Regarding My Favourite Movie: I Am Torn

I'm not experiencing indecision on the identity of my favourite movie...it is and will likely always be "Harold & Maude". I absolutely adored it from my very first viewing (in 1997) and have loved it ever since.


It is beautiful & brilliant in every conceivable way...story, writing, performances, cinematography, music...everything is perfection!

It's the music I want to address.

All of the songs on the soundtrack are by Cat Stevens (this film came out in '71, so he was still "Cat" back then).


My favourite song is "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" which was written especially for the movie and can be interpreted as the unofficial "theme" song of the film. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me dance & it inspires me--it's that good!

Recently, I realized that its formerly feline songwriter/performer, now known as Yusuf Islam, had given T-Mobile the rights to "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" to use in a commercial.

ARGH!

And therein lies my dilemma.

I don't even care about the whole "selling out" aspect, that's not what bothers me.

What I simply cannot reconcile is as follows:

On one hand, every time it comes on, it makes me happy...I sing along enthusiastically! I smile!

On the other hand, a generation (or two) are only going to know this fantastic ditty as the theme to a T-Mobile commercial and that is heart-breaking!

I can't believe that a Cat Stevens-related trauma is causing me such distress.

Baseball & Basketball Are DEAD in Toronto!!

Before anyone gets pissy with me in reaction to the inflammatory subject line of this post, please realize that the title is meant to be taken with a gargantuan grain of sodium chloride.

The other day, ESPN’s Bill Simmons (aka “The Sports Guy”) revealed the contents of an email he had received from a Toronto sports fan, "expressing..dismay that (A) Roy Halladay was traded, and (B) Chris Bosh is a mortal lock to be playing somewhere else next season. By August…Canada's best non-hockey player would be either Hedo Turkoglu or Aaron Hill.”

Thanks, Sports Guy!

This gives me the opportunity to address something that’s been sticking in my craw for months. (In case you’re wondering, when something is "stuck in one’s craw" it manifests as an uncomfortable pressure building inside you…much like it does inside Poopypants after “Chili Night in Canada”).

I’m not going to debate the identity of which athlete (not on skates), playing for a Canadian team, should be considered the country’s best player, in the absence of Halladay & Bosh. At best, it would be a specious argument; at worst, I’ll end up in a psych ward because I finally decided to throw feces at the insane co-worker who continues to insist that Rafer Alston could have saved the Raps, if we’d only “given him a chance”.

Yeah, OK.

What I will address is the pathetic, defeated attitude expressed by so many Blue Jays fans at the (entirely expected) departure of Halladay and the unbridled panic that sets in amongst Raptors fans at the mere hint of Bosh leaving (which is, obviously, also, a somewhat predictable transaction).

I'm not suggesting the exits of Halladay & Bosh won't be huge losses to their teams. However, some people seem to think that the loss of Halladay and the imminent/inevitable departure of Bosh makes the city of Toronto akin to a Jessica Simpson movie crossed with a dark & stormy Canadian night…that is, talentless & star-free.


Chris Bosh & Roy Halladay are/were the most popular and most visible faces on their respective teams. Most talented? Maybe. Ultimately, that determination will be made over time, based on the entire careers of CB4 & the Doctor, and the career successes of their Toronto teammates.

Were/are they integral parts of their teams? Sure.

Does their departure signal the irretrievable downfall of their teams, going into the next (couple of) season(s)? Hell, no. No, no, no. In fact, I couldn't scream “NO” any louder right now if I were being told I was being forced to attend a Nickelback concert!

Perhaps, if the teams were both on the precipice of something fantastic, with all the other necessary winning pieces in place, then the absence of Bosh and Halladay would be the ruination of the team(s)...but neither team is in that place!

And people seem to forget that both basketball and baseball are TEAM sports.

In basketball, it is conceivable for a marquee, franchise player to carry a middling team beyond the mediocrity with which they're surrounded. Bosh has shown that he can be that player (case in point, the 2005-2006 season...March of '06, Bosh got injured, the Raps went 1-10 in subsequent games without him). But the team is not currently winning (last season 33-49, so far this season 13-17)...sure, Bosh is their best player, one of the best in the league, but the team, as a whole, needs a LOT of work. Losing him certainly won't *help* the team, but that alone doesn't guarantee the Raptors' downfall.

In baseball, one ace player does not a playoff team make. A pitcher usually works every 5 games. A team plays 162 games per season. A really good pitcher can generally be counted on to get 20 wins in a season (FYI, in 2003, Halladay's best season, in terms of his W-L record, and the year he won his first Cy Young award, he went 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA). Assuming your ace brings in 20 wins, that still leaves 142 games with which to contend. I'm no mathematician, but, that seems like a lot of games.

Let me put it this way: If you have a car with a brand new shiny transmission, but the car also has flat tires, no oil and a body infested with rust, you're not going to get too far, no matter how impressive your tranny (yes, "impressive tranny" could be used as a euphemism).

To summarize: Toronto fans, relax. Our teams have waaaay bigger issues than losing their superstars. Like the Jays' new fetus of a GM. And the fact that Marco Bellinelli gleefully admits that if he weren't playing basketball, he'd be working in fashion.

Anyway...a quick farewell to Mr. Halladay. As he displayed for his entire tenure in Toronto, both on-field & off, Roy Halladay left Toronto the epitome of class...as evidenced by the full-page ad he took out in the Toronto Sun...

Thanks for everything, Doc. You will be missed.

Everybody Loves Christmas, Except Jesus

Driving to work this week, we passed a church with one of those signs outside the front of the building, whose letters can be added/rearranged/changed. Often you'll see bible quotes, psalms, ads for noon-time organ recitals etc.

The message on this church's sign read:


This message confused me, to say the least.

What could Jesus possibly have against Christmas? Who doesn't love birthdays?!

Unless the holiday to which they actually meant to refer was Easter and not Christmas...cuz that would make sense...I could see why Jesus wouldn't love Easter, what with the betrayal, the being nailed to the cross & the dying and whatnot.

It took me a while, but then I realized that what they probably meant to say was "EVERYBODY LOVES CHRISTMAS ACCEPT JESUS".

Ah! The light dawns!

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Post Script

Driving by the same church this morning, I took a peek to see if they had corrected the sign. Sure enough, it had been updated.

Corrected? Not so much.

Today, the sign reads:



Thanks for the clarity.

I had been affording them the benefit of the doubt, in that they simply might have used the wrong word. Now, I truly don't know what to think.

Can't wait to see how this message evolves over the rest of the week...

Dear Co-Workers...A Favour?

Dear Female Co-workers,

I have a small request. I hope it's not out of line, but I'm going to ask anyway.

I don't care what you do in your own home (unless you have me over, of course) but when you're in the workplace, an environment you share with many other people, would you be so kind as to make the effort to actually flush the toilet?

Entering a bathroom stall to be greeted by what you've deposited in the toilet bowl is a repugnant, nauseating, disgusting experience.

Honestly, is it really *that* much of an inconvenience to flush a toilet?

I'd be willing to bet a million dollars that a person too lazy to flush a toilet possesses a wardrobe of undergarments replete with skid-mark-stains, too.

I'm sure some of these miscreants have kids, as well. What kind of example are they setting for the next generation? Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN?!!

Thanks for listening.

Love,
Julia

P.S. And from the "Passive Aggressive Notes" website....

Score: Jalapenos 2.5, Patchoulia 0

Everybody knows (or should know) that it's dangerous to wipe one's eye(s) after handling hot peppers.

I semi-learned this lesson via an experience, several years ago, when I absentmindedly touched my eye after slicing a jalapeno...as such, I try to be super-diligent, whenever I am cooking with jalapenos or any hot peppers, to wash my hands thoroughly after touching them.

Of course, if I had, in fact, fully learned the aforementioned lesson and if I were, in fact, super-diligent with regards to washing my hands after handling hot peppers, I likely wouldn't be typing this post right now, would I?

Last night I made a delicious, spicy, tomato-based cabbage/veggie soup for dinner.

One note about my cooking...when I have the time, I enjoy cutting up all my veggies beforehand, putting them in bowls, prepped & ready to enter the skillet/pot/saucepan/frying pan when it's their turn.

Why? My reasoning is twofold:

1. a) I like to pretend I'm a hostess/chef on a television cooking program. Even though those chefs do some chopping/demonstrating during the course of their program, that's frequently just for "show"--they always have their ingredients prepped, measured and ready to go!

1. b) Speaking of television cooking shows, I really miss The Urban Peasant. I wish I'd had the opportunity to meet and/or cook with him before he went to that big gourmet kitchen in the sky. Sometimes, when I'm cooking, I like to adopt his accent and use his phrases & mannerisms (even if I'm alone), "NOW! If you haven't got wine, use apple juice, if you haven't got apple juice, use water--use what you LIKE! It's YOUR KITCHEN!!"

(If you were wondering, I *was* dropped on my head as a child. Seriously.)

2. I don't like the pressure that's put on me when I've already begun the cooking part of the meal preparation and I still have chopping left to do...it's extremely stressful!

"The onions are sauteing, but I still need to chop the carrots, mince the garlic, locate the oregano & the basil...NO!! Crap! NO!!!! The onions are going to be too cooked, the meal's going to be ruined...AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!"

(See? Dropped on head=Julia kooky)

Anyway, last night, I chopped up all my veggies before I started cooking.

The jalapeno was the 3rd item I chopped. I stopped, washed my hands, and continued my chopping, cutting up the carrots, garlic & cabbage. I them proceeded to cook my soup...in went the onions, then the carrots & celery, followed by the jalapeno & the garlic...

If you deduced that I did not wash my jalapeno-tainted hands a second time, after putting the peppers into the soup pot, you would be correct.

Once all the ingredients were added, and my soup was simmering, I began tidying up the kitchen. The cutting board was still, apparently, infested with onion, because my eyes started watering. I wiped away the tears from my right eye and was immediately besieged by a horrific burning sensation...I realized we were dealing with a jalapeno-eyeball situation...

I couldn't even open my eye, the burning, searing pain was far too intense. I tried to flush the eye with water, but couldn't keep it open to do so. I tried bawling (not difficult)in an effort to wash away the jalapeno oil, with little effect.

I rubbed the eye a bit, with a towel, and then came to the appalling realization that not only had I rubbed jalapeno oil in my eye, but a teeny piece of the pepper was actually lodged under my eyelid! The blinding (literally) pain suddenly made more sense...

While all this was going on, I had also been crying out of my left eye and my face was covered in mascara...so I tried to wipe it off...at which point, I rubbed some still lingering jalapeno under the (previously unaffected) left eye!

I am a moron.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I then washed both my hands, thoroughly.

Poopypants conducted a quick internet search that revealed pouring milk in an affected eye supposedly helps neutralize the pepper acid/juice.

Naturally, we didn't have any milk in the house.

Another online suggestion was to use Visine, which I do have in my medicine cabinet.

Visine did succeed in quelling the burning, after a few minutes, which was, as you can imagine, a tremendous relief.

The reason I report the score as Jalapeno 2.5, Julia 0, is because not only did I actually end up rubbing both of my eyes with my pepper-infested hands, but, I think I may have infected the Visine with jalapeno as well! When I woke up this morning, I realized that my (still extremely red) eyes could use another shot of Visine...and when I inserted the drops, my eyes began burning all over again!

Summary: All homes should be equipped with one of those chemical eyewash stations, like they have in laboratories & high school chemistry classrooms. It's just good sense.

MAC Knives (and oddly specific warnings)

Last summer, we decided to finally spend a ridiculous amount of money to purchase a really, exceptionally good knife.

I cook a lot and a fantastic knife makes a world of difference, as I'd discovered assisting in preparing meals at other peoples' homes; people who had already seen the knife-light (likely glinting off the surface of a beautifully reflective & dangerously sharp utensil).

The knives I'd purchased in the past weren't exactly inexpensive, but were, apparently, of somewhat cheap (& dubious) quality; after a few months of use, despite proper care & sharpening, their dullness was insurmountable.

Insurmountable dullness is insufferable & intolerable, both in knives & at cocktail parties.

Despite rumours to the contrary and despite many questionable, juvenile sartorial choices, I am, in fact, an adult, and I determined that it was simply time for me to own a kick-ass, grown-up knife!

Research led us to the Japanese brand, MAC. We had asked several chefs about their favourite knives and they all indicated that MAC was the best, so...good enough for us! :)

And how do I love my new knife? Oh my. It's truly sublime.

I was, however, somewhat perplexed by some of the "Advice & Cautions" included inside the knife's box...

Most of the suggestions were pretty standard, typical warnings for the new knife owner, from a company interested in preventing knife-related litigation (as well as ensuring that the product is as effective as possible for as long as possible, of course)!

But they still cracked me up.

A few examples (Note: All MAC's pieces of advice are being conveyed precisely as written on the piece of paper that was inserted into the knife-box)...

Never use your MAC knives for a purpose they were not intended for.

Really? Interesting! That never would have occurred to me! (And, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention what a beautifully structured sentence that is...for.).

Do not use for prying anything open, don't drop the knives, don't throw the knives and don't expose to extreme heat or cold.

OK. Does anyone ever PLAN to drop things? Particularly knives or other sharp things that could render one toeless?? Does this suggestion that I NOT drop it actually lessen the chances that it might occur? Just wondering.

Additionally, were I planning to THROW my knives, I'd probably have an entire set, specifically crafted for that purpose. But I'm just guessing on that one. Really. Honest. I DON'T THROW KNIVES! (on purpose)

Never cut bones, frozen food, hard squash, or other hard items (cleavers and frozen knives excluded).

I'm going to go ahead and assume that when they reference bones, they're speaking to non-vegetarian knife owners and not psychopathic, "Tommy DeVito" (aka Joe Pesci in "GoodFellas") types.

And not cutting FROZEN food makes perfect sense.

But..um...HARD SQUASH? WHAT?

I...don't know what to say about that. I've never encountered a squash so hard that it might actually break a knife! And, if I were a knife-maker and wanted to warn my customers, mentioning, by name, just one--specific--food to avoid, because it might threaten the sanctity of my knife, I am fairly certain that squash wouldn't be my first choice!

I have no idea what the clarifier "cleavers and frozen knives excluded" means, so I won't even speculate.

Anyway, I love my new knife and highly recommend the brand. End of story.

P.S. I do realize this is the second consecutive blog post whose focus is a type of kitchen utensil. Rest assured, this likely won't be a three-parter.

Bad at Biting?

So, yesterday, we were at dinner and Poopypants announced, "I don't know if I'm not good at biting anymore or if I've simply been encountering low quality forks, but, the last two greek salads I've bought for lunch at work, after I took the first bite, the fork shattered!"

So, either he no longer knows the strength of his bite or the fork manufacturers of the world are slacking off.

I'm not sure which possibility is more disturbing to me.

Last night I had a crazy dream...

So, last night, I had a crazy dream. And it was so crazy, I decided to share it. I decided to share it on Facebook as a note, because, I thought, generally, people really don't care about other peoples' dreams.

BORING!

That being said, I thought that the friends in my dream (and a few others, who've always enjoyed the musings of my crazy mind) might enjoy the retelling of what went on in my psyche last night.

So, I did that.

And it turned out that everyone seemed to really enjoy the dream!

Even the folks who weren't IN the dream!

So, perhaps, others might enjoy it...hence, this post...my dream from last night:

No, I'm not about to burst into that Matthew Wilder song from the 80s. I actually had a completely bizarre dream last night.

Poop & I were living in a crazy mansion, with lots of art deco-type design. I was in the kitchen, creating a stir-fry for dinner. Poop came into the kitchen and said, "Have you looked at the calendar today? Joanna's having her surgery!"

And I said, "What? Omigod! I forgot!...OK, we're turning this stir-fry into a pot of soup and we're bringing it to her at the hospital...you finish the soup, I'm going to get changed.."

Then I came back from getting changed and noticed that he'd pulled out the absolute SMALLEST Tupperware container we had in which to transport the soup and he'd only filled it up HALFWAY!

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked

"What?"

"Why are you using such a small container?"

"Um....well....I want to have some soup, too..." he replied poutily.

I took over soup duty, put the soup into an appropriately sized container and we went off to the hospital.

When we arrived, I asked at the front desk and the attendant indicated, "Nope. Sorry. Nobody's having surgery today!"

Weird.

Then a gentleman came in and offered us the opportunity to take a test so we could become professional airline pilots--just like that--and we could take the test right there, in the hospital!

So, we took the test and we both aced it...then we figured out it was some kind of crazy scam and we planned to tell the FBI.

As we were leaving to go see the FBI (weird, since we live in Canada), I saw my friend Tara leaving the hospital and realized it was she, not Joanna, who had been having surgery. For some strange reason, Tara was sporting a hideous perm and random patches of hair were dyed bright yellow.

Anyway, I tried to give her the soup, but the desk attendant had eaten it. Oh well.

Then we were suddenly transported to my friends', Lance & Amy's house. Lance & Amy usually live in Rochester. But, in this dream, they lived in a faux wild west village (salloons, hand-painted signs, horses & wild dogs running rampant...you get the idea..).

Lance had gone to buy some paperback books & beer, so we were talking to Amy who indicated that it was Lance's 18th birthday!

Shocked, I asked, "18?! What?? You guys have been married for, like, 5 or 6 years, haven't you? You married him when he was 12??!"

Amy replied proudly, "I know, right?! He's very mature for his age. Did you know, when he was 14, he was given a "Genius Grant" from New York State? It's true."

Then I noticed David Suzuki looking for a gas pump, which was somewhat incongruous, considering his lifelong quest for being green and whatnot. I said, "Hey! Mr Suzuki! Go save an ocelot or something!"

Then, Lance returned, with his paperbacks and his beer, and accidentally allowed a whole pack of wild dogs into the house who, in turn, started fighting with our dogs and ate our pet bunny rabbit.

The whole thing ended with a 20-foot horse walking by the window being ridden by Stephen King.

-------

I really wish I'd made up even 1 iota of this tale.

Apparently, I wear fur!

Before I get started on this post...

Dear PETA,

Suck it.

Love,
Julia

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(Everybody get ready: Hilarious non-sequitur alert!)

I hate doing laundry.

My pseudo-psychiatric assessment of WHY I hate doing laundry so much goes back to my childhood...

*Patchoulia silently strokes her scholarly Freudian beard, whilst pursing lips in a manner suggesting that both her brain and her loins are working overtime*

When I was a kid, after my mom died, it became my duty to do the laundry for myself and my dad. I think I was about 9 when this became my designated "chore". I'm not saying that it was undue child labour being forced upon me, most kids have household chores to attend to, and this was actually a fairly pedestrian task and not really all that taxing...I'm just citing it because it's the only thing I can fathom as explanation of my laundry hatred.

When I was in university and I actually had to haul my dirty clothes up and down stairs (and sometimes even down the street!) to reach laundry facilities, I didn't do laundry very frequently, as you can well imagine.

When I got my first apartment in Toronto, after I graduated from university and had my "First Real Job", not only did I continue to eschew the act of doing laundry, sometimes going a month or 2 between trips to the laundromat, but I ended up with the equivalent of 3 peoples' wardrobes. When I ran low on clothing, I simply went out and bought more: Genius!

OK, I know that was stupid. I'm just telling you how it was, illustrating how much I truly dislike doing laundry!

So, the crux of this tale is that, in our household, Poopypants is assigned the job of laundry. Sure, I do it sometimes, but that's his "job". I think he's getting off pretty light, all things considered...I cook most of the time, I do the bathroom, I vacuum, I do 90% of the cleaning. Laundry ain't so bad! :)

Naturally, however, no matter how many times he washes a particular item of clothing, he very rarely remembers the care instructions. I finally got really annoyed, one day, and yelled, "CHECK THE LABEL!!!"
He does have a good capacity for learning and, since that (entirely justifiable) outburst from me, he *has* been checking labels on items for which he cannot recall whether or not they are supposed to go in the dryer! Good boy, Poopypants!

The other night while doing laundry, he says to me, "Are you aware that this sweater is made of rabbit?"

And I replied, "What?" thinking that I must have misheard him.

"Are you aware that this sweater is made of RABBIT?!!!"

"WHAT?!!! What sweater? What are you talking about? Rabbit?!!"

"This brown sweater..."

"Bring it here, the dog's on my feet and I don't feel like moving and I don't know to what sweater you're referring."

So he brought me the sweater...and I looked at the label to confirm this ridiculous revelation (as though I thought he was making it up).

Sure enough, 10% rabbit.

It doesn't even say "rabbit fur". It just says "RABBIT".

10% rabbit.

Maybe it's not even fur! Maybe it's, like, intestines or something!?!

The weird thing is, I bought this sweater from Old Navy i.e. the last place on earth where you'd expect the clothing to have even 1% natural ingredients of any kind! I always thought Old Navy was all acrylic, all the time.

So...do I continue to wear the rabbit-part-infested sweater?

I'm torn.

Probably not as torn as the rabbit, but torn, nonetheless...

Can YOU make any sense of this??

In the evenings, Poopypants & I often watch "JEOPARDY!" and we frequently keep score (for the record, I almost always win). :)

The other night, "JEOPARDY!" came on, and I reached over and opened the bedside table and grabbed a notebook in which we could track our correct responses.

I opened the notebook, flipping past previous evenings' "JEOPARDY!" scores, looking for a blank page, when I noticed on one of the pages, a list of some kind.

It was obvious I had composed the list, it was clearly in my writing, but I had/have zero recollection of the list--none whatesoever!

Even more alarming: The list makes absolutely NO SENSE!

I have to assume I wrote the list in my sleep...though "making lists in my sleep" has never been one of my habits...but what the heck was going through my mind?!!

Can you find a commonality or bond of any kind that links these wholly disparate items together? If so, please, pleeeeeeeeease enlighten me!!

(Note: Punctuation is as it appears in the original list)

Robert
Danny Devito
back hoe driver
17
Samurai's Love
slide
toe
drive
apple
Beverly Hills Ninja
Dodge Charger
Billy
Denzel W.
Reservoir Dogs
stinky
trip
earlobes & bones
Johnny Dangerously

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I gotta tell ya, I cannot fathom a single circumstance where I would ever have a need to reference "Beverly Hills Ninja".

This is inexplicable.

That Inexplicable Kate Gosselin Hairdo

For those of you unaware of "The Gosselins", I applaud you.

And I genuinely wonder how you manage to live without electricity!

Kidding, of course...but, the ubiquity of "Jon & Kate" is pretty hard to ignore. I have, in fact, encountered folks who are unaware of the existence of this kooky family and I assume it's because they're simply too busy with their own lives to notice the exploits of some silly reality TV couple.

Regardless, the "Jon & Kate" phenomenon is a pretty pervasive piece of pop culture and it occasionally feels like we're being cruelly inundated with pointless & tedious details about their lives via all forms of media. The public was initially exposed to this couple, and their 8 children (1 set of twins and 1 set of sextuplets) via their TV show "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" and the subsequent public fascination continued, virtually unabated, until very recently.

I'm not going to talk about the couple, their kids, their show, their pending divorce, nor the skanky crap being volleyed back & forth between them. I don't care about any of that. All I care about is Kate's hair.

It's atrocious.

Worse still, I'm afraid it might be on its way to becoming a "Rachel" or a "Farrah"!

Much like Farrah Fawcett's sausage curls of the 70s and the Jennifer Aniston bob from '94 known as the "Rachel" (for her character's name on "Friends"), both of which became THE style to sport in their respective eras, Kate's entirely inexplicable hairdo appears to be picking up steam in terms of its popularity. I've seen at least 4 or 5 women in Toronto, in the last week or so, freely walking around in public (acting as though they're doing nothing wrong), wearing the spiky-Kate Gosselin creature on their heads!

Don't ask me why...if I could explain that, I could explain parachute pants, I could explain "Everybody Loves Raymond", I could explain GWB's 2 presidencies.....well, I'd have incredible power, I'd be even more of a Goddess than I already am.

I don't know why. All I know is that I am now seeing it everywhere. And it's scary.

I've only been able to capture 1 photo, so far (see below), but I will do my best to get the rest of these morons digitally preserved. Their future grandchildren deserve to know from what idiots they've been sprung.

I have a co-worker who sports a semi-similar style...but, for some reason, it works for him...actually, I think, I should rephrase: He makes it work.

But he's been workin' it for much longer than doucheKate. If this haircut becomes famous, he should get some credit, cuz it looks waaay better on him, than on her or any of her douchey dopplegangers.