In here life is beautiful… The girls are beautiful…

I noticed a hair (attached to my head) against my dark red wool coat the other day that was white at the end and brown higher up. What the heck? How does that even happen? Today, after considerable digging, I FOUND that hair and pulled it out, to satisfy my curiosity and things got even stranger: from my scalp going towards the end, 15 inches were white, 3 inches dark brown and the final 5 inches white again.

I swear I haven’t dyed my hair in eons, this is all natural colour.  And did I mention that I haven’t had a haircut in 2 years? I need to, I know. 2 feet of hair is too much.

Anyone out there have insight into why my hair might be white brown white?

I was going to write a long blog entry about the year that is just wrapping up, maybe answer a bunch of questions like Gillian does every year (now that is dedication!) but I found myself losing interest in answering them around #5. I just can’t lie on those things and telling the truth could get me in a lot of trouble, so why bother?

This is what 2009 was about for me: the absolute highest highs and the lowest lows. I experienced pure, unadulterated joy and rock bottom, brutal sadness. I felt about as angry as I ever have and fear to the point where I thought I might pass out.  The longest non-family relationship I’d had ended and I’ve done more traveling this year than any other year of my life. I have loved, laughed, cried, cooked, knitted, sang, snorkeled, danced, skated and flown.

The word to describe 2009 is not ‘meh’ it’s the opposite of that, whatever word that might be. Challenging? Rewarding? Educational? I don’t know.

Anyway. I also figured out how to make pom poms the other day and I have made a bunch for all of us:

I know, eh? You thought those skates couldn’t get any cooler, right? Ta-da!

Also, pom poms for Ari’s ice skates, and one on the tip of Shannon’s xmas hat:

I refuse to ice skate. It’s totally different from roller skating and I just don’t do it. And thanks to Drew Barrymore, I begged for roller skates for xmas-and got them! I don’t know if I love these more than the Kindle, but it’s a close draw.  And considering I haven’t really skated in about 30 years (apart from one birthday party with Ryan O’B and Karrick and Tony 15 years ago) and I am finding it quite amazing how quickly it comes back to me.

It’s hard to take a picture of one’s feet without the picture coming out all twonky.

The superb news is that there is a free skate here, in Toronto, once a week in the North Market, across from St. Lawrence Market. With that and my quilting class on Thursdays, I will be a busy bee starting 2010.

I also finally finished Shannon’s final xmas gift-the other thing he asked for-a handknit hat. It’s done in blue variegated chunky alpaca yarn and it’s pretty plush. I might make a pompom for it, if he wants one!

The gravlax I mentioned the other day was unwrapped, rinsed, sliced and eaten. Not entirely, no, that would be crazy, but we ate about a quarter of it. A lot. The only thing I would do differently-next time I make it and there will be a next time-is to use actual Kosher salt rather than regular table salt. And maybe use brown sugar instead of white.

Try not to drool on your keyboard.

And because I was feeling culinarily ambitious, I made latkes to eat the salmon with. Oh, latkes are good eating, right?

Yeah, really good eating. With sour cream. Oh.

Speaking of fish, big white fish Donna has a bruise on her shoulder and I wonder if there was a fight during the night or if she just got scraped on a rock. She’s pretty fussy about letting me look closely (and her fin blobs are getting worse too) and I’m guessing she’s not long for this world. Ah, 14+ years is a pretty good run for a regular, old fashioned feeder fish I guess.

I’m really hoping we hear from Ari today-she’s in California for xmas. Video chat is armed and ready!

I wanted to make something new, festive and pretty for dinner tonight and I was successful on all three points. I made Beet Barley Risotto and I only made a few minor changes to the recipe.  I added about 2 tablespoons of cold butter at the end to make it shiny and creamy.  I also ground in some black pepper.

It’s, sadly, not quite as delicious as it looks. If I were to make it again (and I doubt I will), I’d add orange zest or concentrate or something equally zingy.

Anyway, I hope everyone’s happy and well fed this holiday season, I love you all!

I get wrong numbers on my phone pretty regularly (like one a week or more) and today when my phone rang and it said ‘withheld’ I should have known better than to answer it. But, like a fool, I did (the woman we were subletting from-THANKS FOR CHARGING US AN EXTRA $150/MONTH!-blocks her calls too).

Me: Hello?

Him (stern voice): May I please speak to Cynthia Blahblah?

Me: Sorry, you have the wrong number.

Him: Really?

Me (super sarcastic voice): Nope! I was just kidding, this is Cynthia Blahblah!

Him: I’m an investigator from the Ontario Superior Courts and I need to…

Me: I was kidding I was kidding this isn’t Cynthia!

Then I hung up. Eek.  Then my phone rang again, it was withheld again, so I handed it off to Shannon:

This part is written by Shannon:

Him: Could I speak to Cynthia xxxxx please?

Me: Can I tell her who is calling?

Him: This is officer xxxx from the criminal courts division.

Me: What is this about?

Him: She has a court date coming up and I need to make sure that she’s going to be there. If she doesn’t show up, she’s going to jail.

Me, feeling like this is not the time to play games: Oh.. Well… This really is a wrong number. I’m honestly telling you the truth. You have a wrong number.

Him: Look, I just talked to her at that number and I know she’s there. She’s going to be in a lot of trouble.

Me: No, no, that wasn’t her, you have a wrong number.

Him: She told me it was her. I know she’s there.

Me: No, she was just joking with you… You have a wrong number.

Him: I have a lot of trouble believing that. Why would someone do that? This is a serious matter and I need to talk to her.

Me: Honestly, you have a wrong number! I’m not lying to you! She was just joking because she gets constant wrong numbers, and you didn’t believe her when she told you it was a wrong number.

Him: Look, I know she’s there and I know this is her number. I need to talk to her.

Me: I’m not lying to you! You really, really have a wrong number!

Him: Well, I’m going to have to open a criminal investigation into this phone number now.

[click]

Lord. What have I done?

I’ve had my Kindle for almost a week, and have read a complete book on it and I have to say I love this toy very much. Add it to the list of electronics I can’t live without (my DS, Sirius radio and laptops being the other ones). Here’s why it’s great:

1. Downloading books takes about 3 seconds. It’s that fast.

2. Lots of free books. I have downloaded Dickens and Doctorow, Lovecraft and Baum without spending a penny.

3. Book samples. Also free, you can sample books-you get about 3 or 4 chapters, BANG, and then decide if you really want to pay for ‘em.

4. Text-to-speech. It’s not perfect and it’s almost unlistenable, but it was really nice on our return trip to have a robot voice lulling in my ear about true crime.

5. The screen rotates to suit how you hold it. That’s hot.

6. It offers recommended books, depending on your searches and downloads.

7. The screen savers are cool.

8. Amazon has all the different prices listed for books, ie, standard books, kindle, audio etc, so that makes picking stuff out easier too.

9. Built in PDF reader=knitting patterns on the go. Yay!

Here’s what I don’t like about it:

1. People who think it sucks and have no problem telling me it sucks. Ok, whatever, your opinion, that’s nice. The cashier at Chapter’s (yes! I still buy BOOKS!) complained that it’s not backlit (hi, neither are books!) and that the keyboard was too fiddly. Ohhh kaaayyy.

2. Not all books are available yet. Not even close. Nothing by John Irving or CD Payne showed up. No Jeffrey Steingarten or Jilly Cooper either. No Palahniuk or Eggers. Weird.

3. Boring selection of magazines. And newspapers. And no blogs available in Canada yet.

I will not be downloading (I mean, paying) for books I already own, this isn’t going to make my books obsolete, not by a long shot. So the 9 shelves of books in our house have nothing to fear.

And I really enjoyed I Only Roast the Ones I Love by Jeffrey Ross, the first book I bought on Kindle.

Since the Cuban authorities had other ideas about our vacation (Shannon called it 20 minutes, but it was really closer to an hour total on the ground there), I’ve had to figure out other ways to amuse myself while off work for a few days-other than wound licking.

I’ve done some more knitting-the shawl I started with the lovely yellow sock yarn is coming along swimmingly. It’s nearing the end and I have to figure out a nice way to edge it to tie it all together. I’m meeting Jana for lunch tomorrow and I’ll be asking her an enormous favour-that’s all I will say about that here. I ordered another ball from a different (Canadian) vendor on Etsy and was surprised-and a little pissed off-at how much shipping was: on a $14 ball of yarn,  shipping was $9.50! Plus tax and exchange rate, it came to almost $28 total! Whereas the yarn I got from America? The shipping was $3. Crappy crap crap, right?

Because the dishes are almost done, I have also done a lot of cooking-so far today I have made vegan cabbage rolls and non-vegan fudge.  I also made my first gravlax ever, which will be ready on xmas day so we’ll have something delicious to feast on. I have also unpacked, vacuumed and wrapped all the presents.

We’ve been trying to stay busy and not wallow in sadness about missing our vacation. I’ve been looking for a salt water public pool in Toronto (there’s one at the JCC but I was hoping for one in our area) to swim at and I think we’re going out for a very nice dinner tomorrow night. Then we’re going to lay low and wait for Ari to get home so we can celebrate xmas for realzies.

So Shannon gave me my xmas present last night as it needs to be brought on our trip:

YES! It’s a Kindle! And I’ve already plopped 18 books onto it so that ought to keep me somewhat busy on our trip. How cool is this thing anyway?

Other news: I took out my tongue piercing. It was about 16 years old and it was time to go. Felt SO weird for the first few days that I kept licking my top lip because it hadn’t been licked in so long. It’s still weird now, 5 days later, but only when I think about it.

Ok, folks, see you in a week, lots of holiday love to all of you!

xoxo

We’re getting ready to take off for a few days over xmas. Because we’ve taken so many trips in the last year, it’s become easier for me, I no longer make lists of what to bring-it’s second nature now. I also keep vacation stuff (passports, goggles, miniature toiletries) all together to keep things simple. The only thing is that I do still tend to over (and occasionally under) pack for trips bringing clothes that I don’t end up wearing.

If we’re allowed to go. If, if, if. I never believe we’re going anywhere-and refuse to get too excited about anything-until we’re actually on the plane.

I should take another picture when we get home and it’s all balled up and covered in white sand. And smells like sweat and spf40.

Today was a good day, I had a tattoo consult with Bill and we’re going to get together in the new year to get back to work on my right arm. It took me years to figure out what I wanted to do in the negative space and I finally got it. He seemed happy enough with the design and I am very happy about it.  Plus I love to hang out with Bill because he’s very funny and friendly and full of great stories.

Then I ate lunch at Big Fat Burrito and was not disappointed. My goodness, SO GOOD. I had a small yam burrito with everything and burrito sauce. To. Die. For. I should have ordered a large…drooling just thinking about it now.  There are some things I could eat almost daily, and that burrito was one of them. Perfection.

I got new shades too, since I’d lost my green G4K pair and was reduced to wearing the black wrap arounds that came free with our Hallowe’en contacts. These new ones are ok, they were only $5, but my hair’s already been ripped out by the metal logos pinned to the sides. Stupid knock-off D&G.

Big glasses for a giant head.

Now I have to decide on entertainment for the trip, which yarn/needles to bring and books. And my DS, it’s always good. And I have to remember to get fish food blocks tomorrow. Gosh.