Looking at life through a funhouse mirror
Despite what our tour guide said, Cairo is not the third largest city in the world, only the 15th. Perhaps she meant the third noisiest, and if that’s the case, I sincerely don’t want to visit the second or first place winner. Traffic in Cairo clogs the streets all day and all night, and I’m …
There are typically two times of the year when things break: the beginning of cottage season and the end of cottage season. Neither of these times is more preferable to the other. When we arrive in the spring, it’s pretty much a given that some things that were perfectly fine at close-up have decided not …
One of the highlights of island life is occasionally getting off the island. Although I do like my slice of forest and shoreline, it’s nice to experience some form of civilization. A mainland trek always involves several errands: visit the transfer station, fill up a water-dispenser bottle at the community centre tap, return returnable bottles …
I was planning on writing about something else today, but since it’s Canada Day, what better to talk about than life at the cottage. The Monarch butterflies are back. They are my excuse for letting the milkweed run rampant near the septic bed. Milkweed should, of course, be entitled to aid and abet butterflies with …
Julie Powell, who wrote the book Julie and Julia about her project to cook her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which eventually became a movie of the same name (Julie Powell’s book, not Julia’s, but actually that’s not quite true since the Julia Child portion of the movie is based another of …
I am not a huge online shopper, no matter what colour Friday happens to be. This is probably because I am not much of a shopper and not much of a girly girl, with all the lack of penchant for shoes, bags, perfumes, and magic potions that implies. But I do admit the Interweb does …
This is the time of year I usually refer to as “the southbound march of the condiments.” Not this year. I have decided to reconsider my cottage closing tactics. Perhaps forever. Do you know what happens when the bottles and jars that survived the summer arrive in my winter kitchen? Yes, you do. They play …
The hummingbirds are acting like assholes. There are three of them that swoop around chasing each other away from the feeder whenever one of them decides it’s time for a snack. Apparently, this means they are getting ready to start migrating. I’m not sure how well that will turn out, since they seem to be …
I am pretty sure I have mentioned this before, but I am a magazine-aholic. I currently subscribe to six magazines: Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, The Walrus, Cottage Life, and Toronto Life. I also get the Report on Business every month via my Globe and Mail newspaper subscription, bonus issues of Fashion (useless) …
When I lived in Cabbagetown (a completely non-suburban place, in fact about as urban as you can get) in a row house with a Victorian exterior and early 1990s interior (which was perfectly fine because it was the early 1990s at the time), the kitchen was a white womb of hard surfaces. The cupboards were …