Home sweet home

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It's good to be home. For as much as I loved seeing all the people I saw over the holidays, it feels good to be able to hang my hat on my own hanger. We're slowly putting all the stuff we bought/got away, but that will probably take a few days as Katy wants to completely remodel the apartment decorations :)

Going back to work tomorrow doesn't seem like a chore either, for one of the rare times in my life. I completely lost track of time over the last two weeks. I was talking about it with Katy's dad. In the last two weeks, we travelled about 12,000km. It seems that it took forever and was over in the blink of an eye at the same time. It'll be good to get back to the routine for a bit.

Next little adventure should be going to London again to go see the Cirque du Soleil at the end of january.

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New year's eve

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Katy's dad and I won the trivial-pursuit-game-that-wouldn't-die last night as part of our overall strategy to make up for last year's debacle. Playing with a version edited in the UK in the 80s makes for even more of a challenge for me, but I did still manage to hold my own.

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[Recipe] Meat curry from Auntie Mina

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Recipe for lamb, chicken or prawn curries

Ingredients:
Oil
2 sticks of cinnamon
4 cloves
2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
4 big chopped onions
2 teaspoons of red chilli powder
4-5 teaspoons of cumin and coriander powder
3/4 – teaspoon of turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 small tin of chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoons of tomato puree
Green chillies and ginger chopped to taste
1 teaspoon of garam masala
Lemon juice if desired

• Heat enough oil to cover bottom of pan
• Add cinnamon, cloves and cumin seeds and cover pan
• When these are popped in oil
• Add chopped onions and cook thoroughly, stirring frequently till oil bubbles out.
• Make paste with chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, green chillies, ginger, red chilli powder, turmeric, cumin and coriander powder, garam masala and salt to taste, add a little water if necessary.
• Add above paste to onion mixture and again cook thoroughly, stirring frequently till oil bubbles out.
• Add meat, chicken, or fish to the above mixture and stir and cook till meat, chicken or fish is tender
• Add some lemon juice if desired and lots of freshly chopped coriander leaves

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The physics of King Kong

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Katy managed to find a team of wild horses to drag me to see King Kong. I really wasn't loking forward to see it, I dunno, it really didn't appeal to me. After seeing it, I'm still bleh. It's not the worst movie ever made, but I really annoyed the hell out of me. It could easily have been a half-hour shorter and has plot holes big enough to drive a Mac truck through. The female lead character annoyed the hell out of me and all in all, this movie is way too in love with CGI. So, all in all, I've seen it and Katy enjoyed it, so that's ok.

We went to see her uncle Michael and her auntie Mina. That woman can cook and her kitchen smells like indian heaven :) I got a new curry recipe which I will be posting as soon as I type it up.

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We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaack

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Ottawa customs were a bit of a pain, with me having to unpack my laptop from a massively overcrowded backpack. At least I don't make the metal detectors go poing anymore these days. Bobbles and Parsley were great hits with the customs people who made us open our bags for verification of odd shapes (I had a bottle of wine, Katy had hjars of pickled beets). The kiddies were the source of lots of ooohing and aaahing, which made us giggle. The flight was uneventful, save for the fact that there were 4 people sitting behind us instead of 3. One kept crying all throughout the flght, the other kept kicking the seats. I am now a firm proponent that small children should be sedated and fly with the pets in the cargo hold. Heathrow was a breeze and now we're in Leicester.

We're both completely zonked out. We had a bit of a nap in the afternoon… except that now the sun is down so we're getting up so we have a small chance of actually sleeping through the night.

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What I got for xmas

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I must've been really, really nice this year. It seems that I've been celebrating xmas for two weeks: in Leicester, in Montreal and at my parents'.

It's weird though. It's xmas day itself and I think I'm a bit xmas'ed out. I just want to spend the next few days doing SFA. I have some books to read and some music to listen to and I'm going to be a very happy camper.

If you're curious what I got, in no particular order:

– stainless steel electronic scales
– a digital camera
– a fedora
– a granit mortar & pestle
– a book by Bill Bryson
– a set of really nice headphones for my laptop
– a new webcam for my laptop
– two cotton trader rugby shirts
– really, really ugly fridge magnets (and some nice ones too!)

And because my memory is shit poor, I forgot the following:

– tickets to the Santana concert in London
– an “earth seen from above” desk calendar
– a rosetta stone ceramic tile
– M*A*S*H season 9 DVD box set

I also got a ton of waterstones vouchers and some money as well (my parents went overboard, really!). I'd mentioned that I would like a KitchenAid mixer, so my mom gave me the money for it (as if she bought it, it wouldn't work overseas).

I'd also asked as a joke for a foot of snow. My mom decided to improvise by dumping two bags of glitter confetti on my head (which required a shower to get rid of – that thing itches like mad!).

In other news, I've decided to give Boris to my sister. I wouldn't be able to bring him over for at least another 10 months. We can't move until april (and it's still not guaranteed that we'll find a pet-friendly apartment) and then there'd be a 6 month delay for bloodwork to be processed. It would be unfair for both Boris and my sister, cause they're really bonding together and he's really, really settling into her apartment. He eats her plants, he showers with her, he sleeps in her bed. It just wouldn't be right. So… yeah. She'll take care of him and I'll still be able to visit once in a while.

Speaking of the pussycat, he's currently sleeping somewhere downstaits. He's getting a bit braver. Apparently, he was up nosing about upstairs during the night last night and even jumped in my parents' bed. That did not go well with the little doggy. That's her bed :) Still, there's been no real pet-induced chaos, so that's good.

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I am adequate.

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Katy was musing out load at what my extreme make-over would include. Apparently, I need a brow lift, cosmetic dentistry, liposuction and a tailored exercise regime. When I started goofing about the breast enlargement and the brazilian butt lift, she started choking with laughter. When I mentioned the penis enlargemnt kit I got in a spam, she said the words all men yearn to hear: it's adequate. *chuckle* I think we scared my sister with that conversation :D

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