As You've Noticed...

I'm not really here anymore.

I don't know why I stopped updating this place. I guess I decided to just merge my online presence and simplify my life... or something.

But I'm still on the web, and I'm writing better than ever, I think. You can find me at my home, The Cunting Linguist. I'm also on Twitter, god help us all, and there I'm SmuttySteff.

You can contact me easily through The Cunting Linguist, but the email for this blog's probably long dead.

If you think my writing rocks, then you can check my professional website, where I can be hired to be awesome for YOU. I do rewrites and all kinds of skookum editing.

Uht-oh

I just realized one of my sidebar links was coming up with an exploitive warning on AVG virus controls.

Whups. Deleted.

I dunno when I'll be writing here again. I'd like to think soon. I've been stretched to the max for a very, very long time. Be patient.

Love, Steff.

Tomato-Cream Pasta Sauce with Asparagus, Back Bacon & Artichokes

I like to "invent-a-pasta" from time to time. here's tonight, which was a very well-enjoyed healthy-but-seems-decadent meal.

Tomato-Cream Pasta Sauce
with Asparagus, Back Bacon, and Artichokes


-3/4 cup half-and-half cream
-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
-2 shallots, thinly sliced and coarsely chopped
-1/2 pound back bacon, chopped in 1" pieces
-8-12 stalks of asparagus, chopped into 1" pieces
-1/2 cup chopped jarred marinated artichoke hearts
-1 28-oz container cherry tomatoes, "tomato sauce" mostly drained
-1/2 cup pesto
-1/4 cup Parmesan
-salt & pepper to taste

In a sauce pan, simmer the cream and the crushed garlic over medium heat until reduced by half.

Saute shallots in a good nonstick frying pan with a tablespoon butter over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, add asparagus, cook another 3-5 minutes. Crush the cherry tomatoes and add them and their juice (as opposed to the "tomato sauce" they're packed in) to the pan. Add the pesto and chopped bacon, mix well. Simmer for 10-20 minutes, during which time you make your pasta.

At the end, take your garlic cream and mash the garlic into the cream. Mix it all into the pasta sauce, add parmesan, mix well, and serve on pasta. I choose whole wheat pasta. Tasty!

NOTE: You can substitute chicken. I've made this also with spicy Italian sausage and even chorizo. They all change the dish, but the chicken and back bacon are relatively similar in effect, and I love them both.

Also, that cream? All of 12 grams fat and 160 calories, and this'll serve 4 or 5. Versus 600 calories / 66 grams of fat for whipping cream. This is why you reduce it -- you intensify the richness but keep the calories down.

HI!

It's gradually looking like this blog is dying, but it's come back from such precarious heights before.

This has been the most physically gruelling six months of my life, I guess, so it's natural something should give. The other blog's going reasonably strong. Having one doing 'well' and the other not is better than both sucking, and I get more out of success on the other blog.

Hence.

But I see this place staying alive because it's the place I kind of delve into more mundane day-to-day things. So don't give up on me yet. :)

Today, two great things to report. One, these pants I'm wearing I bought at Christmas and now I can finally wear them. :) 69 pounds lost.

Two, five days ago I had to muster ALL my strength for each push-up I was doing (only assigned three sets of 5 by physio) but now I can do them without stopping in between, while maintaining perfect form. Because I rock.

Three, I'm optimistic one of the most annoying months of my life has been ceremoniously BOOTED by a far superior month. April's looking fantastic.

If, as it looks, my back is FINALLY healing and good times are ahead...

Watch out. :)

I'm gonna have an incredible summer.

And no one has earned it more. I have kept the faith and fought through SO MUCH these last few years. If my finances stay on track (or even improve!!) and my health stays on track, I don't see how anything can stop me.

Seriously.

A Weight-Loss Rant

Wow. I haven't been posting here at all. I suck. Story of the blog these days.

My back's been giving me grief for the last 10 days, and it makes me less likely to do double-duty on my blogs when I'm in pain. It's still not 100%.

But I'm sitting around and doing lots of stretching tonight, watching some Biggest Loser, trying to remind myself what I've accomplished, and that these recent hurdles aren't anything to be concerned about. This, too, shall pass.

I got into one of those Twitter-type chats about the whole weight loss thing, thinking out loud as I reflected, such as it was, and this guy goes, "Oh, I know it's hard, I haven't been to the gym in months."

You know it's hard to exercise, pal. You've never been overweight, just lazy. It's not the same thing. You don't know what it's like living your life feeling discriminated against because you just don't fucking GET how to be thin or lose weight. You probably don't know what it's like to hate the way you feel in your skin when that skin's considerably more than the average person's. 

You definitely don't know what it's like to weigh 275 pounds as a 5'6 chick. 

The trouble with this recent bout of stupid motherfucking back pain is, it's getting in the way of life a bit. Not much, mind you. But it's just enough to be pissing me off. It's settling down, but I just wanted to be past this by now, so I'm irritated I'm having to find my way back into that positive space.

HOWEVER, as much as the last paragraph suggests otherwise, I'm getting there. I'm stretching properly, it's helping. This is good.

And then there's the reminder: I got hurt on the way to losing about 70 pounds and several sizes. Back in the old days, I blew out my knee by picking up a piece of paper. A bit of a difference.

Good times.

I don't really know what my point is. I just got pissed off by some asshole likening my struggles with him being unable to get his lazy ass into a gym.

NO. *I* had to change my whole way of life. *I* have had to learn all about nutrition. (But have to put more in practice. The battle's never over.) *I* have had to deal with all the emotional baggage that got me to be 275 pounds. *I* have had to reprogram myself. *I* even had to survive literally 2 months of Christmas "gift" food on the office kitchen table and still lost 10 pounds over that time.

I didn't just have to haul my ass off the sofa three times a week. Every single day I have worked on improving myself. It has been the hardest accomplishment of my life, the best thing I've ever done, and something I will draw upon for the rest of my life as an example of how much I can kick ass when I have reason to do so.

When people tell me what I've done is "amazing", I should let them say so instead of shrugging it off. Because not a lot of people have taken off 70 or more pounds.

And now I'm one of them. 

So. Yeah. I guess I just wanted to vent. Insolent bastard. 

Don't belittle my accomplishment just because you don't have a simple gym visit in you. 

This wasn't about a gym visit. This was about 26 years of eating myself into a nice, protective cocoon that I never really had to emerge from if I didn't want to, and about believing for that same amount of time that I could never be as fast, fit, strong, or able as others.

This was pretty much about every single thing in my life. 

This was about making my demons my bitches.

Not just a gym visit. Asshat.

Broke-Ass Black Bean-Corn-Tomato Soup

This is heart-smart, low-fat, spicy, goes a long ways, and is cheap as HELL to make.

$1.19 for my tomatoes, $0.89 for the corn, and $1.69 for the black beans, large onion $0.35. Total: $4.12. Serves 6. Yeah. That'll save your paycheque. It's basically like chili without the beef -- or the four hours of simmering.

(The recipe is from one of Anne Lindsay's healthy cookbooks popular here in Canada, except I actually SEASON it. :) Mine's medium-hot, so adjust seasoning accordingly.

1 large sweet onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil

Saute onion in a stockpot or Dutch oven until translucent or golden, then add:

1 tablespoon hot Mexican chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon coriander

As it starks to stick to the pot, add 1/2 cup water and let simmer a moment. Then add:

1 can sweet corn (or 1-2 cobs shorn*, or 1.5 cups frozen)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes, 28 oz.

Mix well, add enough water to make yourself happy. Splurge, if you like, and use chicken stock. I used about 2 cups of water. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until the flavours are happy. Salt and pepper to taste.

If you want, puree some of the soup at the end for a nicer consistency. I pureed 1/3 of the soup and it's now a bit creamy looking, which I really like. If you want to splurge more, other ways to make it into an expensive-tasting experience: Mix 1/4 cup lime juice in right before taking it off the heat. Chop 1 cup cilantro and add at the very end. Serve with a tablespoon of sour cream.

*If you use the cobbed corn for this, or ANY soup recipe, ALWAYS throw the cob, after you've stripped it of kernels, into the soup and cook the cob in the soup till you're about to serve it. Why? The starch (CORNstarch?) helps naturally give the soup more body, plus more corn flavour. Throw the cob out at the end.

Having a Read of My Work Last Night

Oh, lord help me, it's probably going to be a long week. I hate it when it gets off to the wrong start -- like me waking up all night with stomach ickiness and all that crap.

But I feel fine-ish now, just only had 5-6 hours sleep. It'll be fine. How awake do you have to be to bus, huh?

But while I was up one of the times, for about an hour, I figured I'd reread my recent work on The Other Blog. I reread everything up until January 14th, and I can see that I've been starting to hone in on better form. Still not where I want with the writing, but it's coming along quite nicely.

Now I need to write more. I want three good postings a week on the other blog, and want to write here three times a week. That'll have me staying sharp pretty much daily.

But I enjoyed reading myself, and it's been awhile since THAT was the reaction on back-to-back pieces. It's been a few good ones in a row, whereas it's been quite a long time where I'd have one, maybe two good posts, then I'd have a filler or two in between. I don't want filler. I want fewer posts but of a higher quality.

I'm no idiot, I know when the writing's decent. But back-to-back? That's been a while. Consistency would be fantastic again. Being on the road to it? Feels great.

I would've rather had a good night's sleep, but getting the chance to re-read some stuff so I can stop creatively beating up on myself? Probably priceless.

Enjoy your Monday, folks. No rest for the wicked Canadians. Not a holiday here. Boo. [Four-day weekend for yours truly next week, though!]

Valentine Thoughts on Writing

Writing's like love. You want it to be fantastic and all-encompassing, you want to leave your heart on the page, and every now and then you cycle into phases where you do just that. Most of the time, though, you lapse into surfacing. Saying barely what should be said, and flailing at the words you do manage to spill. The time you spend is forced, not desired. It's obligatory, not inspiring.

Writing requires work. It's not this fabelled "gift" people speak of. "Oh, you're a writer. You're so lucky. I wish I could be a writer." Uh-huh. And if wishes were horses, friend.

I have fallen out with writing. I need to rekindle the love affair. Find what it is that drew me to it. Forget about the pressures that I have around me to do it, and rediscover the love I have for being in That Zone when it should oh-so-infrequently make its way to me.

Writing, in many ways, became merely a survival mechanism over the last three years. It's funny, I'm not sure which has shaped me more as a woman, the death of my mother, or the last three years. Both have been hard as hell. Either way, I stand now on the other side.

I don't need writing as a survival mechanism now. What I need is it to be more. I need for me to feel compelled to write. To have words of all kinds bursting beneath my skin. To itch for the clackety-clack of my ideas becoming reality on a screen before me. THAT, I want.

So now I'm at that point where I realize "waiting" for it to happen is resulting in, well, just lots more waiting.

Now, grunt, comes the work. Now comes forcing myself to just sit and spill. Now I guess the writing becomes more about who it is I've become. The question is, who is that? I'm still not really sure.

Funnily, I probably have more sense of self than most, but it's perhaps that very thing that makes me feel so adrift at sea right now. I know myself, have always known myself, so well that I find myself frequently at a loss. Because who I am now feels different -- not just mentally or spiritually, but now physically different -- all the time. Like, last night, sitting down on a crowded bus and realizing my ass wasn't touch either person on my right or left. For the first time in literally decades.

I'm not complaining, no, I'm just confused. I'm different. And I'm still changing. Trying to assess who I am *now* is like measuring the temperature of water on a scorcher of a day at 10am. You could, but in 2 hours it'll be pointless information, won't it? Yet, it's interesting for a time.

That's why this blog has become more a record of me in the moments as I keep shifting towards the new me. Whatever else a blog is, first and foremost it's supposed to be a "web log".

But you know what?

I'm not worried about it. Writing's going to explode for me, it always does. I know I have a lot to say. I'm just not sure what it is right now. The clarity will come. That always does, too.

I am very optimistic about the year ahead. The only thing is, this time I *KNOW* how much I did last year, so I've kind of got that mentality you get after you've climbed a mountain? You KNOW you can do it, but you've NO illusions about how hard it all was.

Heh. I blew my BACK out because I did so much last year. Granted, it's because the hip that caused it was injured a number of years ago and I'd never healed it properly, but still. :) It was a big year.

This year daunts me. It's also egging me on a little, too. It'll be fantastic. So will falling in love with writing again. I'll make it happen.

I always do. :)

Photographs from my English Bay Bike Ride

AS ALWAYS, CLICK ON THE PHOTOS FOR LARGE 700x900 FORMAT SHOTS.

I skipped out of work today to reboot my soul a little. I worked 5 and a bit hours, and had a bit of a bike ride before and after. Stuck to level lands, but got 20km in. It's conditioning phase. My cardio sucks right now. Strength though? Hills are gonna be a whole lot easier this year, baby. Once I've gotten some cardio on tap again, that is.

Still. I'm doing all right. 

But I went west towards Stanley Park, to what would be the very end of the ride around the park, but I went the "illegal" way because I'm a rebel. (The sea wall starts out one-way heading into the east, around the north side, and then heading southeast again. I hit the southeastern corner and rode west.)

I'm gonna try to start blogging more, but I suspect it'll come on its own. I always write more around March. Bear with me. I'm kinda living in my head a bit these days.

It's simpler sometimes. :)

Here we go.

This is the start of English Bay, right near the Burrard Bridge. You can see the faint low-lying vapour fog that's bound to build tonight. 

I like observing people at the beach. People draw so much from the ocean. You can almost see it happening before your eyes. I like people with character, too, like this obviously robust curmudgeon of a fellow.

Sunset, duh. It's setting almost directly south now, but swoops totally north, to the right of the mountain range in the top picture, by summer solstice. Knowing where the sun rises and sets at any given time of the year can really influence where you should be in order to get the right shot at the right place. So, this means there are places you should mentally bookmark to photograph at its sunset-optimal time of year. For sunsets specifically, you'd shoot the south side of Stanley Park (aka English Bay) in December to March, the west side from March to May and September to November, and the north from June to September. See?

Ditto. Sunset. Same stretch.

The fog doesn't really show here, which disappoints me, but I still like the shots. The lines in the clouds just blow me away, and it's one of those linear compositions my college photography teacher would've gobbled up with a spoon -- nom-nom-nom!

HEY, LOOK. It's a sunset!

One of those spontaneous stranger photos that's 110% luck and timing. I had both. I quite love this spirit. But they're young, it's what you do. 

I love ocean foreshore, but it never looks right in photography. Sunset and low tide, it seems, helps. :)

Fraser River Images

HEY, I TOOK PICTURES! Holy shit! A lot of them! And a bunch were good! Shazam.

I've been dying to hit the river since the fog rolled in a few days ago and picked the perfect timing 'cos I got a schwack of different fog densities, thus a whole range of moods. It feels nice to know I got some nice shots for a change.

This is just a few of the 80 or so I took. There's still some pictures to sort through, too.

I cycled 26 km along the river, which was awesome. I was dying by the end, but got it done. I was freezing, couldn't feel my toes, and was completely spent. My back, however, felt fine. Everything else? I can handle it!

It was SO worth it. I've ALWAYS wanted to do this foggy bike ride and never got around to it until now. I've lived here 9 years! It was great! Was completely frozen when I got home, but fucking thrilled I went.

So... along the Fraser River, South Vancouver.

I've lived here almost a decade and never tire of the tugboats:


You really think I should stop? You sure it's necessary? Bright guys.


Yet another unprotected piece of our industrial heritage on the Fraser, ready to fall down any day now:

Dude, I love the fog for the mood it lends. A little sunshine for conflicting emotions? Gold.

Pilings! We loves pilings. I'm always taking photos of pilings.


Nothing special, but it's pretty enough.


Looks a bit washed out, but another moody pier shot:

Fishing boats. Awesome ones.

Same stretch:

Oh, Morning, You Fickle Wench, You!

First off, hearing aids are fine, better than ever. They were able to clean out the mic/receiver and all is good. Holy stunning change of luck, Batman!

But then this morning my scoot sputtered out on the way to work. I got it back home. Have had another coffee. Have to cancel my appointment after work. WHATEVER. Not the end of the world. I have a bus pass, and I also know this is a pre-existing condition I've already bought the parts for, it just needs some fixing.

It'll all sort out. Interesting morning thus far, though. Quel entertaining. It is what it is. I'm filing it under "better to live an interesting life than the otherwise".

Seriously? At 4am? Thanks for that.

So I fall asleep on the couch, get four or five hours sleep, wake up, go to bed, can't sleep, get back up, go to start watching a movie at 4am, put my hearing aids on, and one's broken.

Fabulous. That's always good 4am news.

So, again with the "Heh, heh, by the way, the suckage continues" week that keeps on rolling. But it's taken all of 18 minutes for me to put a positive spin on spending $250 that could really go out on better things right now.

I've been meaning for some time now to talk to a non-profit here in town about getting new hearing aids. This will spur me into action. I never should have bought these hearing aids. I should have bought behind-the-ear ones. I am confident in the fact that, because these are not nearly as good for my particular brand and intensity of hearing loss, this has majorly cut into my desire to be social. I find myself wondering often if I could hear better, would I be better at my wittiness in conversation, therefore more comfortable in crowds again?

I mean, THIS is the year to find out. I've had these for five years now. New ones are $5,000. So, I'm thinking outside the box on how I can attain some.

I recommended my brother try to get government help with new hearing aids last year, and he got new ones for free as a result. I suspect my argument is good, that I literally require them for my job of closed captioning. And I'm broke off my ass in the grand scheme of things right now, too. We'll see. I hear it's a recession, so.

But either way, at least it'll be fixed. It's been going for a month or so now. I can't say this is a big surprise. You just want to believe, though, that what you fear's coming isn't really on the way. Bah. It was.

However, if I wind up getting free hearing aids and this $250 expenditure was the catalyst that made that happen, then it's safe to say by years' end this $250 will have become some of the best money I've ever spent. And that's how I'm going to try to look at this right now.

Hey, I might even succeed!

Rain? YEAH! RAIN!

My father's in the hospital again, has been since last Thursday, will be for a couple weeks. It's lame. He should survive, we hope. Big scare yesterday that turned out to be pneumonia. Sigh.

That's my reality, but I don't want to write about it right now, I've already done that on the other blog, since this blog's one my dad reads when he's well. So I'm keeping that writing over there.

Meanwhile: It's pouring rain.

The snow that has been on the ground since Dec. 13th is now melting. We'll have floods by the time the day is through. I'm leaving early to go buy very much needed boots before The Great Melt goes haywire.

I figure I'm 6 to 8 weeks away from true travel freedom again. I feel like I have been imprisoned at home since September, thanks to back injuries followed by hard rehab/coping and then the hell of snow.

For those who DON'T know, more snow has fallen in THREE WEEKS than Vancouver gets in TWO YEARS. And, usually in Vancouver, our snow melts in a day. This more-snow-on-more-snow-on-more-snow thing is FUCKED UP. Weird.

And as someone who's been trying to rehab a back injury and having trouble getting around, and I'm only 35, I've been fucking LIVID at the city of Vancouver. Way to fail to enforce clearing laws. Way to fail to prevent chaos, city. Way to not be on top of a goddamned thing.

If this happens in the Olympics? We'll be fucked! We'll be the laughingstocks of the world! A guy from Toronto was on the news last night looking around the city and he goes, "If this happened in Toronto, there'd be riots in the street."

YES. But here? We bend over and take it.

Sunday I visited my father in the hospital in Surrey. WHOOPS. Took me FIVE HOURS TO GET HOME IN THE SNOW. Yeah, I was pissed. It's 25-30 kilometres!!! Here's how THAT unfolded:

Surrey to New West, got off the skytrain, after waiting for 10-15 minutes for a bus parked across the station, the driver comes over to say, "No chance buses are getting out of 22nd Street, so--" and I was told to go to Joyce Station and bus across town from there.

I get to Joyce, get off, there's 150+ people in line for a bus. There's no evidence they're even running.

Back on the skytrain. We pass Nanaimo -- buses are stuck and abandoned all the way up the hill.

Get off at Broadway. Finally get onto the BLine bus, where there's about 150 people waiting but I luck out again. It's now been nearly 2 hours, and I should be home.

Half-way across the city, it spins out and banks into snow, stuck. We're all kicked off. "Another bus will come, the driver says."

"Not fucking likely," I think. Pushing three hours into my travels, armed with 20+ pounds groceries, I begin the long trek to where there's only one bus that might get me to the south side of Vancouver, the OTHER B-Line. It's a 25-30 block walk.

Not a single bus passed me. Nor, more importantly, a single plow.

Finally, I get there, and there's more than 200 people waiting. Worse? The Granville Street rise, up from the bridge (out of downtown) is littered with buses who have failed to make the grade. No fewer than a pile-up of 10 buses made that ascent hell.

Here's where you need to understand the geography of Vancouver to understand the unique physiology of Hell that happens when snow falls: Downtown is basically an island you have to travel one of five bridges (or take ONE ground route to), but every single route then leads to a hill. Once you're out of downtown, you pretty much get into the Avenues that cross the city east/west. From First to 41st, it's all ascent. First to Broadway is REALLY steep, then it settles, then after 16th the real fun begins. But when it's snow, you have to get up 41 blocks of snow.

You throw Pacific moisture into that mix, and the right conditions, this city shuts completely down.

After you hit 41st, you'd think you were clear, right? Wrong, because then it goes downhill for another 30 blocks. If you live somewhere on that side of town, like I do, then when snow falls, you're in about the worst part of Vancouver you can live in, because to believe in buses reaching your house is sort of like saying you believe in Santa.

Anyhow. I was now at the one bus stop that might-- MIGHT-- get me home. I looked around at the 200+ people waiting, and I took a few minutes to talk to people. They'd all been standing there for forever.

"Fuck it," I thought, and for the first time in my life, I stuck out my thumb.

30 seconds later, an Egyptian man pulled over to pick me up. He shouted his destination and three others leapt at the chance.

A drive that can be 10 minutes on a good night became 100 minutes.

Along the way, we saw cars abandoned, whole groups of people trying to pull cars out of banks, or push them uphill. Every single hill had buses out of commission. One street had a bus that gloriously managed to not only spin out and get stuck, but managed to veer out of control and block FOUR lanes of traffic on one of the city's largest thoroughfares.

Thank god Mr. Samaritan had an SUV. I left Surrey at 3:45. I got home at 9:01pm.

Yeah, flood? I can handle flood. Fuck snow.

Here We Go Again. Bring on the Pain.

I'm nervous. The shower's running. Then I'm off to the gym for the first time since January of last year. And my first real workout since, oh... September.

Building the snowfort on Christmas day was cool. I stayed energetic. Much to my surprise. I expected weariness and pain. Had neither. Actually felt great the next day.

I'm curious what the gym will feel like. It's not like I've had no cardio -- I've been walking A LOT this fall. My cardio's probably better than ever for day-to-day, but not sure on the long hauls, since I've had none for four months. My expectations are higher, though, as I've cut out almost all milk, so my asthma's at a total minimum these days.

But I always get a little fearful before I start new things. I'm scared of committing to the workout lifestyle again. It was real fuckin' hard, and look at the price I paid with the back problems I had, man.

Still. It must be done. Again, I've something to prove to myself. Not anyone else. Just me. I can do it. I can do it sans injury this time, too.

And I guess that's where the fear comes from, 'cos I know what I got to expend in order to get what I expect.

So here we go. New sneakers. New yoga pants. New attitude. New chance. New year. New starting point. I'm ready. Hesitant as fuck, resisting like all hell, nervous to beat all odds. But I'm ready.

I Came, I Saw, I Played in the Snow

My nephew and brother just took off after staying the last couple days with me.

Again, it's snowing. A fresh new three inches today. Still coming down at an inch-an-hour pacing. It's madness.

Yesterday, we continued construction on The Snow Fort. I was resistant to helping, being in the "oh, it's too much work" former-fat-girl frame of mind I still get into too often, but grudgingly decided I was stupid to pass up this end-of-childhood playing session with my 12-year-old nephew.

And... much to my surprise, it wasn't too much work. I never even got tired. What? What happened to me? It was WEIRD.

This morning, he gave me a bone-crushing hug and it took me a minute to realize it was the first time he ever got his arms all the way around me to return the crushingness. :)

With their departure, away went every bit of candy, chocolate, and crap in my house. Now, remaining, I have... NOTHING. Wine, but that's it.

I've made it to the other side of the holidays and gained back only FOUR pounds. I'm still down 56. And that number's on the upping from here on out.

Fucking A. And I'm 35 and finally, for the first time in my life, played in the snow without feeling I was going to die. Nope. You're never too old to have THAT experience. :)