Jeanette Winterson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/28/jeanette-winterson-all-about-my-mother

I highly reccomend Winterson's story of surviving a brutal childhood.

Jeanette Winterson: all about my mother

When her mother burnt her treasured hidden store of paperbacks, Jeanette Winterson decided the time had come to start writing herself. She looks back on how her loveless upbringing led to her becoming a writer

Singing the Roof Off

The men in the house are starting to complain as I begin to rehearse the choir songs, attempting to hit those high notes. Tonight I can sing the roof off because they have gone out for a game night. Now I think I've sung myself out. I've written a new song and look forward to it becoming an international hit so I can sit in my rocking chair and rake in the royalties.

Today I ate the ultimate PMS lunch: gouda cheese and liver paté eaten off BBQ flavour Hard Bite potato chips followed by a pumpkin spice chocolate s'more.

My son (the cynic) and things which stink

On the way to school they were paving a road and I said "Oh, that stinks." Ules says "That's the stench of the horror of what some people call progress." He does not mince words. But don't tell him I told you what he said! He hates it when I quote him.

Another bus story. The other night a man was passed out in the front seats of the bus. Everyone was ignoring him-- I thought he might be dead. I went up to the driver and said "That guy all right? He doesn't look so good."

"Yeah, we're takin' him off at the next stop," he says.

So at Broadway and Main three burly men with black gloves lumber out of a van and try to wake the guy out, but he is so passed out he can't. Two men pick him up as dead weight, drag him out of the bus and put him on a bench. I hope they called the ambulance. Then the third guy sprays the seat liberally with disinfectant because the man they removed was "unclean." "Kind of like I was in the eighties," he quips. So the next time you sit on a seat on a bus, just think of the layers of chemistry burbling beneath your butt. Ick.

Oh, and they are discovering live and dead bed bugs between the pages of books in Burnaby and New West libraries. Charming.

Dinner and a Show

I've always thought it ironic that there's so many good ingredients to be found on Granville island, but the options for dining out are so limited. I'm happy that Edible Vancouver has upped the bar, but there is still room for improvement. Catherine and I had dinner there last week and we both ended up ordering exactly the same thing: their seafood soup, beet and kale salad, bread, and sangria.

I've had the Thai style soup before and I like it, but once again the broth should have been warmer. This time I had the larger size, which meant more broth, but the same amount of fish. The beet salad is beautifully presented--the new chef at Trafalgar's should take note. His presentation is sorely lacking and the dude serves kale raw that should be blanched. The sangria was too sweet for me. I wished I'd just ordered a glass of wine. Anyway, I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered sangria with this meal.

The menu at Edible Vancouver irks me because it doesn't really have a lot of choice if you don't want a big meal. The takeout menu often looks better than the regular menu and I didn't ask if you can order from the take-out menu if you're dining in. I'm assuming you can if you are nice and the server is having a good day.

The good news is that they seem to have toned down the yelling from the kitchen--I hope it stays down.

After dinner we saw the women from Gee's Bend who were so warm and strong and lovely and inspiring I still don't know what to say about it. Only that their work makes a lot of "modern art" look thin and bloodless in comparison and I like that. A lot.

Brunch in Surrey

Had an ab fab brunch in Surrey with friends today and their cute doggies. So European, with homemade bread, sliced meats, good cheese and hella strong organic black tea. We went to a show of photographs of Japanese internment camps at the Surrey Museum which is way the hell out in Cloverdale. I don't know if I'm cut out for the skytrain, though. Standing room only all the way back and no-one gives up their seat for anyone else--it's the brutal commuter trail. A woman was reading a booked called How to Deal with Difficult People. I wish her the best of luck.

Night before last I was privileged to hear three of the Gee's Bend women talk about their quilts. That was a life-altering experience. I don't quite know what to say about it yet.

I am reading Anthem for a Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn, but it's not quite pulling me in. That might be saying more about my state of mind than the book. Someone said I look distracted lately. Ha! Lots of big thoughts going around in a little mind.

It's Up!

The show at the Firehall is up now and you can visit Wed-Sat, 1-5 pm. It looks better than I thought and the installation went better than I imagined due to my helpers. I am so grateful! Of course, I wish everything could have been printed larger but it's the best I could do with the budget.

I am taking one day off and then it's back to the job search.

I'm not impressed with the new library. They have one place to return books during open hours and I was in a lineup of people returning stuff. You have to check out each piece in an automated system that takes one item at a time. I was in a hurry and so I was not amused. The gallery is small, tucked in at the back of the big sports complex like an afterthought.

I'm watching episodes of Foyle's War I haven't seen before. I love it!

Spitting Mad at Bus Drivers

Yes, I am so pissed off at the bus driver of a number 3 Main bus who passed me by as I was waving for him to stop at the bus stop because I was waiting at the stop with a blind man who also wanted that bus. Can you believe it? Empty bus and no bus behind for 20 minutes. Crikey that makes me STEAMING mad. This gentleman tells me buses frequently pass him by when they know damned well the protocol is to stop and tell him which bus it is. So there I am fuming at the bus stop and coincidently a woman comes to the same stop who is also blind. She has a lovely black guide dog and I ask her which bus she wants. She also wants the number three. Right. So I tell her I am determined to flag this next number 3 bus down and I do without a problem. Then this woman on the bus starts bitching at her because the dog is partly in the aisle. WTF. She demands that the woman moves. So the woman with the seeing eye dog sighs and moves across the bus to a seat she has to pull down (which is ludicrous). I helped her, BTW. Ack. The bus driver should help people get settled in their seats. It should be part of the job. Spitting mad. Oh and BTW, the reason that driver didn't stop--this is in the DTES.

Wheat is the New Evil

Very interesting program on the evils of wheat on CBC's The Current and the debate around whether cutting wheat out of your diet will solve all your health problems. The dietician from Saskatoon has a much more balanced view than the man who sees wheat as the new Anti-Christ. Ironically, I am now working for a gluten free baker, so there you go. Maybe the world is trying to tell me something.

Just finished winding up some rolls of hops vines for a class I'm teaching tomorrow. Now I'm feeling sleepy because of the chemicals in the hops. All I want is a pumpkin doughnut and a nap. ZZZZZzzzz.

I made two pumpkin pies from scratch, one with yogurt and one with coconut milk. I think I like the coconut milk better because it brings out the sweetness in the pumpkin.

I also made some soup with beans, tomatillos and dried mushrooms which was perfect with the addition of a bit of leftover turkey and eaten with a tomato mayonnaise sandwich.

Happy Thanksgiving dear friends and family.

bakery karma

I had bad bus karma today trying to get to and from Granville Isle, but good bread karma as the woman at PICA was just wrapping up the day's s end discounts and I got some hella good deals.
I tried out the new Edible Vancouver eatery. I like the feel of the place--airy and casual, but for some reason they like to shout their orders at each other like that's a cool thing. Ummm, it's not. It's BLOODY IRRITATING and arrogant.

I tried the Thai style seafood soup which was lukewarm, but the flavor was good and the seafood was fresh. I had a good gin cocktail too, but it was a bit mean.

Then I went to a lecture on natural dyes that was hard work. Way too much chemistry and Latin in a thick French accent. Challenging. I hope part of my brain retained something. Anyway, I met a couple of nice ladies on the way home on the bus. We had all been to the lecture and I had to vent. As you do.

I watched a Poirot I somehow missed--thought I'd seen them all. Hickory Dickory Dock. It's one of the best of them all. Stylish and atmospheric. Don't watch it if you have a phobia about mice. Although, maybe watching it would help with fear of mice, because the starring rodent is damned cute.

I'm on pumpkin pie duty and I'll be working at the Kits Market this weekend. It will be a switch from archive and photoshop land. I love research a bit too much. I could just disappear down the rabbit holes it reveals.

Love and peace to you, dear readers.

Fresh Scones

This morning I made my yogurt scones and we opened a jar of spicy pear jam that was a Christmas gift. I like those wee pots of jam that you basically eat in one sitting. The winds and rain are upon us and it's migraine weather with quick switches in temperature and air pressure.

I am in the print phase of the archive project which is very satisfying. Just sorting out the permission to reproduce an Edith Adams cookbook from the Vancouver Sun.

I've been reading Graham Hurley: One Under, which has a dry, slow start, but turns into a solid read. Now I'm onto his novel called Borrowed Light which has a much better beginning and is unfolding nicely. However, I do tire of big gangster characters. They rarely move beyond clichés and it always ends in tears and gore. Ho hum. His books tend to be very centred around males and his female characters are less complex, sometimes two-dimensional. I also read Deception by Denise Mina--well, skimmed more like. The main character is so weak and whiny, you really want to race through the book to get it over with. The ending is not believable. It's a concept book that doesn't really work.

Nice to have crisp, fresh apples again. I bought some this weekend at UBC Farm that rocked.
Trouble at Trafalgar's. They have a new chef who has taken my favorite items off the lunch menu and so far I am not impressed with his cooking. It seems he's just not that into lunch. That makes me sad, as I have been a regular there for years. Well, I hope the French Table will be open soon for lunch.