Well, You Start By Tearing Up a Wad of Cash...

It snowed in Toronto this morning. Unbeknownst to me, of course, until after I'd woken up. I was formerly an avid Canadian weather watcher but when I realized that they were wrong 90% of the time, I quit watching. The old adage heard in cities 'round the world - "just wait 15 minutes and the weather will change" - is certainly true of this fair city as well. I don't really do snow, at least when it comes to driving, and because I didn't know I'd have to deal with the little white bugs today, I got up too late to take transit. I called a colleague who lives in my building, but he had an early morning meeting. Reality was staring me square in the face: I was going to have to drive. Sometimes, you just have to put on your big girl panties and work it out.

Here's the fun part. In my haste and nervousness about the possibility of sliding off the Gardiner or, say, running down a pedestrian, I clipped a concrete post in my parking garage. I heard the loud "bang" and knew exactly what I'd done. I tried to maintain my equanimity, but uttered an expletive anyway (that can't be repeated here because my Mom's reading). So it goes. I could not even bring myself to stop and look at the gash, so I just kept driving - straight to work. Problem-free, I might add.

My beloved (and nearly paid for) car has not been washed in over three months and is therefore covered in a two-inch thick crust of dirt, snow and ice. Actually, I can hardly change lanes on the freeway because I can barely see out. I usually try to take the "glass half full" approach in life and in this scenario it's as follows: the lovely crust mix has mitigated my ability to see the scrape. For now. Once I wash it, though, the ugly scab on my heretofore perfect vehicle will be completely exposed for all the world to see. Namely me. Oh well, such is life.

Thank You Jesus!!

Five words: the sun came out today!!

My makeup was ruined from the watery eyes I had after staring at the sun for about ten straight minutes, but I didn't care! Then, I sang at the top of my lungs right in the middle of the office and got the stink-eye from my colleagues, but I didn't care! The sun was blisteringly bright coming around the Don Mills curve on the DVP and my poor cornea were hardly able to adjust to the strong UV light; I was almost in a 179 car pile up because of it, but I didn't care! I'm from Texas, remember? I'm used to living on the face of the sun, so not seeing it for five months has done permanent damage to both my eyeballs and my epidermis (that, I care about).

Today, though, I'm a happy girl!

Sunshine!

Me doing a little jig after seeing the sun

Happy girl! (photo courtesy of Catherine)

The Gardiner on my way home - woo hoo!

My Week of Not Being Lame

My weeks are usually manic-filled episodes of sprinting around Toronto from place to place. Sort of like the proverbial chicken. Last week, though, was a rare one where I didn't have much to do. I still managed to find a little bit of trouble - as I'm apt to do - but it was basically a slow one for me. This week, however, I am back on my A-game and have a ton of cool things lined up. If anyone wants to join, call me (picture me mouthing the words and holding up a "finger phone" to my ear).

Monday - Watching The Bachelor, sillies. Well, and hip hop dance class at City Dance Corps, too, but I'll be DVR'ing the former. I mean, who doesn't wanna watch Jason take those crazy, greedy, plastic bitches home to meet mom and dad?! It's a (made for TV) disaster waiting to happen and I can't wait.

Tuesday: Sewing Machine Essentials class. Yep, I'm diving head first into the pool of domestication. I will be learning how to turn a sewing machine on for the very first time and will be attempting to turn fabric into a pillow slip. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a true city girl at heart so this should be interesting. If I had to sew a button to save my life, well, you know.

Pics to follow, natch.

Wednesday: Watch Kobe (and the rest of the Lakers) take down the Raptors.

Thursday: "Up Until Now" at the Winchester Street Theatre (aka "The Winch"). The world premiere of a newly commissioned work from the iconic American choreographer and dance experimentalist Deborah Hay. Should be rockin'.

Friday: King West Pub Crawl. If it's anywhere near as debaucherous as December's outing, I'll just plan to talk to you guys next week. Should be fun to try and make my 9am flight to Houston on Saturday. Think I'll make it? (@Farhan - bet you can't get 16 G&T's down this time without stumbling home)

Saturday: Wake up and take aspirin. Fly to Houston. Pack up condo. Try to find renter in tanking economy. Shove as much Mexican food as possible down throat. Get waited on hand and foot by amazing parents.

My Kinda Place

I tried a new church yesterday. I'm, unfortunately, a lapsed Catholic and yes, I feel guilty about it. I promise to say 10 Our Father's and 10 Hail Mary's as penance. Tomorrow.

I'm a girl who appreciates rituals, both religious and otherwise. Rituals have been ingrained in me since I was a small girl, likely from attending weekly Mass with devout parents very involved with the Church. To this day they're a comfort to me. When deciding which university to attend, I ended up choosing one steeped in tradition and rituals. Probably not a coincidence considering I had several to choose from. Don't get me wrong, I despise redundancy; but having the same routine day after day is a far cry from the deeper ritualistic experience I crave.

There aren't many churches around me since I live downtown, so I tried St. Andrew's Presbyterian, a 179 year-old church about a ten minute walk from my building. As I walked up to the church, I got that familiar little adrenaline rush knowing that I was walking into a completely new situation (and which I secretly love!). I found a seat, the service began and everything was fine - no one brought out the whips to lash me for not being "one of them" nor did anyone point and laugh. Maybe the Protestants aren't that bad after all (kidding!).

Blah, blah, blah, we asked for forgiveness, etc, etc and the sermon began. The first three words out of the reverend's mouth were "Money. Sex. Demonic Possession.", and I knew I was home.

The Do-Gooders Society (and damn proud of it)

I joined the Junior League of Toronto. I was a provisional member in the Houston Junior League, but when I was transferred to T.O., I was forced to resign. Finally, after 18 months of contract extensions, waiting to find out if my work visa was going to be extended or if I was going to be personally escorted to the Canadian/US border, I decided to jump in feet first and just join already.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Junior League, it's basically a hoity-toity group of women who disguise their social climbing behind a mask of "volunteerism". It's essentially where former sorority girls go to die. At least in Houston it is. Just to give some perspective, the Toronto League currently has 88 active members not including the 15 who started today. The Houston League currently has 5,000 active members. You do the math. The Toronto League, unlike the Houston League, though, actually attempts to give back to the community (ok, not totally true, but sort of). It doesn't care if you're black, white, brown, big, small, young or old...it just cares that you care. And I care.

Needless to say, I'm excited and am blowing my own little horn about the possibilities that our "little engine" just might achieve. Blaaaaaat!

My friend Christina and I waiting for the subway post-JLT meeting

Real Tea vs Canadian Tea

I had a brief conversation with someone this week about proper iced tea. Of course, he was Canadian and therefore hardly aware of any other tea besides this kind. Granted, he has tried iced tea from McDonald's and, while that doesn't really count in my book as true iced tea, at least it's actually brewed! I am in no way trying to take anything away from Nestea - it is a perfectly reputable brand - but any alleged tea maker who has the word "Instant" on their homepage is in no way the real thing.

So, being a true Southern girl with a keen opinion on the libation, I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a little comparison for all of you tea lovers out there.

How real sweet tea is made:
1) Boil a large pot of water
2) Steep actual tea bags for 5-7 minutes
3) Remove tea bags
4) Add 1 cup of sugar while tea is still hot; stir until sugar is dissolved (note: sugar does not dissolve in cold beverages)
5) Add enough water to fill up half of your container
6) Add mint leaves, fresh lemon wedges or any other fresh additive of your choice
7) Stir
8) Pour over ice and enjoy!

How Canadian tea is made:
1) Mix up all kinds of chemicals and ingredients that end in things like "-dioxide", "-zonate", "-lactin", etc.
2) Shoot in artificial lemon juice
3) Add some dark food coloring to make beverage appear to be "actual" tea
4) Add processed air to keep bottle content "fresh"
5) Add screw top to keep preservatives in
6) Pour over ice and enjoy!

You can choose for yourself, of course...I'm just sayin'.

Things I Did This Weekend

1) Completed my required prescription drugs. - You know how you get three trees' worth of paper warnings and side effects with your Rx? Well those nasty side effect don't usually apply to me and I rarely suffer from them. Until today. The evil pharmacist warned me that one of my prescriptions often causes a metal taste in your mouth. After three days - nothing. This morning, I woke up tasting so much metal in my mouth that I thought I might have sleepwalked my ass over to the Ritz Carlton being built on Wellington Street and gnawed my way through every single I-beam there. Even after being completely ridiculed for wearing braces not once, but twice, in my life (two years both times!), I have still never tasted this much metal in my mouth.

* If anyone knows how to rid my trap of this miserable chemical element taste, an email would be much appreciated.

2) Froze my ass off and woke up to shrill, grinding noise. - It's still snowing outside. I am going to have to dig my way outta here today and am none too happy about it. The first 27 times it snowed, I was completely enamored. Now? It could never snow again and I'd be a happy girl. Actually, snow is quite beautiful when it's falling and seems to silence the city in a way that it's not normally. However - if I go to sleep when snow's falling, I know I will in no way be getting a full night's sleep. This is because of the oft dreaded snow plough. Inevitably, at 3 or 4am, I am jolted awake by a noise not all that different than nails on a chalkboard. My window faces an NFL football-field-sized parking lot, so I get to hear the grinding of metal against concrete for no fewer than two hours every time it snows. So it goes. This morning, I had the pleasure of hearing him at 4:30am.

Look, I totally grok that he has to clear the snow. But is it really a requirement that it happen before the crack o'dawn? I mean, it's Sunday for Christ sake. The usually packed parking lot will nary be used today...well, at least not until after Noon. Honestly, my complaint isn't that the man is doing his job. It's simply the hour.

Please, Mr. Snow Clearing Man - get some sleep so I can too!

3) Passed this house. - Yes - those are actual plush toys glued and wrapped around this house on Bertmount Street in Leslieville. Apparently, they even change the toys out seasonally. Wow.

4) Ruined a perfectly good cheese grits casserole.

5) Did my very own science experiment. - As my blog name suggests, I am from Texas. This means that, until I moved to Canada, I had never experienced the extreme winter weather which I now get to grin and bear. It's been unusually cold over the past week (I know - that horse has been beaten) so I decided to see if water really would freeze solid if left outside on my balcony in -20C temps. Last night, I put out about 4 cups of water in a plastic jug and in a few minutes, after I peel myself out of bed and wrap my head eight times, I'll check the results.

Author's note: I finally made it outside and - brace yourself - total success! Frozen solid. Is anyone surprised? Nah, me either.

Next up for me: Nobel Prize for Science.

Saturday, January 17, 2009 8:30pm

Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:30pm