BodyStep

I recently did a step class at the gym and got a bit freaked out. In a good way.

The track we were doing called for participants to switch positions with each other partway through the song - à la musical chairs. At the appropriate time I ran to find a new step, but due to the ensuing confusion, I wound up right back where I started.

The instructor, thinking quickly, swapped places with me. I WAS ON THE STAGE!

It was really the end of the track and it only lasted about 15 seconds, but what a strange place to be. The view from the stage is so much different from what I'm used to. I'm loud, but bashful, and I found it really hard to look out at the rest of the class.

It just confirmed that I'm more a cheerleader than an instructor.

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Earworm Wednesdays

I wasn't gonna write one of these today, but I was in the middle of preparing another post when I realized I do indeed have an earworm floating about. It's Dark Road by Annie Lennox.

I don't have any Annie Lennox CDs, or any Eurythmics either, but I do love her (them) and I have loads of their music in iTunes. Annie's awesome.

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Tassimo_bosch

We were actually doubly lucky this weekend. Lex had entered two separate twitter contests to win a free Tassimo machine and she wound up winning TWO machines - one of which she kindly gave to us. So aside from getting to enjoy a free and delicious 7-course meal, we also got a free hot-drink maker out of the deal!

So what's a Tassimo, you ask? Well, it's basically a machine that eliminates the need to go to Starbucks. In a matter of one minute (Seriously, it doesn't even need to heat the water first!) Tassimo prepares one-cup servings of coffee, espresso, cappuccino, hot chocolate, earl grey, and (best of all, for us non-coffee drinkers) chai! Plus, you can add a second round of brewing to add latte or cappuccino foam to your drink.

It's an incredibly smart system. You buy Tassimo disks that include all you need for the drink you want, then the machine reads a bar code on the disk and does all the work of brewing. No more brewing a whole pot of coffee for one person. No more messy cleanup from steaming your own foam. No more powdered hot chocolate. No more spending $5 on a cup of chai latte at Starbucks. The disks cost between $0.20 and $0.50 each and you would never really need more than 2 disks per cup. So there's huge savings for this DIY machine.

Thanks again, L&G!

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Earworm Wednesdays

I've become a big fan of Glee. I've always enjoyed the show, but it seems more and more to be coming into its own - or maybe I'm just getting used to the frenetic pace of it. Whatever the reason, I love it.

One of the songs they did has been stuck in my brain since the weekend: Kristen Chenowith's rendition of Maybe This Time, from Cabaret - a song I never used to like in the film, but that seems to have grown on me.

Check it out. Not sure how long this will be up on YouTube, so be quick about it.

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We got lucky. Our friends in Toronto - Lex'n'Ger - invited us for a fancy-pants meal last weekend. They had won the services of a professional chef for an evening, and he was offering to prepare a 7-course meal for the four of us. Junkii and I were thrilled with the invitation, and even more thrilled with what the chef - Matt Kantor from Little Kitchen - came up with. It was the best meal we'd had all year - even better than the awesome meals we prepared over Thanksgiving weekend - so you know it was good.

Here's a rundown:

Course 1: Pan-seared Shrimp Tossed in Charmoula Sauce
None of us had even heard of, let alone tasted, charmoula sauce. It's a marinade from the Moroccan/Algerian corner of Africa and its made up of herbs, oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and dozens of other things. It's got a wonderfully complex set of flavours that suited the shrimp perfectly. It would also go well with grilled fish or other seafood, and we're gonna have to figure out how to make it ourselves before next summer's grilling season gets here. Junkii said it best during the meal: "this is the first time I've ever cut up my shrimp to make them last longer." Me? I just gobbled them whole. Mmmmm.

Charmoula Shrimp

Course 2: Beet and Grapefruit Salad with Gribiche Sauce
Junkii seems to be developing a fondness for beets. I've never been a big fan, but this worked really well together. The sweetness of the beets and the tart/bitter flavour of the grapefruit was nicely balanced, while the tarragon-based Gribiche sauce (another sauce we had never heard of) helped to bring the flavours all together.

Beet and Grapefruit Salad with gribiche sauce

Course 3: Seared Sea Scallop with diced Hidden Rose Apple and Curry Oil on Romanesco Puree
The use of curry oil here was pure awesomeness. Matt even explained how to go about making it (i.e. add curry powder to oil, duh) so maybe we could try to recreate this one. Seems pretty straightforward, otherwise. The diced pieces you see in the photo - the ones that look like carrot - are actually an heirloom varietal of apple called 'Hidden Rose'. The flesh of the apple is naturally that colour. The crunch of the apple pieces was a nice addition to the dish, which - because the scallop was so perfectly cooked - was otherwise very soft.

Seared Sea Scallop with Ruby Pink Apple and curry oil on romanesco puree

Course 4: Risotto of Roast Duck, Chanterelles, and Butternut Squash
This risotto was to-die-for. Duck is one of our favorites at any time, but to add it to such a creamy blend of rice, mushroom, and squash... sorry, I'm drooling.

Roast Duck, Chanterelle, and squash risotto

Course 5: Ras el Hanout Lamb Cabbage Rolls on Eggplant Puree with Bordelaise Sauce
The only reason I have any inkling of what Ras el Hanout actually is, is because I watch Top Chef. They use this north African spice blend all the time. So it was a real privilege to get to have it prepared for us. And it was yummy. But the real icing on the cake was that this was also a case where the wine pairing was perfect. I don't remember what the wine tasted like - come on, we had already had 4 courses with paired wines! - but I do remember it went perfectly with the lamb dish. Fantastic! Torrederos Tinto Crianza 2004. Still available at the LCBO if you hurry.

Ras Al Hanout Lamb Cabbage Rolls with Bordelaise sauce

Course 6: Tarragon Ice Cream with Beet Gelee and Candied Grapefruit Rind
I didn't expect this to have such a strong flavour of tarragon in the ice cream, but it was very pronounced - and mighty good. The gelee was a little too delicate and got lost between the tarragon and the candied rind - which also had a very robust flavour.

Tarragon Ice Cream with Beat Gelee and candied Grapefruit rind

Course 7: Belgian Endive Terrine with Candied Hazelnuts and Guinness Caramel Sauce
Can't say I tasted a lot of endive in the terrine, but it was delicious either way. To me it had more of a mocha flavour - but perhaps that's just because the Guinness caramel sauce was sooooooo goooooood. Or maybe it's because I really don't know what endive tastes like. We served a trio of beers with this dish. The dark beer is Young's Double Chocolate stout which, to my palate worked perfectly with the dessert, but others at the table felt it overpowered the Guinness sauce. There was also an apple cider served in the trio, and that worked well with the dessert too, counterbalancing the tart cider with the sweet dessert.

Belgian Endive Terrine with candied hazelnuts and guinness caramel sauce

So there you have it. Just your average, everyday dinner at home with friends. Thanks L&G for sharing with us! When can we do this again?

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So it’s not a corneal ulcer. After more than an hour of waiting - time spent perusing my Vietnam travel book - I finally got in to see the eye specialist this morning. She took one look with her microscope and decided it wasn't an ulcer. She simply found and removed a foreign object from my eye.

So now, instead of needing steroids, she simply has me on some mild antibiotics to make sure the site doesn’t get infected while it heals.

Yay – I’m ulcer-free!

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My Eye

For the past two days I've felt like there's something in my right eye. But after long inspections in the mirror, I still couldn't find anything. But I knew that feeling.

Last time I had it, it was worse. It felt like I had a grain of sand in my eye. But it's the same feeling... just not quite as progressed. I had a corneal ulcer once before, and that's what I figure I have now. These things basically occur when you get a scratch on your eyeball and bacteria takes advantage of that weakness to set up house. So it gets progressively worse as the bacteria multiplies.

Of course I needed to be sure, so I called my optometrist today and, after a bus ride out to Orleans, the doc confirmed my diagnosis. On the plus side, he said it's not as bad as the one I had previously, and he booked me a Thursday morning appointment with a specialist who, he said, will likely prescribe an antibiotic/steroid that will get rid of it without too much hassle.

So no cause for alarm - just a bit of short-term discomfort, and hopefully I'll be right as rain in a few days.

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News release from the Climate Action Network Canada:
 
For Immediate Release
November 3, 2009
 (Barcelona, Spain): In the last round of United Nations climate change negotiations before the historic Copenhagen summit in December, Canada has been singled out as being the most destructive nation in the talks today by a network of over 400 international non-governmental organizations. Climate Action Network International has awarded Canada the first place Fossil of the Day award for blocking and stalling these critical negotiations.
 
In stark contrast to the grey suits that fill the halls of the UN conference centre, the Fossil of the Day awards are described as ‘the most fun you can have at the UN’. Announced amid colourful dismay and disappointment at the inaction of the winners, today’s awards were presented to:
 
1st Place: CANADA - a nation who regularly appears on the ‘Fossil Leaderboard’ - wins tonight’s first place Fossil for stating in this morning’s informal meeting on adaptation that they “would not envisage loss and damage [due to climate change impacts] being addressed as part of the objectives on adaptation”. They also failed to say where they think it should be addressed; instead raising the suspicion they would prefer it to fall off the table completely.
 
There will be substantial damage from unavoidable impacts of climate change, against which adaptation is not, or no longer, an option – such as sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion into groundwater aquifers or desertification. Millions of livelihoods in developing countries are threatened by such impacts. 
 
“A Copenhagen Agreement that does not recognize that such impacts exist and that does not include resolute provisions to address these impacts would mean that the world’s most vulnerable people, namely those for which adaptation funding is not available, would be left out of the agreement,” said Antonio Hill from Oxfam International.
 
2nd Place: a tie between the USA – historically the world’s largest emitting nation - and SAUDI ARABIA, the world’s largest oil exporter
 
The United States was awarded a Fossil Award because of recent statements by the delegation that they do not think that compliance matters. In the view of the Climate Action Network International, such statements by the US undermine a productive negotiating process, particularly in light of the US 'pledge and review' proposal. This proposal is to have a type of 'show and tell' for each nation’s actions, in lieu of binding commitments to collective global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Saudi Arabia received the fossil, for its expression of concern in the Shared Vision contact group that they "are being asked to pay more than their fair share" in a Copenhagen climate deal.
 
As the International Energy Agency analysis released in Bangkok shows, while OPEC oil revenues over the next 20 years under a 450 ppm mitigation scenario would be somewhat lower than they would under a business-as-usual scenario, they would still be about four times higher than they have been over the last twenty years.  Countries whose people are already suffering serious impacts from climate change may be excused for wondering who, in fact, is being asked to pay more than their fair share.

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WigParty09

Saturday night we held our 4th Annual wig party - on Halloween night! This was the first time the party was actually on Halloween proper, and that had some interesting effects - some positive, some negative:

• Positive: The commitment to full costumes was huge this year. This is supposed to be a wig party - which means you don't need anything more than the cheapest wig you can find at the dollar store - so it's always impressive when people go all out with their costumes. And this year, probably because it was Halloween, we had an inordinately high number of full costumes. The "Total ensemble" category was hotly contested.
• On the downside: With loads of other Halloween parties going on, and trick-or-treaters at the door, many people had other places to be. We invited more people than ever before, but many weren't able to make it. Even some who had hoped to come dropped out at the last minute. Which sucks, but we had an awesome time with the people who did make it! They make all the cleaning and prep work worthwhile!

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, Rocker is wearing a wig called "urban vampire" - whatever that is.

Click the image above or this link for more photos!

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Pompadour

I wore a wig to work today, to help get me into the spirit for tomorrow night's wig party. I wore Junkii's pompadour wig from last year (Well, I wasn't about to reveal this year's wig just yet, now was I?!)and got a few great laughs when I arrived in the office.

But after a couple of hours in the wig, I started to get a headache - partly from the spirit gum needed to hold down the sideburns, but mostly from the fact that my skull cap was too tight.

Now I'm kind of dreading having to wear a skull cap and wig tomorrow night. Backfire!

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