Going Domestic

they do it better in Newfoundland

I will readily admit that I find elections tiresome. I was an interested voter until the federal election when I was living in Vancouver in 2000. I didn't bother to vote because not a single candidate (or their staff) bothered to even stuff a brochure in my mailbox. My poor attitude was turned around on Friday when Danny Wiliams appeared on my doorstep. Having the premier of Newfoundland & Labrador personally knock on my door on behalf of his party's candidate somehow makes up for the all the other candidates who didn't care. He asked me if I was aware of the election, and I mentioned that I didn't think I was eligible to vote because I'm new to the province, and he assured me that I qualified as long as I've lived here for at least 24 hours before the election - it's easier to vote here than it is to get a job, evidently :)

When he asked me where I'd moved from I told him "Alberta", and he grinned, nodded, and said, "ah, good conservative country" which tired-of-all-varieties-of-conservative-governments-me had an internal chuckle over.  It's so stereotypical-Albertan!

I don't entirely understand or agree with the way this guy runs his government, but he was friendly and pleasant, and now I have a fun story to tell.

decisions, decisions ...

I've been having an internal conflict. Tomorrow night there is a Stitch & Bitch at The Ship here in St. John's, and I wouldn't mind going, but I'd go to knit, not to drink. I'm not sure what the proper protocol is for knitting in a bar ...

I've also been pondering when the right time is to stop knitting my little swatches of different stitch combinations and start an actual project. I love this little baby poncho, and it looks easy, but I think it would be too small for my toddler already. The child-sized ones just aren't as cute ...

older and wiser

Chris's birthday cupcakes
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Today is Chris's birthday, and his cupcakes cleaned up nicely. I think that I ought to have waited for the frosting to warm up a wee bit more, but I'm still happy with how they turned out. Both he and Madeline gave them positive reviews this morning.

I've been around for six of Chris's birthdays, and I think it's neat that only half of them have been in Calgary. We were in Jasper, Alberta in 2000, in New York City for 2001 (we ate undercooked pasta in some restaurant in Little Italy where some gangster was shot, and then had a weird dessert experience at Le Cirque with diners posing for photos with the waitstaff), and now we're spending this birthday in St. John's. Bring on the pan-fried cod ...

The funniest story that I have about Chris and his birthday would be from 2003. I remember asking him over the phone one day at work what he'd like for his birthday. "A Stillwater Spa gift certificate!" he replied. I thought that was a little odd, but Chris is a renaissance man of sorts, so I gladly picked one of those up for him. I was a little confused when I proudly proffered the gift certicate on his actual birthday a week later, only to see a mystified expression on his face. Turns out that he only joking about wanting a spa gift certificate ...

Revenge of the Cupcake

Cupcake Overloaded
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

So, Chris's birthday is tomorrow. On previous years, I've made gingerbread cake or a hummingbird cake for him, but this year I decided that pumpkin cupcakes would be a nice change. And I could test out my new silicone cupcake liners :) I followed the basic recipe for the Ginger-Cream Filled Pumpkin Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganche Frosting from the Cupcake Bakeshop, which Chokylit grabbed from Martha. I'm topping them with cream-cheese frosting, though, just because it's our favourite, and I'm not filling them with anything. Maybe next time :)

Anyway, I took this photo of this sad naked little cupcake to serve as a reminder for the next time I bake cupcakes. If the recipe says "fill the muffin cups half-full", it's not kidding. I filled the cupcake liners right up to the top, to use out all of my batter. Then I spent part of yesterday evening trying to clean up the cupcakes and wash batter drippings off of the baking sheet underneath.

Also, if halving a recipe, first determine if a full recipe makes 24 cupcakes or 30 cupcakes. Then you won't be as clueless as I was last night, trying to figure out why I had so much extra batter!

it's a scarf! it's a sleeve! no, it's a swatch!

she knits she scores
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Last night was the final knitting class for me, and this is what I learned:

• cable cast-on, and casting off
• stockingette (reverse of this is visible in the photo)
• making ribbing (illustrated)
• seed stitching (illustrated)
• that it's much easier to knit with cheap yarn from Michaels than it is the fuzzy hand-spun/hand-dyed stuff at the Anna Templeton Centre :)

Things I didn't get to, that I hoped I would:

• increasing and decreasing, though I will try it on my own
• changing yarn

I'm knitting right-handed, though I don't write with my right hand. I'm one of those lefties who's non-dominant hand is fairly adept to stepping up to the plate when it's expedient to do so. The only thing that is eluding me thus far is that I can't find a comfortable way to hold the excess yarn in my right hand. None of the usual holds feels natural. I'm thinking that I might have to give continental style a try so that I can hold the yarn in my left hand ...

plastic wonderland

Yesterday Chris made a remark about the low profile that recycling seems to have in St. John's, and this brought up the topic of plastic grocery bags. You see, in Calgary, reckless use of plastic grocery bags is kind of frowned upon. Every grocery store sells reuseable bags made of canvas, hemp, or even a heavy-duty recycled plastic. One of the grocery store chains even charges customers for each bag they need, if they don't bring their own.

Here, it's a virtual wonderful of plastic bags. I can go into Sobey's to buy a carton of eggs, a package of chicken breasts, and a magazine, and I'll walk out with three bags. Well, I would if I didn't amalgamate my bag bounty before leaving the store so that I only have one bag to manage. One of our first purchases upon arriving in St. John's was a pair of larger Rubbermaid tubs to store Madeline's toys in. The clerk at the check-out counter at Dominion gave us a strange look when we said that we didn't need any bags for our groceries as they'd fit in the Rubbermaid tubs. I thought that her reaction was really strange at the time, but now I understand...

I did see a shopper with a reuseable shopping bag - once. Obviously, new to St. John's :)

obviously a knitwit ...

I suck at knitting. I really do. The class at the Anna Templeton Centre did go ahead, thanks to a handful of last-minute registrants. The last-minute registrants all seem to have some innate knitting-gene, because I was the only one who was still purling at the end of class, instead of making ribbing and stockingette. That being said, I did manage to knit more than I ever have been able to ever before in my life, so that's progress! I brought my little ball of yarn (hand-dyed turquoise) home to practice with, but I'm tempted to run out and buy a ball of Bernat or something less fuzzy to work with. Anyway, I'm sad because I'm not used to sucking and being at the bottom of a class, but still looking forward to going again next Monday!

wouldn't you know it?

I called the Anna Templeton Center yesterday to check that the knitting class I've been looking forward to taking was still going ahead, and it looks like it won't be. There are only three other people registered in it beside me. Someone from the Center is supposed to be calling me back to confirm one way or another later today.

I have an idea for a back-up plan, though. The place where my toddler goes to preschool offers a few adult enrichment classes. There's one on photography that looks like it would be good, one on conversational french that I wish I knew about a month earlier, and one called "make a book" that may not sound overly interesting, but I'd get to learn a bit of Photoshop in it. I think that would be really cool!

Vintage Python

Holy Grail Ale
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

I am especially fond of the "tempered over burning witches" bit on the label ...

the book's a real stomach-turner

So, I finished a quick reading of Julie & Julie yesterday, and even though I will have to read it a second time, I already know this - I will never ever eat poached eggs suspended in aspic nor a cold roasted chicken that has been encased in aspic. If I wanted to eat jello, it would be green and taste like sugary limes. Julie Powell is my newest hero - I wouldn't have abandoned ship at that point in the project! In fact, I almost stopped reading after hitting that chapter in the book ...