Snowy Sunday
We've had an uncommonly mild winter, really, so it's churlish to complain about snow. Even in April. Even though the worst snowstorm of the season was in March, which is to say three months past a usual Canadian schedule. Yesterday there was a scattering of wet snow that melted as it hit the pavement, followed by an intense hail shower. Today, a thick white coat of wet fluffy snow. It won't stick, but it's still being widely remarked on Facebook.
I woke up reasonably early, with enough time to hop over a few blocks to a grocery store for some needful things. Used to be I'd drive to a grocery store, get everything on my list including crates of fizzy water, wheel a cart to load the car trunk, drive everything home. Now, being a downtown girl, I'm falling back into the more typically Euro way of buying only what I can carry on the streetcar. In fact, I'm acquiring a finely-tuned sense of just how much that is, exactly, so that groceries can be carried without having to put them down every few steps, consider hailing a taxi to go one block, consider crying, then heft the bags for another ten or twenty steps. All this, and I'm gradually forgetting what it was like to shop groceries with a car for over a decade.
At the checkout, a pretty girl behind me in the line pointed to my leeks and asked what they were and how to cook them. I happily expounded on what they are (a more delicate member of the onion and leek family) what to do with them (star ingredient in a soup or quiche; supporting player in a stew or stock) and the cashier nodded, "that's one of the things that I won't eat."
I goggled at her. "Really? Why not?"
"I don't like trying new things," she said.
"We could never date," I joked.
A minute or two later, I hastily offered an apology lest she was offended or somehow sexually objectified by my little jape. But seriously? A super-picky bland eater would be as big a deal-breaker for me as a smoker. Which is to say, insurmountable despite incandescent hotness. (Dear reader,it would be remiss of me not to mention that the lady failed to meet that brief.)
At 1, friend Fletch came to collect me for a trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I'm a member there, it's just ten minutes away by streetcar, and every single visit I wonder why I don't go there at least once a week. On this occasion, we specifically wanted to visit the new "Outsiders" exhibit of American photography from the mid to late 20th century.
It was, as many shows there have been lately, a mixed bag curatorially. The first room had a wall simply coated with black and white photos from the 70s: New York streetscapes and protest marches, society balls, astronaut press briefings. As Fletch noted, there were a few very good images in the mix, but it was impossible to appreciate them fully, surrounded as they were by lesser-quality photos. ("Garbage" was his exact word.) The other rooms were more successful, and I must return to look more closely at the Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus photographs. The casual found-moments that the former photographed would seem unremarkable today, when every single soul owns a phone with a camera and can snap away at everything all the livelong day. But in the 80s, when it was all film and paper, shots were more precious. As were photographers, in a way.
A snowy visit to a favourite diner for a late afternoon all-day breakfast, and a quick trip just under the early-closing wire to a liquor store for a bottle of white wine. Tonight braised a turkey thigh, browned in oil, softened onions, leeks and garlic, pan deglazed with white wine and then topped with chicken stock and herbs. A long and careful simmer, partway through enriched with carrots and potatoes. End result was delicious. Single Girl likes turkey but is highly unlikely to roast a 14-pounder; one plump and meaty thigh will suffice for several meals.
Tomorrow afternoon, a friend and I have booked a showgirl to pose for us. It's a few weeks since I did any real life drawing, and haven't yet done any this year away from my own house. (In January I posted a pencil drawing on Facebook of Ash Pixie in stockings, high-heeled leather boots and nothing else.
An artist friend asked, where did you draw this?
I typed back, my place :-)
lucky you, she said. She's not wrong.
There's a life drawing night every Monday not far from me, at the studio of a great young illustrator in town. I went last year, prior to and during radiation: sometimes with gauze burn dressings poking out from my t-shirt. (Good times.) But since then, this post-cancer fatigue syndom- yay, a syndrome!- generally means that I don't have the juice needed to go out at night and perform in any meaningful way. Soon, I hope.
In some ways, my life is still in limbo. Like spring, waiting, not yet free of frozen earth. Like me, not sick, but not yet better. Not divorced, but not really married. Not old, but definitely not young. Except at heart, which the memes will have you believe is all that matters. But is it?
I woke up reasonably early, with enough time to hop over a few blocks to a grocery store for some needful things. Used to be I'd drive to a grocery store, get everything on my list including crates of fizzy water, wheel a cart to load the car trunk, drive everything home. Now, being a downtown girl, I'm falling back into the more typically Euro way of buying only what I can carry on the streetcar. In fact, I'm acquiring a finely-tuned sense of just how much that is, exactly, so that groceries can be carried without having to put them down every few steps, consider hailing a taxi to go one block, consider crying, then heft the bags for another ten or twenty steps. All this, and I'm gradually forgetting what it was like to shop groceries with a car for over a decade.
At the checkout, a pretty girl behind me in the line pointed to my leeks and asked what they were and how to cook them. I happily expounded on what they are (a more delicate member of the onion and leek family) what to do with them (star ingredient in a soup or quiche; supporting player in a stew or stock) and the cashier nodded, "that's one of the things that I won't eat."
I goggled at her. "Really? Why not?"
"I don't like trying new things," she said.
"We could never date," I joked.
A minute or two later, I hastily offered an apology lest she was offended or somehow sexually objectified by my little jape. But seriously? A super-picky bland eater would be as big a deal-breaker for me as a smoker. Which is to say, insurmountable despite incandescent hotness. (Dear reader,it would be remiss of me not to mention that the lady failed to meet that brief.)
At 1, friend Fletch came to collect me for a trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I'm a member there, it's just ten minutes away by streetcar, and every single visit I wonder why I don't go there at least once a week. On this occasion, we specifically wanted to visit the new "Outsiders" exhibit of American photography from the mid to late 20th century.
It was, as many shows there have been lately, a mixed bag curatorially. The first room had a wall simply coated with black and white photos from the 70s: New York streetscapes and protest marches, society balls, astronaut press briefings. As Fletch noted, there were a few very good images in the mix, but it was impossible to appreciate them fully, surrounded as they were by lesser-quality photos. ("Garbage" was his exact word.) The other rooms were more successful, and I must return to look more closely at the Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus photographs. The casual found-moments that the former photographed would seem unremarkable today, when every single soul owns a phone with a camera and can snap away at everything all the livelong day. But in the 80s, when it was all film and paper, shots were more precious. As were photographers, in a way.
A snowy visit to a favourite diner for a late afternoon all-day breakfast, and a quick trip just under the early-closing wire to a liquor store for a bottle of white wine. Tonight braised a turkey thigh, browned in oil, softened onions, leeks and garlic, pan deglazed with white wine and then topped with chicken stock and herbs. A long and careful simmer, partway through enriched with carrots and potatoes. End result was delicious. Single Girl likes turkey but is highly unlikely to roast a 14-pounder; one plump and meaty thigh will suffice for several meals.
Tomorrow afternoon, a friend and I have booked a showgirl to pose for us. It's a few weeks since I did any real life drawing, and haven't yet done any this year away from my own house. (In January I posted a pencil drawing on Facebook of Ash Pixie in stockings, high-heeled leather boots and nothing else.
An artist friend asked, where did you draw this?
I typed back, my place :-)
lucky you, she said. She's not wrong.
There's a life drawing night every Monday not far from me, at the studio of a great young illustrator in town. I went last year, prior to and during radiation: sometimes with gauze burn dressings poking out from my t-shirt. (Good times.) But since then, this post-cancer fatigue syndom- yay, a syndrome!- generally means that I don't have the juice needed to go out at night and perform in any meaningful way. Soon, I hope.
In some ways, my life is still in limbo. Like spring, waiting, not yet free of frozen earth. Like me, not sick, but not yet better. Not divorced, but not really married. Not old, but definitely not young. Except at heart, which the memes will have you believe is all that matters. But is it?