Dani's Running Mix, Spring 2010

I'm always asking people to give me suggestions for great workout music. I'm training for the 10K season, back at square one - I doubt I'll be able to match my under-60 times from 2008 (of course, I was too busy working and being miserable to run anywhere in 2009). It's frustrating, but the music helps me through. Here is my latest mix. Let me know what you're listening to while you sweat. You know, in a G-rated way.

1) Bulletproof - La Roux
2) LoveGame - Lady Gaga
3) Disturbia - Rihanna
4) Don't Upset the Rhythm - Noisettes
5) Shining Down - Lupe Fiasco feat. Matthew Santos
6) Remedy - Little Boots
7) Forever - Drake feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem
8) Monster - Lady Gaga
9) Time to Pretend - MGMT
10) Dance Wiv Me - Dizzee Rascal
11) Bourgeois Shangri-La - Miss Li
12) Ascension to Virginity - Dave Grusin

Peanut Butter Rum Chewy Gingersnaps


Some folks from Facebook wanted the recipe for my nomnom Peanut Butter Rum Gingersnaps, so here 'tis:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of allspice or pumpkin pie spice (some people find a
llspice too strong)
1/3 cup peanut butter (you can use whatever kind you have around, I use crunchy)
1/4 cup Splenda
3 tbsp. margarine
1 cup brown sugar Splenda
1 egg
1 tbsp blackstrap molasses
1 tsp rum extract

1. Stir together flours, baking soda, 1 tsp of the cinnamon, and the rest of the spices in a bowl.

2. In a smaller bowl, mix together the remaining cinnamon and the white Splenda (for rolling cookies in later)

3. In another bowl, mix together peanut butter, marg
arine, and brown sugar for about a minute, then add the egg, blackstrap molasses and rum extract.

4. Stir flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture. I would get your hands in there and mix it all together.

5. Roll the dough into little 1 inch balls, then roll the balls in the cinnamon/Splenda mix. Stick 'em on a baking sheet and mush 'em down with a fork.

6. Bake cookies at 350 for 6 - 7 minutes. They will s
eem mushy to the touch but that will ensure that they stay chewy. Scoop them off the cookie sheet onto a wire rack right away to cool. Should make a couple dozen, if you keep your dough balls small. The cookies will spread quite a bit in the oven.

Ah, Londontown.

I am watching a horrible TV movie on CBC right now, mostly because PBS, my usual Sunday night date, has let me down by showing some shitty self-help seminar rather than Masterpiece Theatre. "Abroad" is about a plucky Toronto girl-journalist who gets a job working for a Daily Mail-esque tabloid in London. It's so full of ridiculous English stereotypes and has so romanticized life in London I want to vomit, but it's also showing great shots of all of my favorite places in London, and I can't stop watching.

I have no idea what the protagonist's name is, but of course, she's living in Notting Hill. And she has two actually-English roommates (myth #1), a gay posh fashion designer who says minx alot (stereotype alert #1) and a blonde slutty girl with a heart of gold named Poppy (stereotype alert #2). She has a horrible prim English rose of a boss named Jemima Whitfield Pennington-Greene (stereotype alert #3). On her first day at work she butts heads with the Northern lad business reporter with a chip on his shoulder (stereotype alert #4) who you know she is going to end up with (myth #2). On her first night, she gets taken out on a date by a man named Edward (stereotype alert #5) who has a large house in the country, wears a signet ring, and drives her around the most important parts of London (Piccadilly Circus - myth #3) in his convertible Aston Martin.

Poor Dear just got her heart broken when she and Edward went "to the polo" (I am slightly mollified that she is wearing the ugliest yellow imitation Philip Treacy hat I have ever seen), and she catches him having sex with the blonde and lovely lady Victoria Barnes in the stables. Oh my. What WILL she do?

In order to make "Abroad" more authentic, I'm going to write to the producers and suggest the following additions be made to the plot of the sequel (snort):

1) roof of Poor Dear's bedroom falls in due to rot;

2) realistic scenes of Poor Dear's 40 minute commute on the packed Central Line to work every day;

3) have all action take place in the rain;

4) have Poor Dear move in with a Polish student and a Norwegian investment banker;

5) have Poor Dear get mistaken for American in every other scene;

6) show scenes of Poor Dear picking up a ready meal at Tesco Metro at 11:30 p.m. when she's finished work and fall asleep on the couch in front of Panorama before she finishes.

I think I might really be on to something here. Instead of her finally getting the big story and being offered a promotion and a permanent contract and the brusque-but-loveable Northern lad on a silver platter, we'll show her having a real "good-London-day:" a seat on the Tube on the way to AND from work, a bonus 15,000 Advantage points at Boots, and she gets out of work before 7 p.m.

I should really get to work on the screenplay now.

Tsunami Update #3: Home Safe and Sound

Mom and Dad are back home in Kihei after the all-clear has been sounded.

"We had a good tsunami," said Mom cheerfully when they phoned to tell me to stop worrying. "We met some new friends and we had a barbecue." They had met the owners of a ziptrek business in Kula, who opened up their shop so that Mom, Dad and some other evacuees had a bathroom to use, and then they all ended up getting together and grilling some steaks in a nearby parking lot. Evacuee tailgate party!

In all seriousness, though, while I'm glad my parents' experience has been positive (and safe!), I feel for my friends in Chile and hope they and all their loved ones are safe and sound.

When there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire.

This is a dramatic media installation in an abandoned building at the corner of Hastings and Abbott. Very striking. As I stood staring at the flickering video flames with my mouth open, one of my "neighbours" (I use the term loosely), a ghost of the downtown east side, stood beside me, silently, watching. Then he turned to me and smiled. "Groovy, huh?"

Very.

Congrats Lil' Bro


My brother Alex and his partner Laura have bought their first home and they moved in this weekend. I don't think I've seen or heard my brother so excited in a long time...this is a big dream of his that is coming true after years of saving.

This picture from move-in day says it all. Look at the matching Poppa-Son grins. Congratulations, Al!


Perspective

After Live Your Dreams 2010 last night, I hailed a cab on 4th Avenue, using my Lady Dada disco stick. I was still wearing my Lady Dada get-up, which consisted of: rainbow sequinned mini-dress, black patent and zebra platform heels, black dominatrix gloves, my hair teased into a hair bow, and a blue thunderbolt painted on my face. I looked like a character out of Jem and the Holograms, really.

"You look really nice," said the cabbie sincerely, a middle aged Moroccan man. "You look special, what's going on?"

I explained the concept of LYD - that you come as your dream version of yourself.

"This is my dream version of myself, " I explained. "I'd like to be a pop singer. That would be fun."

"OK," said the cabbie. "Sing me something."

And so I did, as we sped from Kitsilano to Gastown. The cabbie listened sincerely, squinting at me appraisingly every now and then in his rear view mirror.

"That's good," he said approvingly when I had finished. "You really can sing! What is your job now?"

"I'm a lawyer," I told him. He laughed.

"Well, that's a little different I guess," he said. "You make money, but that's not everything, right? You need to be happy."

I agreed.

"Yes, you can't take it with you," he said thoughtfully. "You need to have a happy life, that's the key. These people...they work and work and work and live in big houses, but then they die and someone else enjoys their money. I don't make much money, and I don't own a house. But I have a happy life. And I've travelled and seen the world. That's better."

"So what would you be, if you had to be your dream version of yourself?" I asked him.

"This is it," he said. "I enjoy my work. I am comfortable; I live in Canada, I won't starve. And I have time to spend with family and friends and to travel around the world. I have a happy life and have fun. That's my dream self. To have a happy life and have fun."

Amen.