Category Archives: go girl

28

Oct. ’11

What Happens in Montreal Becomes Blog Fodder

Last Friday, my friend, Lorraine, and I took a quickie weekend trip to my hometown of Montreal because she scored free train tickets, so she brought me, her teenage daughter and her friend.  Train rides are not bad!  In fact, Via Rail is almost too much fun.  The ADHD people are tuned into their laptops and those who aren’t have booze stashed under their seats.  And those that have the booze, sway in the corridor and speak loudly.  It turns out most men are uncircumcised and the ladies who love them don’t appreciate it.  This is what we learned on Coach Number 3, according to the foursome by the loo, somewhere around Kingston.

Neither here nor there, we arrived at midnight and my brother picked us all up and the three of them went to a hotel and I got to go bed in my favourite place to actually sleep in the world.  Y’all know I suffer from the insomnia.  I can fall asleep just fine, in the middle of a conversation even, but I wake up with those middle of the night ruminations that make mountains out of mole hills and cause me to toss and turn and scratch like a meth addict.  Brother has a tv room off the kitchen that has a couch that turns into a flat bed with no head-board.  There is also no door and the room is facing the hallway to the rest of the house.  The whole thing is awkward and quite public in the morning but it’s my special spot. There are actual bedrooms I could sleep in but for some reason when I am in there,  I feel safe.  Of course because it was so late and I was wired from train partying and I feel the itchiness of other people’s train dander, I am not so sleepy.  I was also overjoyed because I scored a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town, Joe Beef, for Saturday at 6:30.  So my first night was  restless.  I wake up early, watch morning tv which is the Lohan version of Parent Trap. I break for Lindsay Lohan, I feel so sorry for her, but that’s for another time.  I watch the entire movie until noon and want to Brunch! Lunch! Eat!  Drink!  But my peeps in their hotel down the street don’t answer the phone. 

I have learned to live with all kinds of frustration, let me tell you.  But hunger is not one of them.  I go to lunch by myself somewhere in Old Montreal at 3 Brasseurs which turns out to be a big old chain brew pub, otherwise known as 3 Brewers in Toronto.  My peeps in the hotel wake up and call me mid-chew.  They are ready to rock and roll.  It turns out that because the kids slept on the train ride the whole way, they were also bouncing all night and walked around and ordered pizza until 4.  The darkness of the hotel drapes and the beauty of urban white noise made them sleep like bears.

Lorraine and I meet up, the youngsters go shopping at Simons.  They pronounce it all kinds of ways, “Simmons”  “Simoh-z” so I don’t really know what they are talking about at first.  “Oh!  Simons!  Like Simon Says!”  I say.  I can tell they don’t believe me but off they go.  Lorraine and I go to Sir Winston Churchill Pub on Crescent.  Pronounced:  Win-STONE Church-HHHHILL, that’s just for taxi drivers.

Here is how our afternoon played:  We get a seat on a covered patio, with heat lamps, as you know the end of October gets quite nipular.  It’s mid-afternoon and the patio is really busy because there is a Habs vs. Leafs game on later that day.  Everyone is in a good mood.  There is a group of about a dozen men in their thirties at the other end of the patio.  There are a gregarious, mostly standing around, talking to two young women seated in a nearby table.  Lorraine and I order our beers and check out the guys in the group.  I like the big dumb looking one with the hat and she points out one with an ass that could carve butter.  “Oh my God!  He looks like Jon Bon Jovi with a proper haircut!”  He is something else.  And he’s chatting with the blond woman in the next table.

We sip our beers, continue watching and it doesn’t take long for Blondie and Jonnie Bon Jovi to be standing around together, poking each other the way kids do in the playground.  By the time we order our second beer,  the couple in question have their arms around each other and the  are making out like teenagers.  Blondie has somehow rolled the waistband down on her skin-tight jeans to expose a pink thong and two acres of ass flesh.  “Check out my tattoo!”  she shrieks.  It is one of those ubiquitous tramp stamps just above her thong tag but in order for all the guys to see it, it is imperative that her entire top comes off.  She bends over.  Her bra forgets its function, because it is too small, and her girls spill out.  Now these “girls” are mere toddlers so she doesn’t really get the reaction she hopes for, so she swings her hair around.  It becomes clear what she does for a living. 

Our waitress confirms this by giving us a play by-play.  “They are saying that they have to go to work at 5 and the only shifts that start at that time are in strip clubs.”  It’s almost 4:30.  Blondie and Jonnie are groping each other like the Titanic is about to sink.  I say to Lorraine:  “If those two go to the washroom to finish this off, I am going in!”  I felt they owed to us for over an hour of public foreplay.

It turns out they didn’t need any privacy.  As the other guys milled around, Blondie pulled her jeans down even lower.  Jonnie grabbed her from behind.  With his back to us, we watched his butt curl under, then thrust, and then again.  It’s actually happening.  The whole thing was watching like a Rottweiler on top of a blow up doll that looked like it was about to explode.  Blondie’s friend shut it all down, she was the sensible one, and fetched her purse so they wouldn’t be late for work.  They said their good-byes, no numbers exchanged.  It was awesome.  This could only happen in Montreal.  I think I might move back.

If not for random public fornication, then definitely for Joe Beef.  After the pub incident, we got to Little Burgundy by cab and in time for our 6:30 reservation.  It’s a small restaurant, apparently getting a reservation is like getting a golden ticket, but we all got  to sit at the bar (best place in any eating establishment) right in front of the oyster shucker.  We got the stories, and I bought the book, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef, and you should too.  Christmas is coming!   There are recipes and pictures of the city and the history of the real Joe Beef from the 1800s.  He was an ex-soldier and opened up a tavern to feed the poor.  “Red flag!”  said Lorraine, ” Never trust a man who wants to hang out with indigents!”  And she is right.    He had a plethora of  eccentricity that disguised his douchebaggery, ie. pickling his dead wife’s body parts and keeping a drunk bear as a mascot.  All in all, an interesting tale, worth a screenplay methinks!  Or not, maybe some bears should just stay sleeping.  And I am happy to say I slept really well that second night.  I bet Jonnie Bon Jovi did also.

And here they are, Fred and David AGAIN, two blog post in a row!  I am just way too in love:

Posted by . Categories: Eat & Drink, go girl, This Charming Man. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment

05

Oct. ’11

Martha and Me: Team Scratch

People give Joan Crawford a bad rap. I hate wire hangers just as much as she did, maybe even more. Thankfully, they never come into my house because I never go to the dry cleaner. Once when I was helping a friend sort out her closet, she had wire hangers mixed in with puffy ones. I don’t know which was worse.

“Your puffy hangers are taking up too much room and I can’t even touch these wire ones. You must throw these all away and let’s go to Ikea and get the wooden ones,” I stated.

“But my mother made these ones,” she protested, holding up one of the puffy hangers. It was then I realized they were just wire hangers dressed up in a peach satin outfit. They even had bows that only a mad housewife would think to put on as a finishing touch. I remember my best friend had a “teddy bear” her grandma made that was basically a wine bottle with crocheted cosy for a body and a pom-pom for a head. She called it Cuddles. The head could come off, and another bottle could be put inside. Form and function. This is my kind of craft. Get with the program, ladies.

I didn’t hit her over the head with those fug-assed wire peach puffs or anything like that, but I did convince her that a full closet with all the same kind of wooden hangers would be a good thing. And she lit up a blunt and concurred.

Speaking of a “good thing,” Martha Stewart’s daughter just put out a “Mommie Dearest” style book about her. Now one thing you might not know about me is that I worship Martha Stewart. I think we are both misunderstood in many ways. Some think Martha is a heinous Type A beeyutch-slash-criminal but I find her inspiring. She is all about labour intensive domestic chores because it is the journey not the destination that makes the story. Time consuming chores keep the fingers nimble. I, too, dabble in domestic artistry. Sometimes this shocks people who know me. I remember running into a colleague at Loblaws and he had that WTF look on his face like he just saw a frog on the highway.

“I wouldn’t think to see you here, Peterson, I thought you would have someone to do this sort of thing for you,” he said with geniune surprise. Yes, I cook. I also have the crafting gene. I can knit, sew, and weave bacon. I have followed my mentor and made pumpkin pie, not from a can, but from the gourd placenta that I roasted in the oven and then mashed it up with my bare hands. I made Christmas twig balls, Valentine”s cards, and mayonnaise. Doing laundry is my porn. I am more systematic about it than you are when you troll all the NSFW sites on your laptop at Starbucks. My washing machine is my bitch. I use the cold setting, boost with Borax, and hang dry everything on a rack in my bedroom. This is what keeps my skin moist by the way. I have not used a dryer in years. I am sure that Martha would be proud and bestow upon me a gold star made out of shortbread from Amish butter for a job well done.

I was happy to hear that Martha’s take on her daughter’s book was that it was all in fun and “irreverent” with really great pictures. The “bad things” include: Martha pees with the door open. I pee on the porch when I open the door! Same, same! Every thing must be from scratch. I must scratch everything! She likes to dig in the dirt. I like to dig for dirt! We are sistahs! Except for one thing. Halloween. I love Halloween, it is the High Holy Day in my family. I decorate the house and make costumes. Then I sit on the porch, turn on the smoke machine, drink cheap wine, and give out candy to all the kids Apparently Martha and her daughter thought it was great fun to turn off the lights and pretend not to be home. Perhaps this is where she went too far with her control freakery. There is no way she would buy a pre-packaged Oh Henry bar when she can make her own nougat, peanut and caramel dipped in chocolate creation with a possible razor blade embedded inside. This is the one time you cannot do scratch. Stupid media propaganda. I bet there was never a razor blade in any candy. It was just something Nestle made up so that you had to buy their product.

Which is why she probably sits it out. Or so I’m telling myself. Either that or she hates children. But I’m not crazy for them either. Wait scratch that, it’s not children I hate, it’s those parents who talk loudly in the third person so everyone can hear their stellar parenting: “Now Piper, Mommy wants you to get in the Lexus so we can go to Kumon to pick up your twin brothers, Finn and Cooper. Later on we can go to the park and then when Daddy gets home he can braid your hair.” Modern daddies do all the crappy crafting nowadays, they are pussy whipped by their feckless wives who think it’s cute that they can’t even make toast. You know the type. I’m not sure what their MO is but I think they just want to keep their husbands extra-busy so they don’t have time to fuck around with their extracurricular activities. Bitches!

Martha and I have no time to enslave our men, we are too busy folding sheets:

Posted by . Categories: go girl, Handy Hints. Tags: , , . 1 Comment

22

Sep. ’11

The Wind in The Gym: Tales of The Bunny and The Rat

You know that stupid Lululemon bag with all the affirmations written over it: “Friends are more important than money,” “Breathe Deeply,” “Dance, Sing, Floss, and Travel,” et cetera? You probably have it, or just like the rat adage, you are no more than twenty feet away from one. It’s a real life urban meme, your cleaning lady carries one as does your lawyer, pot dealer, and girl guide cookie distributor. Mine is hanging in my office. And yes, I do have an office, which is more like an orifice, a black hole filled with bomb shelter material and also where the washing machine lives and the window to the back deck where I keep track of the weather. The bag hangs on one of those Ikea metal shelves and we mock each other daily. “Get off your fat ass and go to the gym,” The bag greets me in the morning. I don’t even have to look up at it, I’ve memorized its repertoire, “Do one thing a day that scares you?” I sneer, “Why don’t you haul yourself over the deck and go dance in the wind, American Beauty?” In fact, Bag and I are like that married couple in that movie. Remember the one with Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey? The wife is a rigid and righteous real estate agent (LOL) and the husband becomes the pot-smoking, pedo-bear. He is the awesome one. He decides he is in love with a teenage cheerleader and gets all buff to impress her. Things go awry in a tragedy of errors, proving my theory that Karma is a fat cat on the Khardashian payroll. Neither here nor there, I am Kevin Spacey. Bag is my bitch and I’m not going to let her tell me what to do but! I will go to the gym! I can put all my sweaty stuff in Bag and make her useful.

I am no stranger to the gym. In fact, mine is my second home. It’s more like a club because it has a fitness area, tennis and squash courts, a spa, a restaurant, and a parking lot. I’ve been a member for 14 years and started going when Freddy was a toddler-type. Before that I was going to a rec center and doing cavewoman aerobics 3 times a week. When I joined my gym, it was like I had died and gone to heaven! I went 7 days a week the first month, they had daycare! Kids could go in a room for two hours while mama could play! And I did: I spun, did step class, learned to use machines, and I was there for two weeks before I even realized they had showers! And a sauna! And a hot tub! What a bumpkin I was. Six weeks went by, and it was mid-September, and before I knew it, I had lost 15 pounds. In turn, I gained a monster. That was when my mojo came back. It was a force I couldn’t control. It was an insatiable creature, filled with sexual hallucinations, with eyes in back of its head and a hole in its heart. And I became a gym bunny. Slash predator.

What’s the difference between a gym bunny and a gym rat? They both run in packs but they have different agendas. The bunny is social and can be found in fitness classes. The rat works out on his own, on a treadmill or in the iron room. The bunny looks around and notices what people are doing, wearing, and talking about. The rat doesn’t have to look around, he can smell camel toe. Watch out for that rat, bunny! His teeth are sharp and he talks out of his ass! I wish I could tell my younger self. Bunnies will turn into sloths, rats keep moving and upgrading their cars. The proof is in the parking lot. And that’s where all the real gym action takes place.

So yes, September has come, and like it or not, it’s a new start. And my mojo rests under a “layer of gelatinous complacency,” that’s what I’m calling fat now, it’s more accurate. Mama wants her mojo back! Not the crazy monster one but a tamed, refined, wiser version. The tail is in there somewhere, I can feel it burrowed, tickling my fourth eye chokra, that one that no one taps in yoga class but we all know is there. The only way to get it out, is to go back to the gym where it was born the first time. And why don’t I rename this blog The Mojo Whisperer? Anyway, I’ve been going every day more or less and spinning and even found an old-style step class which was hard! How did I ever put 3 risers underneath that thing? (that’s what she said!) What doesn’t kill you, hasn’t killed you yet. Put that slogan on your bag, Bag. Go dance like no one is watching:

Posted by . Categories: Get out of your comfort zone, go girl. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

07

Sep. ’11

Fresh Frosh Meat

How come when I went to University, there was no such thing as Frosh Week?  Or did it exist and I was just too cool for school?  If I had a Frosh Week, I might not have had a nervous breakdown mid-semester because I would have adjusted better, having met new people early.  If I didn’t have a nervous breakdown, I probably wouldn’t have developed agoraphobia.  Not that thing where you are afraid of spiders…please, anyone who has rides my car knows that Charlotte is my co-pilot…Agoraphobia:  You are afraid to leave the house.  I barely left my tiny, perfect, one room apartment for 3 months.  But!  If I didn’t develop agoraphobia, I would have totally missed Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital.  Things happen for a reason, that’s for sure.  Destiny!  Fate!   Blah!  Blah!  There are no false moves, only that tramp Destiny and her lesser known alter-ego, that slacker Shmestiny, making waves with that dashing leading man, Fate, and each of those ho’s have an agenda.  Oh, it’s all Destiny spooning Fate when Luke and Laura fall in love and get married, it’s meant to be!   But when  Shmestiny and Fate dry-hump on a futon, suddenly you have to drop a course because of your poor attendance record.  And having to go to summer school is a fate worse than all the Labour Day weekends lined up in a row of 80 years.  You know how I hate Labour Day.   Yes, Freud, obviously this metaphoric mess is all about what happened in Kindergarten.

Baaah!  Daughter Evangeline has some issues (but not mine) and yesterday she attended her first day of Frosh Week at her campus at the University of Toronto.  She is much much smarter than her mother and deserves the great academic success that she had in high school.  I dropped her off on Labour Day Monday at her campus, no traffic, smooth ride with a bag of nerves, “I’m going to barf, ” she said.  “Come home when you want, you don’t need to stay the whole day,” I said.  “Drop me off around the corner,” she said as we pulled in.  Turned out every mother, father, chihuahua, were also dropping off a froshlet right in front of the building.  “You’ll meet some people, don’t worry,”  I said as I parked, out of the way.  We sat in the car in silence for a few minutes.  Down the way, the engineering student were dressed in yellow hard hats and bellowing at the top of their lungs.

“I don’t want to do those cheers!”  she said.

“As if!  You don’t have to cheer.  That’s when you can stand out of the way and find someone else who will mock the rest of the lot and then you can bond!”  I said.

She got out of the  car reluctantly but didn’t come back til midnight.  She met some new friends in the first hour, and one of them is “billeting” at our house, that’s “sleeping over” in university speak.  All is good with Destiny!  And as for Fate, her frosh kit included a condom so it’s all left up to what path she chooses.  She knows her way.  Godspeed, my baby.

 

 

 

 

 

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26

Aug. ’11

I Got Time, You Have My Number

I had an epiphany this week.  But first I had a dream, not the Martin Luther King Jr-type but the kind where you’re actually asleep and your eyeballs are rolling around all fast and spazzy while you lay there limp, face smooshed into the pillow, drooling.  So much goes on in this state that is more important than the daily grind that you’re in when you’re awake.  Your dreams are your connection with your true self because let’s face it, the majority of your waking hours are spent doing mundane things while you try and keep fear and paranoia at bay.  It’s a balancing act that requires either a tough skin or self-medication of some sort.  We run on auto-pilot, like robots,  we forget to actual feel, and our actions become misdirected into things like road-rage and addictions.  It’s a defense mechanism because modern living is so fucking scary.  Time flies and dreams fade.  If “Being Alive” was a Facebook fanpage, the only people to “like” it would be the ones off their meds that day.  Those are the people that LOL instead of punctuate.  I “LOL-ed” on a text message last week, and afterward I slept for 14 hours.  It’s a good thing.

So anyway, the other morning, just before I woke up (those are the most vivid dreams and BEAR WITH ME WHILE I RECOUNT THIS), I dreamt I was about to cross the Bloor Viaduct in my car but first I needed money for gas.  I found a TDCanadaTrust conveniently located in a ditch, where I parked.  I put my card in the machine and looked for the numbers to press but they weren’t there.  I got so frustrated that I pulled my card out and started slamming the buttons on the machine.  WHY ARE THERE NO NUMBERS? I hollered, shoving my card in and out of the slot.  In and out.  Frustrated and furious.  Guess what happened in real life?  I woke up in the middle of a massive orgasm.  I think probably it was the biggest of O of my life and my pj’s were in tact and both hands above the waistline.  How did that happen?  What a mind-blowing jumpstart to the day.  I am the man!  Me stick something in hole!  It fits and feels good!  I do it again!  I am preparing to conquer my fears about money!  The Bloor Viaduct represents transition, not death anymore.  People, in the most heightened sense of depair, used to jump off this bridge.  But since they built the safety structure, I think they just whoosh over it, not so much thinking about offing themselves but maybe what they are going to have for lunch.  Which should really be the highlight of everyone’s day, everyday.  I know it is mine.

Before that dream, I had the epiphany.  And I had the epiphany because I saw  “The Help.”  Wait no, first I read the first 127 pages of “The Help,” then I saw the movie.  So when I read and saw the movie, the line that that got me was: “Write about what bothers you but doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.”  I thought, Fuck Yeah.  I’m somewhat slow with reflexes so most things are left for me to marinate helplessly in REM sleep, but what gets my goat is what I will dub as “Urban Zombie Wildlife” (UZW, for short, sorry we’ll think of something better as we go on).  It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and people are so full of shit pie (if you read the book or saw the movie, you will know what I mean), that they are so unaware of their own intuition that they lack compassion.  I had a conversation with an anonymous UZW the other day as I am promoting my social media blabbermouth instincts into a career opportunity.  Here is how it went:

Me:  I’d like to talk to your website.  I have some great ideas that I think can help with your current blog and how to maximize it using Twitter and Facebook accounts to your advantage.

UZW:  We are looking into social media right now.  If we need your services, we will call you.

Me:  Well, I really want to just talk to you about how your blog can help promote your business and be an advertising tool as well as something people would want to read on its own.  For fun.  People actually read them, especially when they are short. 

UZW:  I don’t really want to waste your time right now, we’ll contact you if we need your services.

Me:  WASTE MY TIME?  Are you serious?  Do you want to know about my time?  I have seen every episode of all 3 seasons of Gilligan’s Island every day after school for 6 years.  Do the math there.  That’s just one show, let’s not talk about the others, and all the other time spent in traffic and waiting in doctor’s offices.  I flushed time down the toilet a long time ago.  Me and Time spend long hours in the sewer system, ruminating and masturbating, we are an awesome duo.  I got time, and you have one shitty, bloated, mess of a blog.  I will keep in touch.  Hollah!

Tomorrow is another day!   Scarlett O’Hara tweeted that one out first.  Retweet! LOL.

Posted by . Categories: Get out of your comfort zone, go girl. Tags: , , , . Leave a comment

19

Aug. ’11

Desperate But Not Serious

I spent this morning with my soon-to-be official ex-husband and our lovely lawyers going over our divorce agreement with a fine tooth comb, some lint brushes, and finally, a Shop-Vac.  We used his lawyer’s office as our pow wow as it is in an elegant old building in the Annex.  Also she serves cookies and fruit, and coffee if you need it.  It all started out jovial and polite, with some LOLs here and there.  I didn’t really know what to expect before I got there but I wasn’t as nervous as when we started crafting this proverbial quilt a year ago.  Divorces take time and I have had time to think, re-think, and re-master the soundtrack in my head.  It was a long year of some back and forths until we decided it was best just to go over it all together and get ‘er done.  It’s done.  I had only one little mini breakdown which was diffused by my earring falling into my bra. I’m kind of happy I boo hoo’d instead of ranted because I had a whole speech that I practised in my car on the way to the meeting, using the Romanov family as a metaphor.  There’s no point in being an angry bitch.  Did you know that if you make a sourpuss face, it will stay that way?  True story:  I just found out that this wretched, flat-assed “see-you-next-Tuesday”  who I used to play tennis with had a stroke!  And not only is her face in a permanent grimace, it is lopsided and she has to eat her salad from a blender with a straw!  Remind me to send Karma Claus a bottle of hooch for Christmas this year!

Anyway, when I left, I felt both heavy and light, a combination of relief and embarrassment (almost everything embarrasses me, by the way, including this blog).  All the wisdom I’ve gained is empowering but also encumbering.  Now what?  What will I do with all these life lessons?  Am I able to Be A Better Person in another relationship?  Do I even dare try or am I too scared?  Am I just one of those people who should just be single?  I do love animals.  Should I get bangs or just keep growing my hair out?  It’s getting pretty long and I can fit most of the front in my mouth so maybe that is a cue that I should get a haircut or stop trying to eat it.  I am starving!  Should I keep going down Bloor Street, the traffic is INSANE, or should I go down Church and cut across Isabella?  Or is it one way?   It’s 2:00, way past lunch, and all I have eaten was a cookie and a grape.  Ok,, 8 cookies and 4 bunches of grapes that I painstakingly peeled and pretended were my own eyeballs and rolled them around my mouth while we went over a 30 page document, line by line,  LOL by LOL.   Fruit is not a food, it’s a substitute.  Ask Freud.  I also had a banana this morning, in the car, driving up Coxwell in rush hour.  I”m not sure I even bothered to peel it.

Sometimes in times of stress, my stomach gets all knotted up in a nervous knot.  Nothing wants to go in but everything wants to come out, hence my verbal diarrhea blogging impulse.   I think it was a good sign that I wanted meat.  And a cocktail.  Duh.  No fetal positions for me, when I get home.  I picked up a purse sized vodka bottle and a ham and cheese on an onion bun from my favourite band of merry men, The Friendly Butcher.  They do make the best sandwiches, the kind where you’re not having to pick out strange bits of alfalfa and burnt eggplant.  Sometimes that’s all you need.  And a cocktail, and a really song.   With that,  I leave you with this twist on the classic Thelma Houston”s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”  by Black Grass:

 

Posted by . Categories: go girl. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment

07

Aug. ’11

See Me, Feel Me, Beer Me

This girl has it going on.  Kate and Pippa could take a style lesson from her.  Did I not say that the fascinator would be big this summer?  I made one out of an old bike pump but it’s not nearly as chic as this Steam Whistle one.  I ran into her last night at The Beer Festival at the CNE, which goes on August 5, 6, and 7th, click here for the details.  If you can’t make it this weekend, then mark it on your calendar for next year because this was probably the funnest night I have had since I have been old enough to drink beer.  Which is younger than some of you because I grew up in Quebec where the legal drinking age is a state of mind that doesn’t require a birth certificate, just a pair of tight jeans and an attitude.  And between you and me, I have always loved beer, even as a little kid I would beg for a sip from my dad’s glass.  My mother thought (and still does)  that it’s trashy to drink beer straight from the bottle or can and I can get behind that because it’s easier to keep inventory what you left.  And  have you ever been to a party and picked what you thought was your beer bottle when in fact, it was the communal ashtray?  Gross!!!

No chance of that at the Beer Festival.  Upon admittance you are given a clear plastic 8 ounce cup that is yours for the night and if you lose it, you have to buy another one for 20 bucks or share.  I am sure people are more likely to lose their cell phones than their plastic cups.  Lorraine and I got to the grounds around 6, I was like a kid on Christmas Day waiting to open presents and Lorraine was dying to unwind after a stressful work.  We had a special passes thanks to her ex-husband Lido and got in lickity split but the shock and the horror set in when we saw the line up for beer tokens.  Every 4 ounces of beer was worth a dollar token.  I had enough time to wait in line to figure out 40 dollars would be worth around 5 pints in a standard Toronto pub.  Or so I thought.  I don’t even know how many ounces in a pint and am unsure if they are on the same measuring system, is one imperial and the other metric?  Are their enough toilets in this place for all this beer to go at some point?  As I inched my way toward the front of the line, I smiled smugly to myself knowing that my Tena pad would save the day in case the answer to the last question was no.

Once we got our tokens, I have to say, the rest was a blur.  A super fun blur, I might add.  It was like a giant frat party.  Everyone was young and really drunk.  There were bands, interesting beers to choose from (my favourite was called “Dead Elephant”), and really great food including Edo’s 7 dollar Kobe hotdog that I had at The Ex last year and raved about, Oyster Boys shucked by girl shuckers, AND the beacon, the star of my summer, the object of my affections:  The Caplansky Truck.  I don’t really know how many ounces of beers we drank, I do know that I have a bunch of leftover tokens so my math is not so good.  And then I realized when do I actually drink 5 pints of beer?  Never!  Or hardly ever! Lol!  More ridiculous math and geometry:  A 26-year-old guy asked for my phone number and I gave it to him in the correct order because why not? Cougars rule!  I think the perfect weather and the crescent-shaped moon put everyone in a great mood.   A few more fun things happened but I can`t say because my mother reads this but at least I still have my plastic cup.  All I have to say is there is something about copious amounts of beer that  gives you license to lose your dignity and not feel bad about it the next day.  It`s the Canadian way!

 

 

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28

Jul. ’11

These Boots Were Made For Conquering

For the past week, every morning when I walk Betty, I see my neighbour, Chuck, raking up mountains of dead leaves on his front lawn.  It’s July for Godsake!  “I don’t what’s happening, the tree isn’t dead but it keeps dropping leaves and making new ones.  Pain in the ass,” he says.  It’s a perpetual autumn tree and when I walk b y his house, I keep thinking it’s fall.  Sometimes I am confused in the morning.  I despise the idea of change, a Pavlovian reaction to having to go back to school in September after having the best summers in the world.  But when it does come and it will again, and I am in it, I am my best self.  I am my best self because a little nip in the air causes me to study my wardrobe and get excited about accessorizing.  It may be a frivoulous diversion to some but I believe when you look good, you feel good.  And when you feel good, the world is your scratching post.

But the last few years, my mojo has been compromised.   As y’all know, I have made many attempts to jump-start it.  I have belly-danced, hula-hooped, vibrated every orifice, and even taken a naked spin class, and blah, nothing really got me going.   One summer, 5 years ago, when I broke my toes on my right foot, I wore pink Crocs, all through September and in October, I switched to Uggs. That, most likely, was the year I disappeared. I lost my power.  The mojo that I had honed and was my glory had turned into my demise.  It was my Achilles heel!  Comfortable shoes from now on!

The other day, Evangeline and I were doing the Queen Street East strip in search of old style non-pocket photo albums for her current obsession with Lomography (future post).  She has my shopping gene, where when you want something bad, you hunt it down and comb every possible store, until you get it.  In my day, there was no eBay or Amazon, and once I made my parents take me all the way to Vermont to find a book which we did and then had Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the flagship store.  The best part of the hunt are the little retail diversion discoveries along the way:  Did you know the old linen store beside Bark & Fitz is now a store for that sells custom corsets and tulle petticoats?   I know this is what every husband of a stroller-pushing, dogwalking beach mom wants his wife to be wearing.  Or his mistress, what am I talking about?

Our retail diversion was the very cool store, Yoka, 2116 Queen Street East.  There’s always stuff to want in there and the staff is so cool and friendly.  But because of my dormant mojo and budget restraints, I have not been there in a while.  But there was a nip in the air.  And all the chokras were buzzing.  I zoomed passed the racks of possiblities and my eyes hit the shoe display.  And there was the boot.  Without even thinking or hestitating, I grabbed it and whoa, it was heavy. I am sure  they cleverly filled the display boot with marbles so you wouldn’t think of licking it like a fudgsicle.  Of course that was my instinct.  I’ve got love, lust, and hunger all mixed up, see previous post.  The boots also look like swirls of chocolate and caramel in the shape of Superwoman.  They are made by Tsubo, a running shoe manufacturer, and the salesgirl said as if she needed sell them, “They’re really comfortable.”  Blah, blah, comfort shmomfort, there is no way I’m leaving this store without a pair.  And for me, with my pampered Birkenstock-wearing monkey toes, to say that meant that this was love.  Or lust.  Or hunger.

And they had my size, certainly another reason to celebrate this store.  The owner is Dutch and Zero is a chocolate bar, not a size.  I warned the salesgirl, “These most likely will not fit over my Herculean calves.”

“They will,” she said, “There’s a cobbler on the Danforth who can fix anything!”

Oh great, all I need is a cobbler crush.  I’ve got a bathroom that needs to be gutted.  Note to self:  Buy boots, wear short skirt, and hang out at Rona.

Anyway, the boots went on, and with manoevring, zipped all the way up.  I have been wearing them for two days straight.  Lunging, squatting, vacuuming, walking the dog.  It’s not fall yet, but this broad has it going on.  And until autumn comes, I will leave your with this:

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23

Jul. ’11

I Love You, Caplansky

And now I’m going to share with you a personal too-much-information tidbit:  A few years ago, when I was going through a Hard Time, I went for some professional therapy.  I was mooning over some dude and the therapist, a man by the way,  listened to me for an hour lament/whine/wail on about how broken hearted I was and how this lost love was the most tragic thing EVER.  He was having a nicotine fit the whole time, crossing and uncrossing he skinny little legs, chewing on his gnarly fingernails with his yellow and brown horse teeth.  At the time, I remember thinking:  Why aren’t you saying anything?  Why don’t you help, for Godsake?  And finally, when he did speak at the end, he said to me:  “Well you obviously don’t know the difference between love and lust.”  What an idiotic, dismissive thing to say after I opened up all my emotional baggage.  I never went back to him.  It turned out that non-professional therapy, ie. drinking gallons of wine while watching Dr. Phil, was good enough for me.  Gradually the mooning stopped, time is a great healer.  However, I still run into the heartbreaker often enough and when I see him, I get a pang.  And I get a little wave of nostalgia, and I think:  Man, I really miss those dry rubbed baby back ribs you used to make on the bbq, I could suck on those all day!

Maybe the crackpot therapist was partially right, I mix love up with hunger.  It explains a lot:  My butcher crush, the way I always hang out with the oyster shucker at parties, and my latest obsession:  The Caplansky Deli Truck.  Last night I went to the Beaches Jazz Festival, which is always a lot of fun but I go more for the street meat than the actual music.  I knew through the Twitter feed Caplansky was going to park his truck at the foot of Elmer so I made a bee-line through the freak show that is local beachers in Birkenstocks and sarongs swaying and gyrating to the honk and tweet that is jazz.  The truck was there, Zane Caplansky himself was there (read about him here), and I was there.  The universe converged us together.  Now I had already eaten dinner, believe it or not: A SALAD, but there was still room for more of course.  My eyes scanned the menu and fell upon:  Maple Bacon Donuts.  Oh. My. God.  I ordered 6 and don’t get in my grill.  They are little balls, kind of like beignets from New Orleans, coated in maple infused with bacon.  I realize this is kind of girlie food, a sweet and salty PMS remedy but I was ovulating when I had it.  It was sublime.  This morning I woke up thinking about it.  And tonight I will go back.  Until then, I will leave you with this classic maple bacon lover:

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30

Jun. ’11

From Prom to Ruby Watchco

I never went to my high school prom which was a smart move because all those that went are still being haunted by Facebook taggings.  This is the kind of thing that mortifies me even by proxy.  One boy, who shall remain nameless but let’s call him Moose Knuckles, was somebody’s older brother and mercy date to a girl in a see-through dress who forgot to hone her eating disorder in a pre-Spanx era.  He wore trousers so high-waisted and tight that his junk had nowhere to go but up and sideways.  And forever emblazoned in our memories.  Oh how I love to creep on that profile when I am sad and having a bad hair day.

And here we are today, this is Evangeline and her brother, Freddy, on prom day last Friday.  We had a gaggle of girls (and some parents) over for a pre-prom primping party.  They graduated from Rosedale School of the Arts which is not the usual Abercrombie crowd we’re talking about.   If you’ve ever been on Bloor and Castle Frank when school lets out, you know what I’m talking about.  I am sure some girls wore dresses crafted out of hair grown on their heads.  There are also slim pickins of boys at the school.  Because of lack of male escorts  (IT DOESN’T GET BETTER),  Evangeline and her prom posse all went as one girl power unit.  They took the streetcar!  How cute is that?

So what we saved on limos, some of the elders decided to go out to dinner.  We had a 9:00 reservation for Ruby Watchco in Riverside.  I gave my car key to my neighbour, Ann, and made her drive us there.  So what we saved in cab fare, we made up for in cocktails.  Really?  No, not really, we would have had those anyway.  We got to the restaurant right on time and it was so exciting.  Ruby Watchco is Chef Lynn Crawford’s  popular newish Queen Street East restaurant with a cryptic name.  No, it is not The Rancid song which is actually Ruby Soho but it doesn’t stop me from changing the lyrics and singing incessantly before we arrived.  Ruby Watchco was actually a sign found in one of the restaurants featured in the Food Network show, Restaurant Makeover.  In case you didn’t know, Lynn Crawford (former executive chef at The Four Seasons NYC) is a host on this show AND and was an Iron Chef competitor against Bobby Flay. Again, in case you didn’t know, Bobby Flay makes burgers and stars in my current fantasy, “Would You Like Fries With That?”

“Any dietary restrictions?” was the first question our charming waitress asked.  This is because you have no choice!  This is heaven to me, you eat what you get, homestyle, and you are served all the courses in Le Creuset baking dishes.  Even as a low funtioning cook in my own kitchen, I can tell you, it is a goal of mine to own a Le Creuset pot in every shape, size, and colour.  I would just look at them and dream of bubbling cheese.  I do have a nice sized green one, though, that is the vessel to my famous Chicken Rinaldo every Monday night.  Here is the Ruby Watchco website and you can see what’s on menu of the day.

While I would never admit to having  dietary restrictions, I will confess to having certain dietary malfunctions which are sparked by peaches, ice cream, and seafood.  The first item makes my face bulge, my tongue swell, and my hair follicles super itchy.  The second thing makes me poop immediately.  So what?  I make sure I eat it at home. The third makes my stomach churn first and then poopalooza.  Again, so what?  “Take the pain,” I always say to the weaklings in my Tom Berenger voice.  And on the menu was fish which I love, by the way, but it doesn’t love me back which is the saddest and purest love of all.  The other courses were so delicious, fresh and local.  There was is a salad with baked prosciutto (“Always invite pork to a party,” said a wise host), and the wait staff was fantastic.  They saw us fighting over the last piece of bacon, and they brought us a whole bunch more IN THE CUTEST LE CREUSET DISH OF ALL.  The fish, which was Halibut with shrimp salsa, was phenomenal.  We ended it with “thermalized” cheese and chocolate mousse dessert.  It was awesome and the best restaurant experience I’ve had in Toronto for sure.  Chef Lynn came to our table and chatted us, and we were all completely smitten with girl crushes.  She is a culinary Goddess.  And between you and me, even going to the washroom was magical.  I swear it smelled of lavender in there.

 

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