Archive for Family+Friends
March 2, 2008 at 9:33 pm · Filed under Family+Friends
The other evening I was sitting on the couch with the boy, watching Balamory. The conversation went something like this:
Aidan: What are you doing Daddy?
Me: Watching TV, what are you doing?
Aidan: Looking for something.
Me: Oh, what are you looking for?
Aidan: Something on the wall.
Me: On the wall? What on the wall?
Aidan: A big enormous thing.
Me: Ohh, a big enormous thing? What kind of big enormous thing?
Aidan: A blue one.
Me: A blue one? OK.
Aidan: And yellow.
Me: A blue and yellow big enormous thing on the wall?
Aidan:Ya. And pink.
Me: A pink, blue and yellow big enormous thing on the wall?
Aidan: Ya.
Me: Well did you find it?
Aidan: No.
February 27, 2008 at 1:27 pm · Filed under Family+Friends
Having already produced an excellent and incredibly cute one, we decided we didn’t need to generate any more children, so last Thursday I headed out to the West Island to have my vasa deferentia disconnected.
I had shaved the area the night before and purchased an “athletic support” as requested by the doctor so I was prepared.
I was ushered into a small room by possibly the oldest nurse I’ve ever seen who asked me to remove my sweatpants (”leave your underwear on for now”) and lie down on the operating table, where she draped my parts with a surgical cloth and pulled my boxers down to my knees.
A few minutes later the doctor swaggered in. Dr Kurgansky is one of those eccentric doctors, complete with extravagant handlebar moustache, polka-dot bow-tie and a serious god-complex swagger. In his Eastern European accent he asked if I had any questions, then delved into the operation.
After locating my first vas deferens he gave me my first injection, the only time I felt any pain. After that I didn’t feel a thing, and we talked about Apple computers (his patient chart system has been paperless since 1996, and contains 150,000 charts, all stored in a piece of custom software written on Mac OS9 and he’s trying to get it upgraded to OS10). He was gesturing so animatedly with both hands that for a moment I thought he’d forgotten the reason we were there, but then he got back to it and administered the second injection, which I didn’t feel at all.
About 20 minutes after I’d entered the room and about 10 minutes after the doctor had started, he was slapping a band-aid on my scrotum, telling me to get dressed and walking out. I climbed into my jockstrap with a bit of help from the nurse, who told me there were three other men in the waiting room waiting for vasectomies so I should leave with a smile on my face.
Jen had gone shopping to avoid waiting room boredom tantrums from the boy, so I called her and she came and got me, parking 200 yards away in an obvious attempt to see me walking funny. We headed home where I took two Ibuprofen and applied an ice pack to the sensitive area. Things were definitely uncomfortable for the next 24 hours, but I wouldn’t describe it as painful. I could walk around and do light chores, and by the following evening I felt comfortable enough to go out to a birthday party.
I won’t be sterile for a couple of months, but it’s healing well and I’m happy I had it done. When I got home after the operation I was reading my newsfeed and discovered, coincidentally, that Terra Sigillata had not only had the operation on the same day as me, but had live-blogged it. A brave man, who inspired this post, even though 6 days after the event isn’t quite a liveblog.
February 11, 2008 at 1:29 pm · Filed under Family+Friends, Food
On Saturday night we had 5.5 friends over for dinner. They arrived at around 6:30 but preparations started a few hours earlier.
I leapt (well ok, crawled) out of bed at around 8, grabbed some tea and cereal then headed out to Atwater market for a big pile of veggies and a big hunk of pork shoulder. Sadly it’s almost impossible to get a piece of pork with the skin on around here, but at least it was still on the bone.
Back at home at 10:30 I chucked a bunch of chopped up fennel, carrots and onions in a roasting pan and sat the meat on top of it. Then I rubbed some bashed up fennel seeds and paprika into the meat and put it in the oven on max for 20 minutes before turning it down to 250. There it stayed for the following nine hours.
After a quick lunch of a bacon sandwich I fried up some celery and onions, added some peeled and chopped sweet potatoes and a mix of cumin, coriandor, cardomom, cinnamon and cloves followed a few minutes later by a pint of stock. After 40 minutes of simmering I whizzed it up with my oh so handy hand blender and left it, ready for the coconut milk to be added at the last minute.
The afternoon was spent helping Jen clean the apartment before launching into veggie preparation. I peeled and cubed a few potatoes, four beets and a large onion, halved a few carrots, chopped up a cauliflower and snapped a bunch of asparagus. The potatoes got oil and rosemary treatment. The beets got oil and balsamic treatment. The onion was left naked. The carrots got some oil and the tops of the fennel bulbs. The cauliflower got oil, cumin and coriander and the asparagus just got some oil.
The guests arrived, with wine, the Amazing Race DVD game, bread, smoked salmon and cheese sticks. Drinks were served, despite our oversight of forgetting to buy soft drinks. Everyone got drinks, including the meat which was treated to a bottle of white wine for the final hour of cooking.
Now was the time to add the coconut milk to the soup, heat it up and serve it. It tasted good, but could’ve done with a tad more spice. Luckily Kim had brought bread, because we forgot to get that too.
As the meat came out of the oven, the veggies went in. I transferred the meat to a board and mashed up the veggies it had been sitting on in the pan with the wine and meat juices and a bit of flour to make a sauce.
Everything came to the table at around the right time. The meat could’ve done with another hour or two but it still tasted great. The veggies were also a tiny bit underdone, but lets just call them al dente.
Good wine, good conversation, cake, and a slightly confusing game of the Amazing Race complete with a surrogate Phil finished off the evening nicely.
January 21, 2008 at 11:28 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
At the end of December, my sister embarked on a racearoundtheworld a leisurely trip around the world starting, slightly perversely, in Australia. I’m very envious, but I’m living the trip vicariously by reading her travel blog. She hasn’t been gone a month yet and she’s already climbed a bridge, hiked mountains, canoed, scuba dived, and done a jeep safari, with plenty of stops for beer along the way. We obviously need to find some extreme sporting activities in Montreal for when she finally arrives here. And buy beer.
December 6, 2007 at 10:26 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Home, Montreal
This is going to be a rambling mish-mash kind of post, but it’s my blog and I can do what I want.
After around thirty eight centimetres of snow in three days, Montreal is in recovery mode. The streets are still a mess but the snow clearers are out spending seventeen million dollars on the cleanup operation. The fact that I almost never drive anywhere means I’ve been loving it. Truly a winter wonderland, and even now that the snow has started getting dirty it’s still prettier than bare streets. Even digging the car out twice was enjoyable in a very strenuous way. I must confess that I haven’t been walking to work though, mostly because I’ve had a cold but also because it’s very difficult to walk on uncleared sidewalks. Maybe I should get snowshoes…
For my wife, the snow came at a bad time, she had to take Aidan to two doctors’ appointments yesterday. I knew after driving in that mess she would be completely frazzled when she got home so I tidied the place up a bit, got the teacups ready and prepared Aidan a snacky supper. I also built a fire.
I love living in a place with a fireplace, and having a father-in-law who generously provides us with wood is an added bonus. The only problem is that unless we have the windows open, the smoke from the fire refuses to go up the chimney. This means we have a nice toasty fire going, but the cold air coming in through the windows negates it. We could close the doors on the fireplace but that sort of defeats the purpose. I obviously need to study the physics of chimneys.
So we spent the evening sitting in front of a nice fire, feeling slightly chilly and eating sushi. We should’ve been getting the house ready for Aidan’s birthday party at the weekend, but procrastination won yet again.
November 16, 2007 at 12:42 pm · Filed under Family+Friends, Food, Movies + TV
Ridiculing the contestants of the Amazing Race is a lot more fun if you can do it with a group of people, so we’ve started inviting friends over on Sunday nights to enjoy the spectacle of dysfunctional couples taking on bizarre challenges around the world.
For the first episode we ordered pizza and drunk beer and ate maple chocolate buns that she brought.
For episode two I decided I felt like cooking, so I cracked open one of my Jamie Olivers and went to work.
For the main course I seasoned some pork tenderloins, sprinkled them with fennel seeds, browned them, put them in a roasting pan with a sliced up fennel bulb, a handful of rosemary, 8 garlic cloves and half a bottle of white wine. Loosely covered with foil and bunged in a hot oven for an hour.
To go along with that, I boiled some potatoes and peas and mushed them together with a handful of mint leaves to make minty mushy peas.
For dessert we had cream puffs kindly provided by her followed by sliced up pineapple sprinked with sugar bashed up with the leftover mint leaves.
We ate, we drank, we enjoyed a fire, and we laughed at those crazy Racers.
November 1, 2007 at 12:26 pm · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
We went to Vermont at the weekend. We visited friends. I got new shoes. And socks. I discovered I’m now allergic to cats (or at least, some cats). Jen got lots of scrap booking stuff including a funky paper cutting machine. We had really good Chinese food. Aidan chased cats and father christmases. I enjoyed locally brewed beer. We played Chatgames for the first time in years. It snowed. Aidan said his longest sentence. Aidan kicked leaves. A fun time was had by all, allergies permitting.
October 4, 2007 at 9:07 am · Filed under Family+Friends
Four years ago today, my wife and I were married on the stairs of a grand old building, to the sounds of Blue Rodeo, with our friends and family around us. I’m especially glad that my Dad could be a part of that before his illness overcame him.
Since then we’ve spent a fabulous month in New Zealand; we’ve created an amazing baby boy and watched him grow into an even more amazing two year old; we’ve given up being homeowning suburbanites in favour of the relatively carefree and stimulating life of city-dwelling renters; we’ve started new hobbies and abandoned old ones; we’ve spent quality time with our family and friends including a trip to Prince Edward Island and several Xmases filled with excess.
It hasn’t all been sweetness and light though. I lost my father, Jen lost a friend; we battled depression and Aidan’s feeding difficulties; we survived all that as well as all the other changes inherent in bringing a new life into the family. We survived and we grew.
It’s fitting that our anniversary is always so close to Thanksgiving, because I have so much to be thankful for. I’m thankful for four years of married life with Jen as well as the five years of “shacking up” before that. I’m thankful that we have a healthy and ridiculously cute and adorable little boy. I’m thankful that we’re surrounded by supportive family and wonderful friends.
Happy anniversary Jen. I love you.
September 14, 2007 at 11:29 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
After our week in PEI, it was time to hit the road for the second week. We drove east along the south coast of PEI to Wood Island which is where the ferry to Nova Scotia leaves from. We had reservations for the 1pm ferry, and got there in plenty of time. Dan and Susan were supposed to get the next ferry, but they ended up on ours, giving Aidan a bit of a surprise. We settled down for the 75 minute journey, listening to a newfie guy singing depressing sea shanties. They even depressed Aidan:
Once we arrived in Caribou, Nova Scotia it was time to drive again, heading south to Halifax. After driving around the city for a while looking for a decent hotel, we ended up at the Waverly, an old and unique hotel decorated in the brothel style:
We dumped our stuff and went out wandering. From the drive in I already knew I liked the city, but walking showed me its full charm. It feels cozy, vibrant and cosmopolitan, like a smaller version of Montreal. There are now three Canadian cities I would be very happy living in. I’m looking forward to having a longer vacation there.
Walking around the waterfront we spotted one of Aidan’s favourite TV celebrities, so we had to take advantage of the photo opportunity:
After that we went for a seafood dinner at Salty’s Restaurant with an old friend of Jen’s before retiring for the evening.
Sadly we had to leave Halifax the next day to embark on the long journey to Maine. The state is not only a shortcut back to Montreal, it’s also a shopping mecca, which is why Jen wanted to go there. We drove back up through Nova Scotia into New Brunswick and through Saint John to the border then down to Bangor, Maine.
The choice of hotels in Bangor is limited to say the least, and because it was getting late we ended up at a very crappy Comfort Inn, which became our base as we spent the next two days exploring the huge mall complex. Jen bought lots of scrapbooking stuff, I bought The Dangerous Book For Boys and Aidan got some clothes and books out of the deal.
Aidan got sick in Maine, and gave the cold to me when we got home, so not the perfect end to a vacation, but the rest of it made it all worthwhile.
September 13, 2007 at 11:38 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
Our stay at the cottage in PEI was fun because of the three children and relaxing despite them. We played a lot, we read a lot, we ate a lot. We hardly used computers, we hardly watched TV. We were outside as much as possible.
We were mere steps from the beach:
So we spent a lot of time there, enjoying the views:
Frolicking in the water:
And building artistic sand castles (Dan’s job):
When we weren’t at the beach, we were back at the cottage, relaxing in the comfy sitting area:
Enjoying the fabulous sunsets:
Or preparing and eating yummy food:
September 11, 2007 at 2:27 pm · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
Aidan probably enjoyed himself more than anyone else during our week in PEI. He loved the beach and became most indignant if we tried to take him away from it. He also loved the garden around the cottage and running around in the cottage itself. He loved spending time with his grandma (”Bama”) and grandpa (”Ricky”) and even warmed to his cousins (”Limon” and “Aladar”).
He loved hunting for crabs and snails:
He loved playing in the sand:
He loved UFO spotting:
He enjoyed shopping for second hand clothes at Frenchies:
He also liked taking naps in unusual places:
September 10, 2007 at 2:38 pm · Filed under Family+Friends, Travel
Having returned from a very pleasurable vacation, it’s time to bore anyone reading this with all the intimate details. This week will be all vacation blogging, so you’re pre-warned and can hit that ‘Mark all as read’ button without thinking.
The first week of our vacation was to be spent at a cottage on Prince Edward Island. We would be staying there with Jen’s mum and stepdad and her brother and his family. We were all driving there, in three different cars, us with Aidan in the back, Jen’s brother with a three year old and a five month old in the back, and Jen’s parents with a big pile of food and alcohol in the back.
Because we had no idea how Aidan would cope with 12 hours of driving, we decided to split it over two days. He fared surprisingly well on the first day and we made it to Fredericton before he started getting really cranky. We found a very reasonable Comfort Inn and settled down for the night. The next morning we got our first sign that we were in the Maritimes:
The second day of driving was much shorter, which made Aidan very happy:
At around lunchtime we reached Confederation Bridge, a 12.9km bridge across the Northumberland Strait between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It’s an amazing thing to see, photos just don’t do it justice:
After crossing the bridge it was less than ten minutes to our cottage. We were first to arrive, greeted by the property manager who showed us around the property and introduced us to our beach. Everyone else showed up shortly after that and our vacation began.
August 20, 2007 at 11:05 am · Filed under Family+Friends
My brother-in-law, his wife and two kids arrived on Friday evening to spend the week here in Montreal before we all drive to Prince Edward Island next weekend. This arrival was a bit of a shock for Aidan, who has never had to deal with a rambunctious three year old before. There were tears and pouty faces but overall the encounter went well.
We went out for breakfast on Saturday morning, followed by a trip to the park which made all the kids very happy, including the grown-up ones. Simon and Aidan played well together on the climbing frame, slide and swings and their were no tears or injuries.
I spent the rest of Saturday cooking. I’d planned to make braised short ribs, but the butcher was all out of short ribs so we ended up with a joint of beef, braised in red wine, tomatoes and herbs until it literally fell apart with some gentle pressure from my knife. I served the beef on garlic mashed potato with roasted asparagus and braised leeks. I made a gremolata too but forgot to use it.
Yesterday we all went to see the great-grandmother, a rare gathering of all four generations which made great granny very happy.
The invaders left for the country for a couple of days after that, giving Aidan a chance to get his whelmed status a bit lower before they return on Tuesday.
July 3, 2007 at 10:13 am · Filed under Family+Friends
I’m back at work after 11 days off which only cost me 3 days vacation. I love long weekends. We didn’t do as much as we wanted and the time went way too quickly but it was still relaxing and very pleasant. Here are some highlights:
- We went to the country for a seven year old’s birthday party where we ate hotdogs and burgers and Aidan had his first paddle in a pond (which he called a bath (well actually “bar” but we knew what he meant))
- We bought some furniture for our new apartment but we still don’t have a dining room table or chairs.
- We got ourselves a new mattress after a very scientific day of testing.
- We ate way too much take-out food. And yes, Sushi Moushi do make exceedingly good sushi.
- We tidied the apartment then messed it up again then tidied it again then messed it up again.
- We went to another birthday party, this time for a five year old, where we ate hotdogs and burgers and Aidan had his first “swim” in a pool (which he called a bath). It’s a stretch to call it a swim as he clung to me the whole time.
- We planned to go to the Ecomuseum and to Body Worlds but we never made it to either. It is going to happen though!
It’s a little depressing to be back at work, but at least I have tonight’s pub quiz at Hurley’s to look forward to.
June 18, 2007 at 3:01 pm · Filed under Family+Friends
I’m still amazed that I’m a father. I’m even more amazed that so far I don’t seem to be making a horrible job of it. I may not be the best father in the world, but I think I’m doing OK.
Fathers Day gives me pause to think about all that; to think about how surprisingly fulfilling the whole thing is. I was never really interested in kids and took a little persuading to finally go for it, but now I have one of my own I realise how incredibly special it is. Aidan shares half my genetic code, so there’s nothing more fascinating than watching him grow from a tiny helpless baby into a little boy who is already trying to assert his own independence. How will he turn out? How much will he be like me? How much will he be like Jen? Whatever happens, I will always be proud of my son and love him unconditionally. Right now I think he loves me back, but I probably won’t be so sure when he’s 14.
Fathers Day is special to me for another reason too though. My Dad died a few days before Fathers Day last year, so all the advertising leading up to Fathers Day brought back all that pain and loss that I felt last year, especially being so far from the rest of that side of my family. I can console myself by knowing that he lead a full, good and happy life, but it ended too soon and that will always hurt.
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