Stevie P.

Running from Paranormal Activity

Contrary to my little sad Nike + girl, I have been running.  Unfortunately I've misplaced the chip that goes into my ipod at the moment and need to keep track via the old method of a spreadsheet.  So this means a lot more treadmill running has ensued - which is okay since the weather's gone to crap in Toronto over the last little while.  It's been mildly warmer than usual but the rain sure does put a damper on things.

Last night I ran 5km in 28 minutes.  I had to get it done in under 30 so I could quickly shower and make my way to see the debut of Paranormal Activity.  What a creep fest that was!  As I sit here at home trying to have a relaxing night, the rain and gloom is adding to the creep-hangover I'm still feeling after watching that movie.  I normally don't get too scared of 'horror' movies, but this was a well done build that had me literally screaming out loud at the end.  Unheard of reaction from me!  I highly recommend giving it a watch and going to see it in a full theater with similarly freaked out patrons.  I definitely kept grabbing the arm of the person beside me during some high-tension moments.  Even the picture beside this entry is totally freaking me out right now.  Probably doesn't help that I'm downing a glass of wine after a rather stressful day off at the office which turned into me working all day from home. Time for another run to de-stress...but I'm totally afraid of going into my condo's gym alone right now.  Oh what have you done to me, horror movie!

It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie.It's just a movie...

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

 The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas was my latest read.  This book literally made me want to slap someone, which was very appropriate given the title and the content.  I didn't want to slap someone due to it being a bad read, though.  I really wanted to slap the child featured in the book, repeatedly.  Excellent birth control.

Premise:  'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.' 

The narrative is interesting - first person narration from the perspective of eight characters who were at the barbecue where the slap occurred.  The book is also set in Australia, providing a lot of interesting 'Australianisms' in language including a British slang-term for dark skinned people that I don't necessarily feel comfortable repeating here.

The book was pretty good but I found myself slogging through since every time the narrative perspective changed I found myself missing the previous character and trying hard to get into the insight of the new one, so this took me a lot longer to read than most books, aside from the fact that I've been occupied by something or other not reading-related for the past month.

What makes this book stick out the most for me was the anger I felt at the kid who ended up getting the slap.  I felt he fully deserved it and as the book progressed and you got to know just how pathetic the parenting he receives is, you really don't feel much sympathy for an adult finally giving him a good smack to the face.  This child is four years old and still breast feeding for God's sake!  Each time that was mentioned, and it was mentioned a lot, I felt revulsion.  If a kid can ask for the breast perhaps it's time to switch food sources.  Maybe I don't know enough since I'm not a parent, and I know the whole breastfeeding debate causes much strife on the internet, but man alive, was I grossed out.  

All in all, a compelling read.  I do wonder what happened to some of the characters because their stories were dropped somewhat incomplete.  Perhaps they appear in Tsoilkas' other work.  This one sure did win a lot of awards.

Props to Opes!

It's rare that I pay much attention to Oprah, even though I agree with some of what she does.  However, Oprah actually ran an entire show titled "Conscious Choices" that showed the difference between factory farmed animals and how animals will be affected by California's Prop. 2.  She compared the open grazing farms to the factory farms with class and dignity.  I have the most difficult time watching anything that depicts animal cruelty and it haunts me for months - sometimes I think showing the most gruesome things forces people to turn away in horror and not actually reflect on how they're contributing because they're so overwhelmed. 

I actually became vegan after watching a Peta documentary that depicted both sides of the issue - I know Peta's far too extreme and I don't agree with many of their tactics, but they do a lot for revealing how poorly animals are treated by going undercover into these farms and releasing footage.  The footage horrified me.  I was a lapsed vegetarian at the time and it really made me stop and re-assess.  Did I really just eat meat because I was lazy?  Was I morally okay with that?  Yes. No.  So I stopped, and quickly expanded it into a vegan diet.  It ended up being an easy choice and one I don't regret, no matter how many people unknowingly try to push for me to eat 'just a little' of something my diet restricts.  Which I always find so weird...

I've been asked many times why I remain Vegan when I can purchase free-range products from farms that treat their animals very well. I personally don't want to eat meat and don't want to contribute to the death of any animal for sustenance.  However, I'm quite happy when better alternatives arise for the many people out there who consume meat and promote making a conscious decision to not purchase their food from factory farms. 

My eyes tear up just reading this:

"Nicholas says he admired the geese, which are known for mating for life. When it was time to slaughter one of the geese, young Nicholas was given the task of rushing into the barn to grab a goose for the chopping block. "Then I'd be walking out to the door, and out of that panicked flock one goose would emerge and walk toward me absolutely terrified, but sort of protesting in a very 'goosian' way. It would be the mate of the one that I was holding," he says. "And boy, that is a kind of courage—and it sounds funny to say it, but courage and humanity, if you will—that I have just never seen since. That has haunted me ever since."

I'm a total sap for the animals.  I especially agree with the second last sentence - sometimes I see far more humanity in animals these days then I do in us humans.  Sad but true.

Check out more on Oprah's segment here.

Chilly Chilly Miso

When the cold weather hits, like it did  so quickly on Thursday this week that I had to tear apart my condo to find a jacket before rushing off to work, all I want to eat is delicious soup.  I've always loved a good homemade soup or stew over the canned, preserved crap they sell at stores so when the soup bug hits along with the many other bugs out there when cold weather comes, I start looking for some delicious recipes to keep me warm.

Miso soup is a standard for me to make.  Not only is it fairly flexible in ingredients, it's super fast and easy to make as long as you have the very necessary ingredient - miso paste.  

Ying Ying Soyfood is one of my all-time favourite vendors these days.  Based in Oakville, Ontario, they sell their goods at small shops around Toronto as well as at their own store in St. Lawrence Market.  Not only do I get a very delicious miso paste from them, they also sell pre-marinated tofu in different flavours like sweet & sour and curry.  It's incredibly delicious and about as fast food as you can get for a vegan. Yum.

So far my favourite ingredients are fairly standard but trust me when I say I've tried quite a few mash-ups when running a little empty on food in the fridge.  This time around I chopped some shitake mushrooms, added some spinach and definitely included some delicious nori, which is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine.  I can be found snacking on plain nori when a craving hits.  Mmmm.

For the first time miso soup chef, I highly recommend the quick & easy recipe in How It All Vegan.  If you're feeling extra Japanese cuisine inspired, check out their simple recipe for some delicious veggie nori rolls and bust out the chopsticks for some good eating.

Running Lapse

I've been bad this week about running and look, my little Nike+ avatar is giving me shit on the sidebar!  Good for her, because since my plans for a drink with a friend this evening have been postponed, I know what I'm going to be doing after work.

My sticker calendar at home has been taunting me for the last little while.  Nothing like a mid-week long run to shake things up a bit!  I also need to shake up my route a bit, so I'm going to try a new one tonight.

Running really does help clear my head.  When I'm trying to think up solutions to issues, whether they be work related or personal, I find a good run can really help me sort through the mush and come up with a workable conclusion.  I often underestimate both the power of a good workout and the power of a good sleep in making everything better.  My week has lacked both so far.  Tonight I'm going for a seriously long run, rain or shine, and ponder the questions of the universe while my shoes hit the pavement. "If PeeWee Herman kept adding to his elastic ball every day since his show was cancelled, how big would it be today?"  You know, the serious stuff.

Edit.  Horrible run today.  Serious cramp ruined long run efforts.  Better go grab a drink with the man and let it go until Friday. :)

Naked in Trinity-Bellwoods Park

I had a great long weekend.  I didn't go outside of the city or anything, but it was really enjoyable and I got some much needed downtime.  I also discovered just how delicious soy ice cream is.  Yum!  Instead of recapping the entire weekend, I'll let you know about my Monday.

 When plans to attend the Vegetarian Food Festival kept going from 'on' to 'off' on repeat until we eventually realized it was this coming weekend (oops), it was too late to go for some back-up plan to visit a friend in Port Credit to hang by the pool. Instead I took myself, my ipod and David Sedaris' Naked to Trinity-Bellwoods Park to enjoy some music by the Arkells whilst reading with my back against a tree.  Heavenly.  The weather was absolutely perfect and I ended up switching from reading, to daydreaming, to a quick cat nap.  I don't know why I didn't do more of this during the summer, but I'm going to try to get more park-time in before the weather turns on me.

A lot of others seemed to be thinking the same thing as the park was absolutely packed.

Naked is really good so far.  It's a lot more chronological than the other two Sedaris books I recently completed.  It also fits in well with them, adding stories that fill in some of the gaps.  How someone's childhood can be so hilarious is enviable but when I reflect back on some of my childhood stories I find some pretty hilarious situations that occurred which could merit further thought to putting them down to paper.  I really want to develop my own style, much like Sedaris did, and this is what I'm finding to be hindering my efforts to write.  Fortunately I have all these old journals hanging around and I've started to re-read them.  This is a horrifying endeavor and I'm sure anyone else who goes back to read their past writings will confirm this. 

Digging through my old journals while drinking a glass or two of wine and listening to Regina Spektor sure does make for one nostalgic afternoon.  Maybe I'll write about it some other time but it definitely brought back feelings of inadequacy and doubt that can only be attributed to reverting straight back into the self-conscious black hole that is adolescence.  No one wants to go there but sometimes you have to revert!