'sA-dE . com

Dear Santa '09

Dear Santa,

I know it's been a while since our last correspondence, but I thought I should drop you a line this year as my Christmas Wishlist is a little more specific than usual. Not that I don't still need lots of black socks, but there are a couple of other things I've had my eye on for a while now, and maybe your elves can hammer a few of them out (or at least locate some good deals via a third-party supplier).

1. A BOSU ball and some free weights (8+ lbs)

Between walking and (or) running with the dogs everyday, I am getting lots of cardio. However, my strength training has been suffering. By the time I am done a full day's work, have exercised the dogs, cleaned the house, and folded some laundry, the last thing I want to do is haul my butt to the RecPlex to do weights. A BOSU and some weights would be a great addition to a home mini-gym, and would certainly complement the treadmill we plan on buying with next spring's tax return. :-)

2. A Front Door

Our front door is wooden and doesn't seal particularly well. It also has no window, rendering our front hallway a little dark and unwelcoming, despite the robin's egg blue walls. A steel door with a small window would be a great way to keep out the cold and let in the light.

3. Landscape Fabric

You and I both know I didn't inherit Dad's green thumb. I know you and he didn't always see eye to eye when it came to stocking etiquette, but you have to admit--the man can garden. I think the thing I hate most about gardening is the never-ending task of weeding. As a result, our backyard this year was a total eyesore. I can't let that happen again, and I think that some weed control landscaping fabric might help me to stay a little more on top of it...at least until ragweed season.

4. New Make-up Brushes

I've had the same blush brush for 5 years now, and the bristles are falling out. I don't wear blush often, but now when I do, I look like I am growing a beard. I would also like separate brushes for powder, blush, eye shadow, and highlight.

5. Music
I don't remember the last time Mike or I bought a CD, but given that my iPod nano seems to be on its last legs (the play/pause/power off button no longer works), I think CDs may still be the way to go. Here is a short list of who I've been listening to lately:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Bat for Lashes
Kitty Daisy and Lewis
Joy Division / New Order (both)
The Flaming Lips
Lady Gaga (she's great to run to, in the comfort of my own headphones)
Metric
The Weakerthans
Pearl Jam

6. Books

I don't know how much time I will have for reading this year, between work, working out, and doing homework for my French courses, but you can never go wrong with a good book.

The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins
Half-broke Horses - Jeanette Walls
The Complaints - Ian Rankin
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
Demo a Day Books for Chemistry and Biology (I lost my Demo a Day for Biology, and apparently it is now out of print. :-()

7. A J. Crew Double-cloth Carlin Thinsulate Coat in Wild Blackberry

I think I might be a medium, but let's go with large to make sure I can wear sweaters under it. :-)

I think I've held up my end of the bargain so far this year, but rest assured I will attempt to maintain my status on the "nice" list for the remainder of 2009 and well into 2010. I will also make sure Vixen gets her parsnip and isn't harassed by Zeppelin while your sleigh is parked out in the back yard.

Say hi to the wife and elves for me.

Sincerely,

Saedigh

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Summer of Saedigh

So, my summer of teacheresque holiday time is quickly drawing to a close. The Summer of Saedigh is heading in to its last fortnight. For most of July, from the 1st to the 27th, it was the Summer of Saedigh and Mike, since Capt Mike was also on holiday.
We have mostly stuck pretty close to home. It was an expensive year of home ownership and academia, so we decided to be minimalists when it came to planning a vacation.
We spent a week visiting our parents, and took two day trips to Toronto. Once for a dinner at Ruth's Chris with Capt Mike's Uncle, where we got to eat butter-grilled steaks and see the Boston Red Sox do the same, and once to Canada's Wonderland. It was my first trip to an amusement park since I was 14 and went to EuroDisney. We rode all of the non-kiddie roller coasters, but I abstained from the Drop Zone and so cannot truly call myself a "Ride Warrior" according to Capt Mike's logic. :-)
However, now that Capt Mike is back to work and given the crummy weather that has defined Summer 09, I have to say I am getting a bit stir crazy. I've been keeping myself busy enough with housewifey type activities - baking, cleaning, weeding, dograising (Zeppelin is as much of a handful as a toddler at times) - and I have learned that had I been born in the earlier half of the 20th century I would have developed a heck of a 4 o'clock martini habit to get me through the afternoons. As routine as my job is, I've found that the routine of basically doing nothing is more tedious.
And so on August 10th I will be returning to work. The Summer of Saedigh will come to an end, our bank accounts will slowly be resuscitated back to life, and I will no longer remain up to date on daytime television.

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On love...two poets and a polymath

LOVE is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.
- Emily Dickinson

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- William Shakespeare

"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing."
- Goethe

Happy Valentine's Day

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Funny 'cause it's true?

Anyone who knows me and (or) Capt Mike, knows how incredibly socially awkward we both are, and that we had to resort to third-party assistance to find one another. No, really. We did.

Which is why I couldn't stop laughing at the following news report from The Onion. Enjoy. :-)

Online Dating Helping Pathetic Women Get Their Hopes Crushed More Efficiently

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Happy (belated) New Year

So, it's 2008, and I am apparently still one who procrastinates. Capt Mike and I had a nice little Southern vacation over the Christmas holidays, complete with photo documentation, but I have yet to upload any to the Web.

It just doesn't feel much like a New Year. It kind of feels like mid-spring. Yesterday I walked the dogs in a short-sleeved t-shirt. Today, it's raining, but the temperature is still in the mid-teens. After 29 years, it's difficult to associate the changing of the calendar with anything other than cold weather and snow (or at least frost).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not missing wind chill factors or digging ice and salt wads out of Dexter's paws, but a slight dusting of snow wouldn't go amiss. Just one day to curl up with a cup of Tim Horton's, watching the snowflakes fly past the window. It doesn't need to be a blizzard, and it doesn't need to last for more than a day. It just needs to remind me that it's winter out there.

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An early Merry Christmas from Saedigh.com

Reference

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Green Christmas II

It was another green Christmas here in Seattle. While that might normally dampen the festive spirit back in Ontario, my little niece Bobbin was full of much Christmas cheer, delighting especially in a very large stuffed moose, a motorized tractor, and a toy piano that even the Peanuts' Schroeder would envy.

But my trip to Seattle served a two-fold purpose this year. Not only did I get to spend Christmas with my sister's family, I also got to go shopping for my wedding dress. In what turned out to be a record time for the store, I managed to secure my dress and Heather's Bridesmaid dress at "I Do Bridal". It's the same store where Heather bought her dress almost exactly 4 years ago. I am not going to go into great detail about it here, as Capt Mike has already been pressing for information. I will tell you what I told him: it's ivory and it's really pretty. :-)

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Happy Valentines and sad, sad songs

Happy Valentine's Day! And what better way to celebrate, than to dissect why exactly it is that we love to hear sad songs?
Author Tom Reynolds thinks he has an idea or fifty-two about it. He's written I hate myself and want to die: the 52 most-depressing songs you've ever heard. A gut-wrenching, heart-rending song for every week of the year presented in hit-list countdown fashion, analysed for your future listening enjoyment, or depression...whichever.

So, what are the Top Ten most depressing songs you'd ever not want to listen to? Why, they're

10. People who died - Jim Carroll Band
9. Sister Morphine - Marianne Faithfull
8. Hurt - Nine Inch Nails
7. Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
6. DOA - Bloodrock
5. Seasons in the Sun - Terry Jacks
4. Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
3. Honey - Bobby Goldsboro
2. The Shortest Story - Harry Chapin
1. The Christmas Shoes - Newsong

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Merry Christmas

You can see a few very adoreable photos of our Seattle Christmas here.

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Happy Hallowe'en!

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The April Fool

This morning, I woke up to an interview on CBC's Ottawa Morning with John McCallum, the Minister of National Revenue. He was promoting a new pilot project to be introduced during this year's tax season in Ottawa and the surrounding area: e-file or else. The interviewer asked him "Or else what?", and he arrogantly responded that since the majority of people in Ottawa work for the goverment, and their salaries are paid for by tax money, and they have computers at work that they're using for personal use anyway, Ottawa taxpayers should all be filing their returns on-line, and if they didn't, they could wait until at least Christmas for their refunds, and risk being audited.
Naturally, I was outraged. It's easy to get me outraged first thing in the morning (close relatives know this first hand), but this sent me right over. I quickly jumped out of bed, ran to my computer, and fired off the following e-mail:

----- Original Message -----
From: Saedigh
To: ottawamorning@cbc.ca
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 7:58 AM
Subject: e-file or else???

Does Mr McCallum realise that there are people in Ottawa who don't own a computer, don't work for the government, or don't have internet access for a variety of reasons? Does he realise that not all Public Employees rely on taxes to "pay their salaries" (i.e. cost-recover units like the passport office)? Does he also not realise that the employees of the CRA DO rely on taxes for their salaries, and that it's their JOB to deal with returns, however they may be filed? Does he plan to pay interest on the delayed refunds of paper filers, the way we have to pay interest on any money WE owe?
Does he even care about any of these questions?

Sincerely,
Saedigh
Ottawa ON

After breaking for the local news, the show came back with the listeners' response to the interview. Phone calls and e-mails had flooded in, mostly from outraged people like myself. One, however, had a slightly different sentiment:
"This is John McCallum. Happy April Fool's Day Ottawa!"

Indeed, I had been had. Thankfully, so had the majority of listeners. But I still feel like a nimrod.

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Happy Valentine's Day

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All is Quiet on New Year's Day

We had a pretty quiet New Year's Eve this year. Not quite as quiet as last year, when I sat in HH's living room watching chick flicks, drinking wine, and eating butter chicken. We had decided that we would boycott the usual New Year's scene, as it usually resulted in disappointment.
This year, The Captain of Outer Space (to be introduced in a later blog entry) and I met up with some of his friends from back home and had a yummy Thai dinner at the Green Papaya. I can't get enough of their Chicken Panaeng. We then decided that we would try to find an establishment that wasn't charging a cover fee for the privilege of ringing in the new year with a hundred sweaty strangers. No small feat in O-town. The first year I lived here, I paid $40.00 to go to a local franchise bar to drink tepid fizzy wine and see a poor, cataract-ridden snow tiger (polaroids with the poor beast were an extra $15.00). This year we vowed it would be different.
So, after warming our bellies with red curry and satay, we ventured out into downtown Ottawa to look for a cozy little pub to ring in the New Year. We ended up at The Mayflower II on Queen St. and pretty much had the entire establishment to ourselves until shortly before midnight. Our only fellow patrons were a group of deaf youths (a surprisingly boisterous bunch when the clock struck 12) and an unconcious man at the back of the restaurant that pretty much kept to himself the entire night. It may not sound like much, but as New Year's celebrations go, this was certainly my best yet. Maybe we can make this a tradition. I'll have to bone up on my ASL and CPR for next year though, just in case.

Vanilla Cola
1 oz Absolut Vanilla vodka
1 lime, cut into wedges
Coca Cola (Classic)
ice

Pour vodka, cola, and lime juice over ice in a high ball glass. Garnish with lime wedge. As seen in Pulp Fiction.

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Merry Christmas Everybody!

It was pointed out to me that it's been a while since my last entry. For those of you who thought I might have been put out of commission by a rogue sausage roll at the Institut(ional) Christmas party, worry no longer. I am alive, well, and enjoying a downhome Christmas at my parents' house in Simcoe.
It's been a hectic few days since my last entry. Things I've learned in the meantime:
(1) A shopping mall on the last Saturday before Christmas should have you more concerned for your personal security than a day trip to Fallujah.
(2) Everyone in aforementioned mall arrived there in their own personal vehicle.
(3) Even Canadians have short memories where winter driving is concerned.
(4) Mother Nature doesn't care about your travel plans.
(5) Printers don't care about your travel plans.
(6) The Captain of Outer Space* harmonizes quite nicely to my rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Until next time, have a safe and happy holiday, and eat lots of turkey. That whole tryptophan thing is a myth anyway.

*Name changed to protect the innocent. He still doesn't know exactly what he's gotten himself into yet.

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