An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas

For those of you who haven't discovered the French writer Fred Vargas, get thee to a library without delay! I've just savored her latest Commissaire Adamsberg mystery and it is absolutely fantastic. I absolutely HATE vampire stories and I loved this book, which has a vampire story at its heart. That's how good it is. It is surreal, funny, and infused with the writer's particular brand of sardonic pathos. If you made a movie of this book, you'd want to hire Edward Gorey and make an animated version.

Migraine Ritual

When I can't ignore the pain, I run a really hot bath. As hot as I can stand it. Sprinkle on a few drops of Eucalyptus oil and feel the pain drain from my head immediately as my feet hit the water. Luxuriate in the warmth of the water, wash with lovely puffy soap suds, feel the shoulders drop and the neck relax. Go to bed.

Then get up, cook supper, eat supper, tune the uke and practice, practice, practice!

Dinner: ginger garlic turkey meatballs and rice with greens and nuac cham dipping sauce.

The Grammar of Happiness

After reading this Boing Boing Article by Avi Solomon, I really want to see the documentary about Daniel Everett's life-changing study of the Pirahã people in Brazil. These people have an intriguing way of communicating that moved Everett to change his world view in a dramatic way. Please let me know if you hear about a local screening of The Grammar of Happiness.

Transition Weather

It is truly transitional weather--the kind where you need to wear one kind of outfit in the sun and another in the shade because the temperature difference is so extreme. Also, it is migraine weather, so I am riding the uneasy space between wellness and being bedridden with a throbbing head.

Spring break is coming to a close which means a mountain of homework suddenly appears on the dining room table. This time it's a detailed poster on submarines.

Last night I found more online episodes of Mankell's Wallander with English subtitles, which provided distraction to the mal a la tête.

Off to the Blim market. Michael's doing Mexican food for lunch!

Happy Spring 2012!!!

It's been a spring teaser of a day, cool and cloudy, then sunny and cool. Our neighbors picked today to start framing their old/new house and the noise woke us up. Although I did wake up very happy, having dreamt I won a CSA for the year from UBC Farm. What a fantastic dream! Thanks to whoever put that in the psychic pipeline.

The baking project today was a batch of gougeres which Peter called "little buns." They are NOT little buns. They are gougeres!!!!!!! He likes them because they taste like Yorkshire pudding. Ules and I made cajeta paletas today. Pics will follow on the other blog.

I worked for an hour and a half in my friend's garden today pulling nettles, transplanting perennials and removing the mulch. It's fun taking off the winter cover and finding all the new tender shoots underneath the leaves.

I am having a blast playing campfire songs on the ukulele with the five chords I know so far. Ukulele, where have you been all my life????? We will have to have a real campfire sing along this summer with home made s'mores. Can we get some cajeta into them I wonder?

Craving orange and chocolate. I might make a cake with ricotta and orange and coffee tomorrow.

In my spring cleaning today I unearthed a bottle of port Ules' grandpa gave him to open on his 21st birthday. I had completely forgotten about that. The years 2000--2003 are a total blurr. As are the years I first fell for Peter. Must have been the endorphins. Or something.

Spring Break Projects

We are having a staycation this spring break, so I have been taking on daily baking, cleaning and artmaking projects. I have made blood orange sticky buns, grapefruit ginger curd, lime curd, banana chocolate chip muffins, orange carrot muffins, buckwheat brownies and tonight Ules and I made pretzels from Alton Brown's recipe. I have been cleaning the kitchen one bit at a time, starting with the fridge which we are going to replace soon. Yay!!!!!!!

I have been writing songs and finally strumming the uke. I am going to try to learn how to play it by ear. Next week I have to start adding gardening projects to the agenda and tackling my reluctance to go to the pool.

We've been watching Season 3 of Medium. LOVE IT!!!!! I also reread a Ruth Rendel Mystery.

Did anyone else catch environmental activist Vandana Shiva on the Current on Friday? She is my hero.

The Problem with Pinterest

Well, the problem I have with Pinterest is that is seems to be designed by airheads and used by airheads who fail to grasp the importance of image attribution and only want to collect pretty pictures and consume pretty things. No one seems to be addressing these issues, except for people like Bug Girl who cites this article from webpronews.com. The article talks about the sneaky ways Pinterest gets around copyright issues.

Debris Detectives

Interesting article in the NYT on people searching for debris from the tsunami in Japan.

Mr. Baty is one of a ragtag army of unofficial seaside detectives who provide useful information on the patterns and whereabouts of ocean garbage to government officials and environmental groups. “You walk up to something on the tide line,” he said, “and you scratch your head and think, ‘Now where did that come from?’ ”

--On West Coast, Looking for Flotsom of a Disaster by Malia Wollan, NYT

Forward Momentum

Suddenly, ideas that have been grounded for weeks are starting to take flight again. Travel is so good for my creative process. It is really a worthwhile investment. It's like my psyche needs to fly in order to dream again.

Over the weekend I read two novels set in Sicily. I love that it's so hot in Sicily that every time the detective needs to think he simply jumps into the ocean for a swim. So casual. I had a cab driver that I thought was Italian, so I forced him to listen to the 16th century poem in Italian we are singing in choir. Turns out even though his brother lived in Carrera, they were actually born in Palestine. I will perform anywhere.

Be vigilant about bed bugs in libraries. A friend of the family just got infested from library books.
This upsets me to no end.

Save the Dates: Malarky Reading

My dear friend and colleague Anakana Schofield is launching her new novel called Malarky. It is a fascinating exploration of the inner life of an Irish woman who is fearlessly working to try to understand her son's past. If you are in Vancouver you can hear her read at the Vancouver Public Library on March 21. or you can attend the book launch at the most excellent Co-op Bookstore on April Fool's Day from 3-6 pm. If you are in Toronto, you can catch her on Wednesday May 16th, 2012 at the Northern District Library at 12:30pm or later that evening at the North York Central Library at 7:30pm.

Anakana is also one of my favorite bloggers and whenever there is a weather event like the wind storm we had in Vancouver this morning you can bet she will give her report!

Wearing the Pants

Happy International Women's Day. Celebrate by wearing pants!

I am in my birthday week of celebrations which is taking me to my happy place. However, I have a warning for you. Never go bathing suit shopping on your birthday. Talk about bursting the bubble! Oh la la. Anyway, I now have no excuse for avoiding the pool.

I'm very excited to be going to Saskatoon for the weekend to see family and friends and eating at Weczeria. Yayyyyy!

Back to Grains

It was a very domestic day here on the home front because of the teacher's strike. I cooked, cleaned the kitchen floor, did laundry and worked on my taxes. I am back to eating more grains since trying to cut out most starch. I found the diet didn't give me enough energy and hello, I gained weight instead of losing it. How did that happen? Also, I developed weird shooting pains in my legs--maybe a lack of a vitamin or mineral. So today I embraced the starch, baking buckwheat scones and making spaetzle with a wheat and spelt flour mix. I also made ginger grapefruit curd with an excellent recipe by 101 Cookbooks. It's destined to become a classic hit in the blogosphere and by using her technique I immensely improved the texture of my curd. I used two tablespoons of ginger juice instead of one, because I love INTENSE ginger flavor. Bring it on!

Dinner tonight: turkey meatballs, whole grain spaetzle, paprika fried oyster mushrooms and Transylvania style saurkraut from the market.

I have been watching episodes of Waking the Dead (BBC). Season 4 had three exceptional double episodes--really good plot lines and character development. I am on Season 5 now, which was not as strong. I also read an Irish noir mystery: Elegy for April by Benjamin Black. It really bugged me that there was no mention of the year or decade of the story. It is very writerly, somewhat macho, and sometimes gets bogged down in its own miserable tone, but otherwise I quite liked it.

Reply Girls and Boys: Rampant Misogyny

So my son is a huge fan of the Yogscast and apparently there has recently been a huge kerfluffle about "Reply Girls."

This is the definition of a Reply Girl from knowyourmeme.com.

“Reply Girl”, often spelled “Replygirl”, is an Internet slang term used to identify female YouTubers who mainly upload videos as a “reply” to an already popular or trending video in an attempt to capitalize on the high view counts. They typically use sexually suggestive thumbnails, often with prominently exposed cleavage.

This particular kind of performative spam has unleashed a storm of backlash videos fueled by adolescent (regardless of the age of the dude) male hormones. This video represents a well-produced humorous satirical reply video by the Band Area 11 and their fans. Most of the Reply Boy videos are just adding their own performative spam into the toxic stew tube.

This is definitely going to be fuel for my next performance piece.

Nat King Cole Floats my Boat, and Flies my Space Ship

This is the extremely mellow version with an intro I had never heard before.