i know this has been all the buzz in the gta and southern ontario. my mind’s eye (ear?) can hear my friends’ voices right now talking about it:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rob-ford-i-have-no-reason-to-resign-1.2303146
when’s the next election, toronto? i think it’s time for a mayor that does not get himself into illegal situations.
[hot tamales!]
for years and years i never thought about what a tamale was. then i moved to colorado and ingested more mexican food than i’d probably eaten in the sum of all my life. i also started in on an 8-week beginner spanish class at the start of september. every weekend, my teacher would make hundreds of tamales and bring them to a market near denver to sell.
every few classes she would tell us how for the last class she was going to bring us tamales. ignorantly, i asked, “what exactly is a tamale?” i had envisioned them as empanadas: little flour pockets filled with all sorts of tasty goodness.
i was totally wrong.
this savoury one was wrapped in a banana leaf
we had a little party for our last class: one lady made guacamole, i brought tortilla chips and we had tamales!
we all chose the three squash tamale with apricots and cranberries. the best i can describe a tamale is that it’s vegetables cut up in small pieces with a corn mush surrounding it, wrapped in the banana leaf and steamed. the corn mush is called masa and i certainly only considered it mush within the confines of my brain.
yum!
then we each got a sweet tamale. i chose pumpkin pie with chocolate chips. strange to think of a pumpkin pie in tamale form? no kidding! i was pleasantly surprised when it was put on my plate. these were wrapped in corn husks and she had made pumpkin pie without the crust, then mixed it in with the corn masa.
delicioso!
i took this picture before the leaves started changing colours but wanted to share it because it’s kind of incredible. and to be honest, the leaves here have nothing on ontario.
in june/july 2012, a big fire tore through the waldo canyon here in the springs. the epicentre of the fire was right around the nav property, which made all of us a little concerned. for over a week, i checked online maps that showed that the fire was just a few hundred metres from the conference center that the organization owns.
early this month i took a hike to a spot where you can see just how close the fire got. someone recently told me about a fire fighter who told her that he was fighting the fire as it was going over the ridge, then the fire stopped moving forward, went straight up and then went in a different direction. people here are pretty sure that God was protecting this whole place. i’m apt to agree with them.
if you’re not sure what to look for, the castle at the bottom left is a major part of the conference center. the bare and skeleton-trees (ie, the burn scar) at the top right is where the fire was before it changed directions.
i’ve been trying to be good about not judging people in this country. i’ve asked questions about obama-care trying to understand people’s opinions. i’ve inquired about thoughts on gun control and not stated one of my personal convictions. i’ve resisted the urge to complain about the lack of recycling.
but i have to gripe about this, a fairly typical conversation:
Q: “where are you from?”
A: “ontario”
response #1: “ontario…?”
response #2: “ontario, california?”
response #3: “oh… canada?”
seriously, americans? i don’t understand how a fairly large proportion of people i talk to cannot place ontario properly. now that’s just ridiculous.
it’s no surprise to anyone living in this fair city that there isn’t a whole lot of good food. or good coffee. i have yet to discover the reasons for these deficiencies, but maybe everyone is too busy climbing mountains or driving trucks.
it’s also no real surprise that i love coffee. it wasn’t until the last couple weeks of undergrad that i first had a sweetened variety of the stuff: a vanilla (or was it hazelnut?) latte from the common ground coffeehouse at queen’s, affectionately known as “the cogro” and housed in the old student centre.
from there, i ventured into self-brewing with what i like to call a glorified funnel. i still don’t know the name of the contraption but people who know coffee call the method “pour over.”
then coffeeco entered my life. there’s a corner a couple blocks from queen’s that used to have a cafe called “coffee & company” but starbucks moved in across the street and they closed down a couple years later, which was sad. but coffeeco is a far superior coffee shop and i grew to thoroughly enjoy drinks with latte art and without sweeteners.
coffee shops are a number of things to me: meeting place. work space. journaling environment. hang out spot.
so, as you can imagine, i was on a hunt for a great coffee shop when i arrived here. and i tried all sorts of places: places i knew about from the last time i was here. places i just happened upon. places i had read about in the local indy newspaper.
currently, i have one favourite: raven’s nest. it’s in a lovely part of town with victorian homes and giant trees. the cafe has slightly bizarre hours but i’ve completely loved the latte and americano i’ve had there. the atmosphere is unpretentious and cool at the same time. regulars are greeted by name and people share the armchair cluster section. the windows are big and the bathroom is cute. i see all sorts of people there the mornings i’ve frequented it: a couple sharing breakfast, students studying, middle-aged people working on computers, older people reading the newspaper, a multi-generational family spending a bit of time together.
way to go, raven’s nest. you get awesome points from me.
thanks for the notes of care and concern after my last post. it’s incredible to me how emotional i can get sometimes about things i don’t really care about. like thanksgiving. ideologically i can’t support the historical roots of the holiday but i do love the family and friends and fall colours. and that’s what i was missing.
to compensate, i made canadian thanksgiving treats for my co-workers, spanish classmates and running friends.
because i love creative, sneakily healthy and homemade things, i puttered around and created these pumpkin tofu cheesecake tarts with whole wheat crusts, made from personally baked and pureed pie pumpkins.
yum
one of my co-workers has teased me a bit about my vegetarianism so i kept the tofu side of the tarts on the down-low and he loved them! hilarous.
a couple of my co-workers are gluten free and another one has crohn’s so i also made a batch of gluten, egg and dairy free muffins. i was careful to call them “egg and dairy free” and not “vegan” because of the aforementioned tofu adverse tendencies a few people have.
funny how when you call them “egg and dairy free” they’re considered healthy and trendy and when you call them “vegan” they’re suspicious. of course, that’s only with a couple people in my department and i do work for a generally conservative organization.
either way, thanksgiving came early to our southern neighbours!
maybe it’s because i had a pretty intense week.
maybe it’s because it’s a certain time of the month.
maybe it’s because i didn’t get to plant garlic at a local farm today when my heart was set on it.
maybe it’s because despite how much i’ve settled and adjusted and made friends here, colorado is simply not home.
whatever the reason, i remembered again that this is thanksgiving weekend in canada! normally i don’t really care about thanksgiving, except i do love the fall colours. but in honour of my heritage, i decided that i was going to make pumpkin cheesecake tarts for my co-workers and some other people. while the pie pumpkins were baking in the oven today and i was making the dough, i got a little sad.
maybe it was homesickness.
maybe it was knowing that people are doing wonderful things with friends and family and i’m missing it all.
maybe it’s that i just don’t feel like my canadianness is understood.
do me a favour? give your loved ones an extra squeeze, tell an extra story and savour that pumpkin pie for me, will you?
yesterday afternoon we were concluding a three-day workshop on personal gifting and design, ie, who am i and what was i meant to do with my life? yep, we hit all the big questions of life at work.
part of the afternoon was set aside so we could each get alone with God and process and pray and synthesize.
i’ve been doing decently well working in an office building, but i often need to go outside for walks or to sit outside when i read. with the combination of heavy mental work, being in the same room for three days and my usual stir-craziness, i had been dreaming about this time alone with God. i had my heart set on getting myself on top of a mountain.
let me be more specific. the navs own a huge property and part of it includes one of my favourite places: ladybug lookout. it’s a short hike (~15 minutes) from a slightly suspect location (behind construction storage) but awards you with a view of the city on one side and mountains, trees and red rock formations on the other side. that, combined with the fact that it’s sunny here for 300 days of the year and you’ve got a pure winner.
i hopped on my bike and jetted down to the conference center side of the nav property, then climbed up for a delightfully windy and sunny and heart-filling time. on my way back, i noticed that i had gotten a couple bites on my forearm. they looked and felt like mosquito bites so i paid no attention, never mind the facts that it’s late for mosquitoes and apparently it doesn’t get buggy here.
then, this morning the bites were sore and i felt pressure from under the surface of my skin. the spot was also red and warm and slightly swollen. according to my co-workers, they looked like spider bites. my arm got slightly but progressively worse as the day wore on and now i’m sitting with a giant but carefully constructed combination of an epsom salt soaked towel, piece of cloth and tensor bandage wrapped around my arm with the purpose of drawing out whatever junk is in my arm.
i feel ridiculous. first i have a cello-related injury. now i have a light hike related one. geez.
what do you get when you combine 2 and a half hours of cello playing and me leaning over because I’m paying attention to what my bow is doing? a super sore neck! it hit me on sunday and i was sore all day! it’s better today but still tender.
seriously: a cello-related injury!?! that’s ridiculous.
my cello-ing life has been sufficiently blown wide open.
i went to a workshop today held by a celtic music duo, alastair fraser and natalie haas. they taught us a song by ear, which was a bit of a struggle for me and several others. but the song was written in such a way that even if you didn’t know the melody, you could still play as long as you stayed in the right key.
after a short break, they taught us chording and then, the thing that changed my cello life: chopping.
chopping is making a percussive sound on a stringed instrument by stopping the bow on the string(s) and lifting it in such a way that the sound is still short. that explanation really doesn’t do it credit, but take a listen here for examples. (listen especially to the beginning of the third clip: that’s chopping!) bow hairs broke, rosin dust was all over and creative sounds were heard all around the room.
so fun!
little b's 