I’ve been cooking.

March 4th, 2016

• Life

I’ve been cooking. Less than I used to, but more than I have been lately. Being between homes is awkward; I’ve always been uncomfortable using other people’s kitchens, even my own mom’s. My mother-in-law’s? Super weird for me. But I do it semi-often, because I’m not much of a cleaner, and I hate to be a mooching house guest. Making dinner for the in-laws’ makes me feel a bit better about still being in their house after six months (Dear Uncle: Please, please, please finish that bathroom soon. Thanks.) when I originally thought we’d be here only a couple of weeks.

They seem to enjoy it, because nothing I cook seems to last long, and I make huge batches, always, because I love leftovers. And I don’t seem to have many these days. My brother-in-law is only nineteen, so the kid can pack away food, holy damn. The other day, almost a week ago now, I bought a pack of five chicken breasts and a pack of nine chicken thighs. Two jumbo packs of dead chicken. I made shawarma with it, fully expecting to feast on the leftovers for a couple of days, at least. Do you know how long that lasted? I had enough leftovers to make two shawarma sandwiches the next day. That’s it. I feel I can comfortably say that I have finally nailed homemade shawarma. Hopefully I’ll get a nice post written up about it sometime soon.

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Woah, hey!

February 22nd, 2016

• Life

Holy crap, I did something! Not something that anyone but myself would care about, but I still did something! I changed the site design! NO WAY!

I was working on an assignment for one of my college classes earlier today. It’s a beginner web programming class. The assignment involves designing our own website from scratch. Ooh! I’ve done that before, god knows how many times (because I was a super cool twelve-year-old), so getting that assignment started wasn’t difficult. The bulk of the time I worked on it today was spent obsessing over tiny details and ignoring the fact that the style with which I went is kind of outdated (it’s not a web design class, so I can go as nostalgically retro as I want!). It features Jupiter and a few of its moons, because I am super excited for us to discover alien life on Europa in the coming decades.

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Why, Hello There!

December 3rd, 2015

• Life

Hello, Internet! I almost forgot you existed. Kind of. I mean, I have been using you a lot lately (as I have since what, 2002? I think I have a problem…), but I haven’t really been talking to you. It’s been pretty one-sided, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t use you like that. A relationship requires effort from both parties, and I…

Oh wait, I think that’s the letter I’m supposed to be writing to my husband. (“Thank you for paying all my bills while I’m unemployed for a month and in college! I’ll remember to talk to you really soon, I promise. Just let me finish these last fifty-thousand assignments and…”)

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Let’s Get Personal

September 15th, 2015

• Life

My poor, abandoned site. I have been moving, as I am sure you know since there is that little message all the way down there saying so. Sold my townhouse and am in the process of moving into my grandmother’s house (my avó), which is taking approximately 73454534x longer than the husbear and I expected. See, he is deathly allergic to cats and, almost five years ago when my beloved childhood dog passed away, my dad decided it would be a good idea to get me a cat to soothe the pain. I should clarify that my dad and I lived with his parents from when I was thirteen until I was twenty (although he moved in immediately after he and my mom divorced, when I was eleven), at which point we left because neither of us could handle his dad anymore (my grandfather has had a bad case of raging asshole since forever). We bought a townhouse together, because my dad desperately did not want to rent, but could not afford a home on his own. Anyway, yeah, back to the cat. My dad thought it would be a good idea to get me a cat. Problem being, of his three children, I am the only one who does not suffer from kitty allergies. I may have been the only one who lived with him, but my brother and sister would come over on weekends, and suffer for her cuteness.

When we left my avó’s house, we left my cat behind (her name is Schrödinger Comma-Erwin, by the way) so that my siblings could come visit us and still be able to breathe. Also, avó loved Schrö (whom she called “Shin-ah” because saying Schrödinger with a Portuguese accent is difficult), and she needed at least one friendly face when she lived with a husband who scowled 24/7. About six months after we got Schrödinger, the husbear and I started dating. Due to the aforementioned Mr Grumpypants, I never brought him to my house. Also, you know, he is deathly allergic to cats. After my dad and I moved, I had him over all the time.

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One Year Anniversary

July 20th, 2015

• Life

A week ago, on July 14, 2015, the husbear and I had our first wedding anniversary. Crazy, I know. We’ve been together for four and a half years now, but saying “I’ve been married for over one year” is still so weird. I never planned on getting married, ever — actually, neither of us was interested in getting married, and we actually talked about it not too long after we started dating. I’m not exactly sure why we changed our minds — maybe it was the tax breaks, who knows? Regardless, a week ago we had our first anniversary, and we celebrated the same way we celebrated getting married in the first place: taking off for Canada’s Georgian Bay and going camping. My idea. Apparently I am supposed to stress that.

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Feivel Went West

January 6th, 2015

• Life

My poor little buddy Feivel died the other day. He’d been sick for a long time. I took him to the vet a while back; it cost $200 for the visit and his medication. He seemed to get better, but almost immediately after he went off his medication, he got sick again. Rats have very sensitive respiratory systems and are prone to pneumonia. It’s been about four years since my last pet died — the family dog, Bear. We got him when I was ten, and we had him until I was just a couple weeks shy of twenty. He actually died the day before my brother and sister’s sixteenth birthday. That was a sad time. We had brought him home about a year before our parents divorced. Poor guy had parvo when we got him, but he survived for nine and a half years until he developed a tumour in his ear. He hemorrhaged shortly after having surgery to remove it. I miss that dog a lot. I made a necklace out of his dog tag, and have the song from Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever” tattooed on my ribs, for him and all the animals and people that came before and shall come after.

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Stay Away, Jabu-Jabu!

December 28th, 2014

• Life

My engagement ring finally arrived. The boy asked on Thanksgiving, and got my ring earlier this week. It shipped pretty quickly, considering he bought it earlier this month. I love it. Symbolically, to me, it’s perfect. And it wasn’t ridiculously expensive!

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Deep Fried Pickles

December 20th, 2014

• Life

September. It was a warm day in September when my love affair with deep fried pickles began. I was a hormonal wreck and sometimes, stereotypes can be pretty accurate: I needed pickles. It was the oddest, strongest craving. Deep fried pickles. They are becoming pretty popular around here, which is definitely a good thing. I love pickles. Always have. Bread them and deep fry them? Oh my God. The best. A few large Canadian restaurant chains had recently added deep fried pickles to their menu, much to my health’s dismay. And then I discovered that the little pizza place down the street was selling them, too. I think I overdid it, I really do, but how could I have resisted this onslaught? The hormones were crying and the pickles were calling, and I caved. For more than a couple of days in a row. I ate so many pickles, it’s nauseating to think about. But oh God, were they awesome. After a few days, I was finally tired of deep fried pickles. I had them occasionally, but the intense craving was gone.

Ever since this September, I’ve been suffering through one week a month of torrential floods of hormones unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I swear, this is worse than adolescence. New symptoms abounded: Nausea, headaches, and annoyingly heavy boobs among them. I even get a sore throat each time now. It feels a little like the early phases of a cold or flu, but with added mood swings, bloating, acne, and temperamental boobs. It’s wonderful, I assure you.

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Holy Crap, I’m Getting Married

July 7th, 2014

• Life

I’m getting married. In one week. Holy crap. I went and got my marriage licence after dropping the boy off at work; it didn’t take very long, only about half an hour or so. Working the night shift is exhausting, but there are some perks. Mostly the perk of being able to do things when everyone else at work. I hate lines and crowds. Costco on a Saturday afternoon? Hell on Earth. Costco on a Tuesday at 10am? Wonderful. Apparently city hall functions similarly, since there were only two people ahead of me in line.On Monday, July 14, 2014, my fiance and I will be officially a legal couple. Yup, the government will finally recognise our love. It isn’t true love until the government recognises and sanctions it, and provides you with a variety of tax breaks! It’s mindbogglingly surreal to me. I never wanted to get married. Actually, back in high school, I was vehemently against marriage, proudly declaring “I’m never going to get married”, instead of saying it the usual way: into a carton of ice cream while slobbering into a box of tissues.

My parents divorced when I was eleven; it was an amicable divorce and they still get along very well, and they’re both in happy relationships, but neither of them ever remarried. My dad has been with the same woman since before my parents moved into separate houses! (They were already separated, and my mom was very happy for him.) So I grew up seeing an unhappily married couple, who then split to become happily unmarried couples. Well, for my mom, the happy came later. She apparently has really, really, really bad taste in men. Turns out my dad was probably a fluke. I think I’ll save the story of the crazy stalker for another time, as well as her old man phase.

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Mario Kart and Collect-a-thons

June 25th, 2014

• Life

I bought the new Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. It’s pretty awesome, I must say. Love the the Retro Cup; they really made those old tracks look awesome, but still recognisable. They changed them much more than they did in the previous games that had a Retro Cup. Mario Kart 8 comes with a free downloadable game, so I got The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. It is quite awesome. I have a crappy old tube TV, and it still looks way better than the original GameCube version did. I also have New Super Mario Bros. U, and Super Luigi U. That is the extent of my Wii U collection. For now. I really like it though. If you are a Nintendo fan, I highly recommend getting it.

I remember being skeptical of the Wii U GamePad when I first heard about it, but now that I’ve used it, I have lost all skepticism. It’s kind of like a large Gameboy. You can’t take it absolutely everywhere, but you can take it away from the TV. My bedroom is right next to my living room, which is in range of the Wii U. I like to play the games while lying in bed. It’s really nice. Nintendo, I am sorry for doubting you. I should have known better. It’s awesome to use it as a TV remote, too. It makes me feel like I’m in the future.

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