Cream Puffs in Venice

A co-worker has a blog called Cream Puffs In Venice.  It’s lovely food porn.  I’m amazed that she has the time and energy not only to bake all those wonderful foods, but to also blog regularly about it.  And the photos!

Today she handed me some business cards (beautiful business cards, with crops from those excellent photos).  If I know anyone who needs to hire someone to bake for an event, I can give them her card.

Alas, I don’t know anyone who needs a baking caterer.  Do you?

Pride 2007

Another Pride week has ended.  We didn’t do much during the week … made it to a patio on Church St. only once for the pride-week-inflated-prices and the beer-in-a-plastic-cup experience.  We actually ran into people we knew – and everyone seemed to be having a fun time.  But overall, the strip was not busy during the week.  Not like in past years where you’d have to wait for at least 30 minutes to get onto a patio even on a Wednesday night during Pride week.

Saturday we marched in the Dyke March. I thinks it’s a lot of fun and wonder why so many dykes hang on the sidelines instead of getting on the street and marching too.  But I get profoundly cranky when I see men marching in the Dyke March.  Am I being too literal when I think the Dyke March should be for Dykes?  Am I being paranoid when I think the marching men are just a bunch of fags trying to take over another successful dyke establishment?  It’s bad enough that the strip is getting more and more cluttered with gay men on the Saturday,  but it’s a step too far when they start elbowing in to the march itself.

The 519 Beer Garden’s fountain area was dug up… I guess they’re going to build where it had been.  So that’s a big part of the traditional Saturday gone… no more women dancing in the fountain.  We wandered to another beer garden… $7 for a cooler, $2.75 for a bottle of water.  I thought that was bad until we went to the TD Stage where water was $3!  We got to the stage early, listened to a couple of bands (some guy on a guitar and the Cliks) followed by the Indigo Girls.  I’m not a big fan – they’re ok, but I don’t own any albums.  But it was fun to be 60 or so feet away from them while they performed a free concert for an hour and a half (well, free to us.  I’m sure they got paid somehow).  I had a great time. The crowd loved them. But the show stealer was the ASL interpreter  – he was great, it was wonderful watching him sign all the songs (even though I don’t understand any of it!) – it was very rhythmic, its own dance.

Ok – and I admit I had to put wads of kleenex in my ears because it was all just too loud.   I am now officially a middle-aged woman.   Sad, sad, sad. 

Sunday we had our BBQ.  A decent turnout.  S was preparing for additional people to come beyond those who replied “yes” to our invitation.  I, on the other hand, was expecting to get a lot of no-shows.  It is Pride, after all.  And I was right. ( I love being right).  Still, I wholeheartedly supported having too much food than too little.  It was nice to have people over – I didn’t interact much though – with my back to them while I BBQ’d the ribs and chicken. 

So we have heaps of emergency hot dogs that never got cooked.  Anyone hungry?

Go upstairs and throw me off the balcony…

S and I ran into an old acquaintance of hers while walking home from work.  When asked “so what’s new?”, S answered with quick details about having landscaping done and mentioned that were were planning to have a baby.  The acquaintance has two children and offered “I really can’t recommend it”. 

S and I looked at each other with amusement and surprise, when the dry-mouthed acquaintance finally finished the sentence with “enough”.

 It was like that stand up comic I heard describing how his mother-in-law spoke: “go upstairs and throw me off the balcony, a sweater”

Take a bite outta crime

I received an email from neighbours of ours, a few doors down.  They were broken into last week – someone kicked in their front door around 45 minutes after they left the house that afternoon.

With my sister living with us, I figure things will be relatively unpredicatble for any potential burglar.  She keeps odd hours and is around when we’re not.  She often sits on the front porch to smoke – whether its 2 am or 2 pm. 

We have an alarm system, but it’s not always on.  Again, it’s that smoking sister situation.  I don’t want to set the alarm before leaving for work only to have her set it off at 11am when she wakes up and goes for a smoke out back.  I did set it recently when both she and we were out.  But I forgot that the cleaner was to come that day and she set off the alarm. ADT called me around 15 minutes later (if she was a burglar, she’d have had plenty of time to rifle through the house before ADT even called me).  Around 2 hours later, ADT drove by.  I’m going to guess the cleaner was still in the house (or maybe she wasn’t, and that’s why I’m never really satisfied with the job she does), but the report ADT left behind indicated the house was secure and no one was there.

Our freshly burgled neighbour is thinking about trying to get a neighbourhood watch going.  I’m all for keeping an eye out for the neighbours, so I hope something comes of it.  But the best protection we have against break-and-enter is the fact that the view into our house from the front window isn’t completely obstructed.  Any asshole can look into our house and see that it’s really not worth breaking into.

The importance of good accessories

I’ve been noticing this guy when I walk to work.  He looks to be talking on a cell phone, except instead of a cell phone it’s a piece of wood.  Whomever he’s talking to on that thing seems like a fun guy.  I wonder what kind of reception it gets?

Reminds me a little of the homeless guy I saw outside College Park this winter, walking with a Lululemon tote bag – you know, the one with the uplifting life instructions on it like “Friends are More Important than Money” , “Do one thing a day that scares you”, “Life is full of setbacks”, “Dance , sing, floss and travel”.  He is likely living all those things, except maybe the flossing part.

We’ve come a long way, baby?

I’m looking at www.thestar.com ( the online version of the Toronto Sta) and I see these headlines on the main page:

Gender Wage Gap Stays Wide - A new study has found little progress in closing the wage gap between young men and women.

Daughter’s Slaying a Matter of ‘Honour’ – A father who ordered his daughter slain for falling in love with the wrong man in a so-called “honour killing” was found guilty of murder yesterday.

Mother Regrets Move to Jamestown – If Corina Saez had more money, she would have taken her family elsewhere.

We may have come a long way, but nowhere near far enough, apparently.

There goes the neighbourhood…

I don’t know why I blog.  It’s not like I actually expect to develop a readership.  But I switched from LiveJournal to WordPress because I was curious to see how many times my blog was viewed, what pages they saw, what search terms they used.  It’s an interesting feature.  Most people look at my blog having searched for how many calories are in a Tim Horton’s iced cap.  I guess people want to know the obvious.

Although I use WordPress now, my Livejournal blog is still there – it’s just no longer updated.  A couple of days ago I received notification that I received two comments in it.  I looked at the comments and they were left by a woman I haven’t talked to in years.  This isn’t one of those “gee we drifted apart” situations.  If I see this woman, I will cross the street to avoid her.  I’ve never run into anyone who was as manipulative or anyone who was such a chronic fuck-up.  I’ve heard the phrase “toxic” used in describing people or relationships and I used to think “overly dramatic use of language, doncha think?”.  But no longer.  This woman is truly toxic. 

Now the scary part – from stuff I’ve written on my blog, she has a general idea of where in the City I live.  She said:

“And hey…
…you live in my neighborhood. “

I can’t get the screaming sounds out of my head.

Oh, and its my neighbourhood.