Bec's Happybox

Times-Colonist 10k Tomorrow!

So, I registered for this a few weeks ago, mostly just because my sister's hotel was putting together a corporate team, and I thought it would be fun to run it with them.  Well, since then, Randal has sprained her ankle twice and burned her leg in an electric fire!  She's fine, but not really in the best shape for running a 10k.  Also she hasn't trained at all.  So she's ditching. 

But she offered Tobias her spot and so he's going to do it with me.  He'll be running as Randal Twizzleton.  Randal's stoked because he'll probably get a better time than she would have, despite his not having trained either.  Then, when the race results are published, she'll be able to take credit for his time. 

To make it up to me for ditching at the last minute, Randal's looking after the kids for us during the race.  This is a relief, because I'm not terrible comfortable asking anyone to babysit for us  starting at 7am on a Sunday morning.  We have to walk up to the university to catch the 7:22 bus downtown.

I haven't done the TC 10k before, and I suspect (and fear) that it's going to be quite a scene.  A friend whose baby shower I'm attending tomorrow afternoon called today and when I mentioned that I was doing the race in the morning, she said she'd see me there.  Then, when I went to pick up my race pack this afternoon, I saw several people I knew, including Tobias' high school girlfriend!  Yikes.  With 12,000 people running, and my having lived in this city for about 25 years....doing a few calculations....yep, I expect to see about 498 people I know tomorrow morning.

I guess I'd better shave my legs.

Four months

Yesterday we celebrated the four-month anniversary of M'hijo's birth.  By that I mean that Tobias, Sahsez and I sat around stuffing our faces with pie and poor little M'hijo watched from the chair of his swing, sucking his fist furiously.  I took pity on him and offered a finger dipped in whipped cream, which he attacked greedily. 

He remains quite unambitious in all areas aside from eating -- he weighs 18 pounds and wears clothing intended for much older babies -- and talking.  He is beginning to show a bit more interest in grabbing objects held in front of him, but it's by no means consistent.  Other babies his age have already started grabbing objects on a regular basis, sitting up, and rolling over.  Not this boy.   It seems that moving of his own accord simply hasn't occured to him yet.  Like I said, unambitious.

But he is a charmer.  We're just about to leave to go pick up his sister from school and, as usual, I know that he will smile and bat his eyes and flirt with everyone that gives him a how-de-do on the way to the school.  It's about a 2-minute walk, but I schedule at least six, because someone always wants to say hello. 

I can't blame them.

Got SPAM from me?

Someone or something has sent out tonnes and tonnes of SPAM using happybox.ca email account names.  If you are here because you got one of these, I'm sorry, I have no idea why it's happening, but I promise it wasn't me.  I don't have any email addresses associated with that URL anymore (even though I do get emails sent to those addresses forwarded to me by the hosting company that used to host happybox.ca).

But hey, there's no reason why we can't be friends.  If you'd like to read a blog that a Canadian housewife uses to keep friends and family up-to-date about the cute things her kids do, and show off her pretty flowers, and complain about piddling matters such as unhealthy school lunches, and go on and on about food and drink, stick around!

M'hijo's Voice

When M'hijo was a newborn, he used to squeak constantly while breastfeeding.  It would keep me up at night, his squeaking.  It was sort of cute, but a bit much at 3am.  It was like having a squeaky-hinged door, opening and closing, right beside your head, all night long.  Still, when a 4-week old in our post-natal yoga class starting squeaking yesterday, I said "Aw! I miss that!"

Now, M'hijo has moved on to gurgling (cute!), grunting (cute!) and shouting (slighty less cute, at times!).  Listen. 

Because Sahsez wasn't nearly so noisy so young, and ended up being a late talker (23 mos), I hypothesize that M'hijo will be an early talker.  (On the other hand, Sahsez could climb the ladder of the slide at the park at seven months, and walk by ten months, whereas M'hijo has yet to even attempt to roll over or sit up, so possibly his more physical milestones will all be later than hers.)

When I put M'hijo's chair near the computer and play the recording I've made of his own voice, he gets very excited. He gets a big smile on his face and kicks his legs. It's as if he's finally found someone intelligent to talk to! Someone who speaks properly. He's only a little bit frustrated that he can't see this other fellow, who appears to be so bright and lucid. He looks around, trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. He doesn't find his new friend, but begins responding nonetheless. The M'hijo in the recording shouts, and the real M'hijo shouts back. The recorded M'hijo gurgles and the other M'hijo gurgles back. It's quite hilarious.

Sometimes they seem to argue and M'hijo appears to be on the verge of tears. At other times he listens politely before responding. At all times his legs are going like sixty. When the recording ends, he keeps talking for a while before he realizes nobody's talking back anymore. Then his little brow furrows and he gets mad. But then we have nummers and everything is okay again.

I'd like to make a recording of M'hijo responding to a recording of his own voice, but I don't have a good enough microphone for this.

Seule

Tobias and Sahsez just left for an overnight camping trip.  I remained behind because my kids are singing in church tomorrow and while Sahsez, despite being my favourite choir member, can opt out of the performance, I cannot.  So M'hijo and I are home alone for a couple of days.

What to do?  What to do?  When the possibilities are endless, like now, I often end up doing less than nothing, and then feeling bad about it afterwards, like I really squandered my time. 

It's a gorgeous day out, sunny, but still a bit chilly, which I like.  Probably some gardening is in order.  Possibly some Yes, Minister DVD watching.  Definitely some knitting and reading and blogging. 

But first, I think I'll lounge around in my Chinese bathrobe and have a coffee and a bagel. 

What gets me going

Kathleen Hanna might kill herself if she knew that Le Tigre is simply the most perfect music for

* writing a feminist manifesto?

* starting a revolution?

* exploring bi-curious tendencies?

No, sorry, it's actually the perfect music for JOGGING.  It has exactly the right beats per minute to get this yuppie scum housewife, with all her yuppie scum accoutrements (YSAs), moving.  YSAs for jogging include

* jogging stroller

* iPod

* huge, incognito celebrity sunglasses

* Lululemon trousers

* some sort of fancy running socks that Tobias bought me yesterday.  I dunno, they sort of seem like SOCKS to me, but apparently they have some high technology built in which makes them SUPERSOCKS.

And while we're talking about jogging music, let me confess something. 

Everyone's read Audra's old essay called "Guilty (Dis)Pleasures" right?  If you haven't, it's a funny essay from back in the day where she confesses that she sometimes doesn't like the right things.  For example, she doesn't like Ani DeFranco.  A real embarrassment in the feminist socialist secularist knitting addict crowd. 

I kind of like Ani DeFranco.  Anyway, I don't hate her.  But you know who I really don't like, can't like, practically DISlike?  M.I.A.  It's true!  I'm sorry, I just don't get it.  I wonder if part of the problem is that I saw her video before I heard her music on it's own.  Since then, I can't help thinking "T&A" every time I hear "M.I.A." 

So that's my guilty (dis)pleasures confession.  But still, "Galang" remains on my On-the-Go playlist for jogging, because sometimes listening to something I don't like makes me run faster. 

I also really like to hear music that makes me laugh while I'm running.  So, I have "I Could Eat a Knob At Night" by DJ Reacharound, from Episode 6 of the Ricky Gervais Show and "Gold digger" by Kanye West.  There's just something about

She was s'posed to buy your shortie Tyco wit' yo money
She went to the doctor and got lipo wit' yo monAY

that cracks me up and makes my jog more enjoyable. 

So, in the requirements for a good jogging soundtrack, we've covered music with a good bpm, music that annoys me, and funny music. M'hijo is not going to let me sit here and type for much longer so I will just quickly say that I also require music that makes me feel tough and music that makes me rock out. For these, I have Nellie McKay and Franz Ferdinand, respectively.

With all of these things in place, my little 5k jogs go by in a flash.

New recipes numbers 28, 29 and 30

New Recipe Number 28: Hot Cross Buns - from the Joy.  A bit of a disaster, actually.  I think there just might be something to the theory that the yeast picks up on the baker's mood because on Saturday night at 8pm when I started the first rise on these suckers, I was feeling tired and frustrated.  Tired because it had been a long day and frustrated because, hello! it was already 8 o'clock on Holy Saturday and I was only just then getting started on the hot cross buns. 

So the yeast was not very cooperative.  And the buns, as a result, were chewy. 

At 11:30pm, another bun crisis occurred when I started applying the frosting crosses while the buns were still hot.  But you know, I simply wasn't willing to wait up for them to cool down and so we had invisible crosses.  Better luck next year.

New Recipe Number 29: Cumberland Sauce - this was the sauce I made for the Easter ham, and it was all going fine until I went to nurse the baby and left the sauce over a hot element for about 20 minutes, completely forgetting about it.  It was thick and caramelly when I finally returned to the stove and I despaired.  But I revived it by furiously whisking some water in and heating over a very low heat.  But the bits of orange and lemon peel were way too hard. 

Another Easter weekend botch job.  Sigh.

New Recipe Number 30: Split pea soup - this is cooking on the stove right now and when I last tasted it, it was extremely bland!  What's going on in my kitchen? 

I'm going to go add salt and pepper now and I'll keep you posted on whether this does any good. 

New recipes suck!

Update: the pea soup actually turned out quite lovely.  A little salt really helps.  So phew! My kitchen is not cursed.

Happy Easter!

I took photos in the first half of the day.  In the second half of the day I was too busy. 

A few shots of Easter 2006

Ramping up for Easter weekend

In many ways, Easter is a bigger deal than Christmas for me.  Certainly from a religious perspective, it's more important.  From a work perspective, it's better because there are no gifts and no decorations.  Which doesn't mean that my to-do list today isn't immense!  On the last day before Good Friday I need to

..call my butcher and beg and plead with him to get me a ham for Sunday.  I completely forgot to do this last week  Done, sort of.  The butcher no longer has any bone-in hams available except the ones currently in the case.  So now I need to call Abu and see if she will stop by on her way home from work and pick one up.  That's assuming they have some left at 3 o'clock.  Sigh.

..shop and bake for Sahsez' Third Annual Good Friday Tea Party, all whilst resisting the urge to lick the chocolate off my fingers

..do at least three loads of laundry.  Yesterday's laundry day was a bit of a wash (HA!) because of a very attention-hungry baby, motherly fatigue, and a sparring class that I wasn't willing to miss

..email the head pastor at my church the list of songs my kids will be singing at the Easter morning service Done. 

..make some phone calls to find out which is the best church service to attend tomorrow morning Done.  Found this information on the web.

..harrass Tobias to pick up some Dolly mixture from the British sweet shop and some goose fat (for the Easter Sunday roast potatoes) downtown today Done, except that the charcuterie near Tobias' office doesn't have any goose fat, but they do have some duck confit, and they'll pack up some "just fat" for him.

..make the house spic and span

..shop for and plan the hot cross buns

..drop off cookies at two different neghbours' houses to thank them for taking care of a fallen tree limb for me this week Done.  Social crisis (being considered an ingrate by my neighbours) averted. 

..pump some milk so that others may help feed M'hijo this weekend

..prepare my heart and soul and think about the Passion (yikes!)

..hold a conference with the Easter Bunny to make sure he knows that since we now have TWO children in our house, he should hide TWICE as much candy this year, even though ONE child will hunt and eat it ALL

..keep M'hijo clean, fed, and happy.

Here we go!

WBW 20: Burgáns Albariño

This post has been moved to Dinner in the Yellow House, my food and wine blog.