Diwali (Festival of Lights) is on this weekend:  Waddle, don’t walk over to Gerrard Street and graze on this spectacle.

I’ve got a big weekend planned.  When it rains, it pours especially since I discovered the event box on my Facebook page a couple of weeks ago.  Also this is the weekend we turn back the clocks.  Good news for teenagers, and shift workers.  Bad news for insomniacs.  I wonder how an extra hour of tossing, ruminating, obsessing over paranoid delusions will affect my daytime psyche?  Why can’t I just ease myself to sleep with simple fantasies like the one I have where John Stamos is a plumber and I am a porn star:  He fixes my faucet, we do it on the couch, and then he leaves and I fall asleep for real.  But no, I have to spend my sleeping hours creating detailed scenarios involving my real-life crush who doesn’t know I’m alive which makes him even hotter.  At one point I iron his plaid flannel shirt, going over the pocket plackets, careful not to burn the buttons.  You’d think I would bore myself to sleep but no, I just keep going, folding his laundry, sorting his socks.

This weekend is Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and the biggest Hindu celebration of the year.  Little India on Gerrard goes all night.  The restaurants bake up a storm for the event.  I just picked up a box of sweet treats from Mahar at 1410 Gerrard Street East.  They have the craziest selection of blobs in all colours and configurations.  I picked up only four (because I was scared) but I have almost finished them off.  They are all kind of similar, honey soaked doughy things but some have nuts, coconut, and one has chocolate.  They are so good, I need to go back.

And more sweets this Saturday.  Friend and neighbour Susana Molinolo is having a book launch in Leslieville :

She started it as a bake sale and raised $12,000 for Haiti (see how the ladies know how to raise funds?  see previous post).  Now she has put together a cookbook featuring 30 different recipes from different chefs to help Doctors Without Borders and FINCA Canada.  Check it out on the Facebook page.  The book launch is Saturday, November 6 at Beaufort Decor, 1576 Queen Street East and you’ll be able to buy some already baked cupcakes at Voulez Vous Cafe down the street.

It’s going to be a super sweet weekend, but it’s okay, I’ll be burning it off at two hour boot camp Saturday morning.  Ugh.