Abstract Random

We had a fun three-day weekend. Not surprisingly, food featured prominently. After a bit of shopping on Friday, we treated ourselves to lunch at Play. I whipped together some dough for a loaf of no knead bread Friday evening so we could have it for lunch Saturday. The deal with no knead bread is that it's super easy to make but you have to let the dough sit for 12-18 hours (the longer the better) plus another two hours for the second rise so advance planning is very necessary. But it's well worth the wait, you end up with a delicious, crusty, rustic loaf like this one:

Saturday night we went to bSide for dinner. I enjoy eating there, there's always lots of new and interesting things to try.

In non-food-related news, we saw Youth in Revolt yesterday. I had started reading the book a few months ago but couldn't get through it because it was a little too intimate a look inside a teenage boy's mind than I cared for (i.e. nonstop talk of erections and masturbation). I liked the movie, though. It's no Adventureland but still worth checking out.

The massive project that I've been managing is coming to a close. My days of endless conference calls, testing, managing bug lists, multiple to-do lists and schedules are pretty much over. (That is, until the next big project hits but that won't be till January so I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts.) I hereby intend to start gearing down for the holidays. Yay!

In other good news, we had a really fun time DJing at Zaphod's last Wednesday. I didn't have any fun on Thursday morning, though—remind me to just say no to Jagerbombs. Ugh.

The weekend was pretty quiet. We didn't venture too far from home, our main outing was a giant meat-filled breakfast at Imperial on Saturday followed by a jaunt out to Elgin Street. We thought about going to see The Road but decided we weren't in the mood for post-apocalyptic so we stayed in and watched an old Jacques Tati Monsieur Hulot movie (Mon oncle) instead.

I'm starting to think about what to bake for the holidays this year. I'm planning on whipping up a batch of cookies with vanilla icing like I do every year but aside from that I haven't seen any recipes that have really caught my eye. What are you baking?

It was a good weekend. We started it off with an amazing (read: big and boozy) dinner with Kerry at b/Side on Friday. The rest of the weekend largely revolved around food as well (as usual): Arun made some delicious tomato soup while I was at my trainer's on Saturday morning so we had that with grilled cheese for lunch; we slow cooked a lot of meat for dinner Saturday and Sunday; and we had tea and crumpets Sunday morning while watching Liverpool beat Manchester United (yay!).

We saw the new Cohen brothers movie, A Serious Man. I don't know what to say about it other than that it is very Cohen brothers-y.

I finished reading Dracula and, well, it's was alright. I found the ending a bit of a letdown. Like, there's almost 100 pages of buildup to the final scene—they're racing on trains and in boats and on horses racing to beat Dracula back to his castle for AGES—and then (SPOILER ALERT) the actual Dracula-killing bit is, like two pages long. And because they get to Dracula before sunset and he's sleeping, there's no fight or anything, they just open the box and kill him. The end. I guess dramatic final fight scenes are a more modern convention?

Ugh, I think I may have also killed my office plant. I must have forgotten to water it before I left for the weekend on Thursday and found it looking like this yesterday morning.

Oops. I promptly watered it but it hasn't sprung back like I hoped it would. I think it may be a goner. I should just get fake plants from now on...

Um, what else is new? Arun and I went to Imperial for dinner the other night. It's a cozy neighbourhood spot with amazing comfort food. You should check it out if you haven't already.

You should also check out Adventureland, which is now out on DVD. It's been my favourite movie this year and not just because there's a Jesus and Mary Chain song on the soundtrack.

I'm back at work this week and the summer slowdown is officially over. It's suddenly nuts again. Ugh.

I really enjoyed our week off though. It was a good mix of getting things done (or partially done, anyway), relaxing, and hanging out with friends and family. We watched a bunch of movies, both at home (Harold Lloyd movies we recorded on TCM the other week) and in the theatre (the new Harry Potter [enh] and District 9 [go see it!]).

We also went to see the papal art exhibit at the National Gallery and found it pretty boring. But then again, we should have known anything pope-related wouldn't exactly be our cup of tea. The most fun I had in the exhibit was giggling over Pope Sixus V's name and some story that went along with a painting about this guy who was going to be the eighth man to marry some lady, whose previous seven husbands all died on their wedding night. An angel appeared to him and advised him to cut up some fish bits to ward off the demons, which apparently worked and they lived happily ever after. Seriously. That's the story. Why after, like, the third guy wouldn't people clue in and, you know, stop marrying her? Maybe she was a super hot demon lady? I don't know.

In other news, Starla met my 3 month-old nephew over the weekend. She'd never seen a baby before so we weren't sure how she would react. Normally she avoids people or she'll slowly slink up to sniff them and then suddenly take a swipe at them and run away. She was much more interested in baby G than she is most visitors, maybe because he was at ground level a lot of the time, so the couple of times she started to slink up to him and sniff him we were pretty quick to shoosh her away before she could swipe. Disaster averted.

It was another great weekend. Days were quiet and lazy, consisting mainly of Tour de France-watching and naps. Nights were more active.

Friday night we discovered the deliciousness that is Calabria pizza, thanks to a recommendation from our amazing hair stylist. We also went to see The Brothers Bloom, which was really great. Think Dirty Rotten Scoundrels meets The Royal Tenenbaums. Go see it.

Saturday we went to see Moon at The Bytowne, which is also worth watching if you're at all into sci-fi. Afterwards we hung out at Zaphod's till way late. Fun.

We were in the mood for comfort food last night so we made sliders for dinner using this guy's recipe (with the addition of a pickle slice on each one). They were amazing. And so tiny and cute! We will totally be making them again.

It was a two movie weekend—we saw Up and Whatever Works (the new Woody Allen movie). I'm sure you've all seen Up by now so you don't need me to tell you how great it was. Whatever Works was really good, too. If you're even remotely partial to Woody Allen movies, I suggest you go see it.

Aside from having to go to a meeting tomorrow, I'll be continuing my vacation this week. Arun's still working so it'll be a pretty quiet week. I'll be reading (reading, reading), doing some baking, and going to the gym and yoga to work off the baked goods.

My other vacation project is to get back in the habit of taking photos again. I used to stop and take photos of whatever happened to catch my eye all the time (and that worked out pretty well) but somewhere over the course of the winter I stopped because it was usually too cold and haven't picked it up again. I still see things that catch my eye and think "that would make a cool photo" but don't actually stop and take the picture, despite the fact that my trusty little camera is always in my purse. It's inexcusable, really, so this week I will make the effort to reinstate my old routine. I just hope I haven't lost my touch.