Impromptu blog – The Dress

Ok internets. I am a busy girl and don’t like to fixate too long on any one thing. But this dress thing, it is so fascinating. I have this kind of problem all the time.

Take this Cynthia Rowley Dress, straight from the 2015 spring runway.

What colour – white and black, or pink and brown? I just don’t know which I should commit to. I can’t decide. And if I decide, will it be the catalyst for some internet fueled debate? I can’t risk that.

Obviously I just have to buy one in each colour.

Thank-you internet.

Previously palatable

What to eat, not what not to eat. That was my quest.

Last Thursday the love of my life and I found ourselves childless due to a confluence of fortuitous circumstances.

My usual week night routine involves feats of dexterity rarely seen outside the circus ring. I juggle to accommodate and cajole to tame a motley crew of spurious and furious likes, dislikes, aversions and nutritional requirements for 5 people.

I take it with practiced grace now. When we first merged our households I was less adept and dinners were occasionally traumatic and sporadically dangerous.

During one ride home five weeks after I started cooking for everyone I was asked what I was planning for supper. I sobbed the rest of the way home.

There was, in the first six months, one tragic day when we all stood hungrily in front of the pantry considering our options. I offered to quickly prepare a tasty spaghetti arrabiatta, which was rebuffed with a slam of the pantry door and the gruff assertion that no meal was possible without meat. I assume they all had cold sliced meat sandwiches for dinner that night because I didn’t cook.

Last fall I found a recipe and attempted moose stew. I do learn the hard way sometimes. First of all, the raw meat was frightfully bleedy. Secondly cooking wild meat smells like grocery store meat times 100. The fumes alone caused a dysphoric agitation that took me three days to shake.

Oh, and there was the potato pie incident. Four large potatoes, a container of cottage cheese, fried onion, garlic and peppers, another cup of grated cheese with two eggs to bind it. The middle boy shoved it away and refused to even taste it, hastily declaring it frittata-non-grata. That incident sent me up to my bedroom for the night.

Anyway, back to my story. All the boys were out and I decided that was the perfect opportunity for a date night dining adventure. So we made our freedom count. We went out for dinner. Randomly, without a reservation or ANYTHING.

We wandered downtown and passed several cafes. Then I spotted a restaurant I had eaten in few months prior when a friend and I were famished from a long day shopping. There I had savoured my food. It was so tasty. It filled me up and set me right for the rest of the day. Just recalling the meal made me salivate.

I suggested this restaurant to my love.

It was a complete let-down. I mean, the food was good enough. It was freshly prepared. The presentation was certainly spot on. The service was excellent.

But it wasn’t as thrilling as I had remembered…suddenly I knew why. Hunger is the best seasoning. This time I wasn’t famished, I was just bored.

Opportunity wasted.

It really sucks that food tastes better when you are hungry, but when you are well fed eating is only a mediocre experience.

Foodie follie

You know I love my boys. I dote on them. I make sacrifices for them. I happily and willingly share my space with them, my time with them and my money catering to their youthful tastes.

For instance, I have a whole section of the fridge dedicated to lunch meat, cheese, and soda. I have a cupboard filled with cereal, instant noodles and goldfish crackers. I have ceded part of my freezer space to pizza pops and Haagen Dazs… nope sorry that’s mine … to pizza pops and frozen waffles.

That’s all well and good. These things are not to my taste, but because I am a naturally tolerant person I accept my gouda being placed next to the kraft singles, my granola next to the frosted flakes, and my premium ice cream brand next to frozen breakfast waffles. I believe that these two food views can co-exist peacefully.

This has never been an issue for me, until now. I had, of course, hoped that eventually my tastes would influence the boys. After all imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What I had not considered was the real timeline on which this imitative effect might impact my real life.

Last weekend, after a hectic Saturday attending a civic speaking event, dinner at the hot new tapas spot downtown and then the opera in the evening, I looked forward to a relaxing stress free Sunday.

I slept late, and at my leisure wandered down stairs. I intended to make myself eggs benedict for brunch …

… and discovered we had no eggs or butter.

Then I thought – that’s ok. I opened the cheese drawer to fetch the aged cheddar for a grilled Panini sandwich…

… and it too was gone.

I moved to the next option, bagel and cream cheese. Nope. No bagel, no cream cheese.

I decided to just make myself an Americano…

… but the can of espresso was empty.

At this point I was quite flustered. I decided that before I further explored my options I needed to calm down, so I opened the fridge fully intending to retrieve a craft ale to sooth my nerves.

There wasn’t a can or bottle left in the fridge, although I did note there were several in the recycle bin.

So, what I did I get on my relaxing Sunday morning? I had what was left in the cupboard and fridge.

I had a rootbeer and ramen noodles.

And NO, you cannot see a photo of that.

Intimate instances, for instance (a tale of two toilets)

**TMI Warning**

I love my home. I have a beautiful library, five fireplaces and rooms with french doors. The house is in a wonderful neighbourhood close to my city’s beautiful river valley and cycling distance to restaurants and cafes and shopping. The comfort is real.

I also love my husband. We share the ups and downs of daily life. I laugh in front of him, I cry in front of him. We have a bond and a lifestyle that keeps outside issues from coming between us. Our joy is is real.

(Aren’t we cute?)

I feel a little bad picking at my bliss, but I have a serious problem.

There are intimate instances during which I do not feel it is necessary to keep the proverbial (or actual) beautiful french doors open between my love and me. For instance, any time that I need to use a toilet.

I have the world’s worst en suite bathroom. It makes me want to wail and tear out my hair. What epic idiot renovated this elegant traditional home with the confused theory that modern marital bliss was compatible with uncloseted toilets? It boggles the mind. One wonders if the architect was some alien being, unfamiliar with the uncommunality of the common commode.

When we first moved in I felt the pressure to be flexible, so in the middle of the night I would stumble quietly into the darkness, groping the walls on my way to the bathroom, and stealthily perch on the uncloseted toilet around the corner. It seemed like a workable situation for a while. Then the inevitable happened.

My husband, who will sleep soundly through the trumpets and clashing swords of the apocalypse, had a bladder full at MY usual hour. We have reached the point in our marriage where our bladders are synchronized, which may sound sweet – the world is full of serendipitists who find all togetherness tales endearing – but it created a situation fraught with peril.

You see, I had already rounded the corner in the darkness and was sitting in cognito on the un-private privy.

When my darling rounded the dark corner I saw his outline against the moonlit window and hissed “I am on the toilet!” He recoiled in alarm, swung his arms – nearly sending all my lotions and pill bottles crashing off my sink counter – and, spinning on his heels, lunged back to bed.

Had he taken his final two steps he most certainly would have emptied his bladder on the spot I, and the toilet, currently occupied. I narrowly averted being peed on.

Consequently, my new midnight routine involves a flight of stairs because I simply cannot risk a repeat of watercloset-gate.

I want a door on my toilet.

I need a door on my toilet.

I need privacy to pee, and one of these early mornings I am going to fall down the stairs and break my neck trying to discreetly make my way down to the main floor bathroom to take care of what I should be able to take care of in my en suite.

God grant me the flexibility to accept the things I cannot change,

the willpower to change the things I can,

and the budget for a private toilet.

darcysfirstworldproblems

It's lonely in the top (1%)

Month: February 2015

Impromptu blog – The Dress

Previously palatable

Foodie follie

Intimate instances, for instance (a tale of two toilets)