Reblog: Two days alone

Feeling this post, originally from September 2012, could use another outing. (Will also point out that Jean’s being at location with wifi access—unlike when he’s in the Canadian wilderness—is an improvement. Especially since we’ve figured out Skype. Sort of.)

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Jean was away on a canoe trip the last couple days. He was asked a lot, as he usually does on these occasions, “What does Cathy do when you’re gone?”

When obviously, I just sit in the corner and cry.

No, actually… I’m not really sure what to make of the question. (What do they think single people do… all the time?) But to answer it: I do pretty much the same things I do on any other weekend at home. Only alone.

Like, I run errands. I read (especially on my highly addictive tablet). I watch TV and DVDs (especially those programs Jean doesn’t care for). I cook (and eat. And drink wine.) I exercise (inside and out). I call up my parents.

Now, on some of these occasions, I do get together with friends and do stuff (dinner or concert out, or whatever), or get myself to Toronto and meet with a sister or two. I am even capable of taking myself out to a movie or concert—something I occasionally do even when Jean is home, actually, to give him a break from attending events he’s only semi-interested in. (Try it sometime, if you haven’t. Turns out, once you’re in a crowd at an event, it’s really hard to tell you’re a loser with no friends. 🙂 )

I guess that’s what they’re really wondering, eh? How I handle being alone? Well, for an introvert, there are worse things than alone. My weekend was not exciting, but know what? I was never bored.

Movie review: Flash Gordon (1980)

*** Flash Gordon (December 1980) – Rental

Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow. When Ming the Merciless sets his evil sights on planet Earth, football star Flash Gordon and stewardess Dale Arden are kidnapped into the fight to save it by scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov.

She says: My interest in this movie was musical: I’ve had the soundtrack—music entirely by Queen—for some time, and was curious to see the movie that went along with it. All I really knew about the film was that it hadn’t done very well at the box office, hadn’t been that well-reviewed, and looked kind of cheesy.

And indeed, in the usual measure of these things, it’s not a very good movie. The lead actors are not strong (though many of supporting actors, such as Timothy Dalton, are good). The plot is fairly ridiculous. (On the extras, the screenwriter admits it might help if someone—anyone—had given him any feedback on it.) The science is impossible. The main characters have no depth or nuance.

But damn, it’s an entertaining movie! The silly plot moves along at a brisk pace, with many quite hilarious sequences, such as Flash using a football-shaped ornament to fight off Ming’s soldiers. The lead actors are all quite nice-looking, and frequently (un)dressed to show that off. The absurd planets and landscapes are gorgeous; the whole thing is a feast for the eyes.

And the soundtrack is truly awesome!

He says: That movie is bad in a really good way.

The trailer:

Post-Valentine activities

We don’t go out to restaurants on or around Valentine’s Day, as it’s just unpleasant. The next day Valentine’s we did go out ballroom dancing, though. Sufficiently romantic, and considerably more enjoyable!

The following day was the “Family Day” stat holiday in Ontario, so we went with a small group for our second snowshoe outing of the year. As with our first time, about a week earlier, we had lovely winter weather and tons of snow to walk on. You could almost forget you were still in the city.

Wait! .. don't leave me in the cold! — Off we go…

Yesterday got warmer and rainier, then icier, so I’m not sure how the snow will be now. But we decided to have a dinner out then, at Verses. While we’d had a couple special dinners there semi recently, we hadn’t had a chance to try their regular winter menu before now.

Verses - a lovely refuge on a stormy night — We actually had the place to ourselves, to start… Not something you’d experience February 14th.

The appetizer list always has many amazing-sounding options on it, but I quickly settled on the oysters five ways: poached, cripsy, Rockefeller, steamed, and of course, raw. Each with its own distinct accompaniments, from smoked bacon to tomato sorbet shooter. My goodness, each one was fantastic.

Jean managed with the foie gras, this time served with foie gras custard brûleé, brioche, and cranberry and bluberry. That was rather sublime as well.

We were both tempted by the roast duck served with kale, squash batons, and chestnut ravioli, but Jean let me order it.

It was quite delectable, but he probably did even better with the tender pork shank braised in cider and beer, served with rutabaga, Brussels sprouts, and beets.

He wasn’t able to finish it all, but declared it made a rather good breakfast as well. (The wine, by the way—which he did not have for breakfast—was a very lovely 2010 Cote du Rhone, one of their feature wines.)

For dessert, I went chocolate, with a flourless chocolate cake served with chantilly, apricot foam, and passion fruit popsicle. All at a quite manageable serving size.

Jean had the cheese plate, which was downsized somewhat compared with past menus, but still fairly large (better for sharing, only I didn’t, so he left some). He included a manchego, Sauvagine, and goat cheese. It was served with dried wild blueberry bread, spiced almonds, port fig jam, and honey comb.

Hmm. Maybe we should make this a tradition… Post-Valentine weekday dinner out…

Flirting with the arts

Last weekend we attended a KW Symphony concert called Sound in Motion: Music and the Body. This was part of the Intersections series, where the orchestra combines with something; this time, with a yoga instructor or “mindfulness educator”. The evening began with only her, actually, leading us through some breathing and stretching exercises. Of course, we were in street clothes and sitting in concert seats, so we weren’t exactly doing downward facing dog, but she adapted to the space we had and the fact that we could stand up.

During the first few pieces the symphony played, she continued to interact with us in various ways, leading us through movements and breathing in conjunction with the music. We weren’t to clap between pieces, but to just keep focusing inward.

For the last two pieces all was quiet, though, as we were to try to stay mindful as we just listened to the music (which were a couple of more modern classical music pieces). It was amazing how well that worked at quelling the problem one usually has at classical concerts, that the mind has a tendency to start wandering off at certain points. Maybe, if you can manage to go right from yoga class to a classical concert, you’ll get more out of it.

That was Friday. On Sunday I was registered into this program called Flirting with the Arts. It offered 12 half-hour arts-related sessions, of which you selected 6, to give you just a taste of what they’re like. It was held at a volunteer-run coffee shop in downtown Kitchener (itself an interesting place).

Although I thought I’d allowed myself sufficient time to get there for the 10:00 start, I was wrong. Between snow making the drive slower and the nearest parking lot being full, I arrived at about 9:59. Thanks to some jogging to get there.

My first session was by an art therapist, so focused on creating really personal art, not intended for display to others. It was interesting, but not ideal as my first one, as I was still stressed from the lateness and had trouble getting my heart rate back down to normal enough to really focus, as was the point here.

The second was on slide guitar playing. I quite like the idea of playing guitar, as it’s so much more portable than piano, and some songs I like simply sound better on guitar than piano. But I don’t know that I like the idea enough to spend the time it would take to learn.

Slide guitar playing means, basically, putting a tube on your finger and sliding that down the strings to play, rather than pressing the strings down at certain positions to strum chords. In a half hour, we just got the basics of what you can do with that sliding technique. I didn’t seem to be a natural, so I think the instructor was just being polite when he said my first efforts sounded great. But I did get better by the end.

Bonnie Raitt playing slide guitar — Not destined to be the next Bonnie Raitt—note the tube on her finger, here?

Next up was acting. The lesson here was that you don’t inject emotion into words when acting; you feel emotion and project that outward, regardless of the actual words. This was explored in exercises where you had to convey a message using gibberish, and another where you had to convey an emotional backstory into truly prosaic dialogue. It was a cool session with a very enthusiastic instructor (a playwright).

We had lunch break then, which Jean came to join me for. (We went to another little restaurant rather than eat this cafe.) Then he ran away and I continued with afternoon sessions.

The first was landscape painting, and the idea was to try to paint the outline of a landscape you were imagining. My main problem was I’m not any kind of good at just imagining a landscape, so was never really sure where I was trying to go in that half hour. The results were therefore less than impressive.

Next up was portrait painting. We were instructed to bring a photo of ourselves to work from. It was the fifth time of day this artist had been teaching amateurs, and she was getting good at helping us avoid the pitfalls. It was all step by step: the head shape, eye position, and nose position in pencil outline; colour in the shadows of the face using various shades of some kind of pencil; don’t spend too long on the eyes, and don’t draw them too big (though I still did); and then take wet brush to the color and bring it life.

It was surprising how well that turned in just a half hour. Mine actually looked like me.

Finally, I had a writing session. That one was right in my comfort zone, so wasn’t as enlightening. But it was fun, especially the session in which we had to create stories by adding a sentence to what other people. One turned out quite hilarious.

So not sure if any of these flirtations will turn into longer-term relationships, but it was certainly an interesting Sunday.

Movie reviews: Philomena and Beginners

***½ Philomena (November 2013) – Theatre

Judi Dench, Steve Coogan. A cynical reporter agrees to help the elderly Philomena locate her son, who was taken from her by the church when she was a teenager.

She says: A rather delightful movie about a pretty appalling subject. The interaction between the cynical, worldly, atheist reporter Martin and the sentimental, parochial, and still-Christian Philomena is wonderful. Especially those moments when you—along with Martin—realize that Philomena is not as naive as you might think.

Their journey together to discover what happened to Philomena’s son after he was taken from her from the convent she was sent to as pregnant teenager is full of twists that I didn’t see coming. It’s all based on a true story, and it doesn’t cast the Irish Catholic church in a particularly good light.

He says: It was terrible what happened to her! It all made me so angry!

But it was nice that I wasn’t bored by the movie.

**½ Beginners (November 2011) – Rental

Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent. After meeting a woman he connects with, artist Oliver thinks back on his Dad’s last few years of life as an out gay man.

She says: This movie plays with time a lot, flashing back to Oliver’s last few months with his Dad, who was dying of cancer but determined to live to the full to the end; to the period before when his Dad first came out as a gay man, after the death of Oliver’s mother; and to key moments of his childhood. In present time, Oliver is trying to negotiate a new relationship with the unpredictable but insightful Anna. Both Oliver and Anna have a history of failed relationships, of not being able to see them through. Oliver uses the memories of his Dad’s life as a lesson in how to change.

So, it’s a pretty arty. But the performances are great, the actors have good chemistry, and I enjoyed the journey.

He says: I didn’t understand that movie. Not my thing.

Weekend in Tranna

Why Toronto in February, when the weather, much more often than not, is abysmal? Two words: free hotel. Jean goes there for a work-related conference; hotels don’t charge extra for another person staying in the room.

Considering how bad this winter has been in general, the weather picture wasn’t so bad. The temperature had been in deep freeze all week, but rose for that weekend. KW was expecting a lot of snow Saturday (and that materialized), but Toronto, not quite as much (also materialized).

The main issue was that the snow they did get was very wet, as it was near the freezing mark, and we did do a ton of walking outside in it on Saturday afternoon. Tiring of the wet hair, I bought a hat with a brim, but there wasn’t much to be done about the wet coat collar, or the wet pant bottoms. And the “waterproof” boots eventually caved in under the pressure, allowing water in at the seams. Squish, squish!

I had no other footwear with me, so while I could and did change into dry pants and socks for dinner, the best I think of boot-wise was putting the feet in plastic bags in the wet boots. That did keep the feet dry when I was outside. Once sitting inside, though, eventually, there was a bit of a perspiration issue…

But hey, it really was nice to get away. Friday night Jean had a conference dinner, so I went out with my sister and her husband to Bangkok Garden, where they were offering a Winterlicious menu that was, in fact, quite delicious, along with being a good deal. My sister and I both had the options of mussels in lemongrass and beer sauce, rainbow trout with pineapple red curry, and chocolate chai mousse for dessert.

Jean remained occupied Saturday morning, so after breakfast (really good waffles with walnuts and banana), I decided to go check out the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time.

It had four floors of exhibits. The basement presented shoes though history, including the very oldest pair of shoes ever found:

The next floor showed footwear of famous people, such Elvis Presley, Elton John, John Lennon, and Justin Beiber. (Beiber’s “Baby, Baby, oh” song proved to be the biggest earworm.) The second floor covered traditional shoemaking, a somewhat endangered endeavour. And the top floor was for special exhibits. Currently it’s on sneaker culture, something I previously knew nothing about. Like, people spend big money on sneakers. They riot over particular limited editions of them. They build up huge collections, so they never have to repeat the same pair. One dude had enough to cover the next three years—new pair every day.

We had been thinking of going to the ROM Saturday afternoon, but I felt museumed-out, and Jean was somewhat stir-crazy from all the hotel time, so that become our soggy walk afternoon.

For supper we went to George on Queen, a restaurant with a good reputation. It’s a nice room with notably well-dressed patrons and excellent service. They specialize in multi-course meals, but we went for just three (rather than five or seven).

We were quite blown away by the first course, which was centered around duck for me, and smoked trout for Jean.

All the elements on the plate really worked, and were creative and fun.

The next two courses, of tuna and lobster, then seabass and arctic char, were very good. But they couldn’t quite match up to the standard of the first, so you couldn’t help feeling a bit let down. For dessert, we just shared some cheese, and I had an ice wine while Jean had an Italian sweet sparkling.

On the walk back from George

Sunday we met up with sister and husband again, this time at a dim sum restaurant, the Crown Princess. This one is fancier than most and doesn’t feature the usual little carts; instead you have to order from a menu. The items were of a very high standard, definitely above the average dim sum place (though I also like that). And it wasn’t really that expensive.

Good job that we aimed to arrive by 11:00, because it got busier and busier as we were sitting, until there was quite a lineup. We had the table right by the door, where the hungry people in line could watch us eat. A bit awkward!

Chopped Canada (or what to do with that freeze-dried shrimp)

I’ve written before—though not for a while—about how I’m not a big Food Network fan, despite liking to cook, and being known to occasionally watch TV.

But I have been somewhat taken with Chopped Canada. I’d seen the American version a few times and found that somewhat interesting, so checked out the Canadian version.

The first episode was fantastic because one competing chef was clearly an unlikable ass, and he ended up going mano a mano with a woman—a cooking school teacher rather than restaurant chef—who at first had seemed hopeless out of her element. (The other two contestants were also men, but of less striking temperament.)

And, satisfyingly, the nice woman won. Deservedly. In the end, she made a better three-course meal.

Although the remaining episodes haven’t had such vibrant personalities, I’ve been continuing to find it entertainment. But I can’t kid myself that it’s any kind of useful.

Because in real life, you are never handed four random food items, some of which are barely food (strawberry drink powder, processed cheese slices, macaroni deli slices?), and told that in exactly 20 minutes (or 30 or 60—depends on the round), you have to turn it into an appealing appetizer, main, or dessert, complete with lovely plating. Just doesn’t come up.

However, in a recent episode, where the ingredients were not so much bizarre in themselves as just not seeming to belong together in one dish, two of the items that had to be used were freeze-dried shrimp and dark chocolate. One of the chefs, having made something lovely with the other two ingredients in that round, seemed at a bit of a loss what to do with these ones. So although he seemed quite dubious himself, he just melted the chocolate, and tossed the shrimp in there, and served that on the side.

Of course, the judges were a bit dubious, too. Yet to a man, and woman, they declared the freeze-dried shrimp in dark chocolate to be absolutely delicious.

So there’s my one takeaway from this show so far: Apparently, some day, I need to get me some freeze-dried shrimp and chocolate-coat them. (If anyone out there is brave enough to try this before me, do let me know how it goes…)

Un-chocolate-coated shrimp…

Feeling angsty? Need some power?

iTunes Genius playlist feature, whereby iTunes create a playlist for you based on a particular song, often isn’t nearly as smart as its name would lead you to believe. Sometimes the results are simply odd, and the songs don’t seem to go together at all. Often they are obvious in a boring way, such as combining a Lowest of the Low song with music by other Canadian band, as though Canadian-ness rather than lyrical intelligence, passionate delivery, and great melody were the key features of their sound.

But I thought this particular one, built around Tracy Bonham’s “Mother Mother”, was pretty good. The songs did seem to work together, and yet I doubt I would have thought of combining them myself.

[To people viewing this in email: There are a couple videos in linked in this post. They may be visible only in the browser, not in the email message.]

I call it “Empowered angst”. Partner acting like a crazy person? Propose to her! (Anything, Anything) Being teased cause you don’t drink, you don’t smoke? Own it! (Goody Two Shoes) Being cheated on (Bring Me Some Water)? Let them know what they’re missing! (Like the Way I Do).

Song	Artist
Mother Mother	Tracy Bonham
Blood Makes Noise	Suzanne Vega
What I Am	Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Dear God	Sarah McLachlan featuring XTC
Fall Down	Toad the Wet Sprocket
Anything, Anything	Dramarama
Wild Horses	The Sundays
Fuck And Run	Liz Phair
New	No Doubt
Sweet Jane	Cowboy Junkies
Voices Carry (Single Mix)	‘Til Tuesday
Pretty In Pink	The Psychedelic Furs
Goody Two Shoes	Adam Ant
Crush With Eyeliner	R.E.M.
Crazy Baby	Joan Osborne
Bring Me Some Water	Melissa Etheridge
I’m Afraid Of Americans (V1)	David Bowie
The Emperor’s New Clothes	Sinéad O’Connor
Middle Of The Road	The Pretenders
Follow You Down	Gin Blossoms
Temptation Waits	Garbage
Excuse Me Mr.	No Doubt
Like the Way I Do	Melissa Etheridge
Possession	Sarah McLachlan
Bang And Blame	R.E.M.

Hey, remember this video? Aimee Mann being stifled by her jerk of a boyfriend?

Maple syrup pie

Not sure what it is about Canadians and all our variations on sugar in pie crust: Tarte au sucre (literally, sugar pie), butter tarts, pecan pie, and now maple syrup pie.

I made this on a whim this weekend. The recipe is from Canadian Living. I already had a homemade pie crust ready, so the rest was easy. Walnuts in the bottom of the crust. Then you mix eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, whipping cream, and flour and pour that in. Truly a dieter’s delight, a nutritionist’s dream!

Maple syrup pie with whipped cream — How about some whipped fat on that baked sugar?

Not sure if this will change at all with refrigeration, but it’s quite a bit runnier than I expected, though I used the recommended amount of flour and eggs and baked it for the specified time.

And the taste? Well, the word sweet comes to mind…

They made me tweet the promo, but I actually do like Unroll.me

Are you one of those “zero inbox” people?

Or someone wise enough to have some “junk” email address that you reserve for corresponding with corporations and organizations, keeping your “real” email account in a pristine state for communicating with actual friends and family?

Or someone who quickly and ruthlessly unsubscribes or trashes any unsolicited email that you receive from corporations and organizations?

If so, then this post is not for you.

But if you’re somewhat daunted by the amount of email you’re receiving; noting that even as you unsubscribe from three mail lists, ten more seem to pop up; even finding yourself setting aside time each weekend to try to plow through the mountain of unread email that has accumulated during the week… You might be interested in Unroll.me.

It’s a free service. If you sign up and allow access to your email account, it will scan through and list all the “digest” emails—all those mass mailings you get. You can then go through the list and, for each, decide whether to:

Unsubscribe
Keep in Inbox
Add to RollUp

And what is a RollUp? Well, that is a single email message you receive daily, tidily compiling in one spot all those “digest” emails that you are actually interested in, but no longer want clogging up your inbox as individual mail messages.

As new digests arrive, Unroll.Me will continue to detect them and give you the option to categorize those, also. And you can always go in and manually tweak things.

The unsubscribing option has a limit of five: Once you reach that, you have to agree to promote Unroll.me somehow to do more unsubscribing. I went with tweeting, as I have few Twitter followers anyway, so I figured that would annoy least people. The other options are a Facebook post or sending an email to five friends (making you something of an email spammer yourself, of course).

Other than that, I haven’t found too many catches with it. No idea how they plan to make money from this, but the RollUps are not cluttered with ads.

And yes, it’s helping. Maybe not quite as much as I’d like, due to some digest emails being sent from varieties of email addresses (I’m talking to you, Liberals) and possibly a need to move a few more items from Inbox to RollUp. But yes, my Inbox is already a somewhat calmer place.

I use it with Gmail, but it apparently works with many other email clients as well. In Gmail, “under the hood”, it’s using an Unroll.me label, marking roll-up email as read when it arrives, and having it skip your inbox. So if you ever want to see or delete the original emails, you can just pop up into that Unroll.me folder.

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