Happy Birthday (to me)!

[wishes]

it's my birthday! I'm a whole year older, but alas, not a year wiser. and I've been suffering this horrible cold, which made the day horribly long and miserable.

but when I got home, I got warmed up, had a quick meal and relaxed. perhaps some belated birthday fun this weekend? perhaps a hot date? ha! more like having a hot rum toddy to fight the sniffles. in the meantime, I'll make some wishes, and blow out this candle on my birthday brownie.

thanks for the lovely cards and the warm wishes! thanks to Y for coughing on me and giving me this birthday cold! bitch!

to only connect - part II

[review]

when we finally picked up Y, the love interest got us there pretty fast, parallel parked down in a dead end street. if we weren’t really looking, we would’ve walked passed the gallery.

Ray Caesar’s work was pretty cool. beingboring was looking for the batgirl looking piece, but we only got to see the study, “Sleeping Study”. I found all of the compositions to be a delicate balance of a dark gothic dread and a light delicate whimsical fragility. they were all portraits of girls, with semi-insecticidal heads and eyes, a few resembling Christina Ricci, mixed up with 17th century French décor and a futuristic/sci-fi background. most of the ones showing were studies for larger pieces, which whetted our interests for the full portraits.

I really liked the prints, particularly the “Sleeping Study”, “Manifestation” and especially the “Merchant Study”. from his website, the full work, “Merchant of Dreams” looks captivating, and I’m now disappointed for only being able to see his study.

Mrs. Caesar (me bad, I forgot her name! sorry beingboring) explained to us that the works were all done on a 3d modeling software (by Alias) with photographic textures wrapped around them. there’s something clinical about the near perfection of the lines and the drawings. visiting his website gave me a sense of his personality and what influences him. meeting him at the gallery sort of made me think the opposite. of course, I was too tongue-tied to ask him anything.

if you find yourself in this neighbourhood in Toronto, I highly recommend dropping into the Londsdale gallery. if you’re in New York, visit the Jonathan Levine Gallery. if you’re feeling generous, buy me a print for my birthday!

to only connect - part I

[phone]

I finally got my cell phone from beingboring on Saturday. it’s a little Motorola phone, with a pretty crappy camera, but adequate for blogging purposes. I gave Y a call in the car on the way to Scarborough to have dim sum with the parental units for a belated Chinese new year meal, and asked him to tell me my phone number showing on the call display. after years of avoiding the temptation of getting one, it seemed a little scary, being both at once suddenly and easily accessible by phone and worried that no one was actually going to be calling me. if you don’t ever use one, you don’t actually know what you’re missing; though I suspected that I wasn't really missing anything at all.

the phone did come in handy pretty quickly as I had to get a hold of Y to co-ordinate a meeting place. after dim sum, beingboring had invited us to go to her colleague’s husband’s art show opening. sitting in the love interest’s car, I called Y to tell him to meet us at St. Clair West station pronto, as the show opening was about to start in a half-hour. when we got to the station, Y called me back and said,

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the main entrance, where are you?” I asked back, standing outside on the sidewalk.

“I’m outside. I’m walking on the street. I see a white dome.”

“Do you see Loblaw’s?” (Big gigantic grocery store.)

“No, I see a white dome and a park.”

“What? You don’t see Loblaw’s? But you see a white dome?” I looked around in vain trying to find a white dome. “Where the hell are you? I’m on St. Clair.”

“I’m trying to find Yonge St. I think I’m walking the right way.”

“Yonge St. is no where near here.” (It’s fucking four giant city blocks away, I muttered to myself.) “You’re supposed to be near Bathurst and St. Clair West.”

“Oh, I hear a siren. I see an ambulance. I think I’m on Bathurst.”

I looked down the street and see the ambulance. “Walk towards the ambulance. Towards the ambulance. I’m down the street.”

Thinking that he could find us now, I popped back in the car to wait. I ended up calling Y again, telling him to turn around and walk back out of the entrance of the subway, while the love interest honked his car. the power of the cell phone. I was in awe. what have I been missing all these years? apparently, the ability to talk across several hundred metres, separated by a hidden white dome, through a giant supermarket.

Happy Chinese New Year!

[menu]

it’s the year of the rooster! I had to work late tonight and we didn’t have much food in the fridge, but Y and I manage to make a small meal to celebrate the lunar new year. I made some shrimps and some bok choy, and Y made some yummy curry. Y took the photo in the dark, while we were still cooking his curry. on a lark, we got some honey garlic spare ribs out of the freezer section at the supermarket. they were nasty! they reminded me of some of the really bad “Chinese” food I had growing up... which also reminded me of...

...gerry’s special meal with his parental units. a while back, he had sent me a photo of his special meal with his parents at a Chinese restaurant. apparently, the restaurant is usually not so good and he was the only person using chopsticks. I’ve never been to Germany, and so I’ve no idea how’s the Chinese food there. I can’t imagine it being any good if there isn’t a big community of Chinese people living there. the whole idea of having a special meal at a Chinese restaurant, however, made me feel sooooo special. and then I remember how I positioned going to a French restaurant for mother’s day one year would be special to my mum. special is only special when it’s different. duh.

this got me thinking of all the “Chinese” restaurants that you can find anywhere in Canada, in small towns, in big cities, in just about any corner of the country where some immigrants decided to settle. When I’m in a small town, I’m always tempted to try the local Chinese restaurant and see how’s the food, especially when I’m in the mood for Americanized/Canadianized Chinese food.

last time in Québec, we had a special lunch with Y’s grandparents and mum at Le Buffet des Continents restaurant in Charlesbourg. there is variety there, from Italian to Greek, from Québecois to Chinois (Chinese en Français). I was the only Chinois there, and I felt all eyes on me as I picked away at the rouleaux impériaux, ate my soupe wonton, côtes levées à l'ail et au miel (spare ribs), and poulet à l'ananas (chicken balls). there was also traditional Québec Chinese food: nouilles chinoises. I don’t know why, but the French Canadians like to use the adjective “chinois” for their special food. Shepherd’s pie is called pâté chinois. a meat fondue is called fondue chinoise. and of course nouilles chinoises, which is a nasty concoction of macaroni pasta and soya sauce. as tempting as they looked in the heating trays, I kinda stayed away from this traditional Québec Chinese food. when we left, the waitress gave us a chance to win $50.00 of buffet food if we filled out the comments. yeah, right.

growing up, it took me a few years to realize that when my non-chinese friends said they loved Chinese food, they meant the westernized stuff. Lori-ann, the piglet white trash girl in 4th grade finally explained to me what chicken balls were. and as unbelievable as it may seem, I put 2 + 2 together and thought, “Oh! So that’s what my great uncle sells to the gwei lohs!”

when I do visit one of these kinds of restaurants, the Chinese owners either just peer at me funny and serve the food silently, or they chat me up and try to make me something "special". special usually means poor attempts at making "real" Chinese food. I suspect that the nicer ones are just hoping that I don’t break their secret and loudly declare, “what the hell are chicken balls? I didn’t know chicken even had balls!

well, I don’t mind the food at all, so long as I’m not told this is the best Chinese food ever and the “real” Chinese food I love is terrible. I think there are such things as good chicken balls and chop suey. god knows, there is a lot of bad shark fin soup and a lot of bad har gow (shrimp dumpling) in the city. food is food and I love eating all kinds, fake or otherwise, so long as it’s good.

happy chinese new year to you all! may fortune smile on your chicken balls!

ça ne veut plus rien dire du tout

[loves]

since the new year, I’ve been trying to review where I'm at in life, where I'm heading and where I think I cannot go. when you need to plan for the future, I think it’s important to know what your boundaries are, whether they’re fixed/hard or impossible to breach or whether they’re just the starting line for the next step forward. all of this evaluating became more important as my colleague resigned last week to move onto greener pastures, leaving me with the new girl. “my” regular cases suddenly tripled, work projects immediately taken away or put on hold, emergency 30 minute training for my hapless department mates to take over my essential tasks that I can no longer perform. “I’m only one person!” is what I’ve been saying for the last two weeks. and since it’ll take at least a year (+ the time it takes to find him/her) before the new replacement becomes comfortable working in my area, I expect to be saying that for many, many months more.

in speaking with my boss over what to expect in the next six months, he asked me where exactly do I want go in the company? I mentioned other depts. where I thought I could learn more. with fear in his eyes, he gave me some insight and his opinion on what areas would benefit from my skills/strengths. it’s a risky thing to ask one’s direct boss to give some career guidance under these circumstances. of course life goes on, even if I leave, as we’re all really dispensable.

I said I have plans outside of this company and other goals. I didn’t tell him that I want to write more, have more free time to read and possibly go back to school someday. I just left him knowing that this office wasn’t the end, the beginning or necessarily the future. if he was a different boss, I would’ve kept my mouth shut; after all, this wasn’t exactly a career making conversation.

but after watching Mimi die an anti-climatic death on stage during La Bohème, where poor poet Rodolpho looks on in the garret, I suddenly wonder whether being a poor starving writer with drunken bohemian friends would be such a great thing. Mimi’s tragedy was so much more palatable with Puccini’s beautiful music than would be mine, with no soundtrack playing in the background. I could do what I enjoy and know that I will never make a dime from it, or I can work at a career where I can conceivably imagine a comfortable lifestyle (so long as the world doesn’t fall apart in the meantime).

I couldn’t figure out exactly what was the point of La Bohème, that to be a bohemian was a bad thing? that love has no limits? that true love is doomed? that poor women at that time had no choice but to be the lovers of rich men to have a chance at decent healthcare? or not, as Mimi proved? I didn’t look up the opera, and I really didn’t bother reading the programme either. perhaps there wasn’t any point. my options, too, aren’t so black and white. perhaps I can do what I want to do, but as a career. perhaps I need to decide what I really really want, and do it, and make any sacrifices to fulfill a dream.

La Bohème

[loved]

earlier this week, we went to see our next opera, La Bohème. I was pretty excited to see it and even Y got a ticket to join us, though he sat downstairs with a better seat. we all really enjoyed the opera, the music was easy to love. the voices weren't the most powerful, and nothing terribly exciting happens, but the sets were pretty cool. we especially liked the end of the third act where Mimi and Rodolpho walks back together, their backs to us, singing between the huge trees. brucebruce didn’t fall asleep, and beingboring fed us Werther’s original caramels.

this week, we'll be going to see Wagner's Siegfried, which is part three of the Ring Cycle. it's 5 hours long and I worry if I will manage to stay awake through it all. the main costumes are pajamas, so I'm not particularly optimistic. but it has rave reviews and it is supposed to be quite powerful. it'll be the first Wagner I've ever seen. I'll be packing tonnes of snacks and pray there'll be lots of intermissions.

sadly that night, eL gave us the final update on her and he-who-must-not-be-named. it was over, and whatever love she had for him, he wasn’t ready to accept, didn’t want to accept, could not accept. I was very sad for her, and I felt sorry for he-who-must-not-be-named. he seemed so wounded and messed up. love in reality is a lot more complicated than the sweetly tragic pure kind that dies a miserable tuberculosis death on stage.