It bugs me when restaurants offer vegetarian options on their menu with crazy vegetables in them.  It’s like they assume that just because someone is a vegetarian, they automatically like vegetables that most meat eaters wouldn’t touch, like eggplant and lima beans and okra.   Heck, I don’t even particularly like carrots.

This rant is brought on by the fact that we recently went to the Baby Show here in Ottawa where several baby-related companies had displays, and one of them was this awesome catering service that comes to your home with bags of groceries, and either uses your kitchen to prepare a week’s worth of meals for your freezer, or they leave the groceries with recipes for you to prepare yourself.  I got pretty excited because and I are terrible cooks and totally uninterested in using our kitchen under normal circumstances, let alone when we’ve each had 5 hours of sleep in 1-hour intervals.  But sadly, the company’s selection of vegetarian dishes (which is actually quite extensive — at least 10 main courses) all involve crazy vegetables that I wouldn’t touch unless, possibly, smothered in high-fat ice cream.  I don’t want an eggplant and lima bean casserole.  I just want some gnocchi and tomato sauce.

Is it too much for a picky vegetarian to ask?

I thought that I ate a lot when I was pregnant, but the nursing woman’s hunger really does know no bounds. Here’s what I’ve been having for breakfast this past week, since The First Lady was born:

• two waffles
• bowl of instant oatmeal
• cup of yogurt
• banana
• glass of milk
• glass of apple juice

And then I’m usually ready for a snack by mid-morning. Sheesh!

For the past few months on CBC’s radio two, Jian Ghomeshi has been doing this cool show called “50 Essential Tracks.” He went decade by decade through the 1900s, and with a “panel of experts,” chose five “essential” musical tracks from each decade. 

After the 50 tracks were nominated, listeners were invited to call in and either nominate their own selections, or vote on the existing list. Last weekend they did a “countdown” where they took the 50 tracks (including some nominated by callers) and put them in order from, I guess, least-essential-essential-track to most-essential-essential track.

The most interesting part about the list was listening to the shows where they picked the tracks for each decade. The experts talked about each selection and why it was important to the history of music in the past century, and what it was about the song that made and impact on other musicians. It definitely helped to have some of the stranger selections put into context.

In any case, I thought you might be interested in seeing the final list and commenting on what you think is missing. Here’s the nomination/panel-of-experts list, and here is the ordered countdown list.

Some of the phone calls they got regarding the list were quite hilarious. My personal favourite was a guy who called in to say that his track list would never include a “totally unheard of, bogus band” like Joy Division. Hee! The host, Jian, said that women in general called in to say stuff like, “interesting list, here’s another idea,” while men called in to say stuff like, “if you don’t put Bruce Springsteen on the list RIGHT NOW, I will THROW MY RADIO IN THE LAKE.”

Anyway, enjoy the list and make your own nominations!

So we’re moving in about eight weeks to a brand new house on a brand new street, and I’ve been thinking about filling out our mail forwarding information (which has to be done at least two weeks in advance of moving). But to fill out your forwarding form, you need the full address of your new place, and I don’t know our new postal code. I looked it up online at Canada Post but the street does not exist in their online database. However, three families moved in on the street this week, so I’m sure it must have an assigned postal code by now.

So today I went to the post office outlet at the mall and asked them how I could find out my postal code. And the lady behind the counter said, “We can’t help you find your postal code; we don’t do that sort of thing.” And I said, “Um, you are the post office, if you don’t know my postal code, who does?” And she said, “I wouldn’t have any idea who you would ask. If it isn’t in our book, then I can’t help you.” I asked her who, if not the post office, assigns postal codes, and she didn’t know. I asked her if it would be our builder, or maybe the city, but she couldn’t help me.

Can you believe that? Man, I love it when I find someone who loves their job, and goes the extra mile to help out the customer. Good job, lady.

This Saturday morning I was on the phone with and looking casually out my back window when I actually saw a deer in our backyard. A deer! It turned out there were two of them, casually roaming around and eating the flowers out of our neighbour’s flower bed. There’s something you don’t see every day.

Sir Monkeypants was smart enough to run and get the camera. It’s amazing how a little wildlife can still dazzle us.

I try hard not to gush too much about Captain Jelly Belly in this journal. I never wanted to be one of those people who has a kid, then tries to tell everyone else how awesome it is and how they just have to have one too, because I wasn’t sure myself for years that I wanted kids, and I totally understand people who decide that it’s not for them, and that’s a-okay with me. But the truth is, having the Captain around really is awesome. He’s changed our lives in dozens of ways and so far, it’s all been for the better. Sure, we can’t see movies in the theatre any more and there’s a constant haze of worry going on all the time. But the life changes were worth it for us.

This weekend I went to get my haircut, and just as my hairdresser was starting his cell phone rang and he answered it because it was his 7-year-old son. His son was calling because his dad had removed a necklace from around his neck in the night, and the son was totally amazed that he didn’t feel a thing, and also wanted to tell his dad that he rocked because he wouldn’t have wanted the necklace to be broken. I could hear the boy exclaiming over the phone and it was so adorable, and I thought how nice it was that he wanted to call his dad in the first place, and how nice that his dad took his call and listened patiently. And then I was amazed to think that just a few years ago, I would have been thinking something more along the lines of, “Hey, dude, put down the phone and do your job, I’m not paying you to take calls from some kid.” Now, I think things more like, “I can’t wait until the Captain is old enough to call at work and tell him about the cool rock he found on the playground.”

Now that we only have three weeks to go until George Foreman Jatania II is born, I’m feeling a little less scared about how it’s all going to work, and a little more excited to think that we’ll actually get to have another one of these cool things they call babies at our place. It’s going to be great.

Last night on CBC’s Olympic coverage, Brian Williams was complaining about the lack of audience in the stands at the women’s gymnastics, traditionally a big draw sport. He said that some people think that the problem with attendence at these games is the fact that Greece is a small country, but he feels that the problem is that the Summer Olympics are bloated — they have way too many sports and need to be pruned. I must admit that after a few days of watching stuff like synchronized diving and archery, it seems like there are quite a few obscure sports that no one really cares about. On the other hand, some kids out there might really adore archery, and there’s no other time in any other year when stuff like that gets TV coverage. I think the publicity for the lesser sports during the Olympics is invaluable for keeping those sports alive.

Although, I guess you could argue that if they got dropped from the Olympics, they could just die out and no one would care, anyway.

I think if they want to do some pruning, maybe they could elminate some swimming events. If one guy (that American swimmer) can swim in 8 freakin’ events, then I say, the physical talents required to excel in those 8 different events aren’t different enough to require a whole separate event. Every time they cut to the pool there’s some other slightly different variation on length, stroke, or relay — it’s endless.

What do you think — too many sports at the Olympics?

I read an interesting article in the paper this weekend about re-reading books. It said that re-reading a favourite is worth it, because you’re a different person now than when you first read it (due to being older and having more experience), and so you’re likely to see new things in it. I heartily agree with this position and I’ve re-read many of my books. Each time I’m surprised at how differently I react to the material. Sometimes it’s for the worse — I re-read Catcher In The Rye a couple of years ago, and while I thought it was pure genius in high school, this time around I found it pompous and annoying. A result of no longer being a teenager, I think.

Anyway, my point here is that I don’t have the same reaction to music. When I listen to music I’ve heard many times before, it takes me back to that era. I remember when I first heard it, what I was doing, what age I was. Rather than re-interpreting the songs, I find I re-live the same reaction again. That’s good too, but I find it interesting that my reactions to music are totally different than to books.

With movies, it’s about 50-50. Some films (like Star Wars) I like to watch for the nostalgia factor — they remind me of a specific time and place. Other films, like Casablanca, I’ve seen many times and each time I think something different or new about it.

What do you get out of re-watching/re-reading/re-listening?

Music
What is the greatest album of all time?	A Happy Pocket, The Trash Can Sinatras
What is the first record you ever bought?	45 – Video Killed The Radio Star, The Buggles; LP – She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper
What’s your favourite one-hit wonder?	Life In a Northern Town, The Dream Academy
What is the worst song of all time?	Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone, Glass Tiger
Which band/artist rocks your world?	The Trash Can Sinatras
Which band/artist would you like to leave your world?	50 Cent, Nelly, and many other rap artists
What is the best Beatles song?	Penny Lane
What is the best Rolling Stones song?	Ruby Tuesday
What is the best Madonna song?	Material Girl
What song makes you wanna get up and dance?	In Between Days, The Cure
What is the most romantic love song?	Rosy and Grey, Lowest of the Low
What is the best make out song/album?	Disintegration, The Cure
What 2 artists should collaborate?	Sarah McLaughlin and Bjork
Download MP3s or buy CDs?	Download — these days, I’m always looking for old, obscure stuff for The Captain and you can find anything online
What song/album is your “guilty pleasure”?	The Carpenters Greatest Hits
What is the best concert you’ve seen?	They Might Be Giants — all three times; also Madonna in Madison Square Garden, NYC
Who would you like to see in concert?	The Trash Can Sinatras, again
What song of this summer are you already sick of?	Hm…don’t hear too many overplayed hits on the CBC!
What band can’t you believe are so darn popular?	Justin Timberlake
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Lately when not listening to the CBC I’ve started listening to a couple of local radio stations that play a lot of 80s hit music. This is my prime era — the late 80s were my high school years — so I should be all nostalgic about this music, I think. But I’m amazed to find, instead, that a heck of a lot of 80s music is really crappy. It’s so formulaic — every song sounds the same, with a synthesized beat, doctored vocals, standard verse-bridge-chorus structure. There’s band after band that had just one or two hits and seem to have no talent, other than looking good in cool outfits in videos. Was no one doing anything interesting, unique, or new in the 80s?

I hear a lot of complaints about the 70s but really, I think there was still lots of interesting new music and experimentation going on then. 80s music is just one generic song after another. Other than bands considered “alternative” at the time (I still like The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, and the like), I can barely stand to even listen to the crap that passed for actual hits at the time.

It makes me wonder about today’s radio — 20 years from now, will we hear “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears and be embarrassed that it was a major hit? Maybe pop music really is dead.