People always view the end of the year as a chance to start fresh with a new year and think about what they'd like to change in their lives. Not me. I like to evaluate how many people will come to my funeral.
I've been doing this since I was a little kid, probably about 7 or 8, when I started having major existential crises. That was when I started waking up in the middle of the night, wondering how I could prove I exist and trying to convince myself that other people were alive and not just a figment of my imagination. I'd sit down and try to think of who would come to my funeral if I were dead the next day, and depending whether or not my siblings were angry at me, my numbers would be pretty low. My parents were the only ones that were always on the list.
Even still, the only people that I know would come to my funeral are my parents. For everyone else, I know that it's not a given; stuff comes up, people have family priorities or work or something. And that comes to mind every New Years, that as long as my parents are alive, they're my only sure thing. I'm glad to have them, that we have a good relationship and that their health is good. I try not to think about what will happen when something happens and they're no longer there. Sometimes it's really hard to avoid.
Which is why I take inventory of how many people I'm still on speaking terms with and the degree to which they seem to like me. Whether or not they might like me enough to come to my funeral. And going into the new year, if I've survived the holidays in one emotional piece, I try to make efforts to catch up with people I haven't talked to for a while or make plans to visit people nearby that I don't see often.
This year I'm not sure I want to do the inventory because I'm afraid to learn the results. Sometimes it's just easier to hide under the covers and pretend everything is fine.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
oh, boo
I'm feeling a little sulky today. After getting myself to bed at a decent hour in a sober state after my work party on Friday night, I woke early on Saturday, feeling less than well. My throat apparently didn't get the memo that I refuse to get sick, like, ever.
I chose to pretend that my throat was just taking a while to wake up and went out to run an errand and meet my friend for a hangout. I headed out to Burnaby to get my 360 degree camera from its holding cell at FedEx. I restrained myself from tearing open the box instantly and letting everything fall all over the train. (When I later tackled the packaging in the evening, I was excited thinking about all the expired film I have to use up in it when the weather or my location improves.) I headed downtown to meet Jill at the library, and we decided to wander down to Denman to try a newish restaurant. I should have been dubious, since every "new restaurant on Denman" seems to serve dinner, not lunch. True to form, the place was closed. Thankfully, Denman has a few ramen shops, and we love us some ramen.
Since Kintaro had a line (as always) and we didn't care to stand in line, we went to a place a few doors down that I've not been to, but Jill had. She had the vegetable ramen and I had a spicy miso ramen. One thing I love about most ramen shops is the menu includes relatively accurate pictures of what each type of ramen should look like. I look for two things: 1) mabo dofu ramen (which very few places have) and, failing that, 2) corn. I love corn in soup. When I see recipes with corn I get all excited and giddy for no apparent reason. My mother never put corn in soup, I have no special connotations with corn soup, yet I will almost always buy soup if it has corn in it. (Case in point, I think I was the only foreigner who bought the corn chowder at McDonald's when I lived in Japan. I loved that shit.) Two of the pictures included corn, so I thought the spicy one would numb my increasingly pained throat.
We had a nice chat and hid out over tea (me) and beer (her) for a couple of hours. By the time I got near the bottom of my bowl, I was nodding off. Jill, too, seemed overwhelmed by the sleeping pills they must have slipped into her broth because she agreed that a nap would be needed soon. I just headed home, not even stopping at the shop to buy the cold-related necessities I would need if this throat thing stuck around. As soon as I laid out on the couch, I was out.
Yesterday, though, I was angry at myself for not getting provisions. My milk had turned a few days ago and I don't like plain tea at all. I need milk. NEED, do you hear me? I tried to choke down pots of tea with lemon and honey, but it's just not my taste. It was a struggle. So at some point I decided that soup might be the better hot liquid. At some point a week or two ago I thought I might go on a soup making spree, but overworked myself and didn't cook a single meal at home all week. (I don't think eating things raw or warming leftovers constitutes as at-home cooking.) So, feeling like crap, the most obvious thing to do was to roast up a squash for soup and start a separate pot of bean & kale soup.
This is my embarrassing admission: I am terrible at making soup. Horrible. If something doesn't have a bunch of meat to flavour it, I can't make soup taste good at all. And, seeing how I like to season, this is confusing to me. I read recipes that sound good and flavourful, but wind up with sub par flavours. So I wasn't hopeful about the squash soup. It looked like it was going to be runny, even with the wand blender (I love you, wand blender, all poison green and awesome. We're going to have to find new, exciting projects for you to work on). But, thankfully, it blended into a nice, smooth consistency with a lot of flecks of pepper. I took a spoonful and immediately ladled a small bowlful because it was so good. Maybe a bit too peppery, but still flavourful and it made my throat stop hurting the instant it hit.
The bean & kale soup, on the other hand, was not that good. Halfway through, after tasting the broth, I cooked up a chorizo and tossed it in. It didn't help enough, unfortunately. I added more salt and still... blah. I realised after the fact that using vegetable broth might be the downfall. Chicken broth is just so good in soup. There's a reason almost all recipes suggest chicken broth first. When I had a bowl for breakfast this morning, I had to give it a couple splats of hot sauce and it still could have used more.
I think of my mom's amazing ability to season everything to such a flavourful level. Her split pea soup (ham soup until I was old enough to not get creeped out about eating a bean soup) is still my favourite soup ever and I've yet to taste any split pea soup that comes close. In my state, thinking about it makes me want to wander to my butcher and buy ham hocks and other assorted meats, and make more soup. It isn't going to happen, though. My freezer is full.
I chose to pretend that my throat was just taking a while to wake up and went out to run an errand and meet my friend for a hangout. I headed out to Burnaby to get my 360 degree camera from its holding cell at FedEx. I restrained myself from tearing open the box instantly and letting everything fall all over the train. (When I later tackled the packaging in the evening, I was excited thinking about all the expired film I have to use up in it when the weather or my location improves.) I headed downtown to meet Jill at the library, and we decided to wander down to Denman to try a newish restaurant. I should have been dubious, since every "new restaurant on Denman" seems to serve dinner, not lunch. True to form, the place was closed. Thankfully, Denman has a few ramen shops, and we love us some ramen.
Since Kintaro had a line (as always) and we didn't care to stand in line, we went to a place a few doors down that I've not been to, but Jill had. She had the vegetable ramen and I had a spicy miso ramen. One thing I love about most ramen shops is the menu includes relatively accurate pictures of what each type of ramen should look like. I look for two things: 1) mabo dofu ramen (which very few places have) and, failing that, 2) corn. I love corn in soup. When I see recipes with corn I get all excited and giddy for no apparent reason. My mother never put corn in soup, I have no special connotations with corn soup, yet I will almost always buy soup if it has corn in it. (Case in point, I think I was the only foreigner who bought the corn chowder at McDonald's when I lived in Japan. I loved that shit.) Two of the pictures included corn, so I thought the spicy one would numb my increasingly pained throat.
We had a nice chat and hid out over tea (me) and beer (her) for a couple of hours. By the time I got near the bottom of my bowl, I was nodding off. Jill, too, seemed overwhelmed by the sleeping pills they must have slipped into her broth because she agreed that a nap would be needed soon. I just headed home, not even stopping at the shop to buy the cold-related necessities I would need if this throat thing stuck around. As soon as I laid out on the couch, I was out.
Yesterday, though, I was angry at myself for not getting provisions. My milk had turned a few days ago and I don't like plain tea at all. I need milk. NEED, do you hear me? I tried to choke down pots of tea with lemon and honey, but it's just not my taste. It was a struggle. So at some point I decided that soup might be the better hot liquid. At some point a week or two ago I thought I might go on a soup making spree, but overworked myself and didn't cook a single meal at home all week. (I don't think eating things raw or warming leftovers constitutes as at-home cooking.) So, feeling like crap, the most obvious thing to do was to roast up a squash for soup and start a separate pot of bean & kale soup.
This is my embarrassing admission: I am terrible at making soup. Horrible. If something doesn't have a bunch of meat to flavour it, I can't make soup taste good at all. And, seeing how I like to season, this is confusing to me. I read recipes that sound good and flavourful, but wind up with sub par flavours. So I wasn't hopeful about the squash soup. It looked like it was going to be runny, even with the wand blender (I love you, wand blender, all poison green and awesome. We're going to have to find new, exciting projects for you to work on). But, thankfully, it blended into a nice, smooth consistency with a lot of flecks of pepper. I took a spoonful and immediately ladled a small bowlful because it was so good. Maybe a bit too peppery, but still flavourful and it made my throat stop hurting the instant it hit.
The bean & kale soup, on the other hand, was not that good. Halfway through, after tasting the broth, I cooked up a chorizo and tossed it in. It didn't help enough, unfortunately. I added more salt and still... blah. I realised after the fact that using vegetable broth might be the downfall. Chicken broth is just so good in soup. There's a reason almost all recipes suggest chicken broth first. When I had a bowl for breakfast this morning, I had to give it a couple splats of hot sauce and it still could have used more.
I think of my mom's amazing ability to season everything to such a flavourful level. Her split pea soup (ham soup until I was old enough to not get creeped out about eating a bean soup) is still my favourite soup ever and I've yet to taste any split pea soup that comes close. In my state, thinking about it makes me want to wander to my butcher and buy ham hocks and other assorted meats, and make more soup. It isn't going to happen, though. My freezer is full.
Friday, December 10, 2010
on a high
Taking a break from blogging has been surprisingly nice. I found myself only writing when I was feeling low, giving the false impression that I'm absolutely miserable. I am going through an awkward stage right now and have had some rough days, but most days are either fine or I am too tired to have any sort of emotion. You, unfortunately, only seem to get me at my worst. Sorry for that.
But today is quite a nice day. A hopeful day, even!
Yesterday I arrived home after a work party* and discovered a delivery attempt door hanging thing. Wowza! In a (in retrospect) fit of insanity, I decided to order the 360 degree camera from the Lomo site because, since I've been working so much, I thought I should get something that I will enjoy when I no longer work 55 hours a week. The 360 just looks neat, literally taking a 360 degree photo. I ordered it on Sunday night and it was at my door at 1pm yesterday. That's fricking fast! Makes me think I still have time to send Christmas cards.
Unfortunately, I have about 18 piggy bucks to spend before the 20th, so will probably order something from them again in the next week. Might be time to just get film or something less camera-y. But I love the cameras...
Also went to the Christmas Market with my friend during the workday. There were a lot of sausages. Sausages are good and all, but I'm all about the pretzel and schnitzel (though I wasn't overly excited about the schnitzel. It was fine, but I'm sure a sausage with onions and sauerkraut would have hit the spot). Being the middle of the workday and all, we didn't have the specially imported German beer, but I like that, once inside, you can walk around with a beer in your hand. The Woodwards window display reminded me that I want to do the Woodwards window display walk sometime before Christmas. I toyed with the idea of making it a food-related thing as well, but I haven't put much more thought into it because I have very few thoughts lately other than "sleep," "work," and "sneeze." (I have allergies or something.) Maybe this weekend! Or another day when I don't work! Maybe I should see if other people want to walk, look and eat/drink. Hmm...
Tonight I'm finally going to get to the Waldorf, and in my birthday dress that was sewn specifically for the tiki room. Just a month-and-a-half late. One of my workplaces is having a Christmas party there, and the soul DJs have moved over there from the Astoria, so I'll be a dancing machine tonight. I didn't quite get a full night's sleep last night (or any night this week, to be honest), so I'm hoping I can stay upright until at least midnight or later. All I know is that I wish I could get my hair done before the parties, but I'm not sure the hair salon in the hotel is open at that time. Guess I can see.
The fit of insanity I mentioned is because I wound up putting down a down payment on adult braces on Tuesday, meaning I'll be watching my pennies a little bit until I get used to paying for braces instead of saving money. Boo! This is especially painful for me because I suffered through braces when I was in high school and they made me so miserable, especially during the elastic stage. But this time around I'll have non-grey ones, ones that will hopefully be hard to see at all, and will last only about 8 months if I keep them in my mouth long enough each day. When my dentist and I started discussing this possibility earlier this year**, I started crying thinking about getting the grey ones again. I think he was surprised, which is surprising since I seem to cry a lot around my dentist. There's never good news when I visit. But I'll be pleased to have straight teeth one day next year.
*At the bakery restaurant thing in the CBC building. I like food on sticks, and there were chicken pieces on sticks and cheese & bocconcini on sticks and two free drinks each and lots of people that I don't know. I did have interesting conversations with a couple of people from French radio and French TV, and won a shirt that is too small and a toque. I also ate one perogy, introduced for the news people only (the lucky bastards), and it makes me so excited to both make perogies next week with my delightfully awesome friend Rebecca and eat perogies until I explode on Christmas Eve with my family. I love flavourful perogies.
**You may be asking yourself, why the hell would anyone get adult braces?! The answer is simple: I have to get a front tooth pulled out because it's infecting my gums. It is gross. It is blackening. It has bugged me since I got a root canal in it about 17 years ago. Now it is being pulled out and leaving a space that is too small to get an implant and too wide to just leave. Thus... braces. Sigh.
But today is quite a nice day. A hopeful day, even!
Yesterday I arrived home after a work party* and discovered a delivery attempt door hanging thing. Wowza! In a (in retrospect) fit of insanity, I decided to order the 360 degree camera from the Lomo site because, since I've been working so much, I thought I should get something that I will enjoy when I no longer work 55 hours a week. The 360 just looks neat, literally taking a 360 degree photo. I ordered it on Sunday night and it was at my door at 1pm yesterday. That's fricking fast! Makes me think I still have time to send Christmas cards.
Unfortunately, I have about 18 piggy bucks to spend before the 20th, so will probably order something from them again in the next week. Might be time to just get film or something less camera-y. But I love the cameras...
Also went to the Christmas Market with my friend during the workday. There were a lot of sausages. Sausages are good and all, but I'm all about the pretzel and schnitzel (though I wasn't overly excited about the schnitzel. It was fine, but I'm sure a sausage with onions and sauerkraut would have hit the spot). Being the middle of the workday and all, we didn't have the specially imported German beer, but I like that, once inside, you can walk around with a beer in your hand. The Woodwards window display reminded me that I want to do the Woodwards window display walk sometime before Christmas. I toyed with the idea of making it a food-related thing as well, but I haven't put much more thought into it because I have very few thoughts lately other than "sleep," "work," and "sneeze." (I have allergies or something.) Maybe this weekend! Or another day when I don't work! Maybe I should see if other people want to walk, look and eat/drink. Hmm...
Tonight I'm finally going to get to the Waldorf, and in my birthday dress that was sewn specifically for the tiki room. Just a month-and-a-half late. One of my workplaces is having a Christmas party there, and the soul DJs have moved over there from the Astoria, so I'll be a dancing machine tonight. I didn't quite get a full night's sleep last night (or any night this week, to be honest), so I'm hoping I can stay upright until at least midnight or later. All I know is that I wish I could get my hair done before the parties, but I'm not sure the hair salon in the hotel is open at that time. Guess I can see.
The fit of insanity I mentioned is because I wound up putting down a down payment on adult braces on Tuesday, meaning I'll be watching my pennies a little bit until I get used to paying for braces instead of saving money. Boo! This is especially painful for me because I suffered through braces when I was in high school and they made me so miserable, especially during the elastic stage. But this time around I'll have non-grey ones, ones that will hopefully be hard to see at all, and will last only about 8 months if I keep them in my mouth long enough each day. When my dentist and I started discussing this possibility earlier this year**, I started crying thinking about getting the grey ones again. I think he was surprised, which is surprising since I seem to cry a lot around my dentist. There's never good news when I visit. But I'll be pleased to have straight teeth one day next year.
*At the bakery restaurant thing in the CBC building. I like food on sticks, and there were chicken pieces on sticks and cheese & bocconcini on sticks and two free drinks each and lots of people that I don't know. I did have interesting conversations with a couple of people from French radio and French TV, and won a shirt that is too small and a toque. I also ate one perogy, introduced for the news people only (the lucky bastards), and it makes me so excited to both make perogies next week with my delightfully awesome friend Rebecca and eat perogies until I explode on Christmas Eve with my family. I love flavourful perogies.
**You may be asking yourself, why the hell would anyone get adult braces?! The answer is simple: I have to get a front tooth pulled out because it's infecting my gums. It is gross. It is blackening. It has bugged me since I got a root canal in it about 17 years ago. Now it is being pulled out and leaving a space that is too small to get an implant and too wide to just leave. Thus... braces. Sigh.
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