MonkeyPants

Wedding Of The Year!

Carol and Scott got married yesterday. It was one of the most beautiful, kooky, touching, and sincere weddings I have ever been to. Inner Cynic didn’t even come with me. That’s how good it was. We laughed, there were a few tears, and we toasted the couple in style. Our mother would have loved the hell out of the occasion.  I wore her jewelery to bring a little bit of her to the day.  Dad held up all right. His girlfriend is a wonderfully patient woman.

Also: My boobs stayed put in the strapless bra, I did not fall down in heels, I got to see my favourite cousin and his family, and Dad loved the tie I bought him.  Even my erstwhile Ghastly Uncle was merely annoying. And the food was fantastic!

Congratulations, Carol and Scott! You are both amazing people, and I am delighted to know and love you.

Pesto Obsessed-o

It started last week. Maybe it was two weeks ago.  I can’t remember.  It’s just a long, basil-scented haze at this point and I don’t know when or how it’ll end up, but I’m in love with making pesto sauce.

The idea of making my own pesto came to me around two years ago, when I noticed that Classico’s jars were okay for cooking with, but, straight up on pasta, it tasted a little woody and had a kind of scratchy texture.  I don’t know about you, but scratchy isn’t my favorite food texture.

Fast forward to February when I’m prepping my garden beds. I decide that I’m growing my own basil and I’m going to be channeling Genoan grandmothers from the sun-drenched past. But I didn’t bargain on Vancouver’s short growing season and that basil needs heat and sun and every advantage I could give it, so I didn’t get much of a crop last year.

This year, I started early and put it in raised beds,  protected and babied the little shoots, and it turns out I’ve got a lot of basil.  It’s going to be a lot of pesto.

But I wasn’t just going to make my pesto unprepared or unthought-out. I went and bought some to experiment with. In the first batch, the raw garlic was too pungent.  So I upped the garlic from two cloves to two bulbs, roasted them, and at a friend’s suggestion, toasted the pine nuts.

Result: Pesto Nirvana is at my house, people.  I’m eating it sometimes twice a day.  Making it whenever I have an hour to kill and freezing it in ice cube trays.  And I haven’t even started using my babied, beloved, home-grown basil yet.

I don’t care if I never eat another kind of pasta sauce.  I’m in love with pesto.

On John Hughes Movies, Society, and Aging.

You know you’re getting old when the movies you loved as a teenager don’t measure up to the society you live in on a daily basis.  I resent this on a certain level, but then again, I am no longer fourteen, and I’m pretty glad of that.

Cruising around today listening to “In Your Eyes”,  it occurred to me (not for the first time) that Lloyd Dobler is better in the imagination than in reality. I’m all for love, but a guy whose only ambition is to love you, who will follow you to college just to love you, who only thinks of being with you, is not really a good candidate for a healthy relationship.  He’s actually a stalker. But there was no stalking in the Eighties, was there?  No, there was just Lloyd and his ghetto blaster on the front lawn,  skewing the whole idea of romantic love for us girls, and being damn hard  for boys to live up to.

Then there’s Sixteen Candles. God, social norms have  moved beyond this movie! Apparently, I am not yet so ossified in my own little world that what I see stands any kind of test of time. The racism? I cringe when they say Bohunk and Chinaman. Also, the shower scene where Molly Ringwald and friend scrutinize the Hot Girl’s body? That’s an Eighties body. She has an acceptable percentage of body fat and her breasts are only a B, and unaugmented.  That body would never be considered hot today.  She’d be told to lose fifteen pounds and load up on silicone.  Also,  Molly Ringwald’s famously ‘bee stung’ lips  look lovely and natural compared to the lips on the socialite/starlets of today.

There’s a ton more analysis I could do, but that’s what I’ve got right now.

Drinking And Primping With Smart Women

I think everyone who was there would admit that ‘stagette’ is an annoying diminutive, but it was Carol’s ‘last hurrah’ before marrying my brother next weekend, and so we went out to Sam’s cabin at Point Roberts, and had a blast.

Here’s Pam with all the choices of nail polish we had.  It was a ton of fun!

Sam’s got the cutest cabin and guesthouse, and a fantastic garden for BBQing/painting toenails/playing with dogs. It was an absolutely wonderful party, and kudos to all the women for making it happen.

Ex Contact

So there I was, having a glass of wine and doing the usual Friday wind-down at the Fringe, when in walks an ex-boyfriend.

He wasn’t that important, in the scheme of things.  He didn’t cause me great tragedy.  I never learned any big lessons from him. He was just…there.

On paper he looked great: Middle class, going to college, part-time job at White Spot,  had his own car, that kind of thing. A nice, normal boy a far cry from the drama of my druggie ex or the past-life regressionist ex.

Except that he was boring. He made the same Red Dwarf jokes over and over.  His eyes were too close together and he thought going to movies was a waste of money.  The clincher was when I was refurbishing a jacket for a costume course and he pronounced the course, the jacket and the materials to be a waste of time and money.

See ya, buddy. Creativity is never a waste of time or money.

And then last night, he’s in my space? Well, it turns out he and his girlfriend live a few blocks from me.  He does something involving drafting, mostly from home.

Other than that, it looks like little has changed. He still folds his legs like a stork that has to pee, and waves his hands when he’s talking like he wants to karate-chop but is too feeble.  Still talks over people.  I wish him well, but hope not to have many more conversations with him.

Car-Free Dancing

Here’s me teaching Mark, who organized the party over on 1st and MacDonald, a couple of things about belly dancing. He was an awesome sport!

My fellow Team-Hareemer Kathleen and I danced at a couple of the car-free block parties on Sunday and we were very well recieved.  We were dancing to music Kathleen brought, and I’d never heard it before (with the exception of Tarkhan’s Kiss song,  but we were dancing with a two-year-old girl for that one and only a handful of people noticed we both got all the shots in it), but I comported myself well.  Note to self:  When I’m not trying to choreograph with the whole troupe, messing up doesn’t matter. No one,  not even other dancers, notices!

I didn’t get to hand out as many of our teacher’s business cards as I wanted, but I got more visible in the nelighbourhood, and am approachable to all and any who want to try belly dancing with us. We were fun, approachable, and lacked the body glitter disdainful sexxxaaaay vibe that intimidates women who just want to have some fun and get some exercise.

Also, Mark here showed serious promise in the hip area. Way to go, Mark!

Polishing Up.

Enrollment is down so I had yesterday off. I could have used the money, but I also needed the time.

First thing, I bought a strapless bra to hike up the girls. I ran around the bra store looking for something heavy, and the bra I bought has my full trust: It stays up while I jump up and down  with a big metal stapler in my cleavage! Now THAT is quality support.

Also, I got my dad a plain periwinkle blue tie that rocks with his suit and will go with his eyes perfectly. Score!

And then I solved my shoe dilemma! I had heels I thought would work, but I couldn’t really walk in them. But it turns out Sandii and Collen DO know how to walk in heels, and directed me around on Broadway until I could sashay with the best of them. “More hip! Don’t look down! The core! The core! Use the core! Float! Tiny steps!” they yelled as I teetered past the other pedestrians.

I got a lot of funny looks, and some plain guffaws, but I actually think Simon pretending to walk in heels was funnier than me actually learning. Although if he shaved, Simon would make quite a cute transvestite. But he would never be able to fill out my new bra.

Suited.

With my brother and Carol getting married later this month, I’ve been excited about a lot. But as always, there’s been some stress.

One thing that’s been stressing me is that Dad had to buy a suit. He thinks he threw his old one out. Not a suit guy.  Anyway, he couldn’t find it, so he had to buy a new one.  Why would this be a stress for YOU? I hear you ask.

Well, Dad’s colorblind.  And that one suit that served the non-suit guy for 30 years was what he thought was charcoal grey, but was actually a very deep green.  He bought it to marry my mom, and I think she always meant to ask about it, why he had a green suit, but she never did, because he wore it so seldom, and when he did put it on (weddings and some funerals, and usually bargained down to a tweed jacket and slacks) she was always preoccupied with the minutiae of the events themselves, or wrangling kids, or whatever, that she never got around to asking.  When she found out, she called me in a tizzy.

“Do you know your father thinks he has been wearing a charcoal grey suit for 30 years?”

Of course, I didn’t know. I’d seen him in it maybe twice in my life, and I never thought about it. My dad has a green suit. So? He wears a jacket and slacks to anythng fancy.

So today I went to the suit store and looked at the classic charcoal with blue pinstripe my father chose, and all the little gears in my brain shifted. It’s classic. It’s a little English Morning dress. I could totally see my dad in that suit, and I wish my mom could see what an excellent, non-green choice he’d made!

But Dad had charged me with choosing a tie. So the salesman and I  went to the tie display. And the salesman was all, “This is a  stripe that will work with this suit.”

Um, no. I thought. This stripe with my dad’s suit looks like he’s an extra in a Broadway play about stockbrokers.

“No,  he’s more subtle.  He’s a very quiet person. There’s too much pattern,” I said.

He whizzed around the tie display. “This one is a very subtle paisley. This one matches. Here’s one that is a little tone-on-tone.”

One was loud enough for the Pride Parade. Another was a glossy satin like a cable channel televangelist would wear. One made me think that the wearer probably would owe allegiance to the Russian mob. WTF was the guy thinking?

So I told him I’d go and think it over, sice buying a tie is a hard decision. And tomorrow, I am going to go buy the solid-colour tie I have in mind. A smoky cobalt-ish blue.  I’m going to The Bay, because salespeople never bug you there.

Long Sunday.

I was full of intentions. I made lasagna yesterday and I was stoked to go out and see Gen and her family for a couple of hours, and bring them some lasagna. Plus, it was the first day of the summer Kits farmer’s market, so I wanted to go and bring them something from there.

And then the pinkeye came back. So today I have been dosing myself with the pinkeye goo from the doctor at the walk-in clinic (whom I saw to get a refill on my inhaler a couple of weeks ago, and I hope he doesn’t think I am stalking him, because he is movie-star handsome) and waiting for the pinkeye to subside.

The goo makes my eyes sticky, and I can’t see so well,  so I have been mostly mooching around the house today. I mulched (put down more cardboard), did some laundry, prepped for the week. But I am pissed off at the stupid pinkeye. It’s been a long day.

On the plus side, my landlord says we can get a little bee house for the backyard! I would totally love to increase the local bee population. I just have to do a ton of research, because I want the bees, but not the work. Or the stings.

You know it’s been a long day when you can’t wait for the next day to begin, even if it is a Monday.

Happy end-of-the-week to you all.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbours?

So there has been MAJOR DRAMA with the fence. I know,  don’t blog the minutiae. But, honestly. You learn stuff about your neighbours when they build stuff, it seems.

The previous fence (badly rotted because Next Door put planter boxes on it, and then watered them copiously for four months a year) was a waist-height thing, and we could chat amicably over the fence. But this fence? The new one? Is a six-foot-high solid plank one.  I have been paranoid all day thinking I have offended Next Door somehow. Did I weed the side bed wrong? Ask the wrong container gardening questions?

My landlord, who assumed it would be the low kind of fence, went to talk to him about it. After all, my landlord had agreed to foot half the cost.  It turns out Next Door wants the tall fence because (get this!) our house is ugly.

Our house is a century-old Craftsman, cedar shingled affair. The paint is old and faded.  Some of the shingles are cracked. In short, it’s a character house that needs a paint job and a couple of shingles. Next Door lives in a pink stucco duplex box.  The irony is choking me like kudzu.

I was kind of depressed about the fence until my landlord pointed out that a) we could grow vines on it and b) I wouldn’t have to look at the pink stucco box any more.

Even the woman who lives in the front half of Next Door’s duplex thinks he’s being antisocial. I mean, we’re kind of densely packed around here, but this is just rude.  Even if he is very anal about his space and neatness and stuff (and he is), this is like a slap in the face of the rest of us, who (even with diverse needs and desires) want to be part of a community.