pop rock candy floss

Went to my sister's place last night for dinner. Ruth is still in the Northwest Territories; Kaarel said she has bronchitis right now. :-( Also, the airline lost her luggage, though it was returned two days later. Ruth called during the evening, and so did my Dad (who is Japan right now).

Jeff brought pop rock candy floss for the girls. He had bought some at Tokyo World, a Japanese store beside Wow, the sushi restaurant we go to for lunch once a week with friends. Tokyo World is full of interesting-looking packages of children's treats with Japanese labels. Each week, Jeff buys a new type of mystery treat ("mystery" since none of us can read Japanese). Last time, he bought what turned out to be disc-shaped candy that tasted like lemon yogurt.

I remember my mother used to go shopping at a place in downtown Toronto called Sanko for sushi ingredients as well as fresh tofu, green tea leaves, and other supplies that were difficult to find in our local grocery store in Bramalea. Ruth, Jim and I would wander the aisles looking for treats. My favourite was Botan Rice Candy, a jelly-like candy wrapped in an edible cellophane material. I remember taking some to school and purposely freaking out my schoolmates by casually popping the candy pieces into my mouth, wrapping and all.

Anyway, turns out that Tokyo World has exactly the same candy. Even the packaging is exactly the same, with a small prize in an extra compartment on one end. The prize used to be a plastic toy, but nowadays, this is just a sticker. Tokyo World is also our main source of Pocky. Pocky is worth an entire Blathering on its own, of course. :-)

Today's Blatherpic:
Sara, showing me how she can climb the doorframe without any help. She is wearing her Pocahontas costume.

autographs

I collected autographs when I was a teenager. I'd look up addresses in the Who's Who book at my public library, or (in the case of an author) write c/o the publisher. Today's Blatherpic is a letter I received from Stephen King, complete with "white-out" corrections made with typewriter correction paper (difficult to see this in the scan). He had published five books by then. I'm amazed that he made the time to write a personal letter.

Years later, I wrote to him again, c/o his publisher. I enclosed a photocopy of the letter, said that I had been a longtime fan, asked if I could interview him for Inklings. Not surprisingly, I received no answer. :-)

I'm going to start posting the occasional autograph in my Blatherings, except for the embarrassing ones (like Rex Smith, for example).

Hey, check out Jeff's and my personal homepage. Jeff's revamped it. We'll be adding more content (especially to the main page) over time.

sushifest

Went to Fune last night with some friends to celebrate Jeff's birthday. Scott had a Blackberry, and we tried posting to Blatherchat. Sadly, it seemed to have trouble uploading. I had my usual: salmon sashimi, steamed rice, broiled shiitake mushrooms, tako sushi, hamachi sushi, and tobiko with quail's egg.

I forgot to mention something that happened when we stayed at the Deerhurst Resort with my sister and her family a short while back. Sara asked if she could sleep with me in my bed on the first night (Jeff would be on the pull-out in the living room). She said she preferred me over Uncle Jeff because I would be lighter if I accidentally rolled on top of her. It was one of those moments when our first impulse was to laugh, but she was being so serious that we knew we couldn't.

I had never slept in the same bed as Sara before. I half-expected her to want to stay up really late, playing with me. Instead, she was very business-like and efficient. She got undressed and folded her clothes neatly on an armchair in the room ("I'm very organized, Auntie Debbie"), got her Bunny and Dolly arranged around her in the bed, one on each side of her.

She tossed and turned a bit, mumbled, "Auntie Debbie, could you please not roll on top of me?" and then was asleep. It took me a while to do the same; I was too intrigued by the novelty of sleeping beside my niece. She looked so small, her long hair spread out on the pillow, clutching her stuffed toys. When I finally did doze off, I found that I couldn't fall deeply asleep.

Later, my sister said it was the same with her, when she was a new mother. Every time Sara moved, I woke up. Every time she sighed or coughed, I woke up. I found myself unable to completely relax, terrified that I was going to accidentally roll on top of my niece unawares and smother her. It was as if some part of my brain wouldn't let me sleep ("You must stay on guard! The child must be protected!").

Do all parents go through this in the beginning?

Today's Blatherpic:
Sushi outing at Fune last night.

slush

Toronto weather has not been the greatest lately. Yesterday morning started off with a whopper of a snowstorm which, sadly, wimped out into a bone-chilling drizzle. Downtown streets were piled with slush and ankle-deep puddles. Everyone was walking around with umbrellas and exasperated looks on their faces. My boots leak, so my feet got soaked within a few minutes, ice-cold water squishing around my toes with each step. For some reason, I didn't find this that bad, maybe because I knew it could be worse (my Nahanni trip knocked some of the "city wimp" out of me). Late in the day, Jeff and I went to a Starbucks for comfort drinks. I got a moccachino with whipped cream on top, drizzled with caramel (yum).

Don't feel like writing much today. Instead, read this journal entry from someone I don't know. I've been surfing other online journals lately, and was especially moved by this piece. Warning: it's intense.

Today's Blatherpic:
This something I doodled in Fractal Painter very early this morning. I've resolved to learn how to properly use this graphics program, and will inflict my experiments on you here from time to time.

purge

Ruth called last night to say she's having a great time in the Northwest Territories. I had hunted down the Web site for the Yellowknife Public Library, one of the places where she is giving her workshop/presentation. I e-mailed the Webmaster, asking if he/she would say hi to my sister for me. Ruth was very surprised. :-)

Yesterday, I found that Inkspot was highlighted in Canadian Writer's Magazine as the #1 spot for writers, in Earthlink's subscriber magazine, and chosen as one of the best sites of the year for writers by Writer's Digest magazine (will be mentioned in their May issue). Inkspot has also been nominated as one of the best Web sites for writers in the 2000 Inscriptions Engraver Awards. Pretty cool.

I still haven't had a chance to properly unpack; there are still boxes in the living room. Main problem: my home office is too small. I need to purge and reorganize it before I can move the rest of my stuff in. I'm not a very good purger and reorganizer. In contrast, Jeff -loves- purging and reorganizing. I find it very difficult to throw things out.

JEFF (holding up object): "Do you really need this?"

ME: "Don't throw that out! I might need that someday!"

JEFF: "For what?"

ME: "I don't know yet. But it could come in handy."

JEFF: "But you have so much stuff like this. You should get rid of some of it so you'll have more room in your office. What IS this thing, anyway?"

ME: "Um."

JEFF: "You don't really know what it is, do you?"

ME: "Not exactly."

etc.

For those that don't know already, I have a new e-mail address. Please use "ohi @ electricpenguin.com" (remove the spaces; I put those in in a feeble attempt to avoid the spambots), thanks.

Today's Blatherpic:

Paul and Beckett, at OVFF last year.