Sunday, November 28, 2010

Christmas.

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Here are my observations of Christmas.

1. Christmas - A Christian celebration recognizing the birth of Christ. In spite of the fact that the history documentation is clear that Jesus was born in September, the chosen day to recognize it is in December for whatever reason - fine - we had to pick a date, and mid-winter needed some joy so it works. Anyways, Christmas is celebrated around the world, often with some version of 'Santa Clause' who quite often takes on the physical persona of an old jolly man with white hair, a long beard, and rosy cheeks.

Interestingly, Santa Clause's origins go back to a man fasioned after the Norse God Woden (for whom Wednesday is named - it was originally Wodensday - hence the awkward spelling - I find it interesting that several days of our week, the things we fashion every part of our daily life around, are named for the Gods of a long-dead religion... just sayin').



How on earth Christians came to celebrate the birth of their saviour through the use of a man fasioned after a Viking God from 2000 years ago is beyond me...

Well thus concludes our history lesson of the day... I always thought Wednesday was spelled the way it was because someone, sometime long ago was drunk when they planned out the days of the week for us. Go figure.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Long Time No Ramble...

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I think my hospital kitchen employs a fine dining chef 2 days of the week. For the rest of the week, Friday until Wednesday, I get what can only be described loosly as 'food' on my trays... usually it is a slice of meat, with a 'low salt' (aka - 'tastes like day old porridge') gravy, a dollop of what I'm fairly certain is instant mashed potatoes (or more day old porridge - it could go either way), and corn (possibly the only 'food' element of the meal - and I'm pretty sure it's from a can - luckily even cracker jack cooks from skid row can't skrew up canned corn).


(This is an actual photograph of 'food' that was presented to me here)

Accompanying my 'food' is a bowl of 'soup' which I suspect is made by collecting the shoes of the dead from the ER, boiling them in a large vat with the leftovers from the soup kitchens in the area....

The only redeeming part of the meal is quite often the jello - and unfortunatley by the time it gets to me it is half melted from being on the same tray as hot food.

Nothing says lovin' like gooey half-melted jello that tastes faintly of dead-people-shoe-soles and 'meat'.

Then...

On Wendesday....

It's like a paradigm shift. I swear a fancy french Chef moves in so Olga the War Maiden can take her weekend, and in 2 days this master of the culinary arts is able to erase a weeks worth of horror with 4 sublime meals....




Lunch time rolls around and we get a plate of meatballs in sweet and sour sauce, with rice, and 'italian veggies' - and the meatballs are like little pockets of awesomeness nestled in this amazingly well balanced sweet and sour sauce with chunks of green pepper and pineapple in perfect harmony... It is phenomenal...

The soup is a Canadian Pea Soup and it's so thick and flavorful and awesome...

It's mind blowing. The meal is just phenomenal, the flavor is one I have tried (and failed) to replicate at home wiht my own meatballs...

Then dinner comes along and I get Chicken A La King - and it's AMAZING... its served with the softest most melt-in-your-mouth awesome bisquit and rice, and a veggie medley that rivals the Kegs. The A La King is perfectly balanced, creamy, rich, and thick and chunky all at once...

The soup again does not dissapoint - we get a Corn Chowder that is just rich and creamy and full of flavor.

Then Thursday rolls around and by now I've usually forgotten about the week of cardboard 'we-promise-it's-real-food' meals I had to endure to get to the blissful oasis that is the Wed-Thurs menu. Thursday does not dissapoint. Lunch is a roast pork with a gravy that actually tastes like gravy and not something they dragged out of the grease trap and 'seasoned'. The pork is supple and melts in your mouth, and the flavor is out of this world.
The seasoned potatoe wedges it comes with are little nuggets of heaven.
Soup is a cream of mushroom soup that has clearly been made from scratch as it's hearty with mushroom chunks and full of creamy goodness..

The whole thing wraps up Thursday night with what might be the crowning item on the menu - at this point I'm usually dizzy with good food and the peace that comes with knowing your not eating the toenails they collected from the morgue.

Thurdsays dinner is 'Country Style Beef Stew' and let me tell you - those country folk know how to eat... the stew is hearty, thick, and the meat just falls apart in your mouth. It comes with rice and carrots and while im not a fan of the carrots I dont care because the stew and rice are more than enough to satisfy me.

Delectable.

Then... in a rush of reality... Friday rolls around.

Lunch is 'meat with low-sodium gravy'. Great. Olga the war maiden is back at the helm in the kitchen of hell.




The soup is some variation of 'cabbage broth' or 'beef noodle soup' (in which I have never seen either beef OR noodles - though I'm pretty sure I found a small eyeball in yesterday's bowl). Tonight my mashed potatoes were so smoothly shaped from the ice cream scoop I thought at first it was a baseball on my plate.

They smelled and tasted like paper mache.


So to Olga the war maiden cook - I hope you get sick and have to spend a few weeks inpatient being told to 'eat your food so you can get strong and heal!'.

And to whatever glorious beast it is that takes over the kitchen happenings on Wednesday and Thursday's - my hat off to you dude - you are awesome.

For now I will go nibble on the grapes that I managed to salvage off tonights tray - possibly the only food I can be reasonably assured does not contain stuff off the ER floor.

Just 4 more days until our french chef returns.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Weeds!

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All summer long my children bring me dandelions as presents. They wander around our yard (which is a veritable dandelion cornicopia - we like to tell people that we're going to try making dandelion wine - which would make our horrendous looking lawn a 'vinyard'... see.... we're classy) and pick me dandelions and bring them to and insist I put them in water. My windowsill spends it's summer cluttered with shot glasses containing dandelions in various states of death.

Personally I think they are beautiful. They are bright, sunny, hard to kill, and grow, well, like weeds. For me that's a winning combination for my flower garden!




Add to that the fact that they eventually transform into 'wish blossoms' (and since this is them 'going to seed' it conveniently skips the part where you have to do ANY work whatsoever to spread your beautiful flowers - AND you get to share your gift of sunny golden wine-bearing flowers with your neighbors (who's lawn is, lets be honest, pretty boring without any dandelions - all green and lush like that... surely they will be thrilled with your gift!)). (I can't believe I had to end that sentance with 2 parenthesis'... how awkward... almost as awkward as the word parenthesis' which I'm not actually certain is spelled correctly.). Tyler loves 'wish blossoms'. Or at least he did until the wind blew one into his mouth when he was trying to blow on it... now he's not so sure about them.



So... This brings me to my musings...

Dandelions are pretty, their easy to grow, and they are edible (the flowers and greens as salad and the roots for making wine)... so why do they have such a bad rap?

Why do any 'weeds' have a bad rap?

Who decides what plant is a 'weed' and what plants are desirable? Is it based solely on how difficult they are to grow? Like anyone who chooses dandilions over orchids is just copping out in the flower department?

Personally I find a field full of dandelions to be a beautiful thing... my children certainly feel the same way... so at what point did it become so distasteful that we would rather (as a societal whole) soak our yards in toxic chemicals known to cause cancer, just to get rid of a flower almost everyone at one time or another liked (don't try and tell me you didn't love picking dandelions or blowing wish blossoms as a kid)... when did that transition happen?

Dandelions aren't the only flower to get shelved as a 'weed'... What about foxtails? How can foxtails be relegated to the 'weed' category?? Even the name is elegant, nevermind the pretty shimmery pinks and purples....




Plus they are very entertaining to watch when you spray cat nip spray on them and the neighborhood cats attempt to eat them - the 'tail' part is all clingy and scratchy and the cats get all wierd because the catnip makes them crazy but the wierd clingy foxtail makes them even crazier... not that I would know anything about that.

And don't even get me started about clovers... who on earth decided that 3 and 4 leaf clovers are weeds?? We would all be so lucky as to have a lawn full of these precious gems. Everyone knows they attract leprechauns, and really, is there anything more to life than attracting leprechauns?? If you're lucky they will be leprechauns trained in the art of making dandelion wine, and you will be set!




A quick look through the lists of weeds that weedkillers will control is depressing -daisies (that seems like murder!), buttercups, buttercress, stitchwort, the list goes on and is populated mostly by quaint, pretty little flowers... Why decided that a boring, level, green lawn is superior to these treasures??? Oddly I've noticed it's usually the folks who don't actually USE said level, green lawn - but rather just look at it... It seems a sad waste of space.

Not us though - we will happily allow our weedy lawn to go crazy - we welcome the foxgrove, and daisies and dandelions, and laprechauns!

And when our vinyard finally does deliver our leprechaun, I will wish for a paradigm shift in the national obsession with the perfect lawn - perhaps if everyone cared a little more for matters of serious consequence, and a little less about the appearance of their front yard, we might be able to, oh i dont know, deal with some ACTUAL problems our country is facing?

And of course, we could all use a few leprechauns in our life (except the evil kind - but we won't go there - they are afraid of foxtails, so as long as you're following the 'weedful living' lifestyle you don't have to worry about evil leprechauns).

Lazy Post.

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I'm tired today so that is all.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

YURTASTIC!

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This morning I want to discuss a topic very near and dear to my heart.

Yurts.




yurt [jʊət]

noun

A circular tent consisting of a framework of poles covered with felt or skins, used by Mongolian and Turkic nomads of E and central Asia.


Yurts are also used by eccentric campground managers in central North America to appeal to the eccentric city dwellers who want to do something 'different' for their week off work in the summer. Having a yurt in their campground gives them the ability to charge 5 times as much for the lot, and generally sell out for the whole season!


Yurts are fantastic.

Just the word feels good rolling off my tongue. Yurt. Yurt. Say it - I dare you.

Several years ago Dave and I were living in a dungeon my parents basement and actively househunting because we were going to snap and kill a whole bunch of people in a blaze of glory eager to strike out on our own and move into our own home. Unfortunately houses in our city had (like most Canadian cities) gone through a massive boom, and the prices were about 10 years slave labour beyond our budget. So we sat in our basement and stewed, dreaming of natural light and the freedom to scream out karayoke at 3am if the desire struck.

One of the options we actually gave a bit of serious thought to was a yurt. We could afford a city lot. That was about it. A bare serviced lot (yes our spending ability was that pitiful). So we figured we could buy a lot, and build a yurt! The Mongolians live quite well in them, and you can build walls inside and make rooms, and have running water, and it's bloody cold in Mongolia, so they are obviously able to hold up to the cold!
Unfortunately our city has a bylaw that you must build a permenant dwelling/structure on a city lot, and a yurt does not suffice. We figured we could build a garage next to the yurt but apparently that wont suffice either.

We were crushed.

Our next option though was even more fun...




Alas - if you think the city balked at a yurt, this did not go over well at all.

After years of making realtors across the city laugh at our pitiful offers and glorious expectations of a house, any house, anywhere, so long as there are no parents living in it, we gave up on city life. We even looked in the 'hood'.. and I mean the HOOD... the street where there have been several shootings these past few months, and has been dubbed 'gang central'... Yep - we couldn't even afford to live in crackhouse city. It was pretty dismal. And unfortunate - I could totally make 'drug den' decor work in our home.




When we realised the city was not going to work for us, we finally decided to think outside the box and started looking at smaller towns, about an hour from the city - far enough that the rich folks who dont like the city weren't jacking up house prices by making 'bedroom communities', but close enough that we could still get to the city pretty quickly if need be.

And we found our dream home. And it was affordable (well it wasnt really, but we put in a brutally insulting offer and it turns out they were so desperate to sell at that point they would have given it to us for some walnut shells and painted rocks (and they very nearly did).

Of course our 'dream home' looked like a freaking showhome when we walked through it the first time... hardwoods, tripane windows, a huge kitchen, an office (an office!), 3 bedrooms, 2 huge bathrooms (and i mean huge - one of them is bigger than Tylers bedroom - it's bizarre - we could totally use it as a guestroom if that wasn't completely disgusting).
And as is always the way, after we bought it, and moved in we realised that the hardwoods were about 90 years old and beyond scratched and dinged etc, the tripane windows were mismatched, broken and all different sizes, and mostly installed wrong, the huge kitchen had 4 cupboards and about 2 feet of counter space, and the plumbing froze if it dropped below 0. The insulation is an asbestos riddled fire hazard, the house hemmorages heat, the floors feel like ice cubes, and there is so much rot we haven't even found yet.... I think one wall might be held up mostly by the vinyl siding... but i wont let Dave check because I'm fairly sure once that vinyl siding comes off the whole side of the house will fall off and I'm too damn cheap to fix it right now!

All that and I can still say - IT'S OUR DREAM HOME!

It's ours. We're ALONE. We can fulfill our 3am karayoke dreams. We can cook crazy wild goat meat currys and not worry about disgusting the other folks that live with us. We can let our kids completely destroy the living room (and boy can they destroy a living room) and after they're in bed we can say "let's not bother cleaning up - they'll just mess it up again tommorrow." and not worry about anybody else being annoyed!!




It's glorious...

We have slowly fixed up stuff as we've gone... replaced broken windows, moved the plumbing indoors, slowly chipped away at the rot (at least I know when that wall finally falls down, the door will still be standing. Because that's important.).

There is an appreciation for your own home that can only be fully realized by living with your parents for several years, particularly when you have young children.

Just the freedom to play your own music, clean the house in your underwear, put IMAX movies on for your kids full blast, choose to read instead of tidy, and really just let it be as clean or disasterous as you so please is so empowering.

For all it's faults, and all the old broken crap that still needs fixing - we love our house. It's ours. And it's certainly not in crack central.

Though someone stole our neighbors cats a few weeks ago.

Seriously - she stalked them for a few days, asked him if he would give them to her (to which he said absolutely not - they were his kids cats), then baited them while he was at work, and totally catnapped them! Who the hell does that???

Just to make it wierder - it took him a week to track her down and figure out she took the cats ACROSS THE COUNTRY with her to her winter home!!!

I'll be honest - a character that stalks and catnaps someones pets scares me more than the crackhouse dealers in the city... That takes some seriously twisted logic on her part.

Thankfully after many threats of litigation, the cat napper, to great personal expense, sent the cats back to our neighbor by plane and they are again home and happy...

But yea...

Who does that?

Till the next dose,

K

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Last Dose of the Day.

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I was discussing pets with a Facebook friend tonight.
It started off with a comment on the pig that occupied my last blog post - the pig bum picture...



Yea that's the one.

Then it rambled onto a discussion on how I would have trouble keeping a pet pig (as much as I'd love to - cause that would be awesome and I'm pretty sure it would piss my neighbor off, so yay on 2 accounts!) simply because in my early morning delerium, and general state of 'food-zombieness' that has overcome me as of late, I would likely have trouble differentiating between my pet pig, and a walking slab of bacon.




That's a heart to heart I'd rather not have to have with my children anytime soon.


It got me thinking about other 'wierd pets'. I'm no stranger to unconventional pets. My poor mother, who thinks a cat that is more than one color is exotic, was subjected to a 14 year old girl who insisted on having frogs, newts, mice, fish, skinks, turtles and a whole army of different bugs to sustains said pets within her room. I was banished to sleep downstairs because the crickets and the frogs were too noisy at night to have my room on the same floor as anyone else. I remember feeling like I was sleeping in a freaking jungle - and it was fantastic.

Anyways - now that I'm an adult I feel like I live in a wonderland of 'pet options'... and oh the options.

We inherited a Bearded Dragon a few years ago and he lived with us for 18 months before he passed away - he was a GREAT pet, but admittedly did very little... mostly he just sat there and gave Tyler a reason to tell people he had a pet Dragon that hadn't yet learned to breath fire.




After Bobby-Joe died we had to find a replacement as his empty cage just made my 7 year old son cry. So we (naturally) bought a few Whites Tree Frogs... these are the chestire cats of the frog world.





They are seriously hilarious - though again, they do very little. They hide during the day. I am assuming they come out and eat their worms at night - considering the one we still have (we wont discuss the one we dont have any longer - the kids think she's on a 'froggycation' and we will just leave it at that) is HUGE and the worms are dissapearing. I certainly HOPE he comes out and eats them at night.


Now at the moment, given our current situation, our pet selection process is very much dictated by 'what animal can I completely neglect for up to 2 weeks without a major risk of killing it?'. Whites Tree Frog - bingo.

Where our options a little more open I would be ALOT more creative.

So a run down of my bucket-list of totally awesome pets I'd love to have some day:

10. DeGlanded Skunk. Apparently skunks make fantastic house pets if you catch them early enough and have their stink removed. Sounds like alot of work - but then folks get their cats fixed and load them up on expensive shots, so I don't see a huge difference... I'd love to have it mostly just to scare the crap out of people.

9. Stick Bug - Just because that's how I roll.




8. Clownfish - I'd totally eat a clown fish if I had the chance.

7. Poison Dart Frogs - these suckers are hard as heck to keep alive, and require fruit flies to eat - now I spend most of my days fighting the scourge that is fruit flies, so the idea of willingly breeding them makes me throw up in my mouth a little. (giant worms that turn into giant beetles, crickets, and miniworms that make mini beetles dont bother me at all but fruit flies apparently cross the line) But you can get totally stoned if you lick the blue poison dart frogs which could bode well for this blog. The yellow ones will kill you though so don't lick those.

6. Goats. I would just love to have a goat. Unfortunately I suspect they would suffer the same fate as my bacon-pig... I love goat meat... it would be a hard temptation to resist. And a hard indulgence to explain - The kids would be awfully pissed at me if they came home and I was roasting Roofus on a spit in the front yard. (and I totally would)

5. Miniature Horses - this one is for Tyler - he insists they are the perfect size for our yard. He wants one so he can ride it to school and all the kids will think he's cool. I think it's a perfectly logical argument and where it not against the law in our town to keep livestock in our front yard, I would totally be all over this.

4. Carrion Beetles - I'd love a tank of carrion beetles - you throw something dead in the tank and in 48 hours you have one of those pristine, lily white skeletons you see on display at museums... how cool would that be?? And cheap to feed! Just have to hope they dont escape... I would likely have to just move away if that happened.

3. Jumbo Cricket - Only because I would put a top hat on it and teach it to sing and dance. I totally would.




2. Bobcat - Because their awesome. And I could train it to eat salesmen.

And finally - my number one - top of my list of strange pets I'd love to someday have living with my family...

1. A Big White goose In A Diaper - yes - they make diapers for geese and apparently they make fantastic pets... I just love the idea of a diapered goose running around my house, messing with my kids toys, eating leftover crap from under our table... Excellent.




And thus concludes my diatribe on pets. So many options - only one life.

For now we will stick with our 'you-couldn't-kill-them-if-you-tried' variety (granted we're still plenty capable of sending them on extended 'froggycations') and maybe someday when our life slows down and we have the time and wherewithall to dedicate to more complex pets we will consider our stick-bug or skunk or (oh please!) goose-in-a-diaper.

One can dream.

Letter to the Lottery Folks

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It's Saturday.

I'm not a millionaire.

That can only mean one thing. The LottoMax has once again let me down.



Another week of feeding the kids the cheap bologna that tastes suspiciously like weasel meat. Another week of drinking el cheapo coffee that I'm fairly confident has a 30/70 beetle to coffee bean ratio in it. mmmm... beetley coffee.

Honestly though I don't much mind being less than affluent. We're far from poor, I recognize that - we have running water, food (sort of), heat, electricity and the real necessities like capers and sun dried tomatoes in our cupboard. I think anyone who has capers in their cupboard must be doing alright.

Although I got my capers at walmart. I was shocked that walmart had capers... I'm not even certain what capers are... just that they taste salty and I like that. Hold on - I'm going to google this....




Hmmm... capers are the pickled buds of the Capparis spinosa bush in the Mediterranean... They are about the size of a pea, and the pickled variety (the kind most people are familiar with - the very expensive little jars of capers you see at fancy stores, and now, apparently, walmart) pack a heck of a flavor punch! I like to chop them into salads... I also like to just eat them... Go to a fancy resturaunt and order a side of capers - I dare ya...

The other thing I got at walmart was my small jar of sundried tomatoes - another pantry item I consider a symbol of relative affluence... have you ever tried sundried tomatoes... they kind of taste like my socks. They cram a bunch of shriveled up tomatoes into a jar, fill it with oil, and sell it for a rediculous amount of money so people like me can go 'oooh! sundried tomatoes!', buy them, put them in their pantry next to their Walmart Capers, and never ever use them. I have no idea what to do with sundried tomatoes... what kind of meat goes well with 'old sock'???




No my sundried tomatoes just sit on my pantry shelf and mock my inability to come up with a good reason to use them. Next to the capers I mostly just eat straight out of the jar.

While I feed my family weasle-bologna sandwitches and beetly coffee.

My 5 year old loves bologna. He would happily eat nothing but bologna and ketchup sandwitches for the rest of his life. He enjoys taking the bologna out, folding it in half and biting a bite from the middle so that when he opens the bologna slice there is a hole in the middle. He then holds it up to his face, looks through the hole and announces "Look mom! A Pig Bum!!". I have no idea where he heard this, but I haven't the heart to tell him just how close to the truth he likely is.




Well now that this has degenerated into a discussion of pig bums I suspect it's best I leave it alone now.

Hope this finds you all well...

Till the next dose.

K

Friday, November 12, 2010

Dipping The Big Toe In The Waters Of Madness.

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Tonight I want to talk about Sushi.




I'm a big sushi fan. Huge. It's awesomeness in bite size pieces. With wasabi (which is totally a blog post all on it's own!! How can it be THAT insanely absurdly brutally HOT one second and so completely GONE the next??? crazy tricky wasabi.).

I enjoy sushi so much so that I have actually taught myself how to make it at home (and I believe I'm getting quite decent at it if i say so myself). It's cheaper that way, and I'm cheap. Though a word to folks new to sushi - generally 'cheap' should not be the goal here... In fact 'cheap' might be a quick ticket to the ER. Go for the expensive places until you have a good handle on the whole sushi deal.




I got desperate for sushi yesterday. I can't really 'eat' persey - but 1 piece of sushi can go a very long way to sooth the soul. My hospital's cafeteria did not dissapoint - they had California Rolls. Once again - 'Hospital' and 'Sushi' are generally not good terms to combine - and I wouldn't normally reccomend actually purchasing sushi from any cafeteria, much less a hospital cafeteria - but I figured I'm already here, what's the worst that can happen?

On the way down to the cafeteria I forgot to get off the elevator and wound up riding it all the way back up to the 6th floor before it started back down again - so I had lots of time to contemplate the entire idea that people think it's rational to pile as many of us as we can into a small, hot, metal box, suspended by wires, and hoist us dozens, sometimes hundreds of feet into the air. Well I contemplated that and the fact that the guy next to me looked alot like Michael Buble (which may or may not have been part of why I forgot to get off the elevator on the main floor).

Eventually I got my sushi. When I saw the display of various sushi boxes in the cooler (queue dream sequence sound track) I'm fairly certain I let out a small squeal because the lady behind the counter asked if I was ok. (I hope I squealed - otherwise it means I look as awful as I think I look at the moment).

The sushi was, of course, divine. Though after 2 months of hospital sludge food I'm pretty sure you could wrap a wad of kleenex in seaweed and tell me it was sushi and I would think it was divine.

It made me wonder how it came about as an actual culinary delight... I mean - it's not like most foods that take a bit of time and care to make and end with a nice hearty meal for all involved... Sushi is a testament to precision and time investment... it's an art. Nobody just 'whips up a batch' of sushi... the ingredients are demanding (and usually time sensitive - you can't buy raw butterfish and keep it in the crisper for a week... you buy it and use it that day. Period. I wouldn't even know where to find butterfish... or if I would trust it if I did find it... though I do like that they call it butterfish... that just screams awesome - tack 'sushi' on the back-end and you cannot lose), the skill takes years to hone, the balance of flavors is imperitive (too much rice vinigar and not enough sake in the rice and you might as well feed the whole thing to the dog) and really - it's just so dang pretty it can be hard to eat it at times!




I imagine Japanese women, hunched over tables, preparing platters of sushi for dinner guests... picking contrasting colors, and carefully mixing rice..

It reminds me of our peroghi pinching parties we had when I was growing up, where all the women in our family would get together before thanksgiving or easter or christmas and spend the whole day drinking wine and bashing men making tray after tray after tray of peroghies. The difference is our entire days work would result in enough peroghies for the dinner at hand, and then dozens and dozens of frozen peroghies for everyone to take home and cook in the coming weeks and months...

No dice with Sushi... eat it or turf it... one night, and barely that.

Unless you're making a cooked fish variety, or a vegetarian sushi, you do not want to wait on consumption or keep leftovers - it has to be made, kept cold and served, and NOW.

So those Japanese women would pour their heart and artistic souls into these little bite sized picassoesque pieces of heaven, and the next morning they would have nothing to show for it... That's the working definition of Carpe Diem if you ask me.

My kids LOVE sushi. Seriously.. their almost more enthusiastic than I am on the topic. I started taking them to this little sushi shop near my brothers place whenever we are in the area and it's near a meal time, or not... really if I feel like sushi.. which is mostly all the time. Anyways - I started taking them there when it opened this spring. The owners know us (ok we're hard to forget - my 7 year old is in a neon green wheelchair and my 5 year old likes to ask the waitress if she knows about nuclear fusion yet, and would she like him to teach her - plus they're 2 young white kids who sit at the table demanding 'more raw fish!'... I'm so proud.), and Tyler, my 5 year old can pack a whole kids meal in by himself. He doesn't particularly like the Nori (seaweed wrap), so he dissects his sushi rolls and licks the seaweed clean... it's a spectacle.

How the heck did they decide to wrap it all up in seaweed anyways? Who looked at the garbage washed up by the tide and though 'hmm.. that would be REALLY AWESOME around some rice and raw fish!'?? Maybe they found some seaweed tangled around a dead fish and took a bite and went 'wow!'? Whoever it was and however they figured it out - kudos - it totally is awesome.

Well...

My morphine is in full swing and I think I can hear the California roll I stored in the fridge calling my name... I do believe I will have a bite of my edible art wrapped in seaweed.

I hope it's nemo.

I'd totally eat a clownfish if I had the chance.