Gourmet Food & Wine Expo, Toronto, ON

Gord and I went to the Food and Wine Expo tonight with Yvette and Brian. We met at the Loose Moose for supper.

Brian and Yvette 

Brian, Yvette, Gord and I

We enjoy going to the wine and food expo. There are lots of wines to sample in addition to beer, liquors, etc. 

If you haven't been, you pay $15 to get in. Then you buy sampling tickets for $1. There are hundreds of vendors to choose from. Generally samples range from one to five tickets. Though it was packed, it was fun.

The focus this year is Chile and they had their own section. 

The Chilean band was good 

Gord sampling Mojos

I ran into Boxing Babe Beata and her friends

Brian and Yvette and a couple from Newmarket they met

The most expensive bottle I saw as The Balvenie Vintage Cask (1972). It was $899 for a bottle or 30 sample tickets ($30) for a 1/2 ounce sample. Too rich for me!

At the end of the night (10:00 is closing), Gord and I still had sampling tickets left. I spent my last seven on a Chateau Leoville-Barton 1999 (the bottle sells for $110). Gord spent his 13 tickets on a Paul Jabolet La Chapelle Hermitage (bottle sells for $159). I thought they were both so-so. I'd pick a $12 bottle of merlot over them anyday!

My favourite of the night was Fresita, a Chilean sparkling wine infused with strawberries. Yum! I discovered it at the Women's Show a couple weeks ago but haven't been able to find it.

Fred Claus

I saw Fred Claus this afternoon.

Fred Claus has lived almost his entire life in his little brother's very large shadow. Fred tried but he could never live up to the example set by the younger Nicholas, who was just a perfect, well, Saint. True to form, Nicholas grew up to be the model of giving while Fred became the polar opposite: a repo man who then steals what he repossesses. Now Fred's dirty dealings have landed him in jail. Over Mrs. Claus's objections, Nicholas agrees to bail his big brother out on one condition: that he come to the North Pole and work off his debt making toys. The trouble is that Fred isn't exactly elf material and, with Christmas fast approaching, this one bad seed could jeopardize the jolliest holiday of the year. Has Fred finally pushed his little brother to the brink? This time, what Fred may have stolen is Christmas itself and it is going to take more than Rudolph to set things right.

I thought it was cute. My expectations weren't high so I was disappointed. Vince Vaughn played his usual Vince Vaughn.

I saw it at the Rainbow Cinema so it was worth the $6 ticket.

Afterwards, Gord and I met at the Upfront Bar and Grill for supper. I've walked by it a lot and always wondered what it was like. Nothing fancy and I liked it. The wings are big and hot is indeed hot. Gord's half price fish and chips was good too.

Christmas is in the air. We passed by this tree made of lights in a park on Front Street on our way to the streetcar.

Kitty humour

I saw this over at Trish's and thought it was a hoot!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMXCuW9LDps

Walk to the park

It was nice to wake up and see the sun shining after the dark rainy day we had yesterday.

KC, Nova and I walked over to Trinity Bellwood Park and back.

KC

Nova

It's a busy day in the park!

KC and Nova

He was teaching her how to fence

There are plants that KC loves to munch on at the park.
She goes insane for them! Here she in mid-snack.

Does anyone know what they are?

Life as an ENFJ

I just did the Personality Type test.

Life as an ENFJ (Extravert, Intuitive, Feeler, Judger)

People of this type tend to be: friendly, outgoing, and enthusiastic; affectionate articulate, and tactful; highly empathetic but easily hurt; creative and original; decisive and passionately opinionated, productive, organized, and responsible.

The most important thing to ENFJs is their relationships, and the opportunity to communicate and connect with others.


Great careers for ENFJs

Here are just a few popular and often satisfying careers for people whose Personality Type is ENFJ.

• Advertising account executive
• Magazine editor
• Therapist
• Career or outplacement counselor
• Corporate trainer
• Bilingual education teacher
• College professor: humanities
• Fund raiser
• TV producer
• Occupational therapist
• Holistic health practitioner
• Marketing executive
• Writer / journalist
• Social worker
• Human Resources professional

How to Love an ENFJ

• Encourage me to express my feelings and opinions.
• Share your own reactions and emotions with me.
• Tell me how much you love me and appreciate all the ways I enrich your life.
• Make the effort to really get to know and understand my philosophical nature.
• Try to keep our home orderly.
• Above all - support my feelings and work to restore harmony between us quickly.

Jung Typology Test

I just did the Jung Typology Test.


Your Type is ESFJ
Extraverted - 1%
Sensing - 1%
Feeling - 62%
Judging - 44%

ESFJ type description by D.Keirsey

ESFJ type description by J. Butt

You are:

• slightly expressed extravert
• slightly expressed sensing personality
• distinctively expressed feeling personality
• moderately expressed judging personality

Lazy kids

Something you don't see very often ... our three kids in bed.

The kitties are sleeping on laundry just out of the dryer.

Remembrance Day

On Rememberance Day 1999, singer Terry Kelly was in a drugstore in Dartmouth, NS. At 10:55am, an announcement came over the store's PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00am to give two minutes of silence in respect to the veterans who have sacrificed so much for us.

Terry was impressed with the store's leadership role in adopting the Legion's "two minutes of silence" initiative. He felt that the store's contribution of educating the public to the importance of remembering was commendable.

When 11:00 arrived, an announcement was again made asking for the "two minutes of silence" to commence. All customers, with the exception of a man who was accompanied by his young child, showed their respect.

Terry's anger towards the father for trying to engage the store's clerk in conversation and for setting a bad example for his child was later channeled into "A Pittance of Time". Terry later recorded it included it on his full-length music CD, "The Power of the Dream".

A Pittance in Time - Terry Kelly


Terry Kelly - Pittance of Time

Chris Frolic's Hilarious Night of Hypnotism, Sticky Fingers, Toronto, ON

Gord and I saw hypnotist, Chris Frolic tonight. It was a Single Horizons event. We saw him this time last year and he was just as funny!

Chris explaining what was going to happen and asking for volunteers.

Out of twelve volunteers, seven were able to be hypnotised.

They were told that they were on a beach and they were enjoying the heat.

Then they were given ice cones with their favourite flavour of ice cream and it was melting down their hands.

Then it got freezing cold and they had to keep warm! Brrrr! The second guy to the right snapped out of it at this point.

They just won a new car and were driving it.

He had them do lots more stuff. Great fun for the audience to watch!

Book ~ "The Song of Kahunsha" - Anosh Irani (2007)

From Goodreads ~ Abandoned as an infant, ten-year-old Chamdi has spent his entire life in a Bombay orphanage. There he has learned to find solace in his everyday surroundings: the smell of the first rains, the vibrant pinks and reds of the bougainvilleas that blossom in the courtyard, the life-size statue of Jesus, the "beautiful giant," to whom he confides his hopes and fears in the prayer room. Though he rarely ventures outside the orphanage, he entertains an idyllic fantasy of what the city is like – a paradise he calls Kahunsha, "the city of no sadness," where children play cricket in the streets and where people will become one with all the colours known to man.

Chamdi’s quiet life takes a sudden turn, however, when he learns that the orphanage will be shut down by land developers. He decides that he must run away in search of his long-lost father, taking nothing with him but the blood-stained white cloth he was left in as a baby.

Outside the walls of the orphanage, Chamdi quickly discovers that Bombay is nothing like Kahunsha. The streets are filthy and devoid of colour, and no one shows him an ounce of kindness. Just as he’s about to faint from hunger, two seasoned street children offer help: the lovely, sarcastic Guddi and her brother, the charming, scarred, and crippled Sumdi. After their father was crushed by a car before their eyes, the children were left to care for their insane mother and their infant brother. They soon initiate Chamdi into the brutal life of the city’s homeless, begging all day and handing over most of his earnings to Anand Bhai, a vicious underworld don who will happily mutilate or kill whoever dares to defy him.

Determined to escape the desperation, filth, and violence of their lives, Guddi and Sumdi recruit Chamdi into their plot to steal from a temple. But when the robbery goes terribly awry, Chamdi finds himself in an even worse situation. The city has erupted in Hindu-Muslim violence and, held in Anand Bhai’s fierce grip, Chamdi is presented with a choice that threatens to rob him of his innocence forever.

Excellent book! I wasn't expecting to enjoy it but I got pulled into the story right away. Set in 1993, it is told through Chamdi's ten-year-old naive and sheltered eyes.

They're baaaaaaaaaack!

We live near Dufflet Bakery.

There used to be a used car lot behind the bakery ... where a couple of wild cats and a bunch of kittens lived. People in the neighbourhood would leave food for the kitties ... but you couldn't get close to them.

The car lot disappeared about two years ago. And so did the old junk cars. And the cats.

I was walking by today and noticed that there were two cats in the yard ... looking very warily at me. One took off but I managed to get a picture of one with my phone.
And I noticed that someone is feeding them again.

Lazy kids

Can life get any better for Byron, KC and Morgan!?

"Mid-Life!", Stage West, Toronto, ON

Gord and I saw Mid-Life: The Crisis Musical at Stage West this afternoon.

Three men and three women make up the cast of this wacky musical that takes a comic look at the “age old” conditions and situations faced in MID-LIFE! From reading glasses and mammograms to weekend warriors and proctology exams - all are lampooned with a Saturday Night Live non-sensibility. Everyone will relate to this hilarious and, at times, touching musical about the curiosities and inevitabilities of middle-age. If you bought some Gingko-Biloba but can’t remember where you put it - then you’re ready for MID-LIFE!

I enjoyed it, though Gord didn't. It's a musical made up of a bunch of skits (he prefers "stories").

There were lot more older people in the audience because of some bus tours and the buffet lines were slower (no offense to older people!).

Kitty facts

Did you know that a group of cats is called a clowder?

And a group of kittens is called a kindle?

Click here for some more cat trivia.

Halloween night

Gord and I are those nasty people who never stay home for Halloween. Trick or treaters ringing the doorbell just get KC barking and freaks Morgan out.

We met for supper at Tortilla Flats.

Then we saw a play called A Good Idea (In Theory) at the Theatre Passe Muraille. It's written by Emma Roberts, one of the trainers at the gym we go to.

It's the first time we'd seen a play there. It was in a cozy theatre called the Back Space.

Before the play starts, there is a singer on the stage. A CD of the singers involved is included in the cost of the play ($25).

Families can be pretty strange, but you'd have to search long and hard to find a bunch as weird as this lot. The patriarch is the inflexible Otto, who has written a once-influential political manifesto and who still rules the island commune that he set up years ago with his wife and a couple of like-minded friends. One daughter, the wispy Tricia, lives in a tree and hasn't been off the island since she was a kid. Elder sister, Juliette, is tough, works and drinks hard, and makes a habit of sleeping with supermarket security guards. Then in wanders the suicidal Blake who used to live on the island with his parents.

Yes, a strange story but it was good. Especially good were the actors playing Otto and Tricia.

Book ~ "When All You Have is Hope" - Frank O'Dea (2007)

From Chapters.Indigo.ca ~ For entrepreneur Frank O’Dea, it was a long road from street life to the high life. Born in Montreal to an upper-middle-class family, Frank’s life took a downturn as a young man when he was sexually assaulted by a priest. He began drinking at an early age, smashing up 17 cars. Soon he was destitute, living in degradation on the streets of Toronto. By way of a sympathetic employer and the Salvation Army, O’Dea quit drinking and started a small business that developed into the Second Cup coffee chain. Over the years, his philanthropic activities extended to AIDS fundraising, child literacy in the Third World, and landmine removal. His message is simple: HOPE, VISION, ACTION.

Interesting and honest story of how O'Dea realized he had to straighten out. He then went on to achieve so much. It's a quick read and not too heavy.

Ducts cleaning

We had our dryer vent cleaned today ... all the units in our condo corporation are getting them done. It should help to prevent a fire.

I had to jam the boys into their carriers (which didn't please them one bit!). We went upstairs to hang in Grant and Jasmine's while our place was being done. When it was Grant and Jasmine's turn, I took Nova to our place. The noise would have scared the animals.

The van with the huge vacuum:

Ion, our superintendent, was supervising:

Book ~ "Lullabies for Little Criminals" - Heather O'Neill (2007)

From Amazon.com ~In her debut novel, O'Neill offers a narrator, Baby, coming of age in Montreal just before her 12th birthday. Her mother is long dead. Her father, Jules, is a junkie who shuttles her from crumbling hotels to rotting apartments, his short-term work or moneymaking schemes always undermined by his rage and paranoia. Baby tries to screen out the bad parts by hanging out at the community center and in other kids' apartments, by focusing on school when she can and by taking mushrooms and the like. Stints in foster care, family services and juvenile detention usually end in Jules's return and his increasingly erratic behavior. Baby's intelligence and self-awareness can't protect her from parental and kid-on-kid violence, or from the seductive power of being desired by Alphonse, a charismatic predator, on the one hand, and by Xavier, an idealistic classmate, on the other. When her lives collide, Baby faces choices she is not equipped to make.

Very powerful novel. I'd definitely recommend it!

Liberty Village Farmers' Market, Toronto, ON

KC and I went for our long morning walk and Gord came along.

We walked to the Liberty Village Farmers' Market, just south of us. Gord bought some buffalo pepperoni sticks.

Then we carried on and did a big loop back to our 'hood.

It was a brisk refreshing walk. The temperature is 8C but there feels like a wind chill.

Supper with Grant, Jasmine and Nova

Grant, Jasmine and Nova are our neighbours upstairs. They invited us for supper tonight. KC came along too.

Supper was delicious! Ribs, mashed potatoes and parsnips (Gord and I aren't veggie fans so passed on them) ... and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. Yum!

Grant, Jasmine and Gord (and Nova under the table)

KC, Gord and Nova

Jasmine is taking knitting classes

and is making a gorgeous scarf

KC, Gord, Nova and Grant

Jasmine and Nova

Byron was waiting up for us when we got home ...
looks like we missed our curfew!