So, LJ's latest privacy fuckery (the semi-automatic reposting of comments to Twitter and Facebook,) has made me realise that I really don't want to hang out over there anymore.

So, as of now, I'm shifting all of my posting to Dreamwidth.

Posts will be cross-posted to LJ, but commenting will be turned off.

(And just to make it clear - I've been planning the move to DW for quite a while - this was just the final straw, as it were. I do realise that privacy on the internets is ephemeral at best.)

There are comments at http://neeuqdrazil.dreamwidth.org/230955.html. You can comment there.

A good high school friend of mine, someone who I reconnected with this summer after too many years apart, died last week.

Mark, I'll miss you.

The Toronto Choral Society concert is this Wednesday, December 16, at 7.30PM.

Details are here.

If you want to buy a ticket directly from me (and I don't even need to see you before the concert - I can leave the ticket at the door in an envelope with your name on it,) you need to let me know today, before 5PM. (Tonight's dress rehearsal is the last chance that I have to buy tickets, and I leave work at 5.)

Tickets are $20, and it's going to be an awesome show.

Comment here, or email me (LJ user name (at) gmail.com)

Come hear zingerella and me and about 180 other people, plus orchestra, sing Bach!

What: Selections from J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, sung LIVE!
When: Wednesday, December 16, 7:30 P.M.
Where: Eastminster United Church, across from Carrot Common, Toronto
Who: The 200-or-so voice Toronto Choral Society, with the Talisker Players, organist William O'Meara, and accomplished soloists Melanie Conly, Adriana Albu, and Anthony Cleverton, all conducted by Geoffrey Butler
Why: 'Tis the season, apparently. Also, it's what we do. Furthermore, Bach is awesome.
How Much: $20 if you buy tickets from me, $25 if you buy them at the door, $21 if you buy them online (please credit me, if you do, so I can meet my sales quota!)

If you want to buy tickets from me, please let me know by Monday at 5PM, so that I can buy them at our dress rehearsal, and I will leave them in an envelope at the door on Wednesday for you.

Be nice to see you there!

New-lol Moon.

This was really tasty, and stupidly simple. It's slightly modified from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone.

( Recipe )

This story is an absolutely beautiful retelling of the Iphigenia story.

Cool mom is Cool. (Short version: 4 year old boy loves pink, wants to wear a pink sundress. Parents talk to him about bullying and teasing, then let him. Kid deals with bullying and teasing better than most 30 year olds.)

I made Spanish Beans with Spinach from Epicurious as my contribution.

The recipe is really easy (and that's by just about any standards, not just mine.)

1 large (or 2 medium) yellow onions, roughly chopped
1/2 cup (1 small jar) sundried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped
olive oil

Sautee the onion and sundried tomatoes in a large pot (seriously, use the largest one you have and hope it's large enough,) until the onions have browned, about 6-8 minutes.

Add:
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp (I used closer to 1 tsp) sweet smoked paprika
salt & fresh ground pepper

Sautee for another minute or so. It will smell amazing.

Add:
2 19oz cans cannelini beans (I used white kidney beans), drained and rinsed
1 cup water
2 10oz bags baby spinach (or regular spinach with the tough stems removed, but baby spinach is easier.) (This is why you want the large pot. 20 oz of baby spinach is a lot.)

Put the lid on the pot, and stir occasionally, until the spinach has wilted, about 5 minutes. Add more pepper, and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil.

All told, including chopping the onions and sundried tomatoes, (and loading the dishwasher,) this dish took me less than 20 minutes from start to finish.

I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for S&B tonight. Between zingerella, torontoteacher, curgoth, and I, we ate the whole batch. (Well, not entirely. I sent home 2 each with TT and Z, plus 2 for sabotabby.)

The recipe came from here. I only used about 1 cup of oats (and I used quick-cook irish oats, instead of rolled oats, since that's what I had,) and replaced the raisins with mass quantities of chocolate chips, and didn't include the nuts, since I don't like nuts in my cookies. I also used dark brown sugar, since again, that's what I had.

Tonight's soup was uninspired. It was edible, but not wonderful. I won't be sharing the recipe for it.

Even better? All of the dishes are done, and the kitchen is still clean!

Last night's dinner was amazing.

We had chicken vegetable soup, homemade red onion-cheddar drop biscuits, and rice pudding with chai spices.

The biscuits came from this recipe, however I replaced the dill with thyme, as I absolutely detest the flavour of dill. I also added slightly more buttermilk than was called for, as the dough wouldn't come together without it. Both curgoth and I had thirds of these - I made 9 from the recipe. It took me all of 5 minutes to put these together, and that included grating the cheese and chopping the red onion. In a 450F oven for 12-14 minutes, and you have biscuits. I'm now thinking of what else I can put in them, other than red onion and cheddar.

The rice pudding with chai spices came from here. In this case, I halved the recipe, replaced the whole milk with a can of 2% evaporated milk, topped that up to 2 cups with whipping cream, and the remaining half cup with skim milk, since that's what we had on hand. I also used fresh ginger rather than crystallized, since I couldn't find any, and reduced the sugar significantly (perhaps a bit too much, though, since both curgoth and I added more at serving time.) I also used a cinnamon quill, 3 whole green cardamom pods, and a significant fresh grating of nutmeg. It was good, but I'd definitely make sure I used the crystallized ginger next time (the fresh had a bit too much bite, especially eating the leftovers today.)

The soup was a thrown-together affair: a small zucchini, a small summer squash (yellow zucchini), most of a red onion (the rest of the one used in the biscuits), a bunch of leeks, a package of chicken thighs, a tray of sliced mushrooms, a can of kernel corn, diced carrots, parsley, and chicken stock. curgoth chopped everything up while I was making the biscuits and putting the rice pudding together, and it simmered while the biscuits were baking (about 15 minutes.) It was really good.

And the best part? We kept the kitchen clean - all of the dishes got done as we were going along, and I washed the two pots before we went to bed.

It's hard to believe that 11 years have gone by since that first night.

Sitting on the (rickety, very steep) stairs into my apartment, smoking clove cigarettes while dressed to the (gothy) nines.

I love you more than ever.

Happy Anniversary love! (Yarr!)

I saw this recipe, and decided to do my own take on it.

( Edamame and Greens Pasta )

My body is vibrating. I might have had a bit too much caffeine this weekend. And not nearly enough sleep.

I might also be the luckiest girl in the world.

I had an incredible weekend. Many awesome talks, crazy numbers of awesome people, and just... yeah.

So, the talks. I go to Notacon for the people, and I'm not a hacker by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy the talks that I go to.

( The talks )

The talks that I attended were fabulous, but I don't go to Notacon for the talks. I go for the people.

Hanging out in the games room, hanging out on the patio on the third floor, talking and laughing and letting go of the filters.

I really need to get those filters back in place before Tuesday morning.

bleakenigma and tygerdsebat, thank you again for putting on the best party of the year.

It was wonderful to see a number of people who I only get to see once a year or so - dymaxion, mikaiyla, tottenkoph, aestetix, nuintari (who gives awesome hugs), and many of the #geeks, plus uncountable others who either aren't on LJ, or who I can't think of right now because I have no brain.

I'm amused that I get to spend more time talking to butterbee while we're in Cleveland than we do when we're at home. The same with secretsoflife, and pretty much the rest of the Toronto crew as well.

Bus next year, TO.folks? And convincing even more people to come.

I can't wait for next year.

Amazon Rank.

Amazon has just made a major fail-move. More info here. (Including an explanation of why Amazon Rank is showing up all over the place.)

Additional info (including a list of books that have been affected) here and here. Note from Mark Probst, author and publisher, here.

I'm flabbergasted.

(And yes, it's happening on Amazon.ca as well - I just searched for The Filly, and there is no Amazon Rank listed on the page.

ZOMG, so tasty! Molten Chocolate Cherry Cake.

Serve this with whipped cream with thick greek yoghurt folded into it. (Plain whipped cream would be too sweet.)

Blixa Bargeld reads the Hornbach catalogue.

This makes me giggle every time I see it - Extreme Shepherding!

Next Wednesday, December 17th, the Toronto Choral Society is performing our Celtic Christmas concert. Works will include Britten's Ceremony of Carols, a number of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh carols and songs (including some in Gaelic), stories, and other goodies.

The concert is at Eastminster United Church, a short walk (less than 5 minutes) from Chester subway station.

Tickets are $20 from a choir member (i.e., me! or zingerella), $21 if you buy online (if you buy online, please mention my name in the comment section), or $25 at the door.

If you're interested, please let me know ASAP - I need to buy the tickets this Wednesday. If we're not going to see each other between now and then, I can have them left at the door in an envelope with your name on it to be picked up. (And you can give me the cash after the concert.)

So much paper!

The Paper Place is giving away a massive stack of paper - one sheet of each of the Chiyogami designs that they have in stock. (The prize is worth almost $2000. That's a lot of paper.)

I have no clue what I'd do with so much paper, but dear gods, it would be awesome.

Den, I'll have to get you to give me ideas, if I win. If you're really nice, I might even give you some!

So, the lasagna I made yesterday for Stitch & Bitch was a huge success, and I had a number of people ask me for the recipe. I used my mother's basic recipe, but modified it slightly, so I'll try to remember what I did.

( Tomato sauce )

( Cream layer )

( Combining the lasagna )

I didn't sleep last night.

We went to bed shortly after 11PM.

I saw midnight.

I saw 1AM.

I'm pretty sure I saw 2AM, although I'm not sure - I'd given up looking at the clock by then.

The dance studio across the hall is playing something that's got huge amounts of bass, and my head was already pounding before they started playing whatever it was.

I knocked my (thankfully empty) water mug off my desk and halfway across the room this morning.

I should have stayed home, but there's too much to do. Plus, I wasn't as productive last week as I should have been, so there's even more to get done this week than there otherwise would have been.

It's raining out, and I couldn't find my umbrella.

Can I have a do-over?

OK, maybe not the best, but one of them.

( Gingerbread pudding with candied apples )

I just watched Penelope, with Christina Ricci (yum!), James McEvoy (yum!), Peter Dinklage (yum!), Burn Gorman (briefly, but YUM!)

Such a sweet movie. I hadn't even heard of it - I'm not sure it was widely released, but it deserved to be. It's a 'modern fairy tale', and it's a lovely little movie. I recommend it highly.

Reese Witherspoon produced it, and was in it, briefly.

Everyone should see this one.

(Also, dear gods, James McEvoy speaking in his natural accent (which he doesn't do in the movie, but I'm watching the special features), *drool*)

If you're not into the whole club-scene, why not check out something a little geekier?

There is going to be a sing-along screening of the Buffy Muscial, Once More With Feeling for Pride here in Toronto.

The screening is as follows:

Sing-Along with Buffy
Once More with Feeling
part of the Pride Toronto festivities
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
10:00PM
Paul Kane Parkette Stage
(Wellesley Street, Just west of Church) (Map here.)
Toronto, ON.

What? Toronto Choral Society Spring Concert: The Sound of Austria, including Bruckner's Te Deum, a bunch of Brukner motets, and works by Mozart, Hayden, and Schubert.

When? Wednesday, May 28, 2008; 7:30 p.m.

Where? Eastminster United Church, Danforth and Chester

How Much? If you buy tix from me or zingerella before the concert, $20. If you buy them at the door, $25. If you volunteer to help the choir as a volunteer usher or front-of-house person, free, and you get to wear a snappy green sash.

Why? We're a choir. It's what we do.

Oh, you mean why should you attend? Well, assuming you're free on that evening, you will have the opportunity to hear some truly lovely music, and to find out what zingerella and I have been up to on Wednesday evenings (good, wholesome choral-music fun). I do think this will be a good concert—I'm quite pleased with how it is coming together. So if you like large-scale Classical and Romantic choral works, you could do worse of a Wednesday evening.* There's a Big Bloody Crunchy Fugue! There are Grand Pauses! There's a really good baritone soloist (I suspect the other soloists are also good, but I haven't heard them, yet)!

How Can I Obtain a Ticket You can let me know that you want one, and I'll ensure that there's one waiting for you at the door. At some point, you can pay me for it.

How Do I Get in for Free? You let me know that you'd like to volunteer, and I put you in touch with the volunteer coordinator.

Will zingerella Be Wearing That Skirt? You'll just have to come to the concert to find out.


Obligatory link for more information. Or you can ask me.


* Except, you may want to leave after the Schubert, if you can sneak out quietly. The last three fluff pieces are ... fluffy... schmaltzy, even. I guess they're fun.

I'm done, and the week hasn't even started yet.

After I got home this morning, I was super cranky.

While chopping leeks for dinner tonight, I managed to take a goodly sized chunk off the tip of my thumb. (Not entirely off, but damn close.)

Shock isn't fun.

And because I have a massive white ball of tape and gauze on my left thumb, I can't do anything. I can't knit. I can't cross-stitch, it's hard to type.

I'm afraid to take off the bandages to see if my thumb has stopped bleeding or not.

And I'm just done.

I made this up, riffing on a recipe from the intertubes. (And finally, I have an appropriate entry to use this icon with.)

( Mushroom & Kale risotto )

BONUS EVENT: Craft Materials Swap, 3:30 - 5pm Sunday, February 24
Brought to you by the workroom and City of Craft...

Start your spring cleaning early! Craft supplies of many sorts are welcome, but for this first swap, we have a sense that fibrous stuff will take centre stage (fabric, yarn, textiles...). It's also a give what you can, take what you need kind of set-up so don't worry if your contributions are low. We have a bunch of fabric and yarn graciously given to us by Laura-Jean at Fresh Baked Goods and Haley at Knitomatic that will surely get the wheels rolling. Leftovers will go to local charity groups.


The Workroom is a cool space down at Queen & Dufferin (Well, Brock, but Queen & Dufferin is the closest major intersection.)

So, last night was another New Recipe Night at the Edumatorial Eyrie. We had a lovely group of people, enough food to feed, well, us (although there was leftover soup,) and I think we all had a good time.

I made Dried Mushroom and Barley Soup, and it was a rousing success. I'm recreating this from memory, since the cookbook got left at the Eyrie. Also, I modified the recipe a bit. This is from the Moosewood Low Fat Cookbook (and I cannot for the life of me remember the actual title of the book.)

( Dried Mushroom and Barley Soup Recipe )

Just in case Food Network takes it off the website.
( Recipe! )

The latest brainstorm from the PTBs at LJ is going to be loads of fun.

The whole "flagging of posts/journals/communities" is ridiculous. As some of my friends have pointed out, this can (and will) be abused, especially by people who don't "approve" of specific content.

So, in the interests of keeping my LJ visible to the people who I want to be able to see it, I'll be going mostly friends-only. I've already done this in large part, but I'm going to try to be more conscious of it now.

Also, as I said elsewhere on the topic, I'm doing this so that only people I trust to not be asshats will be able to see my posts that might be considered 'adult content'.

Happy birthday, curgoth, my monkey-love. May your year bring you joy, love, happiness, and lots of evil fun.

I love you.

Well, I hope they do, anyway.

We need to get some bodywork done on our car.

Does anyone have a body shop in Toronto that they recommend? Or, if you have a place you go to regularly, or that you trust, (that's not in Toronto) could I trouble you to ask them if they recommend anyone in Toronto?

I've figured out why my stockinette knitting was twisted!

I was knitting continental, but purling english!

Now I know better!

DVD Pictionary: Let the DVD do the drawing for you!

Doesn't that completely ruin the whole point of Pictionary?

curgoth is allergic to our bed.

This isn't a good thing.

Especially since his inhaler has expired.

I didn't over-caffienate today. I had less caffiene today than I often do.

And yet, I can't fall asleep.

Ugh.

Tomorrow will be painful.

Beyond San Francisco, that is.

For San Fran, I know what my goal is (3.53 or faster; to still be walking at the end of it; and to handle the hills well.)

But SF is only 3 weeks away. There's a lifetime after that.

So, my long-term goal is to run the half marathon in the Waterfront race next year.

My shorter-term goal is to run-walk the 5K Resolution Run on New Year's Eve. I've just registered (as a walker), and I'm going to do this.

To do this, I'll be out 3 or 4 mornings a week past SF. Once it gets colder, I'll switch up outside and indoor (treadmill) training. After the Resolution Run, I'll switch to indoor training at the gym until the weather gets better - I have breathing issues in serious cold that makes training indoors much more comfortable and realistic. Also, it gives me a better idea of pace and time.

Wish me luck!

(I think I'm addicted!)

I managed a negative split in my marathon!

This means that I did the second half faster than the first half.

Which means that I paced myself well at the beginning, and kept enough energy, and fueled myself well enough, to still have energy left to burn at the end, to push through to the finish line.

I rock.

I'm exhausted.

My body aches.

My head is a sieve - nothing is sticking to it or in it.

I'm really looking forward to seeing people tonight, but I hope that folks aren't expecting much from me.

So, I was scared before the race.

Now, I've found my motivation again.

My goal for San Fran? To finish in the same time.

Yes, that is a goal, and it'll be a challenging goal - the Waterfront Marathon is a really fast course - it's flat. SF is hilly - not dreadfully, but enough so that it'll be challenging to match my time in TO. (This is a PDF of the SF Course, with an elevation chart. This is the map and elevation chart for the Toronto Marathon. The comparison is kind of scary.)

So, my task for the next 3 weeks is to work on hills. Luckily, there's a great hill about 15-20 minutes away from here (walking - a good warm-up!) so, starting on Wednesday (I can't move today, and I don't know how I'll be tomorrow,) I'll be heading out in the mornings again, and focusing on the hills. I'm not so concerned about my stamina - I was pleased with how I felt throughout the race. But I'm a bit worried about the hills, so that is what I'll focus on for the next 3 weeks.

Saturday night I had a bit of a meltdown, but curgoth came and saw me through it. (Apparently it's a good idea to eat during the day. Who knew?)

Sunday morning, my alarm went off at 4.30AM, and again at 4.35AM.

I rolled out of bed at about 4.40AM, and started getting ready. I had laid out my clothes and shoes and stuff the night before (phone charged, ipod charged), and just had to get into my clothes and go.

I called a cab at just about 5AM on the dot, and was down at the Holiday Inn on King by 5.30. (I saw sarcasma and sanityclause walking home, presumably from Nuit Blanche, just north of Casa Loma on my way down.)

The Team was in the hotel lobby, and we got in some trouble from the desk staff for being too rowdy at stupid o'clock.

Shortly after 6AM, we wandered over to Metro Hall, and found the TNT tent - it wasn't nearly purple enough for my taste, but there were balloons and stuff, so it was noticeable.

dendritejungle arrived shortly after I did, and curgoth arrived a few minutes after that, so I got some time with my sweeties before I had to go and line up and find my way through the 12 thousand people who were racing to my approximate start corral. It was a bit insane.

At 7AM on the dot, the first runners were off, and within another minute or so we started moving.

I crossed the starting line at 7.06.23(ish), and we were off.

The first few kilometers were a bit slow - I was walking with L., one of my Team-mates, until about the 4km mark or so. Then she slowed down to talk to someone (or something...) and I took off.

Not super fast, but steady.

And I managed to keep that pace for the entire race.

There were a few rough patches - heading out Lakeshore toward the turn-around point at km12 or so, I started flagging a bit, especially when I realised that they were rolling up the course after me, essentially. Not entirely, but pretty damn close.

But I kept going, and just kept going, and finished strong.

Strong enough that, after going to the Team tent, and going and sitting for a bit and getting a 15 minute massage (heaven!), I walked from Roy Thompson Hall up to Yonge & Queen (I essentially zig-zagged through - I was looking for a cab, and couldn't find one.)

( My official results! )

I am a half-marathoner!

I will do a more full race report either later on tonight (unlikely) or tomorrow (more likely,) since we have to go out to curgoth's parents' place tonight for Thanksgiving, and I need to shower.

Under 4 hours, baybee!!! (Yes, it's slow, but it meant that I was walking at a little over 5kms/hr, for 4 hours.)

I have the race medal, and I'll be wearing it for the forseeable future. I'm just so damn proud of myself right now.

Since a number of people are asking me, the race details are as follows:

Start: 7AM at Metro Hall (Wellington & John.)

Route: This is the map. This is the description of the course. (I'm doing the half marathon.)

End: I'm expecting to take between 3.5 and 4 hours, so I'll be finishing between 10.30 and 11AM, and the finish line is at Metro Hall again.

There are 12,000 people expected to be doing the marathon, so it's going to be a crazy crowd. I will have my cell phone, but depending on how things are going, I may or may not answer it - the best bet is to either leave me a voice mail message, or send me a text message, and I'll get them when I'm done.

If there is someone that you miss dearly, for any reason, post this exact sentence in your journal.

S&B is on for tomorrow, Monday.

7PM until I kick you out (10PM or 10.30PM.)

(If you haven't been here before, directions are linked from my info page - both TTC and driving. If you're driving, there should be free parking.)

And yes, there will be the season premiere of Heroes.