that those idiotic things on facebook you can become a fan of (like breathing!  Seriously, if I do not 'become a fan' do I not get to breathe?) aren't the epitome of long-lastingness or professionalism, but WOULD A SPELL-CHECK KILL YOU?!??!

(I'm paraphrasing because if I go look them up in their original forms, my head will a-splode)

Become of fan of 'randomely laughing because you remembered something funny.'  There isn't even an 'e' in 'random' anyways, why would you add one before the 'ly'?

Or 'going to do homework but then finding yourself on faceebook.'  Facebook should automatically delete your account if you spell its name wrong.

Back to my paper.

This story ended up being way longer and having way less of a point than I anticipated. Hey! Sort of like my paper will!

Ok, so the office chair that came with the house broke so that the thing where you lower yourself to the appropriate height was always at the lowest height.  So I couldn't sit at the desk ever (which I really only do when I need to feel like I'm doing Serious Work [like this paper, which is actually going to be fine because of its length and not despite it, which allows me to just sort of talk about the re-appropriation of power through the re-writing of history for some ten pages {or fifteen!  Seriously, look that up} without ever really making a point or coming to a conclusion]) and even Joel was uncomfortable with the chair that low.

And we looked on craigslist for chairs, but this is Victoria and so everyone's all, I bought this chair for $165 but I'm selling it for $130!  That's a savings of $35!!!  Which, people, used.  You have to at least half the price.

ANYhoodle, so we found this one chair for $35 and I'm apprehensive that it'll end up being something that an ordinary person would try and sell for, like, $5 just to get it off their hands.  I'll tell you right now that the chair is great and whatever, because that is totally not the point of the story.

The POINT is that something did not want us to get that chair.  Part of that something was me, because of this paper and my Bad Attitude towards leaving the house when I should be facebooking and pretending to do research.  But I enjoy adventuring, and sometimes leaving a thing alone makes you care less about the thing so that you can do a better job of the thing later. 

So we hop in the car to get the chair and the car starts making this awful chugging...something something flooded something?  Whatever, it wasn't safe to drive.  So we stop to get cash and then grab a few energy drinks to make change because the chair is $35 and not $40 and drive back to the house all Werp werp, what are we going to do now?

But Joel gives the car a few revvs just to see what's the what, and suddenly it runs fine.  You are such a KOOK, little white car.  So we head back out on the road except at the first stop the energy drinks fly off the back seat and hit my chair and roll under it.  So BECAUSE WE ARE DUMB we decide to put them in the glove box.  And as Joel is handing them to me to PUT in the glove box he's all, I just don't want them to smash into something and dent and for us to have energy drink squirting everywhere.

Ok right, except that I close the glove box with the drinks in it and one of them punctures and by this time we're driving again and I can't figure out which one is the one that punctured and purple energy is oozing everywhere and there's nowhere to pull over and seriously, WHICH ONE IS PUNCTURED and I have to roll down the window so that I can hold the drink outside the car because we still can't pull over yet and my arm smells like Trix.

And then, I guess that's sort of it.  I kind of wanted one more bad thing to happen to round out the story, but we got home alive and didn't bump into any cyclists.

Also, I've been eating this cereal that, in English, is called 'On Track' (which is sort of encouraging, I guess) but which, in French, is called 'Victoire!' (which is far more triumphant-sounding).  We English-o-phones need to up our enthusiasm.

Is it another day AGAIN?

They have seriously got to make us do this in a month that isn't November.

Ok, so I know I just had, like, five days off school, but I spent the weekend recouperating from being miserable about things and then yesterday I ran mad errands, and now it's Tuesday and the in-laws are coming for a visit tomorrow and then I'm back in school on Thursday (AND MEETING WITH THE ENDOCRINOLOGIST!  I am going to be all, Dude, you have got to make me feel better than this) and then it's the weekend wherein I have to write a 10-page paper.  Or 15 pages, I totally forget which.  I should figure that out so that I can recalibrate my panic.

ANYhoodle, I also have a paper due a week tomorrow, but all time after today is going to be taken up with that 10-(or 15!)-page paper, so I have to get this one sketched out in the next three hours so that I can go see Men Who Stare At Goats.  It's an 8:15 showing, at which point I'm usually in bed so I had to sleep in an extra 2 hours today to compensate.

Right.  So I came on here to tell you a Halloween story but now I don't feel like I need to.  Probs I will anyways.  So we're playing Cranium Pop 5 (which is easily the best of the Cranial incarnations) and the answer is 'Seinfeld' and Chelsea is drawing and she was going to draw a little soup bowl with steam squiggles, which I totally would have gotten, and then a swastika.  Because soup nazi!!  Clever, right?  But she DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE because she's all *draws line on paper indicating single-word* and I'm all, SEINFELD!  Because I have espn like that.

Also, it was Chelsea's turn again later and the category was 'Characters' which is the champion of vague categories, and before she gets to look at the card I'm all, If it's the Kool-Aid man I want you to just Look At Me Significantly.  And it WAS and she DID but I was TOTALLY JOKING and so I didn't even get that she was Looking At Me Significantly and I'm like, What?  Food on my face?  Luckily, Shannon did and we got the point.  *phew*

All that to say, I am busy and maybe a bit psychic.

Oh right.

Oh.  Hullo.  Rather forgot I was doing this.

Hrmm hum.  Haven't been doing much since I tried on those shoes.  Err, I finally got around to reviewing Where the Wild Things Are.  That was fun.  I'm working on a longish paper now.  That is less fun, because I'm not totally sure what I'm supposed to be doing.  I went to find some sweatpants today but couldn't uncover anything less than $40 that didn't also say SweetPeace68 or something equally idiotic.  I will probably end up springing for a pair of UVic sweats because hey, I go here.

Oh no wait!  My sister was featured on dooce.  THAT'S what happened today, and it was hella awesome.

In which I geek out rather uncharacteristically, which is to say, fashion-wise.

So.  Shoes.  ADMITTEDLY, I have shoe-pairs in the dozens, but 88% of them are ballet flats in various colors and then maybe 10% is heels that I have almost no occasion to wear, and the other 2% is my boots, which I wear every day.  I love shoes and I love the idea of having somewhere to wear fancy shoes to (also, of not having bunions so that I could wear said fancy shoes for more than eight minutes), but I'm not a madwoman re: shoes.

And ok, more or less everyone in Joel's class is feelthy reech, because they are all the only children of doctors or lawyers or what have you.  But Sam is reedeeculously feelthy reech, and has a deep and abiding fondness for designer shoes.

So there was a party at her house last night, and we get there and Claire is trying on Sam's dresses because she wasn't happy with any of her own, and I'm all, I am discontented with my jewelry.  And Sam is like, Let me bejewel you.  And one thing leads to another and then suddenly we're all trying on Sam's ridiculous collection of shoes and Joel sneaks off to find a tv and some sports because the party right now consists of him and ten rabid girls and then Morgan and Shannon show up and I'm all Look how HIGH these boots are! 

aside: look how high these boots are

And Shannon squees and Morgan is all, Where are there boys and sports?  So Morgan slinks off to find Joel and Shannon joins the shoe-wearing-party and she knows things about designers and apparently these are Louboutins that I'm wearing here?  Whatever, they were leopard-print and made my legs look amazing.

But the ones which I loved and never wanted to stop wearing EVER IN MY LIFE were these dainty Cinderella darlings:

You cannot see them close enough here.  You MUST see them closer:

Closer still!  To the GooglePhone!

They have a teacup handle on the back!  Me googling these shoes was brought to you by Shannon, who so helpfully informed me they were Miu Mius.  Google let me in on these are worth more than my car!

*hem*  So.  Many thanks to Sam for both hosting a party and for letting us traipse around in some very valuable footwear.  She is indeed a generous soul.  If I ever get my hands on these delicate beasts I may very well keep them in a glass box in my room.

Slimcado

Slimcado?

SLIMcado?  Really, Victoria?  This is what you've stooped to, this low-fat avocado?  *whispers*  What's that, Google?  The slimcado is actually just an avocado from Florida, where it's less dry than in California so the avocados get more bigger and less denser?

Sorry, Victoria.  My bad.

Still, slimcado?  Ok, so my beef is just really with the marketing.  Which, hey, it worked on me.  Although Joel was all, That avocado is going to end up being one massive pit inside and, like, zero cado.

Nay!  Muchas cado.  And I snagged a few more facts from my googlearning, namely that because of the extra water weight, slimcados tend to be...er...lighter in flavor.  Like, more wateryish.  But that people who grow up on slimcados find the haas variety too oily.

Well, bring me on the oilyeshness.  Chopped up in a salad I probably wouldn't notice, but eaten alone in slices this was definitely not the avocado I'm used to.  Although it came out of its skins with CLEANLINESS and would make a lovely garnish.

I can never get that perfect firm sliceyness from a hass.  If there is one talent I lack entirely, it is choosing a ripe avocado.  That, and sports.

But back to the wateryness.  So, this would not be extra-delicious spread on a bagel, which is how I like my avocados, unless you dumped on, like, eighty seconds of salt.  It kind of tastes like avocado-melon.  I may or may not but will probably not buy one of these ridiculously expensive marketing ploys again.  But for now...

Robyn comes a-rumpusing.

Ok, so Robyn came out for a few days of low-key shennanigans, mostly involving many games of Jeo-party and a Canucks victory (le woot).  Because we are the UNDISPUTED CHAMPIONS of errand-running, we set out to eat breakfast, buy a black coat with a hood for Robyn, some sweat pants for me, an unnamed something for Robyn's brother (who probablydefinitely doesn't read this blog, but JUST EEN CASE), and unnamed something else to complete my sister's birthday present, and to get my stitches taken out.

Breakfast was, at always (at John's Place) a triumph.  Robyn had (as everyone does always all the time ever) the eggs benny and I had some french-toasted-banana-bread with sauteed bananas and cashews and banana liqueur, all drizzled with cream cheese icing.  Gutenness, John's Place.  Is there anything you won't french-toast and then let me pour sugar-goo on to?

Ok, but the errands part of the errants.  Alas!  Alas.  We found a black coat, but it looked no good on Robyn (it looked amazing on me, though, so I bought it).  We found no sweat pants, due to the dearth of Urban-Planet-Garage-Dynamite-Sirens at the mall we went to.  We forgot entirely to find the unnamed thing for my sister.  We DID get the thing for Robyn's brother, AND got my stitches taken out.  So...the imperative things got taken care of, but not the fun things.  Also, we got a parking ticket.  In Victoria.  Where, previousmente, I was convinced they didn't give out parking tickets.  Robyn has some sort of parking-hoodoo on her.

And then we went home and made the World's Worst Candy but also an amazing shepherd's pie.

And then we went and saw Where the Wild Things Are, for which I had incredibly low expectations, but for which I SWOONED!  A review will be forthcoming later at a place that is not here, but suffice it to say Squeee!  And also, awww.  Overall we called the day a win.

If I'm going to keep this up all month...

...I'm going to have to start blogging in the mornings.  I crawled into bed at 6:30, and only just got up to microwave a heat bag because I'm basically a lizard now and make no body heat and Joel's off somewhere learning how to suture people.  Remind me to tell you a funny story about that.

Festive things!

Ok, so Joel's class carved pumpkins for their secretaries about a week ago, and it was the first time I had to miss out on something because I was just too damned tired to go.  Cue the tiny violins.

You'd think what with the disappointment and all that I'd be all for it on Saturday when Joel was like, We should carve our own pumpkins!  But I am recalcitrant that way, and I wanted nothing to do with this fun-having.  By now, though, Joel knows that if he just gets excited enough about something, that eventually I'll agree to do it, and that after I've acclimated myself to the idea of doing it, that I'll actually get excited as well.

By the time we hauled ourselves out to ye olde produce mart to pick up some fleshy canvasses, I'd come around.  I love festive-flavored things.  I thrill to traditions.  We used to all carve pumpkins up at my aunt Syl's place in Kamloops, and there were so many of us that we had to do it outside and our hands would freeze from the chilly pumpkin guts.

I had wanted to go as the swine flu this year (I was thinking of affixing a few hula hoops to myself to represent....I don't know, a molecule of contagion, or something, and then glueing plastic piggies to my torso) but we weren't going out and also I am a wreck of uselessness.  Instead we represented the scourge in pumpkin form.

The fellow on the right is making a break for cleaner doorsteps.

Hallowe-eats.

Ok, so I more or less range from vaguely tired to convinced that there is not enough sleep in the WORLD for how exhausted I am.  I take many naps.

I am still up to shenannigans, though, between said naps.  We had a quiet Halloween evening at home with some friends and a few rather violent games of Cranium Pop 5 (aside: I am the UNDISPUTED QUEEN of sculpturading.  You have no idea.  If it exists, I can make it recognizably from a lump of purple plastercine).  But this post will have nothing to do with my Cranial skillz, and everything to do with tasty treats.

So Robyn came over for a visit (more about which later.  I do have 30-odd days of posting ahead of me) and I capitalized on our previous success as bakerettes to talk her into helping me make caramel-apple-candies.  Which I invented.  It turns out that I know shit-all about candy-making.

There are those who think I can do no wrong in the kitchen.  To them I say, take a gander at this nasty crap!

They were not long for this world, the soupy, skeevy bastards.

At any rate, I sort of threw in the whole holiday-treat-themed towel because this epic fail depressed me so much, but then I came across a recipe for chocolate bones that didn't look like too much work, and DUDE!  THEY ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE LITTLE BONES!!

That is a nommable plate of bones, you might say.  Triumph!  And then I got all back in the groove and wrapped some apple slices in strips of puff pastry, and they actually sort of looked like little mummies before I cooked them:

But then they totally looked like little mummies after I cooked them:

And then they looked even more like mummies after I drizzled them with The Decay of the Ages (i.e. leftover caramel from the CandyFail):

And then I made some snot rolls:

And then I made a big bowl of Phlegm To Be Eaten With Chips, and there are no pictures because we ate it all IN SECONDS and I promise, if you ever throw a party and invite me I will make this dip for you and I promise to call it something more acceptable like Jalapeno Popper Dip, which will not take away from how much it really does look like a big bowl of phlegm, but which you will love anyways.

NaBloPoMo

Ok, so I've been meaning to come on here and tell you all about Surgery 2.0, but then I was so tired and then time passed and I continued to be tired and also the amount of things I had to say was accruing interest and I sort of got overwhelmed.  But it's officially National Blog Posting Month again, so I thought I'd dust off the old typing fingers and get at her.  Unfortunately, a late night last night + daylight savings time + night-church = early sleeps.  So, anticipate things in the days to come.  Until then...how about that bag of popcorn!

In which I enjoy my last thyroided day.

This post, on the other hand, is all about The Cancer.  Even though everyone who reads this blog either also reads my book blog OR is my mother, and knows all this already, I feel like I should tell you that I'm going in for surgery again tomorrow.  There won't be any rad in-hospital pics because I forgot my camera at my parents' house in a turkey-induced haze of frantic leaving.  So.

Between Thanksgiving and then bogarting all the leftovers and Joel talking me into going for a donut and then talking me into getting the 12-pack once we get there, I've taken a running head start on my post-op weight gain.  I feel like I'm storing up for my 2-day hospital hibernation.

So, they're keeping me for two days this time.  Partially because they're taking out my WHOLE thyroid, and partially because my nerves are finicky.  My voice, once gone, came back with a bang just under a week ago and I am the most Raych-sounding I have ever been.  I have been singing AC/DC and making SCREEEE noises when we take sharp turns in the car and generally relishing the thought that I won't be waking up with a tube in my throat.  If I come out of Surgery 2.0 with my voice intact, it will be like being buried in puppies.

I'm not overly worried.  I've lost my rabid enthusiasm of two weeks ago and I'm not totally stoked to go through recovery again, but I'm thrilled to be recovering for good this time.  All the healing I've done over the last month and some seems like so much wasted energy, but I guess it'll make things easier that I'm so damned healthy again.

I seriously feel great.  I forget for long stretches of time, and then I go to scratch my neck and I'm all, Oh yeah, I have cancer.  And then it's all I can think about.  I feel like this is what the early stages of pregnancy must be like, all Oh right, that Thing! I know that I'm lucky in this.

So!  I have sweats packed, and a few books that I don't need to be terribly lucid to read.  We're going out to Applebees for my last meal and I have a coupon somewhere for a free dessert.  The house is clean, the laundry is done, I have no assignments due for a week and a half.  Let the scalpeling begin!

The good ferry

Ok, this post has nothing to do with The Cancer and everything to do with me and Joel finally Getting Ours.

So, even though I know several people in real life who work for BC Ferries who are not idiots, I remain convinced that BC Ferries is entirely staffed by idiots.  I mean, there has to be a system that just isn't being used, right?  They aren't supposed to load us all on the ferry willy-nilly?

And very little of my beef is with the wait times.  We've only ever once in life (before last weekend) gotten to the ferry when it was sufficiently non-busy that there were no sailing waits.  We are always on the next ferry but one, or the next but two (once on the next but four) and that's fine.  We bring homework.

But when the car in front of you is the last one on the previous ferry, it is RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND when you are not the first one on the next ferry (after the reservations, I mean.  And the bikes.  And the oversized vehicles).  This is not rocket science OR brain surgery.  Can you not leave a different-colored cone in front of the line where you left off, so that you remember and don't start loading two lines to our left so that we almost don't make it on this one either?

I also have beefs with the process of filling the ferry left-to-right (one car here, and then you go next to him here, and you can go here) instead of just filling a line and then filling the line next to it, but I feel like I'm not explaining this well and I will have a hard time articulating why this is simultaneously inefficient and unfair.

Moving on to the part where we win.  So, my mom offered to ferry us over for Thanksgiving weekend, and buy us a reservation so that we could stick around for the actual dinner part of Thanksgiving and still catch the 9 coming home.  All day Friday things were going pear-shaped at ye olde ferrie terminal because one of them was out of commision, and then apparently Saturday morning as well.  But by the time we got to the terminal at 1:45, there was nothing but crickets and we drove straight onto the 2.

Victoire!  But then also, on the way home with our reservation we got to board first (durrr) and though we should have been off in the last quarter (due to the left-to-right loading procedure), enmeshing us in serious ferry traffic, we were blocking the motorbikes and had to be loaded off first.  Zoot!

I feel triumphant.  I ALSO feel like we've used up all of our good transit karma for the year, and as such we will not be coming home again until Christmas.  I want to ride this come-uppance for a while.

I would shriek with delight, were I capable of shrieking.

Ok internet, remember how yesterday I asked you to pray for an early surgery date for me?  Well you can all start praying for me to become a millionairess, because apparently you are quite good at this.  Today my surgeon's secretary Dawn phones and is all, Let's do this thing (because that's how she rolls).  I'll be going back under the scalpel in exactly 2 weeks (that's the 19th of October, for those of you who are bad at math) which gives me 2 weeks to get myself organized, scholastically speaking, and 2 weeks to stock up on frozen pizzas and 2 weeks for my voice to make that final lunge into normal.

I am absurdly excited.  I have never been this thrilled about a medical procedure.

Selective mutism

Ok, right, so the reason I haven't yet blogged about this whole not-being-able-to-talk business is A.) because I have a lazy ass, and B.) because it has actually been the most difficult part of this whole shim-sham.  Interacting with other people is such a large part of who I perceive myself to be that being reduced to a whisper has not been compatible with me having an awesome time.

So.  I woke up from the surgery with my voice in shreds and that was crappy but we thought it was just a normal side-effect of all the KNIVES that had been so recently whirling around my throat.  But many days went by (10.  Exactly 10) without it getting any better at all, and I cannot convey to you the extent of the frustration.  I couldn't thank the bus driver and I couldn't order a coffee and I couldn't speak in class and I had to SHOUT to talk to the person next to me and it was exhausting.  Plus, there were many instances where I'd be talking to someone and they'd be nodding away and I'd KNOW they couldn't hear me, but were just being polite.

And then I went to a wedding and did a fair amount of shouting and drank a great deal of Fireball whisky and woke up the next morning substantially improved, in the old voice-department.  It was a Fireball miracle.

But then 10 MORE days went by with no significant improvement, so now I could be heard across the room but only if the room was small and quiet, and if the person across the room was expecting me to speak, PLUS we had a chit-chat with the doctor about what ye olde nerve-paralysis means.  Turns out that the same nerves that help you talk also help you breathe, and that if I go in for Surgery-the-Dos and t'other nerve goes down too, I will end up with a trachotomy, and that is just about at the bottom of my List Of Things To Do In Life, right above Lose Arm To Shark Attack.

Anyhoodle, now I am stressing out because not only is this seriously chapping my ass, but it is freaking me out about a surgery that I was not previously freaked out about.  But nerves do not heal quickly if they heal at all, so I'm marshalling everyone I know who prays about stuff and getting them to pray about this, because the rest I can handle but I cannot re-grow my own nerve.

So Wednesday I come home after a particularly vigorous episode of Top Model and I'm talking to Joel and all of a sudden my normal voice switches on like a light and I stop sounding like Gary Busey.  Thank God.  And I mean literally, and if we were still doing the whole animal-sacrifice thing I'd be rustling up unblemished cattle like they were going out of style.

And Thursday morning it's gone again but by Thursday evening it's back, and now it cuts in and out like a bad tv set and if I clear my throat really hard sometimes I can knock it back into shape.  I sound like I'm going through puberty and I never have any idea when I open my mouth what's going to come out, and this results in me being INAPPROPRIATELY LOUD sometimes but I don't even care because this is such a relief, this is such a load off my mind, and I've never been more grateful.

Now we all need to pray that someone else cancels their surgery so that I can sneak in there like a bandit.

How I live now

Ok, it's been six days since my surgery and you can tell because six of my lillies are open, and have been opening with extreme orderliness at the rate of one a day.  Like some sort of flowery day-clock.

Every morning I wake up feeling orders of magnitude better than I did the evening before, but because I spend the day feeling slowly shittier my overall gains aren't as astronomical as one would like.  I have gone off the T3s which made the water stop tasting like ass, but also dragged me back into the depths of exhaustion because hey, T3s also have caffeine in them.  Who knew.

Joel has gotten much chattier in the past week because if we're watching, say, The Deadliest Warrior (which is all kinds of horrible but also incredibly watchable), he's the only one able to keep up a running commentary on how dumb this is.  I have to weigh everything I want to say in terms of how funny it's going to be, how much energy it's going to take to holler, and whether it'll be worth it in the end.  The answer is usually 'no.'

I feel like I'm shouting all the time, but at best I'm making myself barely heard in a quiet room.  Mostly I'm running at just above a whisper.  This is maddening.  I like to make casual conversation with the salesgirl in the Urban Planet, I like to give directions to the young couple on the bus, I like to be the one poking fun at Deadliest Warrior's scienticians.  It's supposed to get better, but I'm not good at the wait.

I bought a profusion of scarves just before my surgery.  It's not so much that I'm self-conscious about the incision, it's that it's uggers.  It has gotten gorier-looking since you saw it last, but I will spare you a photo, just as I spare the walking world by wearing scarves.  ANYway, I have this one cream-and-gold scarf that I refer to as my Flight of the Navigator and that I unashamedly ADORE.  Today I went to go look at coats because I need reasons to get up and walk around, and every coat I tried on I'd be all, Oh, my scarf is so pretty.  This is such a pretty scarf.  This coat looks so nice with my scarf.

I narrowly escaped, only having bought the one coat, and then I had to come home and skype my sister just to make sure that the coat was actually adorable (it is).

That time they severed my heeeeed

Ok, so this one time way back in April we're both studying and I look up and Joel's squinting at me like he does sometimes and I'm all, What?  And he's like, You have an Adam's apple and I'm all Dude, I do NOT have an Adam's apple.
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But it turns out that I sort of did.  And we had no family doctor at the time so it took a while to get one, and then she poked and prodded my apple and was all, Ehhh, I'm not concerned but I'll send you for an ultrasound.  And the ultrasound people ultrasounded it and were all, Ehhh, we're not concerned but we're going to send you to an endocrinologist for a biopsy.  And then the endocrinologist stuck some needles in my neck and I did not like it.

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ANYways, the results came back suspicious but inconclusive which means that it may or may not be cancer, but that even if it is cancer, it's what they call an 'indolent' cancer which is the opposite of an 'aggressive' cancer.  So!

Tuesday night we had steaks, and then considered night-nachos because I wasn't allowed to eat after midnight, and while we were considering night-nachos we fell asleep.  We are not made for this sort of lifestyle.

Wednesday morning Joel takes me down to the hospital and they whisk me off right away to the Patient Storage Locker, which is big and square and full of people lying in beds either bored or unconscious.  And they give me one of those little nighties that opens in the back which I totally put on wrong at first, and also a skeezy robe and some booties, one of which is broken.
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And then Ridiculously Kind Nurse #1 keeps bringing me toasty blankets straight from the little blanket oven where they keep them warm (no jokes) and checking to see how I'm doing but other than that I'm just lying there in my little crib for close to two hours watching an orderly change the sheets.

And then like eight people come by one at a time to ask me all the same questions about who I am and if I have any allergies and what my birthday is and whether I understand the procedure that's going to be done to me and I'm tempted to make jokes about it still being me in this bed but I get that they're just doing their jobs and trying to make sure that no one accidentally goes in after, say, one of my kidneys by accident.  Plus, every time someone comes by I'm all, Yay, a person!  I WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS!

And then Ridiculously Kind Nurse #2 comes to bring me into the OR Patient Storage Locker and I'm all, Wheeee, something is happening!  And she's like, Ahhh, not so fast.  You're probably just going to have to wait in there for a while, and also, I'm going to need to take your glasses now.

So I end up waiting in there for another half hour only now I'm blind, and then the surgeon comes by to ask me if I understand the procedure and to please indicate the lump for him and then he scribbles on me with some marker and leaves.  The man is seriously a robot.

And then the anesthesiologist comes by and looks vaguely like Joel and this is comforting, except that I haven't got my glasses on so he could really look like Charo for all I can tell.  ANYway, I give him a heads up that needles make me faint, and he says that if I can go ahead and faint I'll be doing half his job for him.  He is pleasant and I like him.

And then Ridiculously Kind and Probably Not That Much Older Than Me Nurse #3 comes to wheel me into the OR and introduces me to the three other Nurses in the room as though I were a pal of hers and not just some specimen they were going to dissect, and then I'm on the table and they're all fussing around me and sticking things to me and it's like being at the spa but less relaxing.

And then the anesthesiologist pokes a needle in the back of my arm and is all, That was the bad part.  But this is the good part!  And he holds up a syringe full of something brownish so I can see.  This is your rum and coke, he says.  It's your Kahlua and milk! says one of the nurses.  Your bellini! says another.  And while I'm trying to think of a cocktail suddenly it's six hours later.

So I'm back in my crib in the Patient Storage Unit and I'm conscious again and no nurses are coming to check on me and I haven't got my glasses on and my voice is broken and I can't make any noise and I feel like nothing so much as an infant.  A terribly bored one.  And it's half an hour before I can get anyone's attention and have them bring me a phone so I can call Joel, and also my glasses and my book.

And before Joel gets there, the surgeon comes back to say some stuff about the surgery, about how it went well or about how they found an army of gremlins growing in my throat or who knows, because I was still HIGH as a kite and I remember nothing except that he came.  I think.  That also might have been Charo.

And then Joel comes with a pot of yellow lilies only one of which is open, which are my favorite way to get flowers because then you get to watch them open one at a time and it's like a science project, or an advent calendar.  And then he sits there for another four hours studying while I alternately sleep and pretend that I am not sleeping.

And finally they decide that I can go home except that putting my pants on gives me the faints, and they want to keep me but Joel talks them into letting me leave and I am miserable by this point because I only thought I felt fine, and all this putting on of pants has made me realize that I feel horrible and I want to be in bed.  But we have to go fetch me some T3s and it's late and we drive all over town looking for a pharmacy that is open and I am queasy as hell but swallowing hurts so much that I can't stand the thought of...reverse-swallowing, as it were.

And I thought that I wanted to eat some yogurt when we got home because I had had nothing since the pre-op steaks except some jello that they brought me, and to be honest Joel ate most of that because my throat felt like razor blades and sea salt, but upon further consideration it turned out that I did not want to eat yogurt because I was already sleeping.

And sleeping is most of what I do now.  Also lying in bed.  Today I had a shower.  I mostly feel fine until I try to do something, and then I feel like an invalid.  Also, I thought I was going to be all tough shit and go easy on the pain meds, but then I realized that all that does for you is give you PAIN, so that you cannot DRINK and then you are dehydrated and also you have a raging case of hot-face and both you and your husband are pissed because you have to sleep with the fan on even though it is FREEZING in your room and you are both 100% swaddled in blankets except for your stupid hot face.  Now I just take the meds.

The end!  Oh no wait.  We still have to wait 2 weeks or so for the test results.  THEN the end!!

Here I am!

Internet!  Blog that I mostly ignore now!  I was going to come on here and tell you all about that time I maybe had cancer but maybe didn't but they still had to go in through my neck and have a look-see, but then I walked to the store and back for some yogurt and now I am done. in.  I tell you, this only having half a thyroid isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It's like my body has devolved from employee of the month to that guy who drinks behind the dumpster when he's supposed to be working.

ANYhoodle, I'm off to take a bit of a nap, and then I might wake up and take some T3s before embarking on my night-nap.  Sleep, I swear, you are EATING my weekend.

Things that I own.

Because Joel and I are now Grown-Ups Who Own Possessions and because we are sick of being That Couple That Never Brings Their Own Tent and because we are going camping by ourselves this week and therefore have no one with which to share a tent, we bought ourselves a tent.

And then because we are Grown-Ups Who Think Ahead, we set it up in the yard to make sure that we knew how, and that it had all its doo-dads and gee-gaws and everything.

And then we had a sleep-over in the yard. It was awesome.

I cannot be left alone in the house.

So I bet you're all wondering what I'm doing on this, the first weekend in MONTHS where we are neither going to the mainland nor having the mainland come here nor camping nor staycationing nor nothing, and THAT is the answer: I will be doing nothing.*

But for right NOW I'm baking some coconut-topped brownies for a bbq tonight, and I made the brownie bottoms which have to cook first for a while, and I always think I'm so clever, all I'll just do this differently, or add some of this, but I never seriously consider the ramifications of what I'm doing or why the recipe may not have called for a layer of chocolate chips between the brownie and the coconut, and the answer IS that spreading what amounts to coconut, sugar and eggs onto a sort of half-baked brownie base is challenging, but spreading cocosugareggs onto a SWAMP of melted chocolate chips on top of a half-baked brownie base is a whole new level of impossible. Also, I made the cocosugareggs too early and the brownie base still had 10 more minutes to half-bake, so I sat there for 10 minutes eating cocosugareggs and yes, I REALIZE THE SALMONELLA RISK PLEASE DO NOT BRING THIS UP UNLESS YOU ARE MY MOTHER, and now I feel over-sugarated.

*Of course, by 'nothing' I mean 'studying for my midterm on Monday and also reading the play that's due to be read for that day and also trying to catch up on the intarwebs.' So, sort of like nothing.