Everything in its own time...

So with the exception of 15 months in 2006-07, I have lived in Ottawa since September 2004. That's almost 7 1/2 years now. And you know what I did today for the FIRST TIME?



Yes, I know. Amazing, and kind of sad, all at once.*

I have walked across the Canal once or twice in the wintertime in my boots. But I don't think I ever went skating. Maaaaaybe once, but I don't even think so.

So today, after Settlers' brunch,** I walked down to my friend Emily's place in the Glebe, and we went to the Canal. We got on near Fifth Avenue, and skated all the way up to the National Arts Centre, where this photo was taken (as well as the following ones). Then we skated all the way back down to the Bank Street Bridge, which is as far as the Canal is currently open, then back up to Fifth.





It was awesome, and I plan on going a few more times in the next couple of weeks for sure.


* And as an aside to myself, next time I get my picture snapped whilst wearing my backpack, take off the waist strap. It is just not flattering over a puffy winter jacket.

** Some friends of mine have been meeting every Sunday for 2+ years for brunch at one of the pubs on Elgin Street to play Settlers of Catan (Cities & Knights). I started going in mid-November. Such a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Nom nom nom.*

This evening, a friend of mine posted on her Facebook page about these awesome sweet-yet-spicy cupcakes she had just made. And it turns out that, while I thought I was feeling relaxed, sleepy (having just gone swimming at the local pool), and ready to turn in for the night, I was actually feeling highly suggestible.



Seriously. What am I going to do with 24 cupcakes?**

The recipe is an all-vegan one, and it just happened I had all the ingredients to make both the cupcakes and the icing.

Or so I thought.

Recipes aren't actually meant to be followed, are they? I thought my actual "challenge" would be the fact that I had no cocoa powder, just unsweetened chocolate squares. Not such a challenge, actually: Unsweetened Chocolate Squares, meet Food Processor! Well, to be more specific, meet Food Processor Whom I Have Owned For At Least 18 Months But Have Never Used. Which meant I had to go (dig out of an as-yet unpacked box and) introduce myself to the manual for said Food Processor.***

Once I got the food processor up and running, I realized I also had no icing sugar for the frosting, just regular sugar, the icing sugar having met its fate a couple of weeks previously in some Christmas and New Year's desserts. So thus began the long evening of Googling various baking substitutes.

To wit:

• Icing sugar can be made by blending regular sugar.
  
• When you stupidly use all your regular sugar to make icing sugar, you can then substitute brown sugar for regular sugar.
  
• Baking powder instead of baking soda, but only if you use 3-4 times the amount called for, and never the other way around.
  
• Butter instead of margarine is always recommended, but when you run out of butter halfway through your substitution, you're screwed. Or, like I did, you can use some canola/vegetable oil to top up.
  
• When you run out of canola oil, you can top up using margarine (don't ask).
  
• No vanilla extract? Yeah, too bad.

The above list is the sort of reason why I think I make a better librarian than baker.

However. The cupcakes turned out fantastic! Sooooo tasty. The cayenne pepper dances lightly on your tongue, yet they are sweet. Lovely.

But the icing! Alas. When I made the icing sugar, I hadn't had quite enough regular organic sugar, so I mixed it with raw turbinado. Apparently I haven't learned my lesson from Christmas when I managed to muff up the Best Brownies In The World recipe, which I have been making for 25+ years, by using turbinado instead of regular sugar. Those members of my family who tried to eat the resulting brownie might find the following picture of the icing familiar.



While it looked pretty, it tasted like someone put sucre à crème directly on top. Granular and crunchy, not in a good way.

Tomorrow I have to go to the grocery store - having managed to exhaust my supply of 2 different kinds of sugar, vanilla extract, flour, vegetable oil and butter, all in one night**** - and I have decided that what these cupcakes really, truly need is cream cheese icing. Probably from Betty Crocker; my kitchen is enough of a mess now, thank you.





* Alternately titled, The Benefit Of Living Alone Is That No One Knows You Baked And Ate Cupcakes After Spending The Evening Swimming At The Pool.

** Well, 23 cupcakes now. But who's counting?

*** I first tried to figure it out sans manual. But it turns out my parents were right when they told my grade-9 Industrial Technology teacher that "Julie just has no head for machines".

**** Plus I need chili powder and beans for my next foray into strange and unusual cooking.

And now, for something completely different

I am totally addicted to the sad adventures of Misery Bear, brought to us by some brilliant minds at BBC.

You can access all his films on his website and on YouTube (I note there are some listed on YouTube that aren't on his website). My favourite, of course, is Dawn of the Ted:




Genius. Though I have to admit, the Red Nose Day special with Kate Moss* comes a close second, because of the ironic-yet-oh-so-clever twist at the end.* Not to mention it starts and finishes with one of the best songs EVER**.

OMG am I ever addicted; I just spent a ton of time exploring his website and discovered that Misery Bear even has his own Twitter feed, which I am now (of course) subscribed to.

And THEN, as if that wasn't exciting enough, I discovered Misery Bear has a WEBCAM!!! I am never going to get anything done, ever again.***


* Red Nose Day is apparently a national day of fundraising by doing something funny.

** Seriously, I can't express how much I love this song - I honestly can listen to it over and over and over again. And the video is so lovely, all 9 minutes of it.

*** OK, maybe the fact I like the Kate Moss episode so much is a sign of something more...disturbing...

All's quiet on --SPLAT!

Last night I went to Trailer Park Bingo for the first time ever. A couple of friends of mine go almost every week. This week, Kate and I decided to go as well (she has been before).

I won a bingo! Very exciting. I had to roll a ring down the "Blingo" board to see what my prize would be.




There's loads of great and not-so-great prizes you can win. Old board games, VHS movies, tacky wall hangings, etc. Mostly, the prizes have the "kitsch that's kind of kitschy but is so ending up back at Goodwill" factor. But no. I don't win one of those. No way. Nothing quite so pedestrian for me.

Twice my Blingo ended up on "Mystery Box", but there weren't any boxes left. Then I ended up on "Nut", which is where you pick a number out of this large wooden nut, and then Flash Cadillac, the Bingo caller, matches up the number off his list of prizes. I won "PIE". Then, I had to pick out of a second, smaller nut, to see whom I would be pie-ing. The piece of paper said "EWE".

There's sheep at Trailer Park Bingo???

... ...

Aww, crap.



Yup, on my very first-ever Trailer Park Bingo, I managed to win, via a very circuitous, labyrinthine route, the prize of being pied in the face. C.P., one of the guys who works the bar, got to do the honours.

My post-pie reaction? "Mmm, tasty!" It was whipped cream and raspberry/strawberry drizzle. I am apparently lucky - one of the guys we were with, Alex, has been pied in the past, and his pie was alphagetti and grenadine. Kinda ick.

After helping me clean up, C.P. gave me a free beer and shots for my table.* I debated drinking them all myself, but I was nice, and shared with the 4 people I used to consider my friends.



For the record, whipped cream detritus makes your hair really crunchy and stiff. It also makes you smell nice, if a little flowery :)

* Alex also said he didn't get any free booze after being pied. So I win!

You Bought A Zoo! I Went Swimming!

When I moved to my new neighbourhood in October, my good friend Kate, who lives right near here, made me promise that we would go swimming on a regular basis at the newly-renovated community centre pool which is literally a 2-minute walk from my place (and about 7 minutes from her place). Absolutely, I said!

Well, as you can probably guess, what then ensued was a weeks-long-turned-months-long set of creative excuses, day after day, why one or the other of us couldn't go swimming the next day. As Kate said at one point, we're such hipsters we stopped swimming before we even started. Ha.

But now! We are swimming! Last Friday, we actually made it out. Kate went another time this week as well, and then we went again tonight. And while I don't remember swimming ever being this...EXHAUSTING...it's fun! Tonight after work, I bought swim goggles because I realized last week that I'm slightly panicked about putting my head in the water and not being able to see (I wear contacts so I have to close my eyes).* I'm used to snorkeling and scuba-diving, see, and a key feature of those activities is that YOU CAN SEE. That's kind of the point, actually. My new goggles rock! Though it turns out I am TERRIBLE at swimming. It's a lot of work when you don't have a BCD or flippers! I may look into remedial adult-swim classes later this winter. In the meantime, there's absolutely no shame in swimming with a flutterboard in the slow lane, right?


* Wearing contacts, which I only started doing just over a year ago, is a definite plus. One of the reasons I was always reluctant to go swimming in the past is that I couldn't find my way around. Swimming is no fun when you can't tell the swimmers from the sharks in the pool.**

** When I was a kid, I was convinced that if I took my eyes off the deep end, a shark would swim out of one of the water-exchange grills. This was particularly a danger at the pool at my grandmaman's old condo in Quebec City, which was kind of dark, shadowy and mysterious, at least to a 10-year-old.

Rion the Extra-Terrier

I leave my dog alone all day and when I get home, I can't find him because he's doing his best E.T. impression.*



But that's not the best shot from today. No, that prize goes to "Would someone get this frackin' paparazzi out of my face already!"



I love my dog :)
     


* All together now: "Ell-ee-ott. Owww."

Last night of vacation!

Tonight is my last night of vacation, and my best guy and I got all dolled up for a night out on the town!


After getting lost in the townhouse complex on Primrose, however, we decided to call it a night and head home.*

This morning, I busted Rion out of prison,** then we had a 2-hour nap,*** then we had pretzels for lunch and played on the computer all the rest of the afternoon. It's been an almost perfect last day of vacation.

I have Rion for at least the rest of the week, so we'll have to see what madcap adventures we can have over the next few days. At the very least, I'd like to get him hooked on Arrested Development.


* Getting lost on Primrose takes talent if you know what a short block this end of Primrose is.

** aka the kennel. Though I suspect he wouldn't have been sad if I hadn't come to get him, since he absolutely loves it there. And there are way more dogs at the kennel than there are at my house.

*** Actual length: 2 1/2 hours. It was the best decision I made all day.

Happy New Year 2012!

Visual representation of how I felt this morning when I woke up:



And further visual representation of the post-NYE morning (well, early afternoon) debauchery:

aka breakfast cereal and coffee with friends, complete with invitation to zombie movie marathon (alas, i did not make it)


Happy New Year 2012!
this is pixxiefish in the sea, making no promises for the year to come :)