musings on life and death

unlike these moths that could not stay out of the candles,
the blog is not dead

but it's not quite alive these days either

i'm considering my options, and a reboot may be in order; i'm just not sure yet what form it should or will take

but hey, in the meantime, i've uploaded a bunch of photos to flickr from the past year; you should take a look

We interrupt this (non) broadcast...

Cleaning out my phone, I came across this picture, taken just the other day:

I have no idea what it was supposed to be, but I like it.

Dog in da house!

There's currently a dog in my house, but he doesn't like to sit still for pictures.


Finally, after many, many attempts, I managed to get a shot (using my webcam) where we both looked semi-intelligent.


And now, we return to our regularly-scheduled puppy-snuggling.

34:38.1

This morning, I ran the Ottawa Winterman 5K. It was my first ever race!



  





My friend Christine (pictured with me above) had signed up for this a few weeks ago, and I thought I would also give it a try. It was cold starting out, but luckily I have gotten kind of used to winter running, and it wasn't so bad after a bit. For those who know Ottawa, we started at the Canadian War Museum and ran along the Parkway to Parkdale, with a short loop behind Tunney's Pasture, and then all the way back. Very similar to my usual running route, actually, which is along Scott almost all the way to Island Park, and back.

My favourite part of the run was near the beginning, as the Parkway curves down and away along the river, and seeing the sea of colourful runners stretched out along. It is also the part of the run I have no pictures of, as, well, I was running :)

  

I placed 127th out of 186. For my troubles they gave me a bagel, a banana, and a nice sweet water.* Oh, and a nice, shiny snowflake medal. My time was 34:38.1, at a pace of 6:56. I'd been hoping it would be a bit faster, but I am still quite pleased. I passed a bunch of people, I ran almost the entire way (walked maybe 200-300 metres in total, and stopped maybe 30 seconds at the turning point for a drink), and most importantly, I had fun! I only started running in earnest last summer, and I am not competitive by nature, so this really is a "all I have to do is finish" kind of thing for me.

Now I am debating if I am going to sign up for the 10K in the Ottawa Race Weekend this May. I think I am maybe just crazy enough :)

* For those of you who know it, it tasted like Pocari Sweat. Ahhhh, Pocari Sweat, how I miss you!!!

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...