A Great (and Scary) Article

My friend posted a link to this on Facebook and I had to share. So worth your while to read. Great, great piece of investigative journalism, and something to consider before you take your next prescription pill:

"Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas—on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese—in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn’t reach, and “mistakes” can end up in pauper’s graves? The authors investigate the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. Government’s failure to rein in a lethal profit machine."

Read it all here.

Good News Everybody! (She said with a sarcastic laugh)

Guess what! Canadians are fatter and less fit now than we were 20 years ago... I think we all already knew this, but now we have a study to back us up. The Stats Can Survey, which is the first one completed since 1981, shows that almost two-thirds of adults and one-quarter of children in Canada are overweight.
These are scary numbers people. Scary numbers that wouldn't happen in poorer countries because they have so much less to eat. But it makes me wonder. I watched this clip for a documentary called FoodMatters, and one of the guys in it said, "a quarter of what you eat keeps you alive and three-quarters of what you eat keeps your doctor alive". I really do think that as a society, we've lost sight of the reason we eat. We've made food more a social thing or an emotional thing, and so much less something we do to nourish our bodies. So far, I've been making good on my new year's resolutions about food and exercise: I just got back from the gym; I haven't put a single bite of anything made with processed sugar or flour in my mouth since Jan 3rd. My plan is to keep this up for at least a month and then revisit - but the crazy thing is that, even though it seemed like it would be impossible to eat this way before I started, it's really not that hard. Habits just need changing is all, and I think we as country need to make those changes. And soon.
p.s. I've bought Food Inc. Now I just need to find the time to watch it.

New Years Resolutions

I write New Years Resolutions the way I dream, throwing in a variety of plans and hopes, from the immediate and practical to the out-there and wishful. So... let me try to write some things I can actually accomplish, just to keep myself from getting discouraged, and then let me write somethings that are less likely to keep it interesting and more motivating, and then - just for the heck of it - I'll add some thing(s) that are more 'Life Resolution' than 'New Years Resolution', just to remind me that I still want to get to them at some point.

1. Read a Tariq Ramadan book or two. This man is a genius and I just heard him speak at a conference last week. He has such great ideas and is so good at articulating them that I'm constantly buying his books with the intention to read them, but I have a hard time with long non-fiction books (articles -good, books - not so good) and they're quite academic at the start that I can't get past that. But I must this year. Even if I start in the middle of one of the books to get over the dreaded "first chapter curse", I'll do it.
2. Write more. My good friend Jen over at UticaAvenue and my sister and I have started a little "weekly writing circle" virtually, seeing as we're all in different locations. It's a start, but I need to dedicate more time to writing. I actually would like to start submitting writing to magazines and journals and see what happens. This is my realistic goal...
3. My unrealistic one? Write a novel/novella... I've tried this before but it's never amounted to anything. I think I can do it, with more time and focus, neither of which I currently have. Still, I would love to walk into a store one day and see my name on something. Ultimate dream.
4. Exercise more, eat better. This one is on-going and needs constant reminding. Working on it. This entire month is going to be an exercise in conscious, healthier eating. Will keep you posted.
5. Stay in touch with family/friends who aren't living nearby. I am really really awful at this, as all my friends/family who aren't in Montreal know. Case in point: my friends in Ottawa thought we'd be seeing each other constantly the whole year and a half I was commuting and living there 2 nights a week. I saw a few of them once or twice. That was it.
6. Join a community garden - another far-away one. there are so few gardens with so few spaces that even if I got on a waiting list now, it would take 3 or 4 years before I was actually allotted a spot, so next best thing....
7. Start buying organic. This one IS doable, and I hope to be doing it soon. The more reading I do about this, the more convinced I am that our food system is so messed up, and so tied in with disease, not to mention water wastage, fossil fuels, carbon emissions, that it's worth changing my personal approach to it.
8. Bike to work in the summer. If you live anywhere in Eastern Canada, you know that it's not very easy to bike in the winter. I could do it if I really tried, but it involves a LOT of risk with the way drivers in this city drive, along with the snow and ice and all. But now that I'm living so close to my office, it should be doable when the snow is gone.

and that's what I'd like to do, this month, this year, this life...

If you're reading this...

you're very lucky. Just like I am for being able to write it.
In the spirit of American Thanksgiving (I know: I'm fiercely, proudly Canadian, but I have a lot of American friends, so I was very aware of their recent holiday) and of living with gratitude in general, I thought I'd share a recent thought. First, to give you the background:
Last week, I had a little "procedure" done to remove a chelazion (basically a cyst from a non-draining oil-gland) off my eyelid. The whole procedure took less than 10 minutes and was done right at the clinic I went to. Very very simple. All I had to do was ice it for the next two days, and put in ointment to help it heal.
So, there I was after the surgery, lying on my couch, trying to decide what to do with my sudden free time. I thought about watching tv, but it was super hard to do with an ice pack over one eye. Same with surfing the internet or reading a book. Even without the ice pack, my eye tired very easily and didn't want to do a lot of work. In the end, I napped and listened to the radio, but it got me thinking. I can see. and the fact that I can see gives me access to so many things I have come to rely on as basic in my life, things I didn't know what to do without for 48 hours. Take it one step further. Not only could I see, I had access to a computer and internet.
I'm not sure what percentage of the world's population has internet at home, but it can't be the majority of us - not even close. Some of us don't even have running water.
So yes, if you're reading this, you likely have running water, and access to medicine, and you can see. I have all three of these things and many many others that I take for granted. And for all of this, I am grateful.
Happy thanksgiving - or as my friend Jenny calls it - Happy Gratitude Day.

A post about coffee (which I've been meaning to write for weeks)

You will not believe this... Not if you've read my previous mentions of my coffee addiction, including my complete failures the last two Ramadans to not drink it before starting to fast. Are you ready? Drumroll.............

I QUIT! I, Noha Beshir, professed coffee addict of over 10 years, lover of the Second Cup Paradiso blend, the Timothy's Vanilla Soy Latte, and the regular old Large Timmy's with one milk, have not had a coffee in over three weeks. And, the coffee I consumed three weeks ago was simply due to the fact that I was a counsellor at youth camp, chasing around many lovely, high strung teenage girls on less than 2 hours of sleep for the second day in a row. Before that, I had gone two weeks without coffee as well.
I won't lie: the first 5 days of non-coffee drinking were brutal. Headaches, exhaustion, all that good stuff. But now, I'm smooth sailing. When I'm tired, I try to sleep instead of caffeinating, and I think I'm generally a (slightly) less bubbly person. But yeah: Noha, without coffee. Whoda thunk it, eh?

Well, at least now I have a new record to break for next time...

I broke. At 2 a.m. this morning, despite trying to satisfy my sweet-tooth craving with raisins and walnuts and repeatedly telling myself to just go to sleep Noha. Nothing good can come of this, I opened the freezer and reached for - gasp! - the cookies and cream ice cream. It wasn't a rash decision. My mind knew full well what my hands were doing. I even stopped to calculate how far I'd gotten, to decide if the number of consecutive allergy-free days was respectable enough to break now, or if I should hold off a little longer. 49 days. Respectable. I had the cookies and cream ice cream. I had some chocolate fudge brownie ice cream too, for good measure. And then, only then, did I finally go to sleep.
I won't lie. They tasted positively divine, but if I was expecting harps playing in the background, or the sensation of being carried off to some dessert-flavoured, chocolate-based, culinary heaven, it didn't happen. Things you can't have always seem soooooooooooooooooo much better than what you can.
I woke up with a stomach-ache this morning, but I suppose I earned it. I've also decided that today is a day off. A day to allow myself to indulge in whatever else so that tomorrow, when I start again, I'm not already craving things. I've basically decided that I'm failing today to succeed later. Twisted logic? Maybe. An excuse to stuff myself with anything and everything today? Also maybe. But a funny thing is happening so far: I've had a slice of cheesecake that was in the fridge, left over from a visit we had on Friday, and nothing else. I've been down to press cafe, and looked at the brownies and cupcakes, felt nothing, and ordered my usual coffee. I think I'll end up getting something else, something gooey and chewy and wheat-based, and chocolatey-sweet, before the day is over. But if I don't, it'll be okay because I know how to make the wheat-free, dairy-free, processed-sugar-free version from scratch now. And tomorrow I'll start over. And while last time, my goal was to go as long as I could, this time, I'll have a number in mind. I want to get to 50 days of allergy-free food. At least. 50 days and beyond. Far, far beyond.

Happy Earth Day

M and I watched An Inconvenient Truth last weekend. Wow. Depressing. Important. Scary. Effective.
In honour of Earth Day, I suggest everyone watches it. And then act on that fear. We had already switched most of our light bulbs to the EFC bulbs, but now we're going to switch the rest. And buy green cleaning products. and wash with cold water. and install low-flow aerators on our faucets. We have no car and we bike/walk a lot, so we feel okay on the transportation front.
I encourage everyone to ask themselves what they can do.

Zen and the Art of Sitting Still

Okay, so the truth is that this post has nothing to do with Zen, but I can't think of a sentence that includes "the art of" and not start it with "Zen". It's the tail end of flu season here in the wonderful Ontario/Quebec region of Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal. I include all three areas because M and I were in TO for a fabulous long weekend last week hanging out with my awesomely extended family, but towards the end of the weekend, I caught some sort of lovely bug. At first, I couldn't figure out what I had, but as Sunday rolled into Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday), I felt like I was running the slightest fever, followed by general icky-ness, sore-throatedness, congestion, headaches, you name it.
Everything was unpleasant enough to make me a general grouch, but not enough to keep me at home sick. By Thursday afternoon, I thought I was back on the upswing, and had high hopes for a long bike ride in Montreal on Friday after work. Not so: Friday, I crashed and burned. My body had had enough. Sleep! it screamed at me. Sit still. and so I did, for basically the whole day. and then M came home from work and made me a cup of peppermint tea and we watched a movie and then I slept more.
I got up this morning at 10 a.m. feeling like a new person. Energy? For reals? and I was so pleased with it. So pleased I felt I needed to load the dishwasher, and pull out the dustbuster, and gather a few other things that were here and there and needed doing. And then M asked me, ever so thoughtfully to please.just.sit.still.
Hmmmm, good point. The man is on to something. See, I'm obsessed with multi-tasking. I can't just ever be watching the hockey game or writing a blog post. I do both at the same time (like, right now... the Habs are down 2-0. Not pleased. Trying to stay on topic). I can't cook one meal at a time. I usually put 3 things on the stove together, or I cook while I'm on the phone. Read and/or write and/or eat on the commuter bus. Same for the OC transpo bus when I'm in Ottawa. Even at work, I rarely have one window open at a time. I like to switch between 3 or 4 tasks so I don't get bored. I find I get more done this way, except....
Except when I'm sick. Then I'm supposed to sit still. Right? Right. It actually took about 3 hours yesterday to settle back down and get into bed. I kept not being able to stay still long enough to go to sleep, even though my body was exhausted and my eyes were drooping. And today, the second the energy was back, it was like I couldn't possibly read a book or watch something.
Productivity is good, but I think I need to settle down and read my body's signals. Relax. I sat still to write this post for the last 30 minutes, so there's improvement there, right?
Oh, and the score is still 2-0.

Eat Green, Be Green

Everyone knows I like me some meat, but I also think that there is something to be said for our meat consumption in North America, and the effects it has on our health and our environment. I found this article on the topic absolutely fascinating.
My bottom line after reading something like this? Everything in moderation. Factory farming is nasty, not to mention cruel, and the ugly truth is that, without it, we would never be able to consume as much meat as we do today. To my mind, the way nature intended it, meat is meant to be eaten, but not with the frequency we eat it.
Do I have the self control to cut it down to the levels I think are ideal? Probably not, but I think the article points out that even small changes could make a big difference.
Good night. I'm off to eat my lentil soup.

A Word About Will Power

I'm on day 14 of my sugar-free, wheat-free, dairy-free diet. This week I endured

• a friend's baby shower at work, where home baked cake, breaded chicken wings, and a traditional kosovar bread-roll of some sort were being served - on Wednesday
• the left-overs of said baby shower on Thursday, and
• a benefit event to raise money for Palestine - where the food being sold came in the form of sandwiches, tarts and butter rolls, and brownies, on Friday

Today, I subjected myself to cake-baking. No one told me to make the cake, I just really wanted to make it. For the first time in probably my life, I didn't lick the left over batter off the pan. Instead, I made a second batch of cake for myself where I replaced the wheat flour with Kamut flour, the milk with almond milk, and the sugar with stevia (big mistake about the stevia, horrible aftertaste, but now I know to use honey for next time)...
I haven't cheated yet. I think what stops me is that I've made it all so public. If I broke down now, I'd have to tell you all. I'd have to post it to Facebook. I'd have to start counting at 1 again. If I only had myself to tell, I would have broken down at least 5 or 6 times by now. I'm sure of this because I've made the "no more allergens" promise to myself countless times before. I've typically made it to mid-morning of the same day the promise is made; on the days my will power has been phenomenal, I've made it to just before bed time. But in the end, I've always caved.
I like to think this isn't just my lack of will power, but how humans work in general. We need to own up to someone or we cave. I've figured out what makes me tick, what motivates me. I know I'll break sooner or later, but my plan right now is to go on for as long as I can. And when I break, my plan is to announce it, lick my wounds, and start over. It's worth it. I feel so much healthier. And it's easier every day.

7 Days Done

So I told you about the 7 day challenge I gave myself last week to avoid wheat, sugar, and dairy products. Well, I'm happy to report that I'm now on Day 8!
In total honesty, I didn't really think I'd get this far. Sure, I might have been able to make it on the weekend, or on my first Monday, when I was working from home, but on Tuesday, I was back in the Ottawa office, with the pharma plus, in all its Toblerone-selling glory, and the Marcello's, with its rice pudding and nanaimo bars and apple fritters and chocolate chip muffins. Well, at 2 p.m., as the afternoon yawning came in, I went down and got a coffee and some celery sticks. Yup, celery sticks...
Wednesday and Thursday were similar. On Friday, I spent most of the day in the Montreal office, and had to walk by the best bakery ever 5 times, without buying anything I couldn't eat. I discovered that the Pharma Prix sells almond and date bars in the back of the store. I checked the ingredients. I bought two. They were yummy, if overpriced, but they helped me get through the day...
7 days may sound like not a big deal, but before I started this, I was eating "allergy food" nearly every day, often more than once a day, so I'm really, really relieved to have gotten this far...
Oatmeal is one of my best friends when I'm craving dessert. Put some dates or berries in it, sprinkle a little cinnamon or cocoa on top, and it's gooey like something baked would be, and just sweet enough.
My next goal is to hit next Sunday. If I get there, that's 14 days. I'll keep you posted.

The Crazy Subliminal Cucumber Post

Cucumber would have to be one of those vegetables I rarely eat. It's good in salads, but M's not a fan, and when I buy them they end up going bad before I get through the small package of 4 or the one massive one. Plus, you can't cook cucumbers, so you can't salvage the slowly wilting veggie by slicing and dicing and throwing it in a pot, right?
Well, it would seem that cucumber is subliminally trying to convince both myself and a friend of mine that it can indeed be cooked or baked. The evidence:
Situation A
Last week, I was describing to my mom the vegetable soup I was planning to make as part of dinner for a little dinner party M and I were having on Friday night (random note: I ended up making cream of mushroom soup. M made the most divine chicken. No one could believe he'd cooked it. We have left overs. I'm in heaven.) So, as I'm describing the soup, I say it has diced onions, celery, cucumbers, only I'm saying all of this in Arabic, and my mom goes "Wha?? Cucumbers? WHY are you putting cucumbers in your soup?"
To which I respond, "I always put cucumbers in my soup. I got it from you. YOU always put cucumbers in your soup" and she shakes her head profusely and we continue to have this debate for 5 minutes before my little sis says "I thought M didn't like cucumbers?"
I start to answer that "no, no, M doesn't like.... oh, wait, M doesn't like cucumbers". At which point I realise that I've been saying cucumber all along when I meant to be saying carrot. Cucumber in soup jokes ensue for the remainder of the evening.

Situation B
I have been eating everything on my allergy list with complete abandon on and off for about 2 months and I have decided to put an end to it with a 7-day no wheat, no dairy, no sugar challenge to myself. For moral support, and to hold myself accountable, I posted this to my status on facebook and my friends have been very good in cheering me on. So much so that one of them offered me her "cucumber cookie" recipe.... Now, having just had this cucumbers-don't-cook conversation with my sis and mother, I am very skeptical, and ask her what on earth this could possibly be. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking there's a teensy possibility that a cucumber cookie does in fact exist in some alternate raw food vegan universe, but I'm just doubtful that my friend belongs to this universe. Well, ta-dah! I'm right. Friend meant zucchini cookie. She sent the recipe too. it looks divine, but it has butter, sugar, and wheat flour... I could substitute. I might give an alternate version of the recipe a try. if I do, and it's edible. I will post.

So there you have it folks. Cucumbers are feeling the heat (or they aren't and badly want to be... hardy-har-har).

Throat and Sinuses 1, Noha 0

So it turns out that that annoying sore throat was really just building up the energy to launch a full-blown offensive. I am on my second cup of "gollum juice" today, and third in the last 24 hours. It's slowly doing it's work...
I also tried to upload my little angela's piece of art, but my computer and cell phone (on which the picture currently resides) seem to have gotten into a fight and aren't talking to each other... The picture will come soon, I promise. I would hate to rob you all of her genius abstract work. (I say abstract because none of us would have been able to figure out that the circles were a boat, but they are, they are!)

100 Random Things About Noha

Inspired by COTW's list, which was apparently inspired by someone else's list, here is my own list of 100 random things about me.

1. I love parentheses. They were created for people like me who can't finish a though without launching into a second (and third) tangential thought.
2. Nested parentheses are even better
3. Sometimes I wish I had was a starving artist and the whole world read my writing and thought it was beautiful, instead of a gainfully employed civil servant working in IT
4. Most of the time, my practical side wins out and I am happy to have more than 1/2 a month's rent in my bank account, or be subsisting on beets. It's a romantic notion, but I'm actually not that romantic a person
5. I now love certain foods I was completely indifferent towards in my childhood (exhibit a: the date)
6. Though I fancy myself a creative person, I have very few original ideas. Most of what I say was read/heard/seen elsewhere first
7. I don't think this contradicts being creative
8. Songs are really just poems set to a tune. The ones with beautiful words can make me cry
9. I used to be afraid of daddy long legs.
10. I am still afraid of centipedes
11. I have a tendency to be very silly
12. I hate serious confrontation. It literally makes me sick to my stomach
13. My favourite people in the world are my family (hubby, parents, sisters, and all their kids, hubbies, families, etc.). We're close in ways most people I know find unreal.
14. When I was little, I could get so engrossed in books that two of my sister's could stand over me, insulting my favourite hockey player at the top of their lungs, and I wouldn't even hear them
15. Said player would be Doug Gilmour
16. There are teachers who I will never ever forget for how much they contributed to my childhood and by extension, my personality: Mr. Falls (6th grade), Mr. Knox (9th grade science), Mr. Fitzpatrick (9th to 11th grade lit), Mrs. Alexander (high school chemistry). I truly respect and admire these people, and if I knew where they were, I would walk up to them with a box of chocolate and say thank you.
17. I read Quran really well, but have a bit of difficulty reading regular Arabic, because the writers usually don't include the accents.
18. Strangers in Egypt can usually tell within 15 minutes that I'm not a native
19. My parents are my heroes
20. I constantly read other people's blogs and think - Man! How did she think of that great idea/phrase/concept?
21. I tend towards being very vibrant or very quiet. I have a small "in between" window.
22. I'm working on that
23. I'm addicted to coffee
24. Lately, I'm also liking tea
25. and ice cream
26. I am sometimes inexplicably sad for no reason.
27. When this happens, a conversation with one of my favourite people is usually in order to fix it
28. I took gymnastics as a child and still know how to do some of the stuff - cartwheels anyone?
29. I also did track and field, and usually made the team more on effort than on talent
30. I made the tennis team in 9th grade because not enough people tried out. My doubles partner and I lost every match. Badly
31. I LOVE water sports
32. My favourite place in the world is Calabogie lodge. Been going there with my favourite people in the world since I was 8 or 9. You can probably trace our family story by following our summer vacations through the years...
33. I used to write for at least an hour every day. Not always good, but forced quantity used to produce at least a bit of quality
34. I love The New Yorker
35. I love The Far Side
36. If there's a new alternative health craze out there, you can bet I've at least read about it, if not tried it in some capacity
37. I have a whole slew of food sensitivities, which I regularly ignore.
38. My favourite thing about Montreal is the bike paths that are all over the city. I'm the girl in the hijab you see biking all over the place in the spring/summer/fall downtown.
39. My favourite hockey team is the Montreal Canadiens, even though I was actually a Leaf's fan the last time they won a cup.
40. I get caught up in political stuff. I can't separate it from life or turn it off since I see how much it affects some people's lives. Maher Arar used to pray at the same place as my family in Ottawa before he was sent to Syria for a year of torture. I go to Egypt to visit extended family and I see the corruption everywhere (in non-collected garbage and crumbling buildings and taxi drivers complaining about how to make ends meet). It's impossible to close my eyes to this. Politics is life for the part of the world that isn't as lucky as the other part (aka, us).
41. I get very upset at injustice, whether to me, or those I know and love, or strangers.
42. I have a good memory for useless trivia
43. I have three handwritten unfinished novels in notebooks under my bed. My younger sister, aka my audience, has yet to forgive me for leaving her hanging.
44. I cry a lot. Not because I'm easily sad, but because I'm easily moved.
45. If you have a cough, drink Gollum Juice.
46. Also, Oregano oil is the most disgusting tasting thing on earth, but insanely healthy and good for germ-killing.
47. I am the run-on sentence's biggest supporter.
48. My ability to sleep has nothing to do with the noise/light situation around me. The position of my neck and something to use as a pillow though? Absolutely necessary. On my weekly bus rides, I have devised ingenious pillow variations.
49. I know random small talk in Russian, Swedish, and German.
50. I am trilingual (English, Arabic, French)
51. I LOVE names and their origins.
52. Also, trying to figure out what language someone is speaking when I don't recognize it (is that Polish? Russian? Croatian?)
53. I am currently buying books way faster than I can read them.
54. I have a very low tolerance for heels, or anything that hurt the soles of my feet.
55. I have chronic back and neck pain from a dislocated rib/neck incident in 9th grade. It sounds sinister, but it came about in the most mundane of ways. Also, slightly embarrassing.
56. I've gotten stitches on multiple occasions, but never broken a bone or needed a cast (yet!)
57. If I'm reading a book by an author, my writing (if I'm writing at the time) inevitably takes that author's tone/style.
58. I started writing to be like my older sister, who is also my best friend.
59. Whenever I hear a song/poem I like, I immediately email it to said sister. Given she has two little ones under 4 (my Little Angela and Little Angela) her inbox is probably overflowing with these emails.
60. My favourite blog is by this lovely Canadian woman living in India with her husband and children. Moving. Funny. Exceptionally written.
61. I can't draw to save my life
62. I can, however, cook. I make up my own recipes.
63. I never thought I'd be a good cook and am mildly proud (and surprised) of this accomplishment.
64. I get a lot of joy from reading Scott Feschuk's hilarious columns in MacLean's Magazine.
65. I feel like we're living in a very momentous time in history. I think that over the next few years, the world will change a lot.
66. I hope they're good changes
67. I want to be part of it.
68. I love looking at beautiful pictures.
69. CBC Radio 1 is absolutely awesome.
70. Bel Canto is the most amazing book.
71. I second guess myself a lot
72. I buy recipe books, look through them once, and then rarely go back.
73. My husband continuously befuddles me with his ability to do 4 page mathematical proofs. I happily left these behind in 1st year university.
74. I have been an A+ student my whole life.
75. I never took biology because I was too easily disgusted. The bit of dissection we had to do in general science never ended well for me.
76. and yet I can prepare meat without problems.
77. I am a wannabe health freak.
78. I am also a wannabe environmentalist.
79. My favourite verse in the Quran is the second last verse of the Chapter called The Cave: Say, "If the ocean were ink (wherewith to write out) the words of my Lord, sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the words of my Lord, even if we added another ocean like it, for its aid."
80. I am a big believer in always remembering that you don't know everything (or even most things)
81. I love chocolate, but also salad.
82. I love Canada fiercely, but I make a distinction between love and pride for my country and criticism of it.
83. I get homesick easily when I travel.
84. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is perfectly up my alley when it comes to humour.
85. Corny jokes are also brilliant.
86. Jon Stewart is a genius. Also Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and any political sketches on SNL
87. This one is stolen with modifications from COTW's list: I would happily take a job at the Ministry of Silly Walks.
88. I love calla lilies and irises.
89. I want to go to New Zealand some day for a very nature oriented vacation (hiking, rafting, etc)
90. I have seen the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean sea, but not the Atlantic.
91. My favourite season is summer, but I think winter is extremely pretty.
92. I didn't have a cell phone until a year ago, and now I can't live without it.
93. I can go on a small amount of sleep, but I become either silly-hyper from too much coffee, or somewhat cranky.
94. My toes are the first part of me to get cold. Once this happens, I become extremely cranky.
95. My sisters and I are all daddy's girls. He used to whisk us off to Timmy's for warm, sweet treats every chance he got when we were still in university.
96. I love to sit in small cafes with a hot cup of coffee, either reading a good book, people watching, or trying to write.
97. My favourite place to do so is Planet Coffee in Ottawa. I'm still looking for my *favourite* place in Montreal.
98. I am still very close a couple of my closest friends from high school, though we almost never see each other.
99. Everyday I get to know M better, I am amazed by new similarities I discover between us. Deeper ones that didn't surface before.
100. I miss carrying my Little Angels and Little Angelas around, hugging and kisses them to bits, giving them horsey rides and other invented silly games. I can't wait to see them again in a few months when they all converge at my parents' house.

But the Chips Were So Much Cheaper...

Is this not utterly depressing? Apparently a new study by the Heart and Stroke Foundation has found that food pricing across the country can vary hugely for a lot of healthy foods. How much, you say? Well, in Toronto, you pay about $1 for a bag of 6 apples. In Calgary, you pay over $5. Sorry, but what? And it's not like this is a "who cares" item of interest either. We're hardly eating well as a country as it is.
My favourite quote from another article on this study:

"You have to wonder why we control the price of alcohol but allow such price inconsistencies for healthy food - and not just in remote regions of the country - but even between larger metropolitan areas."

Well, at least we know we all pay the same amount for something, eh?

Random Thoughts of Random-ness

• My throat is out to get me. Two weeks ago, there was a temperature involved, and since then, even though every other aspect of me seems to have recovered, the throat is not doing the same thing. I am reminded of the stuff the actor on Lord Of The Rings used to drink for the days they would shoot 14 hours in the rain and horrible weather. It was a combination of honey, lemon juice and ginger. He called it "Gollum Juice", since he'd make Gollum's voice all day so his throat was extra sore... I think that's probably going to be the only solution for my throat too...
• It rained yesterday. Rain. In Montreal. In early February.... Not the first time it happens or anything, but it's been unseasonably warm for 3 days. After being unseasonably cold for about two weeks. I think the earth is trying desperately to tell us something. It has a flu. It's bouncing around between hot and cold, clammy and feverish, desperately needing some lozenges and lots of chicken soup. We can't ignore it forever. We won't be able to, not in the face of rising temperatures and hurricanes and floods.
• The Habs are NOT playing up to their loyal followers' dreams these days. I was hoping for better, but not necessarily expecting it. The truth is that I'll cheer for them no matter what.
• Remember this? Well, that was a year ago last Monday. That's right, we've now officially been married more than 1 year. It's cool to be past the first milestone, cool to look at each other and look back over a year of shared and built memories as a unit, and think about all we've experienced and how much we've changed and grown. We celebrated by sleeping in, watching an awesome movie that really ought to win the Oscar, eating insane amounts of sushi, and going skating. We're both horrible skaters. It's been years since either of us has been on an ice surface (Not including the typical Montreal or Ottawa sidewalk). But it was SO MUCH FUN! My sisters and I used to skate at the outdoor rink in our neighbourhood park in Ottawa all the time when we were little. Someday, I hope to teach M and I's kids how to as well...
• I'm trying to get back to reading a book the whole way through without getting so horribly distracted. A few months ago, I developed the horrible habit of starting a book, getting 10 pages in, picking up a second one, getting 20 pages in, picking up a third one, going back to the first one... you get it. I seem to have developed ADD for anything longer than a magazine article, or Jen recommends a new book, and I'm so excited by her glowing review that I go out and buy it and start it when I'm barely two chapters into her last recommendation. The problem is she reads much faster than I do, and I don't have the patience to wait to pick up the latest little brilliant nugget she throws my way... So right now, I'm excercising discipline. I've resolved to reading March the whole way through before I go back to the two other books I've started and abandoned, as well as another three left un-started, taunting me from my bookshelf. I'm still early on in it, but not embarrassingly so anymore, and I think I'll be able to pull it off.
• I need to speak more French. I am now confident enough, and good enough, at understanding the great majority of what is said around me in French, but the next step is one I have to push myself towards, and that's using it myself when I speak. It's a choice. Most of those around me will understand me just fine if I choose to speak English, and they're perfectly happy to indulge me and let me continue on in my more fluent language. I probably sound a lot better in English, considering I'm not prone to silly grammatical errors, and can express myself a lot more fluidly. Of course, I'll never reach that point in French unless I start. And stumble. And say stupid things and get laughed at. Not just in French class. Not just for 4 hours a week. Out in the world. Ditto for Arabic. I have to push myself if I expect to get better.

Sniffling and Yucky

I can't think of very much more un-fun than going to the dentist when you can't breathe through your nose... Wish me luck!

Five Year Old Cancer Patient Leaves Hundreds of Notes for Her Family

I found this article really inspiring, in a sad sort of way. It shows what you can do in the face of sadness, and the love that can be shared in a family, despite difficulties:

When five-year-old Elena Desserich was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, she set out to help her family deal with her death in a truly remarkable way. The kindergartener started writing -- she created "The Kindergarten Survival Guide" for younger sister Grace -- and drawing.
When Elena's cancer robbed her of the ability to speak, she used drawing and painting to communicate with her family. One of her paintings, titled "I Love You," was hung in the Cincinnati Art Museum, next to a painting by Pablo Picasso, one of Elena's favorite artists.
But she also wrote hundreds of notes for her family and hid them in various places around their home in Wyoming; her parents didn't know about the notes until after Elena died. "We were moving some boxes around one day and in between some of the books a note fell out," recalls mom Brooke Desserich. "Each time I would read one of those notes, it was like a little hug from her."
It's no surprise that Elena turned to writing to stay connected to her family. In the nine months between Elena's diagnosis and her death in August of 2007, her parents were also using writing to cope. The couple kept an online journal, chronicling their daughter's illness and their own struggles to come to terms with the inevitable. To their surprise, thousands of people read the journal and reached out to the Desserichs. "Everybody was reading the journal and going, 'This taught me to be a better parent. It taught me to spend time with my children, it taught me to value being a mom and dad,'" marveled Elena's dad, Keith Desserich.
Keith and Brooke Desserich have turned their journal and Elena's notes into a book, "Notes Left Behind." They have also started a foundation called The Cure Starts Now to raise money for pediatric brain cancer. My heart goes out to them -- I also have a kindergartener who likes to draw and leave little notes around for me to find -- but I have to admire the way they were able to teach Elena to see her life as joyful, and not as a tragedy. They really are inspiring parents.

Un-Random Acts of Kindness

This was a really neat article I just read about how practicing random acts of kindness, and how it actually raises suspicion, while practicing "non-random" acts of kindness actually achieves a lot more... Not sure that I actually disagree with the "random" random act of kindness, but the overall message is a good one. Take a look here. Nice reminder to be kind in general, and I think it makes the good point of putting your real time and energy into acts that really have a lasting effect.

Why the Economic Downturn is Good for You

Check out this great article at MacLeans about the joys of frugality, and how the recession could actually make you healthier, happier, and more environmentally friendly. Seriously, it's not just a way to make ourselves feel better about the whole thing. They make some very relevant points...