Today is dear E's birthday. this picture is from the summer of 2005. it sums things up nicely.
in keeping with a theme, a recent g-chat excerpt re: her birthday weekend
Elizabeth:
the best I can do
is drink until I pass out
and hope I dont cry too much in public
well
thats sort of a metapor for life really.
so the past little while has been a complete heather-byron fest. friday and saturday hangouts. We played earth hour scrabble on saturday. Byron said we couldn't open the fridge because the light would turn on, but I wasn't willing to wait half an hour for a fresh beer so he held the little light lever down while I grabbed the brews. Sunday there was finally a break from a flat grey sky, so Byron and I sat in the inner harbour sketching. street benches: not just for retired folk and the homeless! Just as we sat down a biker went flying off of his bike right in front of us. It totally ruined the story Byron was in the middle of telling.
knowing my loving of office organization products they showed up on saturday with this awesome gift for me:
The picture doesn't quite do it justice but it is fake wood grain tin. love it! And it still had the original files in it! I just love classic 50s-60s fonts. The ink on my thumb is from yet another leaky pen.
and yesterday they stopped by with the most amazing bouquet of flowers (dad dead for 4 years as of yesterday)
I just love flowers
Then we ate perogies and watched the Dumb and Dumber dvd (6 minutes of deleted scenes, oh my!). just lovely
-best not to eat cabbage and broccoli soup before a stretching class.
-go to a fitness class. find the skinniest girl there. She will leave sometime during the cool down/stretch. true 9 times out of ten. also, you'll probably find her on a cardio machine on your way out.
-in a clean up of the worlds oceans, cigarette butts are the biggest contributor to debris! woah! For most of the world, number 2 (hehe) is plastic bags; for canada, it is food containers. I read this in a real life newspaper, so not going to link.
-someones facebook status today said something about not understanding the ridiculousness of twitter. He insulted twitter. using the fb status tool. the irony is burning a hole through my brain. after further thought, i am downgrading the irony level, but only a bit.
I'm currently trying to decide whether to have a pudding or a beer. The Beer is Winter Ale from Granville Island Brewery. Best beer find of the season. hints of vanilla. ok, totally going for a beer and a joint. b and j. bj. ha. is that funny? not it is not.
well after 4 days of misery, I'm finally starting to feel not sick again. I'm still playing it relatively safe tonight- staying in, grabbing a brewski (Granville Island Winter Ale gets two thumbs up, way up!) doing a little painting and watching Howard the Duck on Cable TV. well alright.
I had planned a cozy evening alone with some wine or winter beer or or maybe even a hot toddy. so i braved the outdoors to shovel the sidewalk and make a trip to the liquor store. alas it is CLOSED ON SUNDAY. buh! walking or busing to the next nearest store wasn't an option, so i went and stared at the ocean for a while. I walked home and told myself that I could have just as good of a time without alcohol or drugs. hahaha. no i can't. I just found a replaceable bottle of wine and things are looking up.
woah now! add a big old pint glass beside that 7-up mixed drink, and these two dudes are both doing spot on impressions of me
v1: who I am while drinking
v2: who I think I am while drinking.
I still haven't decided whether v2's cig is wacky tobaccy or serious tobaccy.
oh yeah! i have another picture with people doing impressions of me! just replace 'drinking' in v1 and v2 with 'trying to look cool'.
last week I ended up at a sports bar. They are weird places- tvs on every surface including the floor and at every booth. Definitely more tvs than customers. maybe 3:1. It was one of those night where someone keeps ordering pitchers even though we haven't finished the last one and probably shouldn't either. What can you do at a time like that but pour your heart into singing Rocket Man on the karaoke machine.
That song always reminds me of this 3am bike ride I took a couple of years ago. I was stopped at an almost deserted red light and this heavy duty chopper pulls up next to me blasting Rocket Man. Not only did dude have speakers on his chopper, but he was using them to blast Elton John. I bet he was happy
ok, I'm busy busy, but I can spare 5 while the dishes soak. My super cool cousin and her boyfriend were in town from BC this weekend. Me: Swearing up and down the whole time the the weather isn't usually like this(cold and rainy); in my experience, a shakey sentiment at best in any location.
At The Red Room, we had a table near the stairs to the washroom [ever notice that every Toronto bar has their washrooms at the bottom of a steep and rickety set of stairs?]. A rat, not a mouse, a huge fucking rat comes running up the stairs and under the shoe of the nearest fella. I made large hand gestures and unintelligible half words, it fled back down the abysss before anyone else saw. It made another appearance as I was leaving the washroom, this time another girl was there to witness it too. I'm a social shrieker- I do it if everyone else is doing it. She did it. I did it. I always get embarrassed at my primal girly scared sounds. but there it was.
Just as I was trying to convince myself that the Red Room beer taps were clean enough to get draught from without getting doubly hung the next day. Alas, the next day beer shits, along with the rat, indicated otherwise.
For Lunch and Dinner for the past two days I have been making a variation of my favorite sandwich. stacked precisely in this order:
toasted walnut bread
avocado
cucumber
salt and pepper (big chunks freshly cracked)
tomato
basil
jalepeño havarti
toasted walnut bread.
I think of it as Hornby Sandwich (Heather, our feta wraps officially go by 'The Hornby Wrap')
Then it sits in my bag ready for lunch, and it's still crispy but a little soggy just the way I like it.
I tend to eat the same thing for weeks on end- my eating forecast has plenty of hornby sandwiches and honey shreddies on the horizon. I also desperately need to stock up on some tallboys.
And that, dear friends, is what I am eating.
KT will be calling in a few minutes to meet up and head to le bar. I just went downstairs to move something to the fridge. In doing so I completely absentmindedly cracked open a tallboy in front of the open fridge. I had been thinking about it while sitting in the windowless computer lab all day, and I guess it just happened. hello Gladwell. dammit. Now I have to chug this tallboy on an empty stomach in the few minutes before she calls, and give off signals of a drinking problem as I explain why I already smell like beer.
oh and simply pouring the beer down the drain is SO not an option, why would you even think that.
ps. I already feel it. but isn't a buzz on an empty stomach just divine. Better when you are waiting on an order of nachos
Brand: Holsten Premium. "German Purity Law of 1516"- gimmick
Type: Lager? I sort of feel like Holsten is to beer what a 'table red' is to wine.
Taste: See Above. This beer is a collection of negative propositions: not light, not dark; not terrible, but not that good.
Occasions: Until you're out of the stock you bought when they were deeply discounted at the LCBO. Good to offer to the guest that always says yes to a meal, joint and a beer or 3, but never reciprocates. Hey maybe he/she can't afford it. In which case he'll be used to a subpar beer.
Best Paired with: your mom
Notes: There is a banner on the corner of the label that says 'Imported Beer'. I guess most imports say this somewhere, but Holsten does it in a way that seems to be overly compensating. As if they are saying- we can't be that bad, we're European!!
Did you know that Haagen Dazs is made up name? Brand association. with a continent.
Brand: Pilsner Urquell. "The Original Golden Pilsner Beer"
Type: Pilsner. From the Czech Republic. Thats a bit of a strike against it right away. Ever since the Czech Republic refused me entry and left me stranded at a border crossing in Slovakia, I've held a bit of a grudge. I hear the architecture is fantastic; I wouldn't know.
Taste: Real nice. Light but flavourful. Actually I forgot how much I like this beer. It should be decent though considering that Pilsner Urquell was pretty much the original commercial Pilsner/Pilsener (apparently it can be both). One point back to the Czech Republic for inventing Pilsner! And one point to wikipedia for telling me the history and spelling alternatives!
Occasions: I bet a tallboy or 3 of Pilsner Urquell WOULD have been perfect during the 7 hour roadside wait for what I assumed was a daily bus back to any kind of city in Slovakia.
Best Paired with: This would definitely be good with some chips and salsa. Anything with Jalapenos probably.
Notes: The can is a really nice matte gold and the logo outline is stamped onto the can (sticking out thing? dont know what that's called). Good looking cans are important to me and this one is nice. Point for living up to its claim of being the 'original golden pilsner', unlike Asahi's outrageous claim of being a 'Beer for All Seasons'- I'm still not over that. If I'm going to continue enjoying the Pilsner legacy, I think I'm going to have to let go of my Czech Republic grudge. From now on, when I walk past the discarded 'CZ' wristbands from Comfort Zone, I won't think about E's scuzzy roommate in 1st year and I won't think about the trip to the Czech Republic that never was. Instead I will think of a nice frosty swig of Pilsner and the many ways in which it has enriched my life. I'll probably still think of E's scuzzy roommate though.
oh man, it's already really hot and stuffy in my room. does not bode well for the summer. I mentioned it to my roommate that lives in the other room up here in the attic. She described the summer heat in these rooms as being a kind of "punishment". At least I won't have to put up with my hands freezing up while I'm typing?
Two things will save me:
the balcony. oh the balcony.
tallboyssssss
oh, and solid grooves. I'm determined to work that into my vernacular
note to self- Asahi isn't the greatest 2am studying beer.
Maybe I should start a tallboy journal. Like a white trash version of those wine diaries people have. Probably mostly just white people. The next entry for 'Stuff White People Like' maybe?
back to the tallboy journal. There will be little notes to fill in.
Brand: Asahi Super Dry
Type: Super Dry (it says so in the name) Draft Beer. Light and crisp. just how a Japanese beer should taste.
Occasions: Vigorous video gaming. Nights when the heat is turned up too high but you can't say anything because your roommates rooms are all at least 5degrees colder. summer evenings spent brown bagging it at the nearest park.
Best Paired with: A salad using the rest of the lettuce before it goes bad. Shiitake Vinegrette dressing {aside: I spelled it 'shittake' at first and blogger suggests 'shit take'. poo joke. funny.}. pizza- thats a point for Asahi; succesfully pairing bread and liquid bread can be difficult.
Notes: The can says 'A Beer for All Seasons'. thats a strike against it- first because it is obviously not a winter beer. how convenient that your beer is perfect ALL THE TIME!! secondly, its strike because I was long ago given the title of 'A Woman for Two Seasons'. I don't like things that are different from me.
