laughercize

with the season 2 dvd of grey's anatomy exhausted, mila's excuse for skipping pilates finally ran out. she had been on pilates break on account of finding it too taxing in the mornings to swap the grey's dvd for the pilates disc.

anyway, not only has this been a rough time for mila's physical tone, but it has also been most emotionally taxing on yours truly. you see, with no pilates to power-up mila's 'power house,' she insisted that the best exercise for her abs was frequent laughing. no light giggles, mind, she was planning on deep abdominal gufaws. the only problem was that she felt I was not funny enough, so I got yelled at constantly to make jokes and in general to be more merry. I am glad pilates is back.

carb log

last night:
20:00h: searched cupboards, found no dry carbs for my consumption. returned to my office crestfallen.
20:15h: tried cupboards again. still no carbs. briefly considered a spoonful of oats. decided against it.
21:00h: no dry carbs mysteriously hiding in fridge.
21:30h: situation dire. feeling faint.
21:50h: briefly considered panfrying a mixture of flour and water. decided against it.
22:10h: flour and milk?
22:30h: wondered if neighbours would loan me a carb?
23:00h: went to bed. carb withdrawal pangs ravaged my body all night.

today:
06:40h: awoke drenched in carb withdrawal sweat.
10:00h: went to tim hortons with doctor. eyed tea biscuits greedily, but no one else got food.
12:10h: ate lunch. no dry carbs.
13:00h: went to tim hortons. tea biscuits depleted. purchased a dutchie.
13:01h: dutchie not satisfying. mila watching, or would have bought a second.
16:30h: obtained recommendation for honey oat pretzel twists
18:00h: ate dinner. still no dry carbs.
19:00h: finally broke. power walked to loblaws.
19:15h: procured pretzel twists and mini ritz with cheese. then went to cookie aisle but was frozen with carb withdrawal paralysis. could not choose cookie. aborted the sweet carb mission and ran to the cash.
19:16h: ripped open bag of pretzel twists and crammed a handful into my salivating mouth.
22:32h: severe carb bloat. supplies of pretzel twists and ritz minis severely depleted.

I will be sure to keep you abreast of any new developments.

mcmedicine

we have to pick our surgical rotations in the next month or so. mila and I were chatting over our choices a few nights ago, when mila informed me that her top pick was neurosurgery. well this was news to me since I was unaware that mila had any interest in neurosurgery. she explained to me, however, that the cases all seemed very interesting, and she liked the style of neurosurgical work.

"you know, like dr. sheppard's surgeries. they're always pretty neat. just something about them."

something like patrick dempsey's flowing hair and gentle smile?

holiday plans

I wish I were on some sort of medication so that I could temporarily cease taking it and treat myself to a drug holiday. they sound positively relaxing!

fast food nation

for the past few days mila has been insisting that there is a large arby's logo outside our window. thinking it was only her overly-large serving of pad thai talking, I contentedly sat in my non-window-facing seat and continued on with my dinner, oblivious to the commercialization going on in our very neighbourhood.

finally one night I went over to the window to look at this alleged logo. indeed, some household nearby has erected a large arby's 10-gallon hat, in arby's red no less. I suspect that the owners of this hat may claim it is a festive bell, but unfortunately the strobe setting that they have selected precludes the detailed examination which could decide this matter one way or the other.

santa claus

mila has been writing some replies to children who wrote letters to santa. I have been trying to help, but she never seems to like my suggestions. some of the rejects:

dear jake,
I believe the homonym you are looking for is 'write'. christmas has a 't'. also, please review the rules regarding sentence fragments and comma splices. finally, your use of contractions in a formal letter is grossly unprofessional.
try harder next year,
santa

dear julie,
a pony? are you kidding? how does some coal sound instead!?
dream on,
santa

dear adam,
your drawing is amateur at best.
you insult my sensibilities,
santa

saving lives

last night I went to the local library to give blood. according to my blood donor card, this was my 20th donation. but according to the computer it was only my 19th. I wonder if there is some sort of appeal process to sort this out. now I am going to have to wait an extra 56 days before I get my 20th pin. wholly unacceptable. maybe blood services has an ombudsman I can contact. no wonder they have tainted blood with this kind of shoddy administration going on.

anyway, this whole imbroglio was pushed to the back burner when midway through my donation the phlebotomists suddenly began reliving the staff christmas party from last week. see, linda wore a boa to the party. I am not entirely sure why this topic was able to consume the entire blood collection staff for a good ten minutes, to be quite honest, but it did. the consensus seemed to be that this boa made linda "hot," though it was left undetermined whether or not it made her "hotter" than jean, who had apparently worn quite the christmas sweater to the gala. I imagine sequins were involved, and I would not be surprised to learn that it had some manner of electronics embedded in it. flashing lights, perhaps.

as if things were not crazy enough at masonville public library, one of the other nurses asked if this boa was a real boa, which did not really make any sense to me, since I cannot imagine what a fake boa might be. however, it promptly ratcheted the discussion up a notch, with shrieks of "boa CONSTRICTOR!" filling the room, as though the name of a snake somehow constituted some manner of joke. fearing I might get poked by a stray needle as nurses danced about the room reenacting moves from last week's party, I fled the library, foolishly promising to return in 56 days time.

slow food crush

hey pathology professor. you were talking about alzheimer's today. I admit I was not really paying attention. instead I was thinking of questions I would ask of you when you give us a chance to ask questions.

see, I know you are into slow food. you told us that you gave a talk at a restaurant last year and then I googled you and found out that you love slow food. that is so sweet. we should probably be friends.

I have so many questions for you. for instance, what is your favourite novelty meat? I think mine is squab. which side do you sit on in the foie controversy? me, I side with the more foie for simon side. what about black cod, does it being endangered keep you from enjoying it? I can still enjoy it pretty well, to be quite honest. last question: if you were an amuse bouche, what would you be? I will have to think about my answer to this for a while. we can talk about it later.

hello neighbours

hi new nextdoor neighbours.

it is okay that your kitchen appliances are currently living in the hallway on account of renovations.

I really do not mind that sounds of sawing, hammering, drilling, and the occasional phrase of rock music are penetrating our shared wall.

god is probably not super happy that you continue to work on this day of rest, but it is cool with me. jesus would understand, I think he was a carpenter.

but if I walk down the hall making unnecessarily loud comments to mila regarding how I would like to look inside and see what kind of work you are doing, I would really appreciate it if you could prop the door open or something so I could see in next time I am walking by.

poetry

"woman"

woman whose car is covered in 2 feet of snow
why are you wearing a wool coat?
your black coat is now white.

clearing the snow from behind your car
requires more than wild kicking.
now you have fallen over

oh good you have returned with a shovel.
it is a child's shovel:
I hope you are not in a rush.

sing-a-long

oh the weather outside is frightful
but I am inside watching grey's anatomy
maybe I will go sew my pillows
though I should probably have a glass of nog first

thrilling chocolate conclusion

well saturday came and went, and there was enough chocolate left to make cookies. mila even helped make them. quality control was a constant issue, with cookie sizes being somewhat variable. needless to say, mila's tended to the large side, in a futile attempt to escape the kitchen as soon as possible. futile because I ran that cookie session with an iron fist. the entire time we were rolling them she kept pushing me to make a monster cookie with all the remaining dough so that she could go do something else. she did not get away with her enormous chocolate cookies though. iron fist, as I said.

so cookies out of the way, I had been looking forward to a morsel or two of the remaining chocolate. however, mila informed me this morning that she had finished "her" chocolate. by which she did not mean "her share" of the chocolate, but by which she meant "all of the chocolate." presumably I wasted my share making cookies.

I am now craving some of my favourite thomas haas chocolate cookies, which are little more than chocolate and butter, with just enough ground almond to hold them together. where is the nearest purveyor of single origin chocolate around here? must I resort to lindt?

incidentally, lindt was one of the featured chocolates on langdon's chocolate menu. just a thought, but taking cues from swiss chalet is probably not a great idea if you are trying to hold onto your four stars.

reality show details

recently the bottom of our dishwasher has been filling far more quickly than the top shelf. why have we not been going through more glasses and mugs, I wondered. I am drinking plenty of nog, surely that should churn through the glassware. mila, clearly, must not be pulling her weight.

mila is not pulling her weight because she chugs from the carton. she is always leaving the kitchen with her litre of chocolate milk in hand. she is not putting the chocolate milk on the table for dinner. she is sneaking into the hall to chug out of the carton because she knows I will yell at her to get a glass if I see her doing it. I yell at her anyway, because I am onto her game. I am also not tricked when she goes for a short trip into the dining room with jug of orange juice in hand. so I yell, vainly, for her to please use a vessel of some sort.

if we were on reality tv they would need little captions to put next to our names when we were on camera. I would probably be "pro blogger" or perhaps "arbiter of good taste." I am undecided as of yet.

mila would be "the fratboy."

rumours

I hear people have been doing work lately. is this true? should I be doing this? because to be honest it would kind of interfere with my redecorating. these pillows are not going to recover themselves, you know.

hairdresser movie reviews

you, me and dupree:
washington post: "a mess... an abomination... a void"
rotten tomatoes: 22%
and rhonda: "hilarious. it was really funny!"

accepted:
toronto star: "rejected"
rotten tomatoes: 35%
and rhonda: "you should rent it! super funny!"