Month: January 2021

Well, that happened

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Katy and I were walking NMD along the lake this morning. Katy says to let Lili go down a boat ramp to let her have a drink. I’m not a fan of letting her go off-lead in general, and there were lots of dogs around that morning and she was acting like a pickle so I walked down with her. Katy told me not to because that the ramp would be slippery, but it didn’t look too bad. And then my sneakers completely lost their grip on the wet algae covering the ramp, I went on my ass, and my ass and I went in the lake.

I was more surprised than hurt, and I was more worried about my phone in my back pocket than anything else… I managed to scramble out back onto the ramp and it could have gone either way about me going back into the lake for a while, but in the end I made it back onto dry, flat ground. At least I can now say I’ve been in the lake, in January.

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[recipe] chocolate orange scones

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700g self-raising flour
150g butter
150g caster sugar
2 large oranges, finely grated zest of both and juice of one orange
150g chocolate drops
200ml whole milk, plus extra for brushing

To serve
clotted cream
Marmalade

Preheat the oven to 210C/400F. Lightly butter two baking trays.

Sift the flour into a bowl. Rub in the butter using your hands until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, chocolate drops and orange zest.

In a measuring jug, mix the milk with the juice of one orange. Add to the flour mixture gradually until the dough just comes together. You may not need all the liquid. Be careful not to overwork the scone dough.

Roll out the dough to approximately 2cm/1in thickness and cut out scones using a 5-6cm cutter.

Transfer the scones to the buttered baking trays, brush the tops with milk and bake in the centre of the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until risen and golden-brown.

Remove from the oven and cool on wire rack.

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I hate doing homework with Ben

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I have good intentions to try and help Ben with his homework when he asks demands. But every time I open my mouth to explain something, he blatantly interrupts me after 2 words to talk yell over me that I’m wrong, or not doing it the right way, or it’s too difficult and he’s going to fail and nobody helps and it’s all going to be my fault.

I am so honestly fed up. I want to help, but I will not put up with the abuse. So, I love my son, but fuck this shit and the horse it rode on.

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More old pictures – university friends

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A bunch of pictures from university days:
– the crappy student flat I shared with Seb on Edouard-Montpetit
– the cockroach motel on Aylmer, in the McGill Ghetto
– the flat I shared with Michel on St-Marc
– a bunch of pictures from Alex’s birthday before he moved to NY
– the party flat on Willowdale… oh the memories

and some others that I don’t remember :)

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Branton Lab

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I found a bunch of old photos of my grad school lab days. Good times, bad times. The lab went to Mont St-Hilaire for a weekend retreat with a collaborating lab once. 8am to 6pm, hardcore science talks. 6:01pm to midnight, hardcore drinking. 12:01am to 6am, preparing the following day’s talks…

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Catastrophic failure moment

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Trying to drill holes through pre-hardened steel led to epic failure. The drill wasn’t doing anything. I’d managed to get a hole through by punching a screw and was trying various ways to widen the hole. After breaking yet another drill bit, we tried a brute force approach involving the screw, a block of wood and the vice. It seemed to be working, then we heard the dreaded p-ting noise… So… Plan B.

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That dog is spoilt rotten

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Not-my-dog loves herself a beanbag. It’s probably her favourite thing here. Last Sunday, after coming back from the mountain, the beanbag had an incident. One of too many, that made it unusable. On to Facebook marketplace we went to get a replacement one. But it didn’t smell, or possibly feel, right. An old duvet cover solved the issue, and now all is well in NMD’s world.

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