Colder than Satan's Tit

I just got back home from Winterlicious. It wasn't bad. It wasn't exemplary either. The Craft Club crew went to this Indian restaurant, which had nice enough food, but served smaller portions, charged extra for naan, and could have had a bit more kick in the food. It came to $45 a piece, and we could have gotten better and more food and drink for less at other Indian restaurants we know.

It was my first "licious" event. There's a Summerlicious too. Meh. I guess it's good to try new places, even if you wind up a little disappointed. But it was nice to be out. Not so nice to be in the cold, though. Holy Murphy's shit, it was effing freezing out there. -17 degrees, man. No snow, just soul crushing subzero hell.

I kind of miss snow. Without it, this chill just feels like an angry cold slap in the face. Snow at least feels cozy. When I was a kid it meant snowmen and snow forts. Being out in snowy weather was cold and difficult, but somehow I always felt like I was on some sort of important journey, tromping through the snowy hills and whatnot. The absence of snow just makes it a pain in the ass.

I've been buying spring and summer dresses online. I'm practically counting the days till it's warm enough to live again. I haven't even given up dresses and skirts for winter. I just pile on the tights and sweaters and keep on truckin'. I just bought this one:

Feminine and sweet and most importantly for my body type: too short for the average woman, empire waist, and little room in the bust. Perfection.

I'm going to my hometown tomorrow to visit my friend for some needed girl time. I'm pretty jazzed. Not so jazzed about getting to the bus in this weather. But the ends will justify the means.

Just for kicks

Because I enjoyed this immensely...

Sex Ed

My job is so strange sometimes. Last week I learned what the euphemism for "tossing a salad" meant. Today I learned how to behave if I encounter a wild bear. Quite a variety of channels at play here. I do so enjoy what I do. Most days anyway.

I bought the new Freakonomics book, SuperFreakonomics, yesterday and it's already as fun and interesting as the first one. I've already finished the chapter on how a prostitute is like a department store Santa. I love books like that, out of the box thinking type books that buck conventional wisdom in favour of a complex yet simplified look at stats and figures.

I want more quiche. This means I will have to make more quiche, as vain though it may be to say it, my quiche that I made this past weekend was the best I've had in my life. In a way, it's probably good I'm a wee lazy in kitchen matters, because that quiche was also loaded in fat. Lots of protein, though. But lots of fat.

I still want another one.

I read an article today that spoke to me about sex ed in schools. I remember my sexual education via the Catholic school system over 10 years ago: Here are the mechanics. Here are the undesirable consequences. DON'T DO IT!!!1! Jesus! Throw in a video of a woman giving birth with some closeups of the crowning head and you're done.

The article was about pleasure-based sex ed, letting girls in particular know that it's supposed to feel good. I can speak for myself that no one ever told me that, and had I known it was supposed to be enjoyable, I don't think I would have allowed certain things to pass when I was a teen. My first boyfriend at 16 would have been dumped promptly for being so inept with his fingers.

I don't think abstinence education makes any sense. Telling people not to do something isn't education. It's issuing orders you don't have the authority to enforce. Parents don't even have the authority to enforce abstinence, not really. A person's sexual autonomy (and age of legal consent) occurs before the age of 18 and there's little that can be done to prevent it.

There's also the creepy idea that teenagers are children. They're not. Teenagers are sexual. Children are not. Teens have pubic hair, sexual urges, developed sex characteristics and an ability to procreate. Children have none of these things. So teens hence are not children. They have differing needs, one of which is a need of information about their sexuality, the type of information that will enable them to act safely in their choices.

I suppose it's hard for parents to be objective about their kids, whom they've diapered and kissed away their boo-boos and taught to ride a bike. I imagine it's hard to acknowledge that your child is not physically a child any longer and has sexual urges and a body that can and wants to act on them. And being unable to view your offspring as sexual may further incline a person to wish to prevent them from having a sex life. It probably feels creepy to even think about.

But that's just not realistic. Parents have a lot of say over what their teen does, but it stops at being able to direct the course of their sex lives. If a teen isn't going to learn from their parents about all things sex, someone's got to tell them, you know, before they get pregnant and infected. As for preventing them from having sex in the first place, if they're not making babies or passing along disease or putting themselves at risk with god knows who, I couldn't be bothered what consenting people do with other consenting people.

Pie!

Two posts in one day! But I'm feeling really keen on my pie making mad skillz.

McPal, his boyfriend and I got to our friend Freya's house around two. Her husband picked us up at the subway station, ingredients and tools in tow. Freya and her old roomie were already knee-deep in pie awesomeness by the time we arrived.

I insisted on making my pie crust from scratch and without any mixers. Reason being it was my first ever crust and I don't own any tools at home, so I didn't want to learn with things I don't have. They razzed me, but hot damn if it didn't work out A-OK.

My first pie crust!

With one oven and five bakers, you'd think it'd be hell's kitchen, right? But it wasn't. Our timing was impeccable. As McPal's pumpkin pie was baking, I was sauteing onions and garlic in melted butter on the stove. Then in went the feta, shredded cheddar and fresh chopped spinach.

Roomie's apple pie coming out of the oven,
and McPal's pumpkin pie about to go in.

Freya's house smelled amazing. Holy sweet mother of Sam on a stick. I mean, all that damn pie. My quiche baked for 45 minutes total and sat and cooled for over half an hour. From start to finish it took over two hours to make. It was easy, but it was a real process. But baking with friends was amazingly fun.

All the pies! From top right down: Pumpkin, meat pie, apple pie, ham quiche, custard pie, spinach quiche.


Cutting my quiche ^_^

The day was a success. We made some beautiful pie, but hot damn if we didn't nearly polish it all off. In all I ate about half a pie's worth. Freya ate 3/4 a pie, her husband taking the lead with one whole pie and then some. Of course, they started early. But we were all feeling it. No regrets, but the thought of eating any more pie made us feel nauseous.

And the thing is, I don't eat pie. I had my first pie when I was 23. It was pecan pie at a wine and pie party. I ate it to a round of applause for popping my pie cherry. I haven't eaten it since. But I ate two slices of quiche (Which doesn't count), one slice of custard pie (Which sort of counts) and one slice of pumpkin pie (Which totally and utterly counts). And it was good. It seems I'm now a special occasion pie eater, Christmas and Thanksgiving not being special in the right sense. I guess I now eat pie on days where pie is being celebrated.

I guess that's a little weird. Perhaps a wee bit neurotic.

But whatever. I brought home some pie to the Dude, who couldn't make it. My quiche was praised. Life is good.

Prorogue photos

Here's the pictures I took at the rally from my cell phone yesterday. I had no idea how to upload them wirelessly until moments ago. I love living with someone who knows how to do this stuff.

Dude: You can do it with bluetooth.
Me: Bluetooth? Do I have to pay for that?
Dude: No, it's a device in your cell.
Me: What's Bluetooth?

Anyway, take a gander at these. McPal and I were really far back in the crowd away from the stage, and here are a few pictures of what was behind us...

...to the side of us...

...and to the front.

Notice the idiot with the sign protesting the other signs. As this was a grassroots effort, it cost individual people a lot of money to organize this whole thing: the stage, renting the square, flyers, signs, buttons. It wasn't financed by businesses or parties, so to recoup they charged money for protest signs, the "No to Proroguing, Yes to Democracy" ones. And people happily paid, as you can see below. It was a mutually convenient for organizers and protesters. But I guess some people, like the idiot above, go to protests to protest a minute aspect of the protest.

Here is a picture from when the march got underway. It looked the same from behind us as well. I can't believe they said only 3,000 people in the papers. 3,000 is a lot, yes, and right at 1:00 pm, there was about 3,000. But when the march commenced, there were considerably more than that, and people joined right off the street. But they were off by 2,000 or 3,000 people.


Again, it was insane. Don't listen to the naysayers. It was a success. People came, they were enthusiastic, and we marched all around the downtown core. Pedestrians stopped and took our picture, people were along the march route with signs of support, and it was a non-partisan event. No politicians, despite NDP provided orange signs saying "Stand up to Harper" and "Democracy Works". I saw most people with those signs hold them up, covering the party logo with their hand.

But 95% of the signs and banners were not politically affiliated in any way. I was so proud of Toronto. Like I said, the numbers were greatly under-reported. Here's a video showing the protest and should give a better idea of how many thousands participated:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqdoTO_T3Y

Anyway, craft club is a little delayed today so I'm still at home in my robe. I'll still make quiche. Just later rather than sooner.

Pro-rally, not prorogue

I went to the rally today. It was amazing, through and through. They're claiming we were about 3,000 in number. It had to have been more than that. As far as the eye could see, there were protesters, signs, banners. At the time I felt like I was amidst 10,000 people. It was that crowded and full on. There were likely about 5,000, maybe 6,000.

It was really empowering. To be so pissed off about Harper and to finally have an outlet with like-minded people was a relief.

And of course people who are pro-Harper no matter what, or who are apathetic to our government, or whatever have had a number of seemingly repetitive retorts:

1. Parliament has been prorogued over a hundred times before. The Liberals have done it. What's the big deal this time?

Well, when a minority government PM closes down the house of commons to avoid a vote of confidence he's afraid of losing, he's sidestepping democracy. If your party does not have the majority of seats in the house when you are PM, that means your party has to co-operate with the opposition who are in a position to remove you if you are too partisan. Because, remember, everyone else's elected MPs get a vote too, not just your own party.

When a government prorogues parliament to avoid answering for a scandal, such as Afghan detainee torture, they are avoiding accountability to the house of commons, which is a representation of the Canadian people.

Also, when you prorogue while there are still over 30 bills on the table and those bills are wiped clean and must be brought up anew in a new session, that wastes time and... tax payer's money. Who are the tax payers? Us. We are.

So it's a pretty effing big deal, yes.

2. It's legal. It's standard procedure.

There is nothing standard about avoiding confidence votes, avoiding being held in contempt of parliament, or letting 30-some bills die. Proroguing is reasonable if business has essentially concluded, not if there are still pressing public matters at hand to resolve. They're paid to conduct public business, and business wasn't done yet. Canada does not have a history of prorogation being used to escape the pitfalls of democracy, the pitfalls being having your power revoked if the majority think you suck.

3. Haiti is more important right now. What are you complaining about?

This is a rather new one I've heard, but it bears bringing up for comment. It is possible, of course, to care about more than one thing at a time. I donated money to Haiti. I also went to the rally. See? Easy. And just because our country is in far better shape than one of the poorest and devastated in the world does not mean we should accept whatever we're given from our government.

Food in our stomachs, roofs over our head, clean water to drink and clothes to keep us warm means we don't need to worry about our survival. It also means we're in a position to aid a country who needs us badly. But it doesn't mean our own country's issues suddenly don't matter. They do.

It's like telling a person that being worried about losing his job is stupid because his neighbours all died in a terrible fire. Terrible tragedies deserve attention, and we must respond to the need. But concerns close to home don't go away just because there's something more traumatic occurring elsewhere. Intelligent people can concern themselves with more than one matter at a time. The brain is complex like that.

End rant. For now.

Tomorrow I make quiche.

Pie

I was invited to a pie making party by my craft club. On Sunday I'll be making pies. Well, rather my friends will be making pies. I'll be making quiche. I've never made quiche before, but I do like to eat it a lot.

The dude has been on my case about how I don't bake, and how I said I enjoy baking. This is true. I said that I both do bake and enjoy it. But the kitchen is small and the Dude is messy in the kitchen (Which makes me feel less inclined to spend any time in there, other than the time I spend cleaning up) and we have few baking utensils and tools at my disposal. So I've not baked at all.

I didn't bake in the last place either, because although the kitchen was larger, the other elements were the same. Actually, we had even fewer baking supplies, so there you go. Excuses, excuses, but valid ones.

But come Sunday, I'll bake, damn it. Granted, it won't be a dessert, but it still counts and I'm rather jazzed about it. I'll buy pie tins, a rolling pin and ingredients tomorrow after the rally, and then I'll make the pie crust dough, and then I'll be all set to go. Huzzah!

I must be getting old where attending a pie party with a craft club serves as weekend excitement. Oh well, fuck it. I've started to gray, I'm allowed to descend into fuddy-duddydom. That reminds me, I need to make a hair appointment yesterday.