Hopefully clever comments about life in Vancouver, B.C. as lived by a French girl from Montreal
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Ideas for Christmas
Mom asked for some gift ideas for Christmas, so here it goes.
Cooking utensils - meat tenderizer (makes yummy tenderloin medallions) - skimmer (to get the scummy layer off the stock) - tongs (so practical)
Camping equipment I know, camping season is far away, but it's something I'm really looking forward to doing again next year. Tucker and I are well-equipped for car camping, but we plan to do some overnight and even longer expeditions next Summer, so the following equipment would be really practical: - cookset - coffee/tea filter - headlamp (great for midnight visits to the outhouse) - stove - self-inflating sleeping pad
Books are always fun to get, especially small books that fit well in a new tote bag (I like this one, just enough space to fit an umbrella, my Palm, my wallet, glasses and sunglasses). And I enjoy surprises too :-)
Not the flu, nothing distressing like that, just a mind-numbing, nose-dripping cold. Tucker asked "where did you get a cold from" (thinking "hey, I'm not sick, where did she get THAT from?") and then I had to remind him of his public transit days. Ah! yes. Public transit. Although there are many advantages to not being tied to a car for your daily commute, one slight nuisance of traveling with hundreds of people daily is that about 30% of them are sick. Chances are, you'll get a good cold, at least once per year, especially around this time.
Well, I'm taking this all in stride. This means a stronger immune system once I'm done with the bugs. And people at work know that I'm not feeling well and they leave me alone :-)
Well, we all seem to think so. If everyone is so special, then is special the new conformity? I haven't read the book yet, but I have to admit that the interview on CBC with its author, Hal Niedzviecki, has caught my attention. Here's the book's Web site.
Other books I did read recently include The Handmaid's Tale from Margaret Atwood and The Fourth Hand by John Irving. I read Atwood backwards, her more recent work before The Handmaid's Tale, and I see where the doom and gloom of Oryx and Crake came from. After a series of catastrophes, a new world "order" is imposed. Handmaids are fertile women hired by couples (Wives and Commanders) that cannot have children of their own. They are educated by Aunts and looked after by Marthas (housekeepers) and are only allowed out in pairs. Truly creepy.
The Fourth Hand was an interesting story. A playboy news anchor nicknamed the Lion Guy after loosing his left hand to a group of hungry circus lions falls in love with the wife of man who's hand he receives for a one-of-a-kind transplant operation.
Now, I just started Baudolio by Umberto Eco. I read The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before from Eco. It usually takes me a long time to get into his stories, but once you're captured by the plot, there's no letting go.
I did it, I ran my second 10k race this morning. I did OK for time, 1:06:41, a minute faster than my 2003 Sun Run. The last two kilometers were pretty hard, I was running with a bad cramp but didn't want to stop. I went to the race with Tucker, who ran in 52:39 (it's the long legs!!) and his friend Scott, who regularly runs 10k and over, and ran this race in 46:00 flat. That's pretty impressive!
We were lucky, the weather was cool (just above freezing), but no rain, only overcast. Rain would have made the race unpleasant. It was cold at the start, but once you get going, you're actually happy that it's cool.
After the race, we had a celebratory breakfast at Normandy, our favorite greasy joint. Everyone went back home to relax a bit. The boys then headed to Kits to watch the football game (still ongoing, I wonder what the score is) and I headed downtown for a makeup appointment at M.A.C. I'm going through a phase of changing my look a little bit (nothing dramatic), updating my wardrobe and my style. Must be because I turned 30, but look the same as I have looked for the past 5-6 years. I need a bit of change. The appointment was fun, the rep showed me how to do a subtle day look and a more sophisticated evening look. Now, I need practice ;)
The week is almost done, and I have to say, I didn't stop for very long. On the work front, I was interviewing two people, had a couple of demos for software we are investigating (content management systems) and, oh yeah, there was the regular HUGE load of e-mails to respond to... and some writing ;)
After work, it's been just as busy. Tuesday, I worked from home, had a small crew of contractors cutting linoleum and going "hmm...", "ahh...", "euhh..." It took the structural Engineering to get everyone to stick to a theory about my floor. It's not the floor, it's what's supporting the floor (or the absence thereof). I'm supposed to get the full report soon, but basically it comes down to running a support beam across the edge of the mezzanine (obviously attached on each side to the beams already in the walls) and jack up the entire 2nd floor to remove the existing curve. Nice! In the mean time (or until we get the bill and the Strata has to look into this - I might not be the only unit with this problem), they will rebuild a temporary, flat floor under my washer, SO I CAN DO LAUNDRY. This is happening tomorrow morning, between 7 and 8:30. My neighbors are going to love this!
Wednesday evening was a fabulous demonstration cooking class at Urban Fare. We watched, and ate. We had lentil and pancetta soup, rib-eye steak with sauce chasseur and steamed veggies, double-baked Jackson potatoes, and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. All this, demonstration included, for $20. Needless to say that I'm signing up for more of these babies in January (December sessions are all booked, I wonder why).
And tonight, a fundraiser event at Fine Finds in Yaletown. I went mostly to see my friend Gerri, the store is not really my style. Just so you can imagine the type, I was looking at some nice bracelets, which were not bracelets I discovered, but jewelry for your poodle. Too much pink, too much feathers. I ended up buying a bag of goodies, filled with samples of everything from candles to soap to paper notes to discount coupons. 100% of the goodie bag sales were going to breast cancer research. So I didn't mind getting frilly stuff.
The past weekend was a lot of fun. Saturday was my cooking class, where we learned about stocks and sauces. Always good to cover the basics. After the class, I met Tucker on Granville Street. He was at an Internet cafe, spending some well-deserved personal time on a computer. We did a bit of shopping, mostly just walking up and down Granville, then dropped by the 7-eleven to pick up my new knives! I bought a set of knives online from Lee Valley Tools, quite nice and very sharp. You can see the set on their web site.
Then, a quick visit to the gym to workout the cardio in preparation for next Sunday's 10k run. Finally, Saturday night, we had a birthday party for my friend Justin. Justin is a buddy I've met while taking the bus to work and we have kept in touch beyond the daily commute. We met lots of nice people at the party and Snoopy, Justin's new dog was real cute. He likes to cuddle and lie on your lap a lot (he's a Schnauzer mixed with a Beagle).
On Sunday, we woke up early (for us, that's 10) and had breakfast at Normandy, a greasy-spoon diner that probably hasn't changed its decor in the past 30 years. More shopping afterwards, I found black boots and dressed shoes from Hush Puppies. Tucker almost bought a new TV, his is getting really old and playing funky tricks (it probably can't keep up with the graphics in Halo 2 either). I think he wants to do a bit more shopping before shelling out the big bucks.
And this week, I'll be busy both at work and after. Tomorrow is the visit from the contractor and a structural engineer to poke holes through my floor and get a better idea of my collapsing floor problem. Then, on Wednesday, I'm going to a demonstration cooking lesson at Urban Fare, a very chi-chi food store in Yaletown. For $20, you get a couple of recipes, a chef-prepared three course meal and get to see how it's done. I say that's a great deal! Thursday is an event with Gerri at a place called Fine Finds. 20% of their sales will be donated to Breast Cancer Research. I'm not even sure what they sell, but it's fun anyways.
Last night, I had a fun date... with my boyfriend ;) We have to do this more often, we're often stuck in the day-to-day activities and don't acknowledge each other enough.
We had a lovely dinner, Roblochon on olive ciabatta bread for appies, with a couple of gin&tonic, then sundried-tomatoes marinated pork chops on the BBQ, with fresh asparagus and wild mushroom rice. We drank a bottle of Gewurztraminer from Ontario (the bottle is at home now and I don't recall the name of the winery). We rented a movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carey and Kate Winslet (excellent, strongly recommend it), that we watched while eating tiramisu and a chocolate-Baileys cake. Yum.
Today was the day... the day that Microsoft was releasing Halo 2, the eagerly anticipated successor of one of the best games they released for Xbox to date. Tucker being an Xbox fan, he obviously took the day off to be part of the first-day release craze. And he'll probably play most of the week.
But I've made my peace with this video game madness. There's no way to fight it, you just have to put reasonable guidelines in place. No Xbox if I am invited over (it's only the polite thing to do). If the plan is to spend the evening playing Xbox, I should know. I won't hang around, I'm sure I can find something to fill an evening ;) That's it. Not too complicated, no time limits, the last thing I want to do is hear myself nagging about how much time is spent with the electronic girlfriend.
If we ever end up moving together (one day maybe), we MUST have a two-bedroom apartment, and the extra bedroom will be the game room, fairly soundproof, so I can close the door and not hear the barbaric killings and endless gun shootings.
What else would you do on a rainy November Saturday? The trip down was actually a bit for work, Tucker had a customer down there with a car that needed to be returned to the dealership soon, so the initial purpose of the journey was to do this car exchange. By 1:30, we were done with the car business and had an entire afternoon to spend in sunny Seattle (I know, that's not how you typically think of Seattle but the weather was beautiful).
We had a late lunch near Pike Market, in a place called Etta's Seafood. I had albacore tuna sashimi and you could tell that the fish was fresh!
We then did a bit of shopping, at the Nordstrom Rack, Nordstrom, Kenneth Cole, Urban Outfiters, and a bunch of other cool places. Tucker bought some shoes (the Rack just happened to have their large shoe size sale!) and a shirt, I bought a couple of sweaters, a white shirt and a pair of dressed pants. I need clothes, badly. I haven't shopped for new clothes for a while, I buy one item here and there but haven't done any serious shopping recently. Well, now, I have clothes with holes or that are too small ("these pants are still good, I might fit in them again one day" is my famous line). Yeah, reality is tough baby, but easier to live with than undersized pants ;) I tell myself it's because of all the running and abs, I just have more muscles now :D
Word of advice: don't change your appliances... I just wanted a new washer-dryer and now I might be on my way to some bathroom renovations. The contractor who dropped by yesterday morning had a look at the floor in the bathroom and at some of the cracks that are starting to appear around the area where the appliances are. It's indeed a problem with the floor, easy to fix at this point, but he would need to tear out most of the existing floor, level and straighten the subfloor, and all my problems would be solved. Which got me thinking, if he's going to pull apart my bathroom, maybe I should take advantage of that and have some tiles installed, instead of replacing the existing linoleum. And the sink cabinet, which will have to be removed, doesn't look very modern, it could be replaced by something nicer. And the list goes on... Well, before I engage myself in a total bathroom makeover, I have to wait and see if the Strata is going to pay for the work on the floor. Being on Council, I know that we have other projects around the property that are more urgent, and since this renovation has not been budgeted for, I'm not confident as to how soon this can be repaired. I have to leave it to the rest of Council, I'm positively in conflict of interest on this question ;) Let's wait and see, but not too long, 'cause the more I wait, the more damage to my suite will be done. The contractor said it's OK to use the machine, just don't overload it. All right then.
On a brighter note, this morning, I had my first cooking class (first out of six) at the Cookshop, a cookware store close to my place. Chef Éric Arrouze is our instructor. The first course was focused on knives and vegetables. We learned how to use a chef's knife properly and how to julienne, chiffonade, and paysanne veggies while preparing pistou soup provencal, tomato and julienne vegetable salad with classic vinaigrette, and salad of citrus segments with basil chiffonade. I definitely had my 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables today! I also realized the difference that a good knife can make, I'll be shopping for one (and a good paring knife) this week.
In the never-ending saga of Melissa getting a new washer-dryer, yet a new development that I did not expect.
Today was levelling day, but levelling cannot be done. The verdict is that until I can have a solid and levelled floor, there's nothing that can be done about the machines. The floor under the linoleum seems to have collapsed in the washer-dryer closet (this was probably already like this when the old machines were in there) and since the flooring is loose, it does nothing to prevent excessive vibration, as the high spin cycle of the washer has nothing to contain it.
Since this is a structural problem, I am hoping that the Strata will fix this. Our property manager was very responsive to my problem and immediately put me in contact with a construction contractor. At 7:30 tomorrow morning, I should know more.
Although we have tried to keep in touch on a regular basis, Lindsay (my former boss and now a good friend) and I realized how long it had been since the last time we spoke. Tonight, we went for Bellinis at Earls (a Bellini is a slush for adults, replace the syrup with peach schnapps, grenadine and bubbly) and talked for hours! We had some much to gossip about, work, life, family, friends... It's good to sit down and just let loose for an evening. I also got to see her new car, a rust-color Mazda 3 (the hatchback model). Very neat little car, I like it!
It looks like I had to have my wisdom teeth pulled out in two visits. I was scheduled to have three wisdom teeth extracted on December 3, but one of them, already erupted, started giving me a really hard time yesterday (a minor cavity became quite the big hole). After a sleepless night and a painful morning, I took an emergency appointment with my dentist and had the culprit pulled out. A lot easier than I thought, didn't feel a thing. I'm sure things will be different when I can feel again ;) Hopefully, the ice I am applying is going to prevent swelling. Don't want to look like a freak tomorrow morning!
