phantom snoring

This is going to sound utterly weird. I am @ home at 1:59 a.m. on Saturday night and someone is snoring (and it ain't me).
I simply cannot figure out from where this is coming. I've gone a-hunting with no success (not that I know what I'd do if I stood in front of a neighour's door and heard floor-rattling snores - knock and ask them to please not sleep?).

oh!

it's stopped. yay.

no. there it is again. If it is not one thing it's a bloody other buggering with my sleeping. And I came home early expressly. grrrr

pimm's, anyone?

Wimbledon has announced it shall be awarding equal purses to women and men players. Bit of a news grab, this announcement of closing that five per cent gap.
Though, might be interesting to some who were unaware of the history of paying female players much less - about 30% of the men's purse, originally.
One could assume the notion of equality of gender was the rationale/philosophy behind this decision. In arguments, Wimbledon said women played shorter sets, the women argued it was not the time spent on the court but quality of the game that should be noted. Neither argument was particularly logical.
What IS clear is that women's tennis matches have become more interesting. I've been watching them since an infant - starting with Ashe and Börg to the current Federer and Mauresmo - and used to much prefer the men's matches. But they are dull lately (excepting a few seen live at Master's tournaments.) Just Serve, Serve, Serve with little rallying and rarely breaking. Women should, if anything, be paid more for the rising interest in their matches - from the rallies to the short skirts.

After all, Sharapova and Kournikova have done more for tennis than many a more competent player. Sad, but nonetheless noteworthy. Right, Wimbledon?

Now, where are my tickets?

as mere aside ...

With promises not to fixate on the topic, George S.'s hair was looking slightly fetching while he was in London for latest schmoozefest. Notably different from tonight's show, which seems recent though who can tell with their line-up choice.
One could blame tonsorial changes on the gel barrier at Pearson, which brings us such coiffs as hard, spikey bangs on blonde, skinny erstwhile-frat lads - the upscale, un-hipster mullet option for Canadian men. The other being George's bangs-down, still with hard gel, option.


Jetlag looks good on him.


Reading: Been delinquent about providing any titles, I know. Shall come up with list ... umm ... tomorrow.

gajillion dollars list

Below is the list of some of the frivolous things Laura and Elliott will do/buy when they win/cajole/steal but ultimately own several gajillion dollars (NB: not if, when).
Madonna concert - L
Paula Cole concert - L (no one ever said she had great taste)
Cannes Film Festival - L&E
World Tour for many, many years - E
Spain - L&E (while E on world tour)
Produce a film - L
Great house in London to live in while attending LSE to do PhD, with room for a Rhodesian Ridgeback - E
Château with horses - L&E --> will buy separate ones and then buy up intervening land in increments until plots eventually touch each other. (L's château will include a full home theatre next to the wine cellar. Both will have personal chefs and registered massage therapists on hand.)
Handmaidens, to dress and wash self and generally scurry about - L
One Valet who knows how to iron a shirt well, make a great cup of tea and knows how to be very scarce when gentlemen callers come a-visiting - E
See Montserat Caballe perform - E
Galapagos Islands, help some research team - E
Build house with beautifully designed interior à la Swedish house in Wallpaper that combined rock face as wall of house. - E
Buy hunk of river land in Ottawa and refuse to let anyone develop it. ever. - E
Run for public office OR open news magazine - E
Series 1 jag coupe - E
Range rover, for driving/ camping across the Sahara - E
High end BMW - L
Ménage-à-neuf avec Gerard Butler, Christian Bale, Sean Bean, Ryan Gosling, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jim Caviezel, Antonio Banderas, Ewan mcGregor (" I think all of those men would take cash to have sex.") - L


... to be continued

hooky

A friend and I had a ludicrous, lazy day yesterday playing hooky (hookey/hookie?).

Among things accomplished: saw three movies - two in theatre, one @ Laura' s house; lunch; house viewing; tarts and chocolate from bakery; found shop with nice doodads; found shop reeking of rose candles (there is NOTHING good about anything rose scented. EVER); tea drinking; bagel purchasing; made list of what will do when we win a gajillion dollars; attempted to recall the precise lyrics of the chorus of Sunglasses at night by Corey Hart; meandering around (as much as I was able given my state of somnambulence).

For Laura's stated goal in dragging me to two concurrent movies was to keep me from sleeping during the day. I am convinced she was striving to meet her dastardly-act quota for the week AND fulfill her own base desires to be slothful with movies. Either way, it was rather cruel given my continued streak of one-hour of sleep per evening — sitting in the dark for hours on end does nothing to energize and is, actually, a perverse situation to foist on the utterly exhausted. Particularly when one has eagle-eyed friend forever checking the comfortable depths of your puffy, blissfully enveloping, down-filled coat to see if you've sneakily nodded off. And when did movies become so bloody loud?

I am sure there are many a person who after our adventures yesterday will be telling stories about the woman who tripped over nothing, babbled about water nonsensically to wait staff, stared at the Interac pad blankly until reminded of its function, forgot her own name, attempted to nap on the counter in the public bathroom, etc., while blonde friend so sincerely guffawed her apologies.

And, despite the embarrassment, discomfort and two Gravols shoved down my throat by Laura, I still did not get to sleep before midnight (although I did sleep for more than one hour). From 9 p.m. to about 1:30 a.m. I was @ home and groggy, incoherent, aching with exhaustion; yet, still, awake.

Obviously I am becoming a vampire.

yogurt

So I've been cooking more as part of this ludicrous routine change thing. Must admit, it's been fun delving into my old pals the cookbooks again, though the increased dish doing is frustrating and making me need hand cream for the first time in my life. (Made this great tunisian stew and lamb meatballs this evening - everyone found it scrumptious, friends did the dishes.)
A side-effect of this "revolution" is increased shopping for ingredients. Mostly scads of fun but sometimes frustrating. Often when I enter into those ginormous supermarkets that take up several city blocks on hunt for things like toilet paper and chickpeas.
The other day, in one of those meccas to consumerism, found myself in front of an entire wall - larger than my entire apartment - of yogurt. Each batch claiming health benefits: live bacteria cultures! No fat! Omega-3! No sugar! Most of this made my very wary, since yogurt is supposed to come with live bacteria cultures if it is yogurt - part of what has made it a traditional treatment for yeast infections for centuries.
So me and this wall. Hundreds upon hundreds of tubs of various sizes of yogurt of various types (which made me think refillable yogurt would be a grand idea. though, i guess one could just make it at home .... ). I coulda just grabbed a familiar brand and walked out. But nuh-huh. I spent over an hour reading every single container for the perfect yogurt.

Discovering most of the low-fat ones have aspartame or the just-as-dodgy sucralose which, unlike its many claims, DOES tend to cause migraines in those so inclined. Myself included. So, to save you all the effort of trying to keep track of the contents of umpteen million yogurt brands while standing in front of a cold fridge wall without pen or paper for mental comparison, here are my suggestions from the supermarket yogurt finds:

1. Astro jeunesse. Sweetened with honey. Tasty. Low-fat.
2. Activia. Good protein/fiber ratio. Also low-fat but not ludicrously low.
3. Anything organic and full fat. Better to eat whole food than something dodgy and plastic, where the cultures had to be added afterwards. I suggest cutting out the pop and cake over full-fat yogurt, if such things concern you.

et voila!

Suggestions welcome!

Reading: Feast, by Nigella Lawson — from whence came stew/meatball recipes above.