my constant concern

Often I forget what day it is, so it's not unusual for me to write the wrong date or accidentally forget to go into work on time because the date in my head is wrong. I tend to consistently send messages to one friend on the wrong day, mixing up the date and being off a day, but it happens regularly in general. This is bad on birthdays. I will sometimes specifically email around midnight to cover all my bases or call a few days early so I don't forget on the day-of.

Here's the thing about all this... I never used to be like this. I was so amazing at remembering people's birthdays and anniversaries, able to remember the calendar in my head and have an internal schedule that would magically make me remember everything I needed to remember related to dates.

Always on my mind is dementia and Alzheimer's. My grandmother is fully episodic. With bouts of dementia starting when I still lived in Edmonton, the mentions to my mother of incidents left me realising I would be in trouble should my mother start experiencing the same. She was in denial for 7 or 8 years about it all, blaming my grandmother's hearing aid or the cold she was getting over. Now, though, it is Alzheimer's; fully, completely Alzheimer's. There is no denying.

Sometimes when I talk to my mother I get nervous twitters in my tummy because she'll repeat things she just said in a short conversation, will be more foul tempered about daily occurances than she probably needs to be, and tell me about things she's misplaced around the house, only to find weeks later. These were the same things that made me watch my grandmother more carefully when I saw her regularly. These are the same things that keep me awake at night, trying to figure out how long it would take for me to pack up my life and move to take care of her if I'm right, wondering how long I have before I must deal with this in actuality.

And, yet, that I can't remember birthdays and anniversaries, that I get dates confused, brings on a whole new set of worries. That I, too, may be closer to my constant concern than I can handle. Where my mother has me, I have no one. That is my constant concern.

obsession, you're my obsession

Sometimes I think astrology is real.

Scorpios are known to be obsessive and I may have obsessive tendencies. Forgetting all the other negative traits associated with the sign, I'm totally fine with being a Scorpio and give credit to those that nervously say, "Ohhhhhh," when they find out I'm a Scorpio and still attempt to be friends with me. I'm not an easy person to be friends with.

Often I'm accused of liking people too much and that isn't always accurate. It more often has something to do with being mildly obsessed about something related to the person, like knowing someone likes doing something that I'm obsessed with and assuming they want to do that thing frequently. An example: I'm greatly interested in drinking beer, so knowing someone likes drinking beer I just assume they, like me, would want to go anytime at the drop of a hat. This is not always so, unfortunately, and then I'm labelled.

I bring up the obsession thing specifically because today I discovered a blog that deals specifically with one of my obsessions. I fricking LOVE coloured Pyrex and Pyrex Love shows off all the reasons to love coloured Pyrex. This woman's collection is AWESOME and makes me want to be more active with collecting it than I've been. (This is largely because of storage issues, but also because I don't like paying more than a certain amount and many places charge more than they should because of the kitschiness of it.) Last month I lost a mixing bowl to a precariously stacked drying rack and have been pained by the loss ever since. My personal collection isn't nearly where it should be.

Today I'm going for a wee walk to a few charity shops in my neighbourhood with hopes of discovering some coloured Pyrex and/or china settings. (I'm still waiting for the place setting I bought on Boxing Day with my Christmas money. Apparently the bonus rim bowl is still on its way.) I should really be doing this more frequently if I want to be serious about these collections. But, at the same time, I know that giving in to these obsessions will likely be detrimental to me, one way or another. Sigh. Maybe I'd be content with a couple of square coloured Pyrex dishes with lids. Maybe if I had been able to get my grandmother's collection of coloured Pyrex when they moved to a home I wouldn't be so obsessed with it all now.

Next week I'm going to Cloverdale to scour antique malls and hope for loads of sweet scores. Next Friday can't come fast enough. Today, however, I must begin my quest. And now.

the quest for bangers

Gosh, I'm still tipsy.

Not one to make more of St. Pat's Day than necessary (I'm nowhere near being Irish and think it's mostly lame to pretend to be of a specific ethnic background in the name of booze consumption; I don't need an excuse to drink on a weeknight), last evening I decided to turn tonight's hangout/drinking with an Irishish friend into something a bit more. Dinner and drinks seemed like a much better option than trying to get into any Irish-type bar to pay too much for drinks.

The timing of a communication with my sweet friend Sara resulted in her suggesting a coincidental trip to North Van to the British butcher she'd been wanting to visit. I, as well, had in the past seen reference to said butcher and thought it'd be fun to visit. We agreed we'd venture off the main peninsula for the sausages I wanted for tonight's dinner of bangers and mash.

We both forgot to bring the Translink directions (which, reviewing them now, were actually the least helpful ever and wouldn't have gotten us close enough to the shoppe anyway), so kind of winged it based on what we could collectively remember from the email communication we shared. We sort of got lost, but had a couple of nice diversions from our main goal (truffle purchasing, a visit to Cap Uni, bus transfers...). Eventually we got to the shoppe and I purchased four flavours of sausages for tonight: the Cambridge, the Cumberland, the Pork Apple and the Pork Leek. The eight links for tonight were extremely affordable and I had to stop myself from buying more (I will go back soon, or anytime someone wants to go). We figured out that Translink gave us the wrong directions when we saw a bus that would take us exactly where we wanted to go, so ran for that sucker and shaved at least 40 minutes off our travel time. Live and learn, I guess. The extra time visiting with Sara was rad, so I didn't mind the detours anyway. When we made it back downtown we stopped into the liquor shop across from Waterfront and picked up a couple of interesting beers for the evening and a cheap knock-off of Irish cream for a recipe.

Upon my return home, I started on a new recipe for a stout cake (less butter than the black & tan cupcakes) with an Irish cream icing. Eileen made it over while I was still beating the batter and we both revelled in the beauty of the fluffiness and richness of the batter. It looked like creamy icing, which generally means an awesome cake. Once that was into the oven, I got started on the rest of dinner between shots of Glenlivet and Irish cream. Eileen graciously made the icing while I worked on the savouries. I like turnips in my mashed potatoes, so peeled the crap out of all that, and trimmed some green beans. The sausages had to wait for the cake to bake, but everything smelled amazing by the time Jill and Mark came over, by which time Eileen and I were well on our way to being tipsy and giggly. Even with my poor timing for when each would finish cooking, everything went together so nicely. We each got a half of each sausage link and stuffed ourselves full of the yummy mash. Bangers and mash is easily one of the most kick-ass dinners during these colder months and I will definitely make more of an effort to make it for myself more often. My favourite sausage was the Pork Leek link. So fricking amazing.

Thankfully everyone was willing to tuck into the cake because I have no idea what I'd do with an (almost) entire cake on my own. Can't remember where I got the recipe from, but it was lovely. I substituted chocolate cherry stout for Guinness and the maltiness was quite nice with all the cocoa and cinnamon. Mark went back for three pieces while the other three of us had two. (I actually also threw together a rhubarb sponge cake while the sausages were roasting because I need to use up the rhubarb from my mom pretty quick. It paled in comparison to the stout cake, but would be good with sweetened whipping cream.) After dessert we were all pretty content to just chat and drink for a while.

I'm not sure how much we actually drank, but we finished off the Glenlivet, had the remainder of the chocolate cherry stout I used for the cake (Tin Whistle, really nice, but no Young's Double Chocolate Stout), tried the Brooklyn Dark Chocolate Stout (which was far more bitter than I thought it'd be), polished off the Irish cream, had a couple bottles of Harp's, tucked into the Crown Royal and finished the Pimm's. We were all liquored enough to be chatty and pleased with the evening, which is enough for me. (Today I also discovered that the liquor shop across from Waterfront carries He-Brew, which is good news, indeed! Can't wait to test out The Chosen Beer when next I have enough money to buy it.)

They all got some cake to take home and left me encouraged to plan more dinner parties in the near future. Such fun, and a relatively easy menu with tolerant friends. Tomorrow I'm going to try root beer bundt cake, so anyone want to come over for cake in the next couple of days?

paranormalish

I think I need to get the hell out of Dodge.

The last week has been a rough one. The turn in weather has felt like an indication of my circumstances, but I'm really trying not to think about it today. Instead, I'm thinking of Chicago. In a month I'll be there and it's all I can do to stop myself from spasmodically jumping around when I think of it.

One thing I may have neglected to mention is where I'll be staying. Usually I stay at the hostel between the Washington Library and The Auditorium, but this time I decided to shake things up a bit in the hopes I'd have a decent night sleep for a change. (I've never slept a whole night through at the hostel. I'm usually awoken by someone kicking my bed or slamming a locker or talking, and I'm a crappy sleeper at the best of times.) I managed to find a hotel that was surprisingly cheap to book, a bit more than the hostel but likely worth the extra money for solitary sleep (relatively).

The Congress is an old hotel, built for the World Exposition in 1893, and has been home to a number of noteworthy guests over the years, largely presidents though Benny Goodman had a radio show there and Al Capone held meetings there regularly. Most recently, I discovered that a variety of gangsters lived there in its heyday as well. But what gets me most excited are the possible current residents.

There are claims that Teddy Roosevelt's ghost lives there, though a number of non-famous ghosts have been spotted around the hotel. One of the ballrooms has been especially active the past year, with unreplicable noises coming from empty air spaces where there is no access. A couple of guys who do ghost tours of Chicago have filmed the ballroom a number of times and the bang that always sounds has never been recreated using the equipment around the room that wouldn't cause structural damage to the place.

People liked to kill people at the Congress. A lot, and often. Not so much recently, but at one time, back in its grandeur days, it was a place to be seen and, apparently, be killed if someone had a gripe with you. Because the ballrooms were the place to be during the early part of the last century, it's fitting to stay there in conjunction with the Chic Chicago exhibition. Some of the dresses I'll see were likely worn in the Congress. This gives me shivers.

I'm not so concerned about the ghosts. I've not read any reviews about there being a ghost problem. The only thing I'm worried about is being put in the dullest, most rundown room in the hotel. I'm hoping for the lakeside, preferably by the Florentine Ballroom.

brrr

I feel like a human popsicle.

My hydro bill is insane, four times what it was in the fall. The last bill was shocking, three times the normal bill, and I turned my heat down to cut costs. I've turned my heat down again (it was already at 13'C) to 10'C in the living room and to zero in the bedroom in light of this recent bill. Not that this is going to help, but I don't want to pay more.

I called BC Hydro to see if there was anything I can do to cut my bill, if maybe there was a mistake. Apparently, if you have electric baseboards, they automatically run even if you have your heat dial set to zero, to warm the pipes to prevent bursts (what happened in my kitchen then?). I have to go into the breaker room and flip the switch to stop paying for heating when there is no actual heat pumping into my house. This is annoying.

Today I haven't left my house because I couldn't think of a free place to go that was warm. This meant I got to watch terrible daytime TV between naps. One thing that creeped me out was a commercial that I've seen a few times. The Snuggie doesn't look tempting at all, but the people in the commercial look so happy. I guess they don't realise they look like they're waiting to go to a Masons meeting for a sacrifice. The Urban Dictionary even has a couple of entries for it, a couple that pinpointed why I think it's so creepy.

Despite my sub-zero condition, please never consider getting me one of those things, unless you want me to break into your home at night and lurk at the base of your bed with candles while chanting in tongues.

on the verge

I think it's time to do my taxes, if only to see if I'll get back enough to pay for rent for June. My anxiety with the uncertainty of work is starting to worry me.

This morning I finally went to the dentist for a checkup. I was upfront about my lack of coverage and that I wasn't sure I'd have a job after April, so really didn't want to pay more than I absolutely had to. The hygienist was very understanding and didn't polish or add fluoride (a $50 savings), and took an x-ray for free of the root canal that my dentist has been watching the last couple of years. When my dentist came to discuss the work that I need to get, I started to get teary. And it was frustrating to cry in front of my fricking dentist because it isn't his fault my stupid teeth suck or that I can't get any sort of stable job. After a brief description of my work situation and the bleak outlook this summer and possibly next fall, he said we'd talk again as soon as I know if anything changes because it has to be dealt with. Then he stopped me on my way out and said, if I was willing, I could likely knock off a bit of the cost if I let him do a study session on my teeth, which involves having a bunch of dentists come and stare at him cutting up my mouth and attaching parts of it in another area of my mouth. That made me feel better. Still don't know how much that would be worth, though.

At work this evening, my supervisor asked how the other jobs are going and it sort of upset me again. She kind of knew the public library wasn't in a good state right now, but she didn't realise how bad it potentially is. Needless to say, I'm applying for more jobs again. And... I think I'm going to apply for a job in Edmonton. I don't necessarily want to move to Edmonton right now, but I also won't be able to afford to live in Vancouver after June if work doesn't pick up drastically, and it seems like there are a lot more interesting postings coming out of Edmonton than in Vancouver.

On the upside, the moon looks remarkable tonight. So enormous and yellow and full. As I walked home from work, I had the awesome 12" vinyl version of "Killing Moon" running through my head. (I once played that version on my radio show and had so many people call in to find out how to get that version that I had to silence the phone line and stay an extra 15 minutes after to answer the calls. It's that good. So awesome.) It makes me think about vampires and death, but everything probably does at this point.

stranded

The snow yesterday was unwelcome. I hate when it snows here because, regardless of how much snow we get in a season, every snowfall wreaks havoc on Main Street. I gave myself loads of time to get to work yesterday, expecting buses might be running a little late. I didn't think they wouldn't run at all in the direction I wanted to go.

I watched 7, 8, 9 buses go the other direction, the sun shining brightly, the temperature a little above zero, the pavement wet but snowless. I waited for the bus, thinking that of course there would be a bus any minute now. I waited 25 minutes and no bus. Had I known no buses would be running up Main I would have walked to the Skytrain station, a 25 minute walk. Why wouldn't a bus be running when it's sunny?

My cell phone informed me I would have to get to the station in mere minutes to be able to get to Surrey in time for my noon o'clock shift. I stuck out my thumb, hoping someone would stop and take me along in the direction they were going anyway. I know this doesn't happen very often: in all the time I've waited for buses, only once was I offered a ride, and that was just a few weeks ago when a woman watched a bus drive away as I ran for it. After a few minutes of people looking at me and driving by, I gave up with the thumb. Stupid drivers.

But then someone came around the corner and asked if I wanted a ride. I asked if a couple others could get a ride and she agreed. She admitted she drove by, saw me with my thumb stuck out, and then thought about it and went around the block to pick me up. We had a pleasant chat, and I know she will think about picking people up in the future; we were all so thankful for the ride.

I'm sure people in Vancouver would like to be friendlier with each other, but crazies make it hard to let down the barriers enough to be friendly. I realised today that I make sure people don't speak to me every time I plug my (beloved) iPod into my ears. So I might have to make a deal with myself: if there are interesting-looking people on the bus I will try to take my earplugs out and make eye contact and be open to conversations. It probably will only happen less than 1% of the time, but the effort should be made.

a thought

I'm thinking of selling baking on my back stoop. On days off from being a librarian (though is it possible to ever stop being a librarian?), I'll just set up a table, drink the contents of my liquor cabinet, and sell whatever I baked that week to people off the street. If I could make jam or can vegetables I would sell those, too. Maybe I'll sew some stuff to sell.

Not sure how much I'd have to price these things at to turn a profit. It would have to be enough to pay for the excessive drinking I'll be doing and for butter, flour and sugar. Sounds expensive.

This weekend is the start of my freezer experiment. I'm testing frozen cookies, banana bread and cupcakes. I want to know how well these things defrost. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be able to pull frozen desserts from the freezer if people just drop by, but certain things would have to happen for such a situation:
1) people would have to actually drop by my house at random. This never happens.
2) people would have to consider banana bread dessert.

Today I walked to Granville Island from Science World while the weather was still fine. It was quite nice out, chilly but with shots of sunlight streaming through the white clouds. I stopped often, distracted by the way the light hit the water, the reflections of the city wiggling from the boats' wakes. The circular waves from diving birds made me stop and wait for the birds to come up, the slightest hint of fear that they'd get caught on something under the water's surface and drown. Lots of couples were out, only a few solitary people. I thought about laying out in the double person lounge chairs, but then felt that might make me sad. The crocuses were in full bloom, the only colour I saw aside from a few brightly coloured boats. I avoided the market and instead went to the brewery and bought a limited edition porter. (They have a ginger beer coming out in the next week, so I must mental note it that I must go buy booze soon.) Grabbed a salmon burger at Go Fish and ate it beside a duck pond, avoiding eye contact with the mallards eyeing my food. I got home before the snow started falling.

Yes, snow. How ridiculous that we've had snow the last two days. (Well, yesterday it was more like hail, but it was small and looked a bit like snow, even though it bounced and rolled like hail.) I'm hoping this doesn't happen in April.

Next weekend I might try to figure out how to start a container garden. I'm not sure how well it would survive if the weather continues to be so changeable, but it might produce stuff I can sell off.

domestication

This is what I had for breakfast this morning: a tomato, goat cheese and thyme puff pastry thingy. I threw it together almost as soon as I woke up, patiently waited for it to bake up, and devoured a piece of it as soon as it was cool enough. Mmmm... so good... On the suggestion last week from Christine to spread a bit of dijon mustard under the cheese, I tasted the brilliance of the suggestion. It's all I can do to stop myself from chomping down another piece. If I ever have you over for breakfast, this may be served. Also very easy if I ever collect a boyfriend who will sleep over at my house.

(An aside... Why is it that boys prefer sleeping at their own homes? Where is the give and take here? Is it because I don't have a coffee maker? I find it strange that most would rather tidy up their place and clean their bathrooms in whatever way they do to make them less disgusting and wash their sheets than come to my house where they don't have to ready things or be grossed out by the bathroom and get baked goods and booze effortlessly. I'm not going to try to understand.)

And for dessert: pretzel chocolate chip cookies. Just wanted to try them, since I don't bake as many cookies now as I used to. The crunch from the pretzels is kind of nice, but I put a lot of chocolate chips in and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I've gotta unload a slew of these, but I've run into an issue. It's been bothering me for a while, but it's come to a head the last few days.

See, I hate giving containers away. I got rid of almost all that I wasn't specifically fond of before the last move and I recycle any new food ones I get (unless I have a specific plan for them). I don't often have a wide variety of sizes of containers to fit whatever baking I'm doing that week. Baggies of certain things just look like crap and I've tried to stop handing out baking in baggies (but I do love the baggies...). So... how then do you give baking away?

Generally I like to use the clams from packaged salads because, even though they're recyclable, apparently they're usually thrown away because people don't clean them out and they don't break down very well or something. These are great because of the rectangular, deep shape of them, fitting 6 cupcakes in quite nicely or a dozen cookies or squares with wax paper. But with the rash of baking, I can't eat enough salad to make this a feasible option. So... now I have to figure something else out.

Because I know he likes them, I gave one of the guybrarians some of the chocolate stout cupcakes to take home last night. We met up for drinks at the slightly nightmarish Two Parrots (the other place we thought about going was fa-fa-fa snooty-looking, with a line-up at 7:30 and lighting so dark that I couldn't see the bar from the doorway) before heading to the Cinematheque for "My Winnipeg." All four of us were in various stages of conscious decay by the time we hit the theatre, all having sleeping issues for a variety of reason. The slow start of the movie (not the time, but the pacing) probably would have made us leave under normal physical conditions, but thankfully we were just too lazy to walk out and it picked up significantly partway through. I suspect the cupcakes the boys shoved in their mouths might also have given them a bit of a sugar rush. Was fun!

I've got two whole days in a row off and I'm trying to think of what I can do. Today I have a plan to meet up with my friend for fondue or marble slab (I've never been there and probably will regret it if I go) and tentative plans with another friend to do something. I really want to watch the Oilers game tonight, preferably at the Black Frog so I can be among my own. Of course, the only people I know who like the Oils are either not here, with children, or not speaking to me (just one, but one is enough in a situation like this), so I don't relish the thought of sitting at the bar watching the CBC, paying for drinks all game. Though I suppose they may have decent specials... I could just stay home and embroider something while I watch the game. Practice being a homemaker for the fictitious family that annoys me in my head.

every rose has its thorn

On Monday night I wasted hours watching the finale of "The Bachelor." If I would just treat it as any other scripted show it wouldn't bother me more than any other soap opera. The problem is it isn't supposed to be scripted and something about the whole thing really continues to bother me.

If you don't watch it, consider yourself lucky. Essentially, the guy chose a girl, proposed, and decided 6 weeks later that he actually wanted to be with the girl he rejected. Then he dumped his fiancée ON TV and 10 minutes later asked the other girl if they could, you know, give it a go and then had his tongue down her throat. The basic recap.

The reason this bugs me so much, I think, is that here is a guy who has a kid, has been going on about how hurt he's been in relationships and how sensitive he is from being hurt so much, how he knows what he wants and he wants to settle down with someone special to help raise his son, and yet this is the kind of crap he pulls. It's like proof that my lack of trust in single(ish) men is well-founded, that they are always looking for something better. And that has thrown me, because I was really hoping that I've just had lousy luck with men and that there really are decent single ones out there. But this kind of points out that maybe there just aren't.

If any of you can prove otherwise I'd be interested to see your research. The only saving grace is knowing some really decent guys who are married/committed and thinking it's just Vancouver that totally sucks ass.

Anyway...

The baking problem continues. I had my friend Christine over for dinner yesterday and made black & tan cupcakes for dessert. The icing didn't work out (I tried to halve the recipe and put too much lager in it), so it wound up being just the black part. Today I need to fix it somehow, and get some flour so I can make banana bread with the defrosted bananas stinking up my fridge. I looked through the small batch baking book again and realised the cakes are mostly all baked in cans, making them quite small and tempting. I probably don't need cake on a weekly basis, but being able to make one at the drop of the hat is somehow comforting.

I can't remember how much stuff I should be pulling together for my taxes, so I'm not sure if I should send it all off to my accountant so I can get my return (fingers crossed!) or hold off since I just want to make sure I have money for Chicago. I'm impatient, so I'll probably just send it off.

Oh, I got a hair cut yesterday and my stylist/friend talked me into getting my colour touched up because she's done work at the end of the month and is getting pretty booked up. I don't know what I'm going to do while she's on mat leave; she's the first stylist I've trusted ever to do my hair, so I'm concerned about temporarily seeing someone else. It looked a bit Farrah Fawcett when she was done, which was pretty OK, but I'll never be able to recreate it. Probably for the best.

Off to work, then to prep for classes on Friday.

plotting

I just talked to my friend about the stuff we'll do when I go to Chicago and I'm so excited. He asked what's left of Chicago for me to see. One word got us both excited: cemeteries.

It's no surprise that I'm fascinated with cemeteries. I love cemeteries, the creepy feeling I get stepping close to the plots, the way people choose to remember their loved ones etched in stone and marble. Tonight we talked about which ones we'd hit. There's Forest Home Cemetery that has the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument. I was interested to learn that Forest Park was known as the city of cemeteries, with a 30:1 ratio of dead to living residents. I'm keen to hit Graceland because it's the most famous cemetery, with huge numbers of dead architects. There's a Burnham exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, so I want to visit his grave after the exhibit to let him know what I thought of his plans. I'm sure he's got nothing better to do than to hang around by his plot and listen to random people talk about his plan for rapid transit in Chicago in 1903. My friend informed me this evening that he's got a friend who is a gravedigger at Graceland. If you're going to be a gravedigger, might as well be at one of the most impressive ones in America. There's one on the southside that my friend wants to see, but it might be a bit too much death. It's supposed to be a fun trip.

The White City tour he's concocting has me excited. I've been reading up on how much of the landscaping is still in place on the 1893 Exhibition grounds as Olmstead designed it. The spot where the Murder Castle used to stand makes me more nervous than you'd think since I'm spending a significant portion of my time looking at where dead people are buried. Wish I had known about the Toronto connection when I was there; I'd be interested to see where the house was where they found the children buried that started to unravel the whole H.H. Holmes mass murder spree.

Mostly unrelated, last week I read something about how someone in Vancouver figured out that buildings are cheaper to renovate than to tear down and rebuild with new materials. My friend created the May T. Watts Appreciation Society Energy Calculator last year, which was all the rage with the preservation crowd because it's the first calculation of energy savings when using a pre-existing building instead of rebuilding. He's brilliant. We keep hoping someone in Vancouver will catch up and organise a preservation conference here so he can come and speak at it about this calculator and his day job as a historic preservationist without having to actually pay for the trip himself. It also makes me want to start doing research in building preservation so I can write articles and we can go to the same conferences. Research and writing... it sounds like school.

Didn't wind up getting anything done that I halfheartedly thought about doing tonight: no kirie, no sewing, no laundry, no baking. Lots of sitting around, though. Watched two movies. Off to bed now. Am on Day 13 of 15 and need to rest up for the stretch.