I have been on vacation with my mother for nine days (more on that later, perhaps: we decided to do something really special and go to London and Paris; my mom had never been to either, and I had never been to Paris since I mostly haven't been anywhere but London, not that I am complaining; when a man is tired of London &c ( Read more... )

Well, I did manage to make some roasted carrot soup today (I have had better luck with the oven, and my mother did have ground cumin, coriander, and ginger on hand, for some other dish she was planning to make at some point ( Read more... )

I'm not sure how I feel about the Christmas special yet, and suspect I'll need to watch it again, but I already have a lot of feelings about ( small spoilers )

Trying to cook in my mom's kitchen makes me feel like the most snobby, persnickety person ever. "Oh, this is store-brand butter? I usually buy Kerrygold." "Do you have any kosher salt?" "I really like organic cane sugar, these days..." I'm not actually good at cooking, but I am a creature of habit, which means I tend to have pretty strong brand ( Read more... )

- It's snowing. Boooooooooo.

- I just realized I forgot to listen to "Tam Lin" on Halloween like I usually do, and now I am sad. :(

- My mother was apparently looking at a Doctor Who book in a bookstore, and someone who worked there interpreted that as a sign of her own interest in the show. Apparently my mom had a whole conversation with this ( Read more... )

So after several days of heat-wave temperatures (90+), we've had two really cool days, which have been lovely. I did things that weren't lying in front of a fan and trying to read! How exciting! Yesterday and today I ( Read more... )

( mild spoilers for 'The Bells of Saint John' and prequel )

I was away this weekend, so when I called my mother for our usual chat, she'd made a list of things she wanted to remember to say to me. Two of them were fairly typical things, but the third was, "Was that your Doctor Who in the commercials for Fright Night?" I laughed and said, yes, that was David ( Read more... )

One of the Christmas presents I asked for--since my mother still has me make a list every year--was the complete DVD set of Slings & Arrows. With really no cajoling at all, I got my mother to watch the first season with me (her verdict, delivered to someone else on the phone: "really rather cute"). We had an interesting conversation afterwards, in ( Read more... )

Or maybe the word I want is "ridiculous." Or possibly "girly." And I know this because last night I was watching more of due South S2, and I was actually happy when Fraser started quoting from Paradise Lost. Yeah, that's right. Me. Happy. About Milton. Can I help it if Fraser makes stuff adorable ( Read more... )