Princess of the World

So, inspired by Graeme’s cousin making her own muesli, I thought I’d give it a shot. We have been paying just under 6 bucks for a tub of organic muesli that lasts us around 4 or 5 days. That, my friends, is shitty economics. Especially as the stuff we were buying (low fat) tasted like a mouth full of punches. Bland punches.

I looked around at the internet for some recipes and they’re all relatively similar. Firstly it had to be flavorsome enough to not need nuts (as the husband would die) and I wanted it to be relatively low in calories and sugar but have a bit of bang for buck nutrients wise. Whilst all the ingredients are actually quite high in calories, they’re pretty good for you. I started figuring out the calorie count and my estimate is around 120-140ish calories per 1/3 cup. I know 1/3 cup sounds like not much but there are a lot of grains and fat and some protein in the seeds, and it fills me up just fine before I go to the gym in the morning.

So I took the bits I liked from all the recipes and did this…

5 cups rolled oats
2 tbsp maple syrup (I used dark, so Grade 3, it’s a little less sweet)
2 tbsp wildflower honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
0.5c sunflower seeds (raw)
0.5c pumpkin seeds (raw)
0.75c dried apple
0.5c thompson raisins
good sploosh of cinnamon

I warmed the syrup and honey in a little pot to make it runnier, then poured it over the oats with the vanilla. I found that amount of liquid enough to coat everything.

I added the seeds to the oats and mixed it all together.

I lined a baking tray with tin foil and put a layer of the mix on it and popped it in the oven at 140C. It wasn’t a super thin mix, about half a centimetre or something. I shook it every fifteen minutes or so to allow all the bits to get toasty, and after 45 minutes took it out. I had to do it in two batches as my oven and tray are small.

Once that was done, I stirred in the fruit and cinnamon and let it cool.

And that’s it!

There are definitely a few things I think I’ll try next time I do this. Firstly, I might toast it slightly less, maybe half an hour? It is pretty toasty flavored, which is not bad, just, like, toasty. There are quite a lot of seeds in there, maybe a few less of them? Also, the apple became very dry very quickly, and I prefer the chewiness of dried apple. Given that they are pretty high in calories, I feel like they don’t add enough to the mix to be worth it (just another dried thingy in there) so I feel like maybe I’ll add them separately on a day to day basis? I think the flavor of the apple will be stronger then, and add some texture.

Most of the recipes I found use more syrup and honey (between 1/4 – 1/3 cup). This would probably be WAY MORE DELICIOUS but in order to eat Cadbury Creme Eggs every day, I gotta cut calories in other places. Consider adding more deliciousness if you are not a big dork who likes Creme Eggs, it’ll probably be worth it.

All the ingredients (and they were all organic, as well as the maple syrup and honey which were bought from the farm last summer and live in our pantry) came to about $10, and I certainly have enough for another batch. This batch has lasted two of us a week so far, with probably 4 days left?

It’s definitely cheaper and more delicious than what we were buying, so my next step is to improve on this and to start making my own yoghurt. Wheeee! Please send me amazing ideas for improvements and additions if you have any, this is by no means the end of my quest for muesli satisfaction. Good luck!

I don’t care if you find it outrageous that I can have the February blues having just spent a month in Australia (guys! we got back SIX WHOLE WEEKS AGO, get over it already). It’s true I think. I am sad and mopey for no good reason.

I am getting enough sleep, I am exercising, I haven’t given up wine… so it must be the miserable month. It has been forever since it’s been sunny here, there was really only that one week last September when it was nice – the rest of the year was chilly. I feel far from my family and despondent about how impossible it will ever be for Graeme and I to both be near family. I feel unsure about where my future is going to take me. I feel like getting back to being fit is so hard and my clothes so tight (DAMN YOU AUSTRALIA).

Today a telephone system salesman came calling into work. He was German or Eastern European, I couldn’t quite make it out, very smartly dressed. He was cold calling. Our new office guy told him we had a system and that it was fine. The man asked politely what system it was, nodded and then said ‘Thank you, have a nice day’ and left. He was incredibly polite, not pushy and I felt so sad. I had an image of him going outside and pulling up his collar against the miserable day outside. I imagined him heading into the subway and not getting a seat as rude, fat women with bad hair put their bags filled with polyester walmart clothes on the only empty seats. When he eventually made it home, he would hang his hat and sit at the kitchen table with his shoulders slumped as he wondered how he was going to pay his bills, why life was so hard. Eventually he would sigh and hope that tomorrow is a better day. I hope it is.

So that’s not normal thinking, I can’t cry for everyone or I’ll never be able to leave the house.

I remarked to Jenny that I just want to go live in a village in a beautiful, grey stone house with flowers overflowing from pots. I will bake bread and eat it with freshly churned butter from my neighbour and drink great wine. I wouldn’t mind being fat if I lived in a village. Life would be so easy… But only in my imagination.

That’s all. I’m going to go to bed early so I can get up early, go to the gym and trudge through the middle of the week.

It’ll pass.

On Saturday night we went to a fundraiser at the Danforth Bowl. There are 6 lanes, it’s 5 pin bowling and the centre pin may or may not be anywhere near the centre (but probably not). You score yourself on paper and press a reset button after every turn to make the pins reset, it is bowling 1.0 and it is THE BEST. As a natural athlete, I won the prize for highest game score for a female (OBVIOUSLY). I got to choose my prize and because I’m not a proper Canadian I didn’t choose the Keg voucher – pretty lame of me right? I got a book voucher to the evil empire and I shall use it to buy biographies about other elite sports people like me, to see if anyone understands how lonely it is to be so great at sports. Like me. Sports.

Also, 5 pin bowling was apparently invented because 10 pin bowling was so strenuous, how hilarious is that? I feel like that was a sport made by someone with whom I would get along jusssssttttt fine.

I’ve been watching the Olympics, despite all the sports involved being very stupid. The opening ceremony was a total dog’s breakfast but perhaps I’ll go into that another time, to give my husband a small break from hearing me go on about what a travesty it all was. Despite feeling most of the sports are a bit boring (ice skating? Puh-lease, foofy hands and wildly gesticulating eyebrows do not make for riveting television), I do cry every time anyone wins a medal in anything, no matter where they’re from. I cry when someone falls, I cry when they don’t. I cry when their families cry and when their team mates are happy for them. So the story of Alexandre Bilodeau has pretty much ruined me. My emotions are being played like a fiddle by goddamn CTV. Oh man, he and his brother keep popping up in 5 minute “inspirational stories” and they just (sob) love (sob) each (sob) other (sob) soooooooooooooooo much (sob) so when he won that gold I was an absolute wreck.

Anyway, it’s been a rough couple of days as there’s a lot of medals being given out and a lot of proud families for me to weep at. The only other things that have made a splash for me at this ‘lympics are that the Olympic flame has been fenced off with a big chain link fence so the public can’t get close, nor get a good photo. Good one Vancouver. (Update, apparently the Olympic Committee have asked VANOC to get rid of the stupid fence, hilarious).

The biggie is of course the awful tragedy of the Georgian Luger dying on the day of the opening ceremony. A terrible tragedy that will hopefully never happen again. The thing I found most upsetting was that the footage and images of Nodar Kumaritashvili hitting the poles was shown repeatedly on CTV (who are broadcasting the games here in Canada), and was front page of the NY Times and the Toronto Star. I’m all for freedom of the press, of course, but I don’t really think it’s an issue of that. For me it is an issue of respect and decency. I felt that watching him die over and over, and the shots of his bloodied face as they failed to revive him were gratuitous, and added nothing to my understanding of the situation. We shouldn’t have to watch it, nor should we be able to as it served no purpose other than pandering to the (very) human instinct to ogle the dead. Sure it’s natural but that doesn’t make it right. I didn’t want to see it, I imagine his family and friends and the other athletes felt similarly.

Anyway, that’s it really. I wish everyone all the luck in all the sports and look forward to my own budding prospects in professional sports. I think I’ll be more of a Federer than a Tiger, but I’ll keep my options open.

Lydia looked, winced and snapped on some gloves.

“How you like?”

“Uh, I dunno, what do you think?”

“I don’t know you. We just met. You want strip? You want triangle? I don’t know. I don’t know you.”

“Uh, strip I guess? What do you think?”

“…(GLARE)”

“You pull there. NO! PULL! Trust me, you pull this way, I pull that way. Is better. Now do me favor. When I say so, stop breathing. Trust me. Is better.”

“…………..(Oh fuck?)”

“NOW!”

Gasp.

RRRRRRRRRIP! Rippity rip rip! RIPPAROOO! RIPARINO! RIP RIP RIPPY RIP!
R.r.r.r.r.r.r.
I.i.i.i.i.i.i.i.i.
Pah.

Done.

Thank fuck for that.

I am clumsy. This is because I am a girl. SCIENCE.

Along with my floppy ankles (aka medically validated clumsiness), I also just do stupid stuff. I have sliced into my finger so many times I almost have no fingerprints left (Woo! Life of crime!), and bang my head onto kitchen cupboards so regularly that one day THEY’RE going to break due a life of stress fractures from my skull. I also burn myself with fantastic regularity.

When I was about 6 I snuggled so close to the kerosene heater that I burned my ass on the metal cover, burned a big Z into my butt. My mum told everyone she knew and called me Zorro for months. I once got so excited at an episode of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos that I jumped up from my bean bag (!) with a large bowl of 2 minute noodles, filled to the brim with boiling water, in my lap. The boiling water really pooled up nicely in my lap as I fell back into the bean bag and nothing says funniest home videos like a crotch covered in red, fleshy blisters (people, never trust a cockatoo, they do funny shit that can cause DANGEROUS BURNS).

About a week ago, Graeme was busy doing that very annoying thing where he stands watching me cook (in frilly knickers and Louboutins, obviously) and flinches and winces and gasps as he watches me chopping vegetables, as if the mere act of being close to a knife is a sure bet I’m going to lose a digit. My feeling about this is I cook every night and of course sometimes you lose a finger here and there, who HASN’T secretly enjoyed their broccoli with a whisper of blood? (Also, if it’s going to cause him such terrible emotional angst I suggest that he just cooks us dinner instead, gender equality isn’t just about waxing ya know). I took on that particular tone of voice that partners take and told Graeme that it had been WEEKS since self inflicted injury. WEEKS. Sigh. Huff. Eyebrow.

So cut to last night when as a reward for doing a 60km mountain bike race (holy moly, that’s far!), I was doing a roast chicken (with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus and green salad) for my brave sporty husband type. I went to pick up the pan for the asparagus (on a burner that wasn’t on) and the oven had heated up the handle so much my hand stuck to it a bit. I ran my hand under cold water and cried. I cried! Usually when I hurt myself I just run through my list of obscenities until I run out of ideas and go on my merry way, but this time I couldn’t take it out from under the cold water without bursting into tears again. I had to call Graeme over (I know, I know, I acknowledged weakness, next time we’re picking gladiator baseball teams where the stakes are life or death by cougar he won’t pick me to be on his team) to help finish the gravy. Also, I LET A BOY HELP WITH THE GRAVY AND THE WORLD DID NOT END. Lesson learned.

Anyway, I went to bed with a ziploc bag filled with ice and a wet cloth and at some point during the night it stopped hurting. There is only one blister that has raised (it’s the shape of Lake Ontario) but there are two massive white pockets under the skin around the blister. It’s gross, and a bit sore but I think I’m gonna be okay. I will accept gifts though. Just in case.

UPDATE* – I just went to get icecream and shouted to Graeme “I updated my blog! And I linked to yours! Because I’m a better wife who links to your blog even though you never link to m…” and at that point I hit myself in the face with the freezer door.

I ride my bike from about March to November. I try to be a good cyclist, and as always, I am opinionated about what that means.

A cyclist was killed three weeks ago here in Toronto, after he and a car were in a standard(ish) altercation. After the first shouty/ angry/ argument between car and bike, the cyclist then chased after the car on foot, grabbed onto the driver’s side window frame (and possibly the steering wheel, I guess we’ll find out when it’s in court), and then the driver made the terrible (and one can assume panicked) choice to drove onto the wrong side of the road to try and knock him off the car by scraping him along post boxes, street signs and anything else he could find. It eventually worked.

The cyclist a bike courier, was drunk (and a drunk) and had just had an altercation with the cops. The driver was the former attorney general of Ontario.

This tragedy has raised the hackles of the cycling community and the driving community who hate the cycling community. I rode in a large cycling rally after it happened, that I probably shouldn’t have ridden in. I was riding because I think cyclists have a right to be on the road and to have the respect of other drivers, and to feel safe. Unfortunately I think that by chasing after the car and grabbing onto the driver’s side, a fact I learned after the rally, the cyclist took this incident from a fairly standard bike vs car daily unpleasant incident, and into the realm of stupid aggressive fight, where everyone behaved terribly and now someone is dead. I imagine it’s pretty scary when an angry drunk man chases your car down and tries to grab your steering wheel, but scraping him off with a post box? Ugh… I dunno, I wasn’t there but the situation is horrific and has ruined the lives of everyone involved, most especially the guy who ended up dead.

I think for cyclists to demand respect, and we do (usually in a whiny, angry, self righteous way), we need to start respecting the rules of the road. Every day I see cyclists not stopping at red lights and stop signs and, certainly, most of the time nothing bad happens. But sometimes it does and the consequences can be pretty bad. We don’t have a right to disobey the rules of the road just because our machines aren’t as dangerous as cars, it’s still against the law and it bloody hurts when you get hit by a bike. And just because some drivers are total douche bags doesn’t give us the right to roll through a stop sign, in fact, it’s all the more reason not to. Don’t allow drivers take any moral high ground! Boo for moral high ground in an SUV!

Now for some language I picked up at Catholic school…

STOP LISTENING TO YOUR FUCKING IPOD WHEN YOU CYCLE YOU NUMBFUCK DICK HEADED IDIOT. It takes away 50% of your ability to ride your fucking bike safely, and forces me to have to deal with you. If you don’t pull over far enough because you don’t hear my bell and you ride your loser hipster fucking bike into me and into the path of a douche bag car, I will sue you (American stylze mother fucker) for every cent you and your parents have, and further more, I will beat the living SHIT out of you you selfish fuck. Also, if you get hit by a car when you’re listening to your ipod, you deserve it. Pop some Aimee Mann on your ipod next time you can get on your bike after leaving the hospital and CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER. Grow the fuck up and leave your heap of shit, I heard them first, indie band tunes for the fucking gym.

Finally, if you’re a boy and you think you’re faster than me so you pull in front of me when I’m stopped at a traffic light, you. better. be. fucking. faster. than. me.

That’s all. Sara’s rules of the road, some more official than others. That we are doing our bit to lessen pollution, unclog roads, strengthen our lungs and get outside isn’t enough, we gotta obey the rules like everyone else and maybe by being great examples we can lead the way for others.

Now this, this I can respect...

Peel.

But I Do Like A Little Bit Of Butter With My Bread.

As I am always delightful, I feel it my duty to help Graeme find his way in the awkward and often delicate field of manners. He LOVES it. For example, he eats bread (at dinner) like he was raised by wolves. I’ve met his parents, they’re nice and generally unhairy, but I can only assume the babysitter had fangs.

I was raised to tear a small piece of bread roll off at a time, as I was ready to eat it. I would put a bit of butter on my bread plate and butter the roll from there, not going back to the butter dish every time. I do not cut my bread roll with a knife ever, nor do I hold the roll in the air while I butter it, it is ingrained in me that such things are deeply common.

Also, it is deeply common.

Now, you can butter your bread roll however you want. Except with my family in which case do. not. cut. your. fucking. roll.

Let’s just be clear that I judge you and, more specifically, your parents when you cut your bread roll. And I am right.

Don’t worry about it though, we can still hang out if you want. I’ll probably just be here, on my own, at the table with my roll wondering where the party’s at.

The King's Breakfast

Hey, you know how Walmart sucks and so we don’t shop there? You know how if you buy an apple that was grown more than 13 metres away you half expect a large, hairy, croc clad foot to come down from the top of the screen and squoosh you into a Monty Python-esque carbon footprint shape? Well I have similar feelings about Skype and now I’m going to tell you why.

I live far from many of my best friends and am repeatedly asked if I have Skype. For those of you who live under a rock, Skype is a communication company who offer live chat (like msn and googletalk) and free, or very cheap phone calls from your computer or phone, great for people staying in touch over long distances. I don’t use it, and I want to tell you why, so you can decide if you care or not.

Early last year our favorite nerd discovered that Skype in China was monitoring and archiving people’s chat conversations (for the benefit of the Chinese government). This is despite Skype execs claiming that (in China) ‘full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people’s privacy’.

You can read more about this, written by people who know shit about shit on Nart’s blog, the NY Times, Wired Magazine and a billion other smarty pants sites that you can look up yourself (lazy bones).

We all know about the Chinese government right? We got that memo? They do some bad shit to lots of people who don’t deserve to be treated like that. I think it’s really disappointing that Skype have chosen not to follow all of this up with a resounding fuck you to Tom Communications and come up with a method of not enabling this to happen. I guess there is too much money to be made in the Chinese market to simply make the ethical decision not to be involved in this case. Anyway, I just think this shows highly questionable ethics and is a clear warning that Skype isn’t as secure and private as we all thought.

Now, I make hypocritical decisions constantly, I admit that. I have organic foods delivered to my house but I get them to bring me avocados in winter. I find people who eat McDonald’s a total mystery but I love Cheezies (or Twisties in Australia). I despise George W Bush but am totally addicted to opium AND love cheap Afghani rugs. The list is so extensive that I could go on for EVER. I guess I’m trying to say that I understand that other people will be able to look past this – Oprah uses Skype for all out of town interviews for God’s sake. However, if you don’t approve of the Chinese government doing whatever the fuck they want then just have a think about whether you want to support a company that actively chooses to enable this and is most distinctly not honest about it. That’s all.*

*That’s not really all. Skype claimed after this all came out, that they were shocked! and were looking into it immediately! good heavens! exclamation! So I’m going to email them and ask them if they did do anything about it, if they did, that’s definitely a step in the right direction. Graeme is doubtful. I’ll let you know.

So a few years ago I realised I felt really strongly about something. I try not to yell about it to everyone because it’s a pretty divisive issue, but in much the same way that I read a bit of Dawkins and realised calling myself agnostic WAS hypocritical and utterly ridiculous, it’s time I try to muddle through my thoughts on paper.

I don’t understand why women change their last name when they get married.

Further to that, I find it makes me cross. Sure, it’s your choice, but you know what? I think your choice is stupid. Now, there are certainly exceptions to that. A not super close friend got married recently and changed her name because she didn’t like her own last name. Her last name wasn’t McStinkycrotch, but it was a harsh sounding name that she didn’t like, so she took the next name that came along. THAT makes sense to me as it wasn’t for him, it was for her, he was sort of incidental. Changing your last name because you can’t wait to ditch your shitty family and your lecherous uncle or your sucky, unhappy upbringing, THAT makes sense to me.

Changing your last name because it’s easier? Because hyphenated names are so complicated? Because what about the kids? That makes no sense to me. I think it’s lazy and false and I find it an offense to feminism. I know! IN YOUR FACE TOLERANCE!

I like equality. My smart, femmo, lesbo, artsy, fantastic parents made sure that equality is so ingrained in me, so obvious, it rarely occurs to me that it’s even a thing still. And that’s one of my problems with the surname issue, most men still don’t change their name and would NEVER dream of it. Some of you guys do, I know that (my father did in fact), but generally, it is the women who do it.

It’s certainly not easier, doing nothing is easier. Changing all your bank cards and driver’s license and all of that malarkey, is a big kerfuffle so pretending it’s easier just seems ridiculous. And tradition just doesn’t cut the mustard for me anymore either. Tradition involves women getting lesser pay (still), less political representation, dowries, corsets, staying at home with the kids – you know what I’m saying. I just don’t see why it is more important for the man to keep his last name, and by the same token expect that a woman should change hers. Why should she?

And what IS the drama with hyphenated names? You wanna show the world you’re a team and can’t bear to have separate names? It’s a new concept I suppose because traditionally women never had the choice before, so it’s one of the steps we have to take towards modernity in relationships. I would argue that in 20 years (hopefully sooner) nobody bats an eyelid at hyphens. If a hyphen kid marries another hyphen kid they can figure it out for themselves, and a woman sacrificing her name for her husband’s for the future sake of their children? Pish posh. Anyway, if me and GB’s future robot kid marries our friends’ kid (a Villeneuve-Moody blend) their last name could be VillaBunMoonPee. HOW AWESOME IS THAT??? If the kid chooses instead to marry the child of the Smeaton-Love couple, we could have a SmeePeeBunLove marriage. So great!

Also, SURELY loving each other, respecting each other, holding hands through the tough times and competing for who makes the best pasta sauce is a much better way to show the world you’re a team? Showing the world that you are one strong couple that defers to the man when life decisions need to be made just doesn’t seem so strong to me. And raising your daughter so she understands she got her dad’s name instead of her mum’s because that’s just how it is, is pathetic. I’d much rather sit and make up fantastic anagrams of last and middle names that sound like exotic animals and robot astronauts than talk about how one day she’ll find the man she marries and give up her name too. Because it’s “nice”. Puke.

Of course women can make their own decisions, that’s a big part of feminism but I don’t see why she would choose that. Unless it’s to please her husband. And in the case of a patriarchal (and misogynist) tradition, it’s a funny way to show your feminism.

So that’s all. I think it’s stupid and false. And if you’re going to defer to your husband’s wishes because it’s easier or because that’s the nice thing to do, then call it what it is so you can hold your head high and claim your 80% of his wages. Be proud of your choice, because I think it’s a shame.

So, we did this weight loss pool thing based on this article from the NY Times in February. I sent it to Graeme and bish bash bosh! a bunch of us fatty boombas (all from his work except me) put in $50 each and whoever lost the greatest percentage of weight in 8 weeks won all the money. It was a great kick in the ass for summer as most of the winter I didn’t wear a coat, I just rolled my fat wherever I needed it to be and it kept me warm.

I lost 20 pounds in the 7.5 weeks. I did it by exercising a lot and eating well (it’s pretty much rocket science, I don’t expect you to understand). 63 visits to the gym in that time and my first 10km run through the City.

My goal with the run was to trip up the Kenyans and take home the gold. Unfortunately they ran it in slightly UNDER half the time it took me to run it so I didn’t get a chance to trip them because I never saw them. I did trip a random tourist who was wearing a Richard Pryor tshirt, just to prove I could. I also had an excellent rabbit to chase in the morbidly obese man in bright red shorts who managed to be in front of me the whole fucking race. Seriously. Obese. Terrible red shorts. Kicked my ass. I ran it in 1 hour and 41 seconds. A miracle of some sort I think. By kilometre 9 I decided that the man in the red shorts was probably Gwyneth (fucking) Paltrow in disguise again, this time for some sort of thought provoking and suicide inducing blog entry.

I had a running partner with me too, which made the whole thing much more fun. She is a teeny tiny Japanese lady who, based on my rapidly declining and her ever increasing energy levels throughout the race, somehow sucked out my energy in some sort of Japanese ninja vampire thing and used it to her advantage. Cheeky.

In all seriousness I’m really really proud of myself, especially given I hadn’t run for two whole months due to my ridiculous geriatric type knee injury. The night before the race I found a miracle thingy that enables me to exercise without crippling knee pain due to having wonky slack jawed yokel knees. If you have tracking problems, please buy this. It helped me a lot. Graeme took these but there’s not many as we were running SO INCREDIBLY FAST THE CAMERA SHUTTER COULD BARELY KEEP UP. I look like I’m about to eat Irene in at least two of the five photos.

The pool has been over for two weeks now. I didn’t win, some dick took up Atkins (which he is claiming is a good healthy weight loss)(seriously whipped cream okay, brown rice bad? Please. That guy is a heart attack in bad east coast jeans, 39 pounds in 7.5 weeks? Come on). (Also, despite the tone of this post, we like him even if he is a (really, really skinny) jerkface). He lost an incredible amount of weight and I just didn’t have it in me to eat any less and I couldn’t quite bring myself to not have a glass of wine on the weekend. Is all good. I am still working out every day (one day off a week of course), but it’s SUCH a joy not to go to the gym twice a day. Holy moly that was hard work. I look pretty good though and I hope to sleep better and to make it through the summer feeling a little less exhausted after a 65 hour week.

Tomorrow morning I meet with Eurotrainer. He’s a trainer at my gym who seems to do horribly unpleasant things to his clients, all the while looking on with long, wavy flowing black hair and a miscellaneous European accent. I feel like I’m gonna be doing some push ups and he’ll be quietly explaining how Serbia is going down because he’s gotta plan…

Work is suddenly bananas again. Not much to say about that yet. Hours have crept back up and I already have nearly a week in lieu time built up. Am hoping by the end of summer I have three or so weeks in lieu plus vacation time? That’ll cover my trip to Australia and a week off for when Daaaaaria comes. Daria’s coming! Hurrah! I’m practicing my margaritas already.

Alright. I broke the drought on blog posts. I can write again soon now. Thanks for coming by! I’ll update again this weekend with tales of gardening (by gardening I mean stabbing those little squirrel plant ruiner motherfuckers with my rake and hanging them on the fence so the other little fuckers learn) and Eurotrainer. I can’t quite come up with the perfect name for him yet, Euro-something. Trainer isn’t quite right. I am trying out The Eurovision. Suggestions?

This smile is because I ate fries for the first time in 2 months. All of the fries.