Great song alert! Charlie Winston - In Your Hands

I'm sure this is the best "free single of the week" I've ever had off Canada's iTunes store. Free until end of day Monday.

Costume - trial run

I had to put together my costume to make sure it would all work. It's hard to see the details cause it's black (and I was photographing myself in the kitchen), but the 3 key parts turned out to be:

1. Tying a ribbon tightly along the empire waistline. The original waistline didn't fight tight against the body, which it needs to for Regency effect.

2. Pinning the wraparound skirt along the waistline to create a train. I found a picture online of a train, and it was pinned all the way up to the front sides of the dress, and I think that ended up being the key to the train effect.

3. The accessories. (I forgot to photograph my little reticule, and my black handkerchief for weeping in, or for challenging zombies to duels.)


I'm wearing my high quality boots, so my feet should be ok. And they passed the dancing test. (You don't want shoes that grip too well.) My skirt's a bit short, but better for running and fighting. (Or I'm very fast and showing off my ankles to the boys.)

The Vair Serious look on my face is the famous British Stiff Upper Lip in the face of disaster.

I still need to make a sword, and maybe a fan.

Rich Person Guilt, Comfort Food, and one Good Cookbook

I guess when I'm in a blah mood I feel like cooking. Yesterday I made pasta, and vegetable soup with dumplings. Today I made muffins and bread. There's something comforting about the process. I turn on CBC radio, then I sit down and poke through my cookbooks until I find what I'm in the mood for (and have ingredients for), then I unload and reload the dishwasher, clean all the counters with vinegar and water, fire up the oven, pull out my beautiful green mixing bowls, and get started. I load the dirty cooking things into the empty dishwasher as I go, so by the end I have a warm kitchen, good food, and a clean kitchen.

The CBC show was Definitely Not the Opera, and the theme was guilt--parental guilt, cultural guilt, survivor guilt, guilt of a woman who got out of Afghanistan, guilt of the grandson of a concentration camp doctor, green guilt, etc. It was perfect for my mood, because right now I'm steeped in Living in a Rich Country guilt.

I should plug my favourite cookbook again. I was in the mood for muffins and for a herbed no-yeast bread, and decided to go with the two recipes in Jae Steele's book because 99% of her recipes turn out great. And they did once again.


I made apple cinnamon muffins (but with cranberries instead of raisins) and the "almost focaccia bread." Both turned out dreamy. I've never seen a bad review for this book, and you don't need to be vegan to enjoy it. She doesn't rely on prepared vegan foods (fake cream cheese, fake cheese etc) but instead emphasizes whole foods, so at work I recommend it to people just looking for a healthy cookbook. The recipes are also quick... so good for lazy people like moi...
Get it in...

Canada
The US
The UK
France
Japan
and probably a lot of other countries.

And she has a new book out this spring! Yays!

Locked in the bathroom

In a blah mood today. I'm still feeling sort of overwhelmed by how awful this earthquake is, and will be, for Haiti. I find this more depressing than 9-11, Katrina or the tsunami. 9-11 was shocking, but the damage was very concentrated/contained. Katrina was sad, but even more it was anger-making because it was handled sooo badly. The tsunami was awful, but it didn't happen in the middle of the frikkin' capital.

When you're in dev areas and political science, you spend a lot of time reading and talking about possible solutions to the extreme economic and power inequalities in our world. And if at some point in your studies you don't feel overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness, then you're not (literally) doing your homework. Or maybe you're not old enough--maybe that feeling only comes if you're over 30 and you've been thinking about the topic for at least 10 years. I don't know.

The one country that seemed like the most complex, its problems the most difficult to untangle, was Haiti. They've experienced some really unique successes, like the only successful national slave revolt, and they beat off an invasion by Napoleon's army; but they've also been exploited for gold, had their Amerindian population wiped out, been repopulated by slaves, were colonized (even by pirates) and all the goodies that entails, were apparently so brutal to their slaves that 1/3 of Africans "died within a few years" (wiki); after getting rid of the French (two battles and a payment) they had a despot, then coup after coup, and multiple invasions by other countries; they were occupied by the US, which resulted in a genocide of Haitians who found themselves on the Dominican side of the newly made border; then it was rule by dictator, propped up by the US; then the questionable rule of Aristide, who was violent and stole from his people; and then his debated removal by the US; and just as things might have been getting a leetle bit better, a leetle more stable, this earthquake happened (besides the other tropical storms Haiti regularly endures.)

And that's just a simplistic summary of the bare bones wiki entry.

I'm so emotionally wimpy right now, if Céline goes on Larry King and sings "The Prayer" I'm gonna lock myself in the bathroom and cry like a girl.