21 Rules to Verify in My 21st Year

Good morning. Anybody else’s head hurts? No, just me then.

I know this looks quite tame in comparison to things that would otherwise make your head pound and your stomach dis-involve itself with you. But this was Saturday night. This was when the love of my life came to my door looking like the fantastic gentleman that he is, told me how beautiful I looked, and drove me downtown to a restaurant he remembered me mentioning a year ago.

The place in the photograph above isn’t it – that’s Rose Patisserie on Yonge. He took me to the Pomegranate. It was phenomenal since, as those of you who know me well, know that I’ve become enamoured with Persian cuisine as much as I have with my boyfriend over the past 3 years. My aloo gheysi was sweet and tart and delicious, and his fesenjoon was great (although his aunt makes it better). Then, we went out for dessert and I (of course) stole his delicious black tea while simultaneously forcing my majoon on the poor boy. It was too sweet though – mind, remember this.

(In fact, the only reason I’m boring you with our delectable details is due to my shitty memory, so forgive me please.)

Sunday (Bloody Sunday) is where things got messy.

Of course, it was Easter, which all in all to my family means the end of Lent. Nobody partook in lent except for my father, but we were all somehow fasting despite that.

Anyway, my parents had invited all of their friends to celebrate meat. And Jesus’ awakening or re-alivening or something. But mostly meat, as far as I (and our dinner table) was concerned. I also invited along some of my friends at random. I thought there wouldn’t be enough food to go around if I invited more, but oh, how wrong I was. I probably could have invited Canada’s army for dinner and still have had leftovers. (I don’t know whether this says more about the size of Canada’s army or our unending love of food).

The evening started out nice and humble – everyone came just late enough for my mom to finish primping (although I had my hands in a bucket’o'pork). Hello’s, how are you’s, etcetera. We poured the wine, the whiskey, the vodka. Everyone was proper nice to each other (despite the conundrum of both my friends and my parents friends and my grandfather being there at the same time), which, to be honest, I was kind of expecting. Everyone’s old enough to handle themselves by now.

Except me, obviously. I’m only 21.

But I’m a nice, mature 21. Kind of-ish. Most of the time, anyway. Ok, rarely – but I am when it counts!

The point is here that in my drunken sleep of this night past, I’ve stumbled upon a fantastic idea to document my 21st year. A re-learning process of sorts. Because I’m smart, but I’m still dumb quite often – enough to be 21 legitimately, I think.

What I’ve decided is this: over the course of the upcoming year, I’m going to write 21 little tales about the most important things that I already know, but hope to reaffirm, in the desire that this time they’ll stay learned.

I think tomorrow is a great as time as any to start with the lesson I learned last night:

You can’t outrun the lessons you’ve learned. (Alternate title: Drinking strengths and weaknesses are DNA’s fault, not yours.)

Always yours, A

PS. Paya, please don’t ever leave me to fend for myself.

PPS. Thank you everyone for last night, again – I MUST have done something right in a past life.

i’m an abusive husband

I know, bunnies, I know I’ve been absent.  Things have been somewhat busy (ie enough for me to neglect you).  I actually broke out in hives from the stress of today’s futbol match (Germany vs. Argentina), which the boyfriend and I went to watch at this uber-German bar down in Scarborough.  It was great. I fell in love with the sport a little bit more than before.  Futbol and me have had a kind of on-again-off-again relationship in the past, but this time, both our pants were down and our hands were nowhere to be seen.  It’s good, mutual-masturbatory stuff.

Apart from all of this, Canada Day has come and gone, the G20 has ended in Toronto (and the complaints continue), and a water pipe in our kitchen burst! During this catastrophe and minor (by minor, I of course mean EPIC) panic attack I made this for the family:

I am a master multitasker at the worst times.  When I should actually be doing something, the superheroine gland in my body is all like

“Fuck that, kids, there’ll be a time when shit will happen all at the same time, and then I’ll go and do it, and then I’ll stop and wait another month for anything to happen, and in the meantime I will just sit here secreting laziness from my bad-ass self.” – Bad-Ass Bitch Gland

Anywho-duns.

Isn’t this a pretty epic picture? It looks like the light is shining down on them.  (Go see it on Flickr, looks much better).  It’s because they are god-like.  Also, notice the plaid pattern repeating on sweater-shorts-sweater.  That was planned, co-ordinated, and decided WAY ahead of time.

I don’t know if you guys spend more time on the internet than I do (this is hard to believe), but uh if you don’t know about The Oatmeal yet, I feel a slight fear for you and your funny bone.  I mean, not only did I just discover it, but I stayed up late into the night reading incredible things like How the Male Angler Fish gets completely Screwed, What it’s like to Own an Apple Product, What I Remember Most about Legos, and my favourite (and what opened up my imagination and funny bone to this wonderful Oat-filled world) How Twilight Works.

I’m never going near a fruit, with all these Oats… “Causing scurvy since 1481″……

Speaking of old things! Here’s a gem that I saw last night on LivitLuvit and haven’t stopped laughing at since.

My dad resembles the first man rapping.  I love it.  Love. It.

“Yo! These greens got nothing on my MANSCAPE.”

Ohhhh yeaaaaaaah.

-Arina

PS. I should be here more often now.  I promise, I’ve changed!

blinchiki and vodka

The weather is often unpredictable. Life mirrors weather, I think.

Today’s morning was chilling and dark with lots of dreary rain falling on the lawn around our house.  Then, I started cooking blinchiki for my grandmother’s remembrance dinner and the sun came out. Probably at the time my family was at the cemetery.  This morning was awful but it improved, if slowly.

If only we had black caviar – but even a small can of red caviar goes for about $27 dollars in Canada. It’s definitely not a cheap indulgence. But delicious. Although I prefer smoked salmon.

The one thing my grandmother always loved was cooking. Good food for my family, for her friends, for strangers – anyone. She would feed them and make them feel safe with her lulling insistence.

I’m pretty sure I got some of her genes.

But time will tell.

-Arina

self-indulgence, meow meow meow

Two things:

for twitterers, you will all know that I have recently purchased a pair of beautiful boots and I am SUPER excited, even though I used my own credit card for it.  Because see, a few months ago I was a credit-less 19 year old girl.  NOW I can get into at LEAST $600 worth of debt within the month.  I don’t live as nutsily as that, because well, I wouldn’t be able to climb out of a hole that big, much less make enough money to build steps out of it in order t0 get out.

I'm pretty. Look at my laces. It's like I'm happy. But better.

See? Doesn’t that make you feel better about your day? It does me.  Also, on SALE.  Hello. I just hope they fit now.

2nd Thing: I made Spaghetti and Meatballs according to this recipe today, for my fam jam, as per usual.  It took me a lot longer than they prescribed because I kept having issues with my frying pans and because my meatballs were EPICALLY giant, they were impossible to fit into one pan, thus extending cooking time, making me frustrated, and causing a general eruption of salivating hungerness from my family.  This is illustrated below.  I also made some Brownies, which I’m not too crazy about since I usually don’t like sweet food like that, but prefer more of a myriad of quick sweet treats.  But, they’re all well and full of chocolatey/sugar content goodness.  Enough to make your heart AND your stomach hurt. And isn’t that really the point?

It would eat me if it had a face. Or a digestive system.

Overall, when I make a good dish I feel pretty satisfied with my day.  Tomorrow, studying/shopping with the boyfriend.  I’m excited, I need a few things (ie. a hundred) for spring….. and I’m kinda flush full of happy wallet things (cheese), so that’s definitely tempting.  I’m not very good at curbing my excitement for spending all of my hard-earned money.  CLOTHES.

That’s all.  That wasn’t really informative or anything important or even interesting,

but I DON’T CARE.  MY BLOG, MY RULES.

Shoes and Meatballs.

Hmm… that’s a contender to switch it up from Russian Ramblings, non?  Oui?  Comme-si comme-ca?

Also, I wish all of the wonderful people that take the time to read my posts would comment.  I know you come here! I see the page count rise and rise and rise (ok not really that much, but enough) and nobody ever says anything .  It’s like a sadder version of cyber-stalking…. like Facebook without the face.

The best thing about blogs is that you can comment on them, isn’t it? I mean, maybe my writing’s just not exciting enough, I don’t know. Or I don’t have a “writing niche”…. but I can’t! I’m interested in everything, even though that’s not always represented well here…. which is my fault, I know.  I… just.. comment…. please?

Sadface.

-Arina

thinking about food when I can’t eat

Yeah, so this is what I get for trying to help a girl out – puking, work, puking, sleep.  A co-worker (Usual Daytime Girl) of mine mentioned how she was sick on Thursday and I thought – well! Why the hell not! So I worked Thursday night, went to bed a little tired/hungry, and then woke up Friday morning only to have no car, no ride to work, and a grumbling belly.

That belly turned my banana and cereal inside out about an hour after waking, at which point my mommy phoned and said she could drop me to work.  Of course, I told her my dilemma.  I didn’t want to NOT go because I always have incredible guilt trips about letting down people that depended on me to work (plus the barlady of the Friday really wanted me to work, since she respects my mad serving skillz), but I just puked up my breakfast, and then some.  I hate the feeling of letting people down.  Seriously.  I feel like if I promise something, I better freaking come through.  My boyfriend is not of the same mindset and when I called him halfway through my shift with “Uhh.. I feel like throwing up” he just asked me why the hell I went to work in the first place.  Well, to tell you the truth I thought the banana was the culprit, and since it was now out of my system, I figured that it would all be okay.

Well, my friends. It was not.  I was groggy and nauseous all day, and if you know our bar, you know that Friday lunchtime is EPICLY busy – like you can’t turn your head without finding something else to do busy.  And then after that you get the happy hour crowd – but I didn’t manage to stick around till then.  Friday Barlady kept telling me how sick I look and on and thank goodness Friday Evening Waitress came early because I would have died if I had to stay there till 5.  I ate like 3 cracked 4 hours after work and barfed em aaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll up. Along with the charcoal that my mom made me eat to “clean my intestines”.  I wish I were kidding.  It made my puke like a deep green/black.  I totally didn’t realize why until my mom told me – I was freaking out prior to that because I thought like my entire insides had ruptured and somehow sucked in all the second-hand smoke I’d ever breathed and coloured all my organs and I was dying.

Anyway – at least I earned some serious change yesterday – when the new bar owners come into power (sounds like some sort of coup-d’etat) I hope I can convince them to give me a few day shifts in the summer so I can earn some more cash and help Day Barlady make some more green as well.  I mean – better servers make more money – and I am a better server with no more school to hinder me.

Anyway, today is rest day, which in my life means that it is time to start writing/researching for my final English essay.  Also The Boyfriend will pop by to cheer me up (although I’m pretty cheerful as is, not having thrown up my Turkey Noodle Soup sans Turkey), which will be nice.  When I told him I spent all night yesterday looking up recipes/restaurants and planning menus for the summer he, I imagined gave me a very confused plus exhasperated face, like “You’re-throwing-up-any-morcel-of-food-you-eat-and-are-still-looking-for-food-online?”  But I mean, I can’t help it.  I ate 3 FRIGGEN CRACKERS and they left the same way they came.

Nom nom nom.

No satisfaction.  Whereas the joy from my favourite Korean side, Kimchi, and the absolute thrill of making it yourself is absolutely palpable.  I also love Orzo salads…. They’re like pasta that look like rice but are fantastic when kicked up with some feta and olives. Drool.  Doesn’t it look delicious?

When I get my birthday camera I’m sooo going to start taking pictures of my food.  Since I actually cook pretty well.  And LOVE eating.

Oh, eating. I miss thou.

-Arina