rochelle.mazar.ca

Destroyed on landing. It took a bit for them to admit it, but yes. destroyed. Lost. Gone. 17 years to the week from the Challenger explosion. Oh the memories. And with all that drama they created about putting an Israeli on board. Marc Garneau is talking live right now, hoping that someone is still alive. I’m even sure how that’s possible.

How’s this for disturbing: the Washington Post prewrote an article about the smooth landing :Columbia Streaks Toward Florida Landing.

Much thanks to metafilter.com again.

Well, of course they can. But I mean, will they? For instance: can an abusive relationship ever stop being abusive and become healthy? On Maury Povitch, they seem to think so. They suggest these women leave their horribly abusive men, but rather than just helping the women leave they try to reform the men.

I mean, are they not going to go home all pumped to be good, but then revert back to their old habits? Who is this good for? Is it a good idea to give these abused women the hope they really don’t need that these men are suddenly going to turn into prince charmings when we all know they’re very very unlikely? Wouldn’t it be best to just pull off that bandaid and mourn?

I can’t even imagine how it would work if anything of them actually reformed. I mean, they barely know each other as healthy people. These relationships didn’t even seem healthy from the start. I know how tough break ups are, but I’m not sure what Maury Povitich is doing.

Well, That’s Maury Povitch for you.

Being awake early makes me feel as though I’ve had a revelatory moment, when in fact I have not.

I think this officially qualifies me as a ‘morning person’. Isn’t that sick?

My grandmother has died. I don’t know from what yet. Everything up in the air and I’m running around like a chicken w/head cut off.

Found this gorgeous bit of film today. It made me cry. I’ve watched in about 4839024832 times. It’s a 15 meg download, but if you’re anything at all like me it’s worth every meg and every second it takes to download.

Sigur Ros: Viorar Vel Til Oftarasa video

Day 3,286: Still gay.

I am currently in possession of the weirdest looking couch in the universe.

On it’s own it’s not that weird-looking. It’s ugly, but it’s clean and perfectly useable. But it’s orangey and floral and it just doesn’t go with my decor at all. My sister gave me a set of burgundy-red batiked sheets to cover the couch with. Two sheets. But it doesn’t really, er, cover the whole thing. I could get it to cover the back and the seats but not the arms. And then it just looked stupid. So then I took the cushions off, used the sheets to cover the frame and the arms, and then wrapped the seats up in an old quilt. That looked ridiculous and wierd. Then I took the cushions off again and wrapped them in a forest green flannel sheet. That looks slightly better, but still utterly ridiculous. I put a green pillow and a white pillow on it. It still looked weird. I put old quilts, folded, on the arms. It still looks atrocious. But somehow I kind of like it in a sick, sad way. Anyone walking into this apartmen would have to laugh their ass off at my couch.

Well, they don’t have to live here, do they. Hmph.

I really wish I were in my new place. I really do. But hopefully I will be soon. The place will look extremely vacant without the offerings from my sister. She’s got a dining room set and a couch for me. Without that, well, all I have in my living room in a chair, a coffee table, an end table, and a bookshelf. Bit dull, no?

So Ben: yes, you can stay with me, but I’m not sure I have a place to put you. In fact, I really want you to stay with me, so I’m kind of hoping my family manages to move that stuff from my sister’s place to my place before Friday night….

My dad got me the most kick ass chairs for my balcony. Like, truly gorgeous, v. comfortable. Two of them. They’re smaller than my muskoka chairs, which is good because this balcony is only about a quarter the size of my old balcony. That was an outrageously large balcony.

Andrea Higgins, you need a blog. That’s my new thought on that. Melissa needs one too, but she’s too busy and too not into computers to get one. This is why I will keep the Max Coleman blog.

God I hope this settles it self out soon. I’m so cut off over here, really. I can’t send email, you have no idea how frustrating that can be. I’m sending email via weird webmail clients. Very weird to me. GAH.

It’s a medical show. And they’re covering a topic that interests me. Normally I don’t really go for medical shows, I find them boring and gross, normally. But this one…I don’t even know what it is, actually. There’s a very cute girl on it, though. She reminds me of…what’s her name? That girl from Kissed. You know, Molly Parker. With the freckles.

But anyway, that’s not what I’m writing this for. They’re doing this show about a kid who gets some kind of kidney disorder, or something. And they need a transplant, and no one’s coming up a match. And the doctor says, is there anyone else in the family we can call? The mother says yes, the father says no. Turns out there’s another son in the family, an older boy. He’s been in prison for molesting little boys, including his younger brother.

How do you deal with something like that as a parent? I mean, seriously. The mother was trying to patch things up, but the father, oh man. He had a serious hate on for his older son. The brother was out of jail now, and his mother brought him into the hospital secretly. Turns out he’s a match, but when the father walks in and sees the son, he yells and slugs him. Totally, full hate on.

I have said before that incest is anathema to the concept of family. I mean, there’s an agreement there, there’s a line that you can’t even come close to crossing. And I have said that I couldn’t imagine moving on from something like that. The trust is broken, the family is destroyed. But the fact is it doesn’t destroy families. Familes go on with issues like that all the time.

A good friend of mine was molested by her brother and her mother walked in. What exactly are you supposed to do in a situation like that? How does a mother deal with having the perp being…her own child?

So I’m glad to see someone wrestling with this. Not just that incest happens, but that people move on from it. That family is still family and those relationships continue.

Move is very frustrating. I am still not sleeping in my own apartment. I’m staying with my folks. The super is in my apartment 12 hours a day getting it ready. Everywhere he looks there’s something else he wants to fix. The bedroom floor was ripped up when I first picked up my keys; now the floor is glued down but it’s very gluey smelling in there, and the super was fixing the closet and the bathroom while I was there. So I’m still not sleeping there.

Perhaps tomorrow. Somehow I doubt it.

My sister has a couch and a dining set for me…I would love to have those, because without it I have, like, no furniture in my living room.

Well, at least I HAVE a living room, isn’t that right. I want my dsl, man. I want my dsl!!!

War
So we’re going to be going to war, eh? Well well well. We all need to kiss Bush’s bushy ass, that’s what. I’m not sure who’s more comparable to Hitler here…Bush or Saddam Hussein. I love all the talk. Oh, should we or shouldn’t we? What will the UN say? Oh please. Like we won’t do whatever the US asks us to do. Hello, economy dependent on the US. Like we’d tell the US to fuck off in a meaningful way.

Pshaw. So we’re going to war. Because Bush wants to. It sickens me. It really does.

What makes a person so poisonous righteous
that they’d think less of anyone who just disagreed?
She’s just pacifist, he’s just a patriot
If I said you were crazy would you have to fight me?

Another day, another blog. Yes, here we are at my ‘new’ blog. Well, it’s the same as it always was, really, except that now a) there are no fruit, b) there are no vegetables, c) it’s no longer at blogspot, and d) well, it’s just all different-looking. I have long believed that blogs should be text first and not fancy-ass pictures and crap like that, but this blog is NOT text first. Look at this sucker. It’s full of all kinds of crap.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

Last night when I tried to do this I couldn’t for the life of me get it to publish properly, but of course when I tried it this morning I tweaked one little thing in the ftp information and BANG there it was. Whadaya know.

So I’m packing today. Can’t you tell?

Yes, this new blog signals a few new things in my life. I’m moving back to Guelph, which thrills me to no end. If you had asked me 6 months ago if I would ever be happy to move back to Guelph I would have laughed my ass off at you. but now I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Why?

Max might have something to do with it. Max is four months old and he is a purebred Coleman-Mazar. He has green eyes (at the moment) and very little hair, which, when I am home, I often have the honour of shampooing. I was his first babysitter last week and was honoured to be so. I am going to move in down the block and around the corner from him next week so I can be close to my favouritest little nephew and read him stories when he’s a little older.

Yes, I love being an auntie.

I would also like to be around more to hang out with my sister. I have always been fairly close to my sister, but some years we are more or less so. We had been less so for a while, going our own routes, but these days we’re as close as two peas in a pod and I love it. My sister is my best friend in the world and I want to be around more so I can help her own and talk to her and watch survivor with her and all that good stuff.

And yes, my folks are in Guelph too. Hi mom! Hi dad! Look at me! Blogging with no hands! (hmmm…perhaps not.)

And there is a job of sorts for me there too. Yeah, long story. But a big thank you to Ben.

The world’s biggest apartment awaits me in Guelph…but there is still a move to accomplish. (Looks around apartment.) Guess I should, say pack, or something. Dad arrives at 10:30am tomorrow. Hmmm. Well, the dresser and the closet are empty. (Mostly.) The bookshelves are empty. I have done something. It’s just not really much.

Oh, the other big news I haven’t blogged about here yet: I am in the process of writing a novel. It’s a crappy ass genre thing, fantasy fiction, but it’s going very well and my audience is relatively pleased. Draft one will probably be finished before Christmas (if I have my way, well before Christmas), and if you’re really truly interested in it let me know and I’ll show it to you. Honestly I don’t even read fantasy fiction myself, but apparently there’s a market for it and I can’t say I don’t like writing it. I’m having a blast. Especially right now.

For a while there I was puttering along kind of hopelessly with this novel…well, no, not hopelessly, but it was a bit more of a struggle. I mean, I’m creating a whole universe here, it’s hard to do in a pinch. Everything has to work, it all has to jive and make sense. There need to be consistent rules and all that. So I spent the first six chapters really just slipping on the edge of a knife there trying to make sure all my details made sense and everthing was well illustrated. And deciding on those details too was no small feat. And then suddenly I finished chapter six and I felt very…free. Suddenly I could see through to the end of this thing, I could see roughly what I wanted to happen and how it could happen. Things started falling into place. Characters were springing up. Joy had arrived.

This probably is in no small part related to the fact that I just (finally) introduced my favourite character in chapter six, and can now write him with (semi) wild abandon. Yay!

So that’s the general update. I am planning on *ahem* keeping track of this blog again. But it might be boring. I could be just me going on and on and on about my writing and my characters and bull like that.

But you’re welcome to read it if you like.

Elegant Zucchini Leek soup

• 1 large or 2 small leeks
• 3 zucchini
• 7 cups of light vegetable or chicken broth
• 3 cloves of garlic, or to taste
• handful of fresh dill
• 1 cup of milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil

In a large sauce pan, sautee leeks, zucchini and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add dill and sautee until limp. Add broth, bring to a noil, and simmer for15-20 minutes.

Let soup cool. Run though a blender until smooth but not textureless.

Serve hot or cold.

Timothy Findley, 1930-2002

Sweet Potato and Coconut Cream Soup
This may or may not be the recipe for the Sweet Potato, spinach, and coconut cream soup I love so much at the Carden St. Café in Guelph. I shall have to test it and find out.

Ingredients
15ml/1tbsp groundnut oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped finely
1 garlic clove, crushed
1.25cm piece fresh ginger, peeled
675g/1lb sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
15ml/1tbsp lemon grass, chopped
600ml/1pt vegetable stock
600ml/1pt coconut cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, zest and juice

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion, garlic and ginger for about 5 minutes until tender. Add the sweet potatoes and lemongrass and cook for a further 3 minutes.
2. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
3. Cool the soup slightly, then liquidise with half of the coconut cream and process until smooth.
4. Return the soup to the saucepan, add the remaining coconut cream. Season with salt and pepper. Heat through without allowing the soup to boil, and add the lime juice.
5. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the lime zest.