January 2, 2006
Idiot bias
That Leah McLaren was annoying this week will not come as a massive shock to most of you. That I keep reading her anyway is more surprising, but she just keeps turning up in my newspaper. Anyway, she wrote about debt this week. It reminded me of an article that was in the Globe a few weeks ago, about that poor twenty-four year old who didn’t realise that paying for your psychology degree with a credit card was perhaps not the best life choice and was now blaming all and sundry for her debt problems. And McLaren, who can’t understand why she amasses so much debt with such a modest lifestyle- car, house, cashmere. However it seems that Leah McLaren bought her house in a place where she doesn’t live, and so rents an apartment on top of mortgage payments. I am beginning to see her problems. I also doubt that Ms. McLaren drives a 1989 Honda Civic. So here are these poor twenty-somethings, debt-ridden, symptomatic of a quarter-life crisis.
I’ll give you a life crisis- the threat of death. All else is melodrama. If you are lucky to be 25 or thereabouts, save your crisis for when you’ll really need one. And if you are stupid enough to pay for your psychology degree with your credit card, please own up to your stupidity. Don’t blame your debt on teachers telling you to “follow your dream” or on-line poker. If you find it necessary to live far beyond your means, don’t market this in national newspapers as a fashionable choice. Do these idiotic people have no shame? And why must they keep hanging the “idiot” label upon my entire generation?
December 31, 2005
Year of Great Fortune
My best of the year:
Book: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Single: Jerk It Out by The Caesars
Magazine: Spacing
CD: I’m a Mountain by Sarah Harmer
Holiday Destinations: (tie) Miyajima and Brighton
In Numbers:
Weddings: 2
Residences: 4
Continents: 3
Visas: 6
This time last year: in Tokyo!
This time next year: right here, happily.
December 30, 2005
Pickles at Pickle Me This!
Today was an exciting day at Pickle Me This. My friend Laura came to visit- and she brought pickles! She worked on a farm this last while and from it she brought pickled cucumbers, pickled beans, as well as tomatoes and tomato sauce. Who ever would have thought we’d have pickling news here at Pickle Me This? She also bought us pizza. We’re big fans of Laura, even if her pickles rival ours.
In less exciting news, our dear propriatress is sick with a strangely annoying symptoms, including sore eyes and sore skin. She is feeling better today than yesterday however.
And it was a Merry Christmas. This old world was quite generous to Stuart and I. We received some money, and a DVD player, a spice rack, and gift certificates, hats, a million books, socks and Miffy got a brownie uniform! Stuart gave me “I’m a Mountain” by Sarah Harmer which is the best CD I’ve heard in ever, and “The Red Queen” by Margaret Drabble. He also got me a beautiful pair of earrings. I also received “The Witch of Exmoor” (now reading) by Ms. Drabble, which completes my Drabble Fiction collection! Who would have thought what that innocent purchase of “The Radiant Way” in Kobe one and half years ago would start? Oh and we just got a million and one things, and feel very lucky and it is nice to have such lovely families and friends caring for us. However I think I can live with a little less Christmas for the next 300 or so days.
December 29, 2005
Tragedy Politicized
The Yonge Street shootings are not a political issue. They did not result from anything you can pinpoint so easily. In the last day I have heard this tragedy blamed rather bizarrely on gun registration, immigrants, Paul Martin, and the futility of social programs. To add this to an already towering political platform would be gross and tacky, and out of respect for the dead and injured, no candidate should do so. The problem of gang violence in Toronto won’t be fixed by a snappy campaign slogan. These are the kinds of problems that won’t be fixed soon, by any kind of blanket solution. It will be a long, expensive road of tiny steps, but of course this sort of reality is never popular in the lalaland of politics.
December 24, 2005
The eve is nigh!
Overheard in Red Pegasus: “Oh my god! Mechanical sushi. Emily is Chinese. She’d totally love that.”
Overhead in Shoppers Drug Mart in the last minute gift aisle: “Nothing says ‘You destroyed my family your filthy whore’ like rat poison.”
Stuart received a letter from Santa Claus yesterday. Lynn Crosbie’s response to Hughes News is hilarious. We had a spontaneous brunch out. We’re having chicken fajitas for dinner tonight, in year two of that great tradition. And we’re watching Love Actually, a Christmas ode to Stuart’s homeland. I am on last minute gift-knitting duty. We’ve been eating Christmas baking for over a week now, and we’ve nearly gone off it (and nearly finished it). A year ago, we were due to work in the morn and a three year old was due to pee in my presence. Here’s hoping that nobody pees on my carpet tomorrow, and that all the snow hasn’t washed away. Merriest of Christmases to all and the goodest of goodnights.
December 23, 2005
Meron Pan!
Here is a picture of a “Meron Pan” which is “Melon Bread” in English and was one of my favourite things to eat during my Japanese life. It’s a sweet bread, and the top crust is a sugary cookie and it gets it’s name from its meron-like shape. I miss meron pan. And then yesterday I got some! I had an urgent lack-of-knitting-project crisis and met Erin at Romni, and picked up enough wool to knit pair of socks (and a plan for a tea cosy). And then we popped into Sanko, the Japanese corner store and I bought a meron pan which turned out to be delicious. I also got mochi and a pack of Japanese curry. Oishi!
Here is a photo of AmPanMan, which means “Bean Bread Man”. He is a Japanese superhero, and is friends with noneother than Meron Pan Chan (“melon bread girl”) who I believe accompanies him in this photo. AmPanMan and his friends (various bread products, you may have guessed) help out people in bed by offering their heads for eating. Really. And you ask me why I miss my Japanese life…
December 21, 2005
A little bit of proof that the world is a good place
Yesterday we received a Christmas card from Northern Ireland that our friend forgot to stamp!
December 21, 2005
The Eskimo Way
Christmas has eaten our social life in the most delightful way. We’re busy every day and even double-booked some. And enjoying days spent doing exactly what we want. Chocolate has become perhaps too dear a friend however. We will have to be chary. Just finished “The Pursuit of Love” by the right hilarious Nancy Mitford, and onto a Penelope Lively book. Quite happily busy with a story of my own. And the world is a winter wonderland.
December 16, 2005
Break out the good china
There is something a bit awful about being on vacation from a job you mostly hate. Every day spent brings you closer to returning there, you’re so exhausted from hating your job that you can’t be bothered to do anything. It’s like vacation is a small window in your prison wall, and they let you look out from it once in awhile. But when you’re on vacation from school, it’s another matter altogether. A brief reprieve from a life that’s usually remarkably pleasant, and then you throw yourself into high gear and vow to do all the things you’ve been putting off for months. Like spending whole days reading. And then you do your Christmas baking (because you’re a wife and you’re obligated), and you finish off the Christmas cards and you can relax and do what you like, knowing there is nothing else you should be doing. And the snow doesn’t signs of stopping, but you’ve got some corn for popping. And you’re entertaining nearly every day next week. Break out the good china. Or at least you would if you had good china. Today is party preparations- mainly consisting of floor scrubbing. My essay was handed in at two p.m. yesterday. Christmas vacation when you’re a student is a lot like standing on a mountaintop.
Another run of “Spring Comes Suddenly” is now available (or will be as soon as I bind them, which will be today). These have green covers but are equally lovely as the last, and are practically being given away for the low low price of $5.
Now reading “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion. She is profiled in today’s Guardian. UK women of the year. I’m getting all my federal election coverage from the Conservative Youth Blog (link via Live Free Or Die) but they haven’t updated in days! There is however a photo of Stephen Harper wearing a hoodie. And no jacket! It can’t be. They must have just pasted his head upon someone else’s body.
December 13, 2005
The best 1095 days ever
To three years of Pickle Me This in love on three continents, through thick and thin (not to mention fat and thin), and with many more to come.
