Crazy Cat Dance Party (Fun!) 4:01 p.m.

My Cousin Karen's Most Excellent Ceasar Salad Dressing 7:52 p.m.

Step 1 - Take a clove of garlic, smash it, cover it with olive oil and put it in a small container. Then take this concoction and put it into the freezer for 1 hour. (This step is supposed to make the dressing thicker.)

Step 2 - In a blender mix together:

• 0.5 tsp. ground pepper
• 0.5 tsp. dry mustard
• 2 tsp. worchestershire
• 1 can anchovies
• 1 coddled egg
• 2 tbsp. grated parmesean
• 3-4 tbsp. lemon juice (approx 1/2 a lemon)
• 3/4 cup olive oil frozen garlic clove (from Step 1)

And that's all, folks! It's very good, particularly if you enjoy anchovies (which I never thought I would, but at 25, very much do).

Meet Our New Pet Rats (No, Really) 6:16 p.m.

We adopted a couple of young male rats at the Montreal SPCA today. Named them Eegrek and Doublevé, my original spelling of the French letters Y and W. We're just getting used to each other at the moment, but they're terribly cute and have great taste in food, just like their parents. They had barbecued chicken, avocado, blueberries and cheese for dinner tonight. But we're planning for a more grain and fruit-based diet as a rule.

Meet Eegrek, as Joe notices that there is a wee pit of poo on his back (probably acquired during the metro ride in the cardboard box) that needs to be cleaned up.

Meet Doublevé, who's feeling a little bit shy.

My Mother's Chicken Amman 6:23 p.m.

I have had this recipe scrawled with a dying pen on a crumpled piece of paper stained with red wine for far too long. This was one of the dishes my mother would make when we had company coming over, before my father became a vegetarian, as I recall.

• 600 ml plain yogurt
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp cardamom
• 2 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 3 cloves garlic
• 6 chicken legs

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Press the garlic into the yogurt and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two, if you've got time. Remove from the skin from the chicken, place thighs snugly in a lightly greased pan. Mix the spices and flour together then blend into the yogurt. Pour spiced yogurt on to chicken and bake for just under an hour.

Enjoy!

finger nailed 8:15 p.m.

My mother tells me over cheap wine that I need to be more conscious of my corporate work environment. Look around the office, she says. I’ll bet you won’t find a single VP…I cut her off, or bite her off, if you will. I think you’d be surprised by what goes in and comes out of those people’s mouths and furthermore, it is without doubt that if I followed the general moral example of the management team, I would be condemned to burn in hellfire for all of eternity. Is that really what you want for your first born, I ask? That’s not the point, she says. Of course not, I think.

I am an adult and as such I heed the advice of fellow adults. Especially when they’re related to me and Christmas is coming up. Therefore, I am trying to quit biting my fingernails. Having recalled the existence of some toxic sludge my parents used to paint on my thumb in an attempt to have me stop sucking it, I haul ass to the Pharmasave and find a clerk. I’m trying to quit biting my fingernails, I tell her. She looks at me as though I’ve got the clap, fiddles with her hair which has been died some soft shade of radioactive and tells me she’s got just the thing. Parents come in all the time, she says, trailing off with her hands comfortably by her sides, that haughty bitch.

I whip out my VISA card, which I hope the lovely Melinda will notice is a step up from the student kind and bow in complete deference to the great corporate mogul that is me. She does not. I pay, grab my toxic sludge and leave.

Seated in the comfort of my Victorian low-rise apartment, away from the judgmental eyes of the properly finger-nailed world, I apply the sludge gently, at first. Then, mesmerized by the activity, begin to apply more aggressively. Minutes later, my fingernails, hands and select areas of my thighs and calves have been doused. I sit, turn on the tube and wait for my invitation to the world of non-compulsive, have-their-shit-together, people. Several commercial breaks later, distracted by the pretty lights and intelligent dialogue of primetime, I try and sneak in a quick chew. To my dismay, I begin to gag, dry-heave, attempting in an apoplectic frenzy to get the evil taste of childhood out of my mouth. Noooo!!!! I scream. Glaring at the bottle, I wish hard that looks could bring inanimate objects to life and kill them, not in a nice way. The grey, orange and white label innocently proclaims “Nail Biter.” I decide that it would more suitably be labelled “We’re secretly trying to poison you because anyone who bites their fingernails is CLEARLY a terrorist.” But admitting to myself the importance of the covert in the great fight against minorities and their inherent evil, I digress.

I was promised a safe, effective method of healing from a dirty habit. Instead I’m chugging a beer in the shower, trying desperately to rid myself of the evil stuff. Fuckers, I think again.

Newly washed, moisturized and thoroughly upset, I scan the package for customer service numbers and begin to imagine the string of expletives I will unleash on the unfortunate Sally Hansen rep who will answer my call. Sadly, there is no customer service number to speak of. And even if there were, it’s half past nine on a Friday night and they’d surely be closed. I begin to imagine the string of expletives I would’ve offloaded had there been voicemail. Fuckers, I think.

In an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity, I call my best friend and invite him over for a joint. By this I mean, in an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity, I call my best friend and coyly hint that he come immediately over with weed and sandwiches. He is of a good breed, being related to the Guttenberg character who invented the printing press and as such, appears promptly, bearing gifts.

After a few good drags and a quick bite I am decidedly less insane, though still pissed about the obvious conspiracy between Sally Hansen, my parents and the rest of the properly finger-nailed world. Don’t think I don’t know. Best-friend Jonathan, sensing my anger still brewing, leans over, passes the joint and exhales, lesbians all have fingernails like yours, he says gently. They’re considered practical, cool even. I, in turn, exhale and with a deep sigh of relief think to myself: what a civilized bunch, these lesbians you speak of. After a brief moment’s thought, I forgive Jonathan his fingernails, make peace with my own and with Melinda and settle into the sofa with a fair-sized roach for what will now undoubtedly be, an okay night in the world of the compulsive.

storm at the family cottage in thunder bay 8:07 p.m.

Tree branches slap angrily against aging siding
Like the master’s whip against the bare skin of the
Boy who stole bread from the kitchen and was caught.

Rain hesitates in the parts of the sky nearest to Heaven,
Parts which I have seen only from airplanes, sipping tomato
Juice, reading newsprint and fearing death obediently.

Wrinkled palms smack laminate counters with familiar rhythm
And a fat yellow Labrador retriever barks at the screen of the
Door which confines it to its allowed space like a stupid beast.

Dirty towels and cedar panels, the latest publication on wealth,
music, how to keep the weight off, and this season’s best in pet gear
and top-of-the-line ice cream makers confine me to mine quietly.

Life is the thing which keeps the women in the kitchen reddened
Like fight-filled children, squealing hatred from all available orifices.
What fiction, rattle the blackened skies, that blood is thicker than water.

Thunder ten pins through the heavens like a chorus to the hotly felt verses
Of angry speech that the mistresses of the house pitch to the walls intently
As though words could meet and conquer wallpaper to reveal some antique

Truth preserved in flour-water.

Truth like fabric woven through years of antagonism and strife, bloody
Miscarriages of justice and faith and sisterhood and the dog
Now barks past the screen to the world and it is undeniably a prayer

Or proposition for a cease fire, a laying down of arms and words as the rain
Changes it fickle mind and leaves are silent with the smell of crushed
Revolution and the sky is painted a fresh shade asphalt with all its promises of

Destruction/Freedom

Still in tact.

wedding poem for my uncle 9:12 p.m.

the architecture of them

In November the prairie winds howl with memories
of winter and the voices of a thousand wheat creatures
make speeches about loneliness on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November he admires the design of her smile, traces
the slope of her spine with a gentle hand and finds her eyes
fighting bright in the darkest parts of night on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November he recalls the marquetry of her spirit by the glacier
lake, the youthful embrace, amidst dancing leaves, of his
now wife and he is rich with the promise of life on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November great structures of timber and glass cradle the child
soul of spring and the smothered whispers of two score ten bear
witness to the perfect architecture of them on Wild Rose Ridge.

morning at 592 7:46 a.m.

the street is loud when i sit at my desk. it's seventeen minutes to eight and traffic is at its peak, pigeons coo on the roof near my window and trees everywhere are wilting from the heat. i see my favourite books lined up, in the spaces near to me. a collection of twice-read grisham paperpacks are heaped on the window sill. slivery poetry chapbooks are jammed between hardcover copies of barney's version, sowing the wind, a russian textbook: troika. donations from my mother: rankin, thayer and tanenbaum have been chucked lazily about the place -- i haven't read them.

janejanejane 7:56 p.m.

my sister is a very warm person. forgiving as all hell. she glows and it's not sweat either. i feel myself around her. unjudged and happy. the two of us soak in laziness, leave the apartment only to eat or to rent. we've seen years of television series since she moved in a week ago. i feel as though if we didn't have to earn money or be real people we could luxuriate here together until the end of time. it would be lovely, too. who needs to be thin and successful when you've got take-out and a bosom buddy? a sister and years of ER still to go. hand me the remote. STAT.

a proper nest 9:47 a.m.

my sister and i have managed to create a proper nest of our run-down rental. very little floor is visible, bits of food and glasses of water are everywhere. neither of us have worn clothes in days. we are happy here, nested here, but it's going to have to end sometime soon...there's beginning to be a bit of smell.

luxuriating 2:46 p.m.

my sister is coming tomorrow and staying with me for six weeks. my mother warns me that she doesn't wash dishes and watches television endlessly. i am of the opinion that the satellite to basic cable transition will find her being a little more active.

that's us in the picture, at my father's house. luxuriating in our sweats, as i imagine we'll do quite often in the next while. in the background: a painting of a bench with a sign that reads "nacionalizado de fresco" (freshly nationalised) - a daddy favourite. the sofa we're sitting on is an eighties brown curduroy ikea number that he just can't let go of. and on the table, my faithful laptop, source of unendning distraction and portal to the blogging world. oh! and let's not forget the laura secord cream egg, waiting nervously to meet its end.

pat methany group - first circle 1:12 a.m.

there is clapping at first, a few scarce notes and then, after long moments, a voice. no words, only sounds and promise. believe, reader, that we can truly make promises. he will smile in confirmation as you shrug in resignation, my father. rich proletarian methods drop into seemingly inadvertent, but altogether natural, chords of terribly deliberate genius.

and he sits, listening to it all, caught up in his heart. blue eyes wide with pink skin around, smiling stubble and remembering us as children. when we pulled at his worn shirt, tugged at his hands, begged to show him the fruits of days.

working hard to work hard, he is. breathing deeply as though in exercise, meters from a gentle , spotless, vegetarian kitchen.

he knows, but he's had years to know. i am a muddled person. grow me up? i don't know, couldn't possibly know...but i want, i try, i am upset.

he is not near and he seems never to be so. the inequality keeps him busy. the lost years.
the workers and his work.

how i would like him to be happy! truly happy...

that, believe it or not, is me 8:56 a.m.

in the backyard of my grandparents' old house, since sold, in edmonton. that's their garden and the sandbox of my youth. it was a great sandbox. i learned to bake there. donated by my grandmother's kitchen: several bowls, a few good mixing spoons, a cake mold and two muffin tins. my grandfather, the venerable thomas loudon leadbeater, always puttered about the garden while i was cooking. do you see the cement circles leading to the back? i used to leap from each to each. as i got older and my legs got longer i could skip every other stone and later i only needed every third to make it back to the house. the bush on the left grew raspberries and behind the white gate was the alley. it gave out on to 148th street. i think.

the jcb song 11:31 a.m.

http://www.jcbsong.co.uk/jcbvideo.asp

medicate me, someone 5:28 p.m.

my mother recommends bathing with gershwin, light
some smelly thing and soak, she says. breathe. my eyes
dart about the room without permission. they like
the crown molding, the piles of dust cowering at the feet
of objects, the stain on the side of my antique refridgerator.
it's intricate. ice cream, i think. i haven't the attention span

for this.

after shower scribbles 8:50 p.m.

the room is laden with flame-retardant jumpsuits,
ribbons, coloured paper in crumpled piles and the child
is swimming in her cervix as we speak, its candied
feet pressing against her ribs in invitation: one she is
anxious to accept surrounded, though she is, by
unassembled furniture, the estrogen-filled laughs
of mothers and childhood friends attempting to soothe
the last of many uncertainties...we talk, as me are meant
to, about the incompetence of men, the wonders of
obstetrics and the inevitability of epidurals. the wine
remains undrunk, a few good bottles sacrificed
on the altar of sisterhood and solidarity. sandwiches
are devoured by anxious mouths as lists are compiled
and what an apt prelude this affair seems to be as we
wait all too impatiently for the sound of the tympany,
the applause, and at long last the announcement...

congratulations, evie!

i wonder if my dad knows abortions are free in this country... 5:48 p.m.

he should and if he does, it means we can't hit him up for money. too bad. it would've been a good scheme.