The 1.5 Week Old Birthday is Over, Injury Blogging Redux, and I Get Crafty Again

So, a mess of things have happened since I last shouted at you. My latest 1.5 week birthday celebration ended with a visit from my parents! That was excellent, especially since in the whole of my life, I've only not ever celebrated the almost twin birthdays my mom and I share - me on the 23rd and she on the 25th - once in my life. And that was only because I was clear on the other side of the planet.

It was a weekend filled with talking and shopping and going out to eat. I kind of love that even though I live in another country, I'm still close enough to see my family and friends every couple of months. Current plans see me heading on back at the end of May for a weekend, and I can't wait - especially since, unlike the last time I was in town, it will be sunny and warm and messing about outside will be the call of the day!

In an If You Blog It, It Will Come moment, my parents brought with them a birthday present from my brother. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the excellence that is the Ball and Chain Kitschy Silhouette pendant collection. My brother, being excellent and generous, made sure that not only one of their TVs, but one of their MixMasters would be mine! And man, I can't tell you how delighted I was, and still am; there was both clapping and squealing when they were opened. And there still might be clapping and squealing going on every time I put them on.

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Long time readers my have noticed my lack of injury-blogging of late. Don't worry - I haven't smartened up any and started to pay attention to the world around me, I've just been avoiding detailing the latest traumas. But the current stupidity that I'm dealing with really needs a re-cap. First, the list of what I've accidentally done to myself since moving to Columbus:

• October 2007: Trip while running down stairs. Sprain right ankle.
• January 2008: Forget that ovens are hot when turned on. Burn right forearm badly enough to need to treat it with polysporin and cover with a bandage for a week.

And that brings you almost up-to-date.

Back at the start of 2005, before I started blogging over here, I fractured my right foot's fifth metatarsil (wanna read an account of the resultant robot foot and a trip to Calgary? Well, then, please do!). This has always rankled as I had just started running, and was enjoying adding on the solitary nature of exercising outdoors, and the different feeling I was getting from pushing my body in this new and excellent way.

I tried running in 2006 and could only get 20 minutes in before the area around the old fracture started to ache and I thought is smarter to stick to riding my bike outside, and the elliptical in the gym / recumbent bike at home. I tried again in 2007 and got up to two consecutive days of hour-long runs before the pain set in. Since I'm convinced that I would be an excellent runner, this pissed me all the hell off, and made me shake my fist at my foot in anger.

When I moved to Columbus, I became friends with Andrea, a runner who takes so much joy in it that she totally inspired me to try it again. With spring just around the corner, I felt it would be a good idea to get some indoor training in on the treadmill before hitting the pavement. I started up the first week of February. I was good for two weeks. And then the old injury pain, she set in again. And this time, she really hurt. Enough so that I began to overcompensate when walking, shift the weight off of that edge of my foot to the ball.

And guess what that resulted in? A strain between the 3rd and 4th toes, a 2-hour long wait in Urgent Care when the pain hadn't disappeared after 6 days, 3 x-rays to confirm that I hadn't developed a stress fracture, and a prescription for an anti-inflammatory.

It anti-inflammatory? A THING OF BRILLIANCE. Is it odd that I've never been on one before?

The Urgent Care facility? If there hadn't been people there, it would've been the kind of place that has a staring role on Celebrity Paranormal Project.

Here is where I spent the first 1.25 hours of my visit:



And here I am, all stare-y eyed, waiting in a the exam room to see the doctor for for an examination, prior to hobbling down desolate halls to the x-ray lab and back. Yes, that is a cast-bronze mouse pelvis around my neck.


***

Almost three weeks ago, my friend Jen and I began ceramics classes! Hand-building, I may suck at you now, but you will become my bitch. Indeed, you will! Will post pictures of my lop-sided creations when they get all glazed and fired.

So, that's baout it. I'm off to pout about the state of Columbus snow removal.

Accosted by an Eyebrow Evangelist

While in Chicago, my friend Lisa and I spent some excellent quality time shopping. We had stopped at Barneys to take a look at the shoes they had on offer, and while downtown, had thoughts to step into Sephora before heading out to a few excellent boutiques.

Now me, I was not blessed with eyebrows that anyone can do much of anything with. They're sparse, and I use a filler to make them look less anemic. In the past couple of weeks, my found myself running low on my usual product, and thought that I'd get a Sephora staff member to recommend something new. So I left the house that morning with bare brows, and turned to stare down the world. With my skinny, skinny bare naked brows.

While crossing through Barney's make-up section, a man who reminded me of Jonathan Antin, in all his pseudo-Euro-trashy glory, who had been applying make-up at the Nars counter, shouted at Lisa and I.

"Ladies! I'm free over here!"
"Oh, well, that's good for you", I replied.

He was insistent, "Let me do your eyes!"

I shrugged. And wandered over. He had a nice suit, and seemed passionate about setting something about my eyes that he thought was wrong, right. And, hell, I needed something for those shivering, naked eyebrows.

Turns out it was Claudio Riaz, who has been making the rounds of Barneys locations with his brush line.

Riaz' Instant Brow Brush + Nars powder eyeshadow = something magical.

Check it out - nekkid on the left, all Riaz-d up on the right.




This man gave me eyebrows for my birthday. That's not something to be taken lightly. As he turned his too-intense attention to Lisa, who was rightly horrified, as she has excellently defined brows, we scampered to the cash register, me with brush and shadow in-hand, leaving Claudio a little bit richer, and with the certainty that he had turned out a lovely pair of brows on to the world.

A Birthday Weekend in Chicago

I am back from a wonderful weekend in Chicago, wherein I turned 34. I spent the weekend with my friends Lisa and Matt, and we had excellent meals, and experienced excellent shopping.

First, the meals.

Before the shopping began, Lisa and I had lunch at Karyn's, a raw food restaurant. I was delighted to find that it was just as good as NYC's Pure Food and Wine! We shared the following, and I very much wished that Karyn would put out a cook(construction?)book:

Appetizer:

• Crimini Mushrooms stuffed with a Nut Pate and Topped with a Light Gravy

Mains:

• Basil Scented Ravioli (wrapper made of jicama) with a Macademia Whipped CrËme Dressed with a Sun-Dried Tomato Puree
• Taste the Riches of the Ocean with this Creamy Sea Wrap, Filled with Avocado, Crunchy Walnut Pate, Sweet Onion and Basil Wrapped in a Seaweed Crepe

That evening, Lisa, Matt and I went to Moto. We had the 5 course tasting, Matt and Een had the meat version, and I had the vegetarian. We had the same basic courses, with vegetarian proteins substituting the meats, and without meat ingredients in the purees, sauces and reductions.

Menu:

• Edible menu was a very thin, crisp cookie printed with edible ink, accompanied by a slightly salted pear gelee an pear reduction .

Courses:

• White truffle brulee with a white truffle biscuit (veg) / maple and bacon biscuit (meat)
• Pan fried tofu (veg) / cod (meat) with soya miso puree and pan fried puffed rice
• Crispy hash browns, hard boiled egg with spinach (both were perfect cubes) with a kind of beans I can't remember (veg) and thin slices of beef (meat)
• Wee flourless chocolate and black tea cake, wee vanilla and lemon cake enrobed in gelee with raspberry
• Coffee ice cream with a cup of warm almond biscotti flavoured creamy liquid. The ice cream was freeze-dried, and you dipped it in the cup of warm liquid biscotti

Although Moto definitely has that molecular gastronomy bent, the flavours on the plate would be in place with any other high end, more traditional restaurant that I've been to. Both Moto and Karyn's were absolutely amazing, and it's really hard to choose a favourite. Out of everything, though, I do think that the white truffle brulee was the champion of the day.

Between lunch and dinner, Lisa and I went to a number of shops. I took pictures of the cuteness that came home with me.

At Habit, I picked up this brass necklace.



At Renegade Handmade, I bought this Erica Weiner bronze necklace of a mouse pelvis:



And this mounted bunny head, by T&A:

It's That Time of Year When I Start Thinking About My Birthday

Well, really, I started thinking about it even earlier this year, as I was trying to decide on just where exactly I wanted to be. For the past few years, it's been an easy decision - call up my friend Brad, and make reservations at a vegetarian-friendly, fancy-pants restaurant in Toronto, like Susur, or Perigee.

This year, I realized that I was in an interesting position that I've never been before. Hell, I'm living in a foreign land, which means that traveling to places that I've always wanted to try was all of a sudden a bargazillion times easier to do. Straight off the bat, visions of The French Laundry played through my head, for a while, until I realized that flying from the mid-west to the west coast was probably a task better taken when winter was a mere memory.

I decided that heading back to Chicago, a place I really do love so (and not just because of the head-sized vegetarian burritos, The Green Zebra, or Charlie Trotters) , wrangling Lisa and Matt into being my guess for dinner, and grabbing a table at Moto would be a most excellent course of action.

Yup, Moto. Molecular gastronomy? Don't mind if I do!

A week after making reservations for February 23, Chef Homaro Cantu appeared on Iron Chef America. And won. And made me even more delighted about my choice.

Seriously, now, Feb 23 cannot come soon enough.

Vicodin, Gay Wedding Cake and Boobage, Oh My

A few weeks ago, following a MICA management training course, I made the decision to not be frustrated. To not be angry. Don't get me wrong, I'm not shoving those feelings down inside until they cause me to blow up real good, but to feel them, and make decisions about how to make the things that are causing those emotions to stop, and then actually doing just that.

It's caused a couple of people to ask just what kind of drugs I've been taking.

I am my own Vicodin. Duuuuuude.

Anyway, remember when I said it was wedding season down page? Clarification: it's gay wedding season. Guess what pops up when you run a Google image search on Gay Wedding Cake?

As promised to Kate, and better late then never, here's a picture of me on my birthday. If there's a better way to to mark the day then excellent company, fine dining and flashing some skin, I don't know it.

Today is My Birthday

It is, it is! I freaking love birthdays so much, I can't even begin to tell you.

Here's what happened last year. This year? I bet it'll be EVEN BETTER. Because my birthdays? They rule.

Updates tomorrow.

A Full Day

To Do:

• Perfect Transformer impression
• Book birthday dinner at Perigee
• Marvel at how I allow myself to be drawn into 24 each and every season

Results:

• Check
• Check
• Check
  

Making Out Like A Bandit

Is what I feel like I did yesterday, with my Christmas loot. And though the holidays aren't supposed to be about the presents, I am still honest enough to admit that they sure do make me happy.

But even better? Watching the people who you've bought something for unwrap and examine, and, if you're lucky, turn to you with just that look in their eyes, like you got them the exactly right thing. Then you feel like both Smokey AND the Bandit (wedding dress and porn-stache optional) .

Completely unrelated, until this morning, I had thoughts of purchasing yet another Mackage. Then I really started to think about it - although lovely, the things that have really made me happy over the past few years have been the things I've experienced, instead of the things that I have. Even though the things I have are freaking awesome. So I'd rather give myself an excellent birthday - whether I stay in town or take off for a weekend - and have something excellent to remember and think on and savour for ages to come.