Happy People: Seriously, Werner?

I recently watched the documentary Happy People: A Year in the Taiga by filmographer Werner Herzog and Russian co-director Dmitry Vasyukov. These "happy" people live in Siberia (need I go on?- SIBERIA- the land of cold and bleak where the Russians send their criminals) in a remote village of 300 people. You can only get in by helicopter or when the river isn't frozen, (like for 3 weeks of the year) by boat. They live without running water, phones, pez dispensers, and minor things like medical attention and proper education. Why are these  'happy" people there you ask.. oh ya they were sent there by the Russian government in the 70s and guess what they can't get out! (too poor for the helicopter or boat ride, so sorry you have to stay).

They live in abject poverty, in a harsh, barren, wild and (ok I'll give them) scenically beautiful environment. We follow the industrious inhabitants- mostly the guys, through one year of their "happy" lives. We start in the spring- (think winter) where the main dude shows us what he can do with an axe and the answer is- ANYTHING.  (He should really try to build a helicopter, I think). He is a awesome craftsman and can plank a tree in straight boards with his axe (these, to make skis by hand with moose fur on the bottom for slide-ability, true story).

Then comes summer and you the viewer are happy because you think "great- some relief from the hideous cold" and that part is true but guess what- they are plagued and I mean plagued head to toe by mosquitos- do you mind! These guys can not catch a break. Yes it's light for 20 hours of the day & the vegetables are ginormous but again summer only lasts 3 weeks and then boom you are into fall, (again, think winter).

So in the fall they have to get ready for winter (they like to pretend that they are not already in winter), getting the traps in gear, repairing their hand-made log hovels so the bears can't get at them, fishing for themselves and their beloved dogs- you know the normal back to school stuff we all do. The hunters go off in the winter to hunt and trap for several months with only their dogs for companions.  I wrote to my brother who is an outdoorsy type of guy and asked him if he had seen the movie and told him he might like a year in Taiga  (like actually living there as a sort of insane experiment) and mentioned the great dogs because he is a lover of these types of dogs and he wrote me back and said 'AND GREAT FISH' (he had seen the movie),which is right- they catch pike the size of small apartments.

 One scene shows the bakers baking the bread the hunters and dogs (the dogs are always included, apparently these "happy" dogs eat bread as a thing) will need for their long winter away hunting and trapping and SPOILER ALERT and when they go off, the bakers kiss the hunter /trappers goodbye. I was like "say those baker dudes are really friendly with those hunter dudes-" but I thought ok like in prison (which really this place is) you takes what you can get.  I'm cool with that. Then Mr. Lovely clued me in that those baker dudes were their wives (not dudes at all but women). OOOPS.  I now get the hunter guys going off with just their dogs- makes sense.

It is fascinating and visually splendid and although I admire Werner on account of he produces great films (loved his compassion for the underbelly of America society in Into the Abyss), I gotta think he's trying too hard to paint a lovely picture of these noble people who live by the land and are "happy" with their lot.  I think they are self sufficient to the max, extremely capable, simple, rugged and well, resigned to their lives. They don't even drink booze which is also very commendable.  I think Werner based the title on one scene where a trapper was sitting by the fire, in the snow, with his dog and mused  "Ah, this is the life - nothing like settling down with a nice cup of tea." At least that is what the translator said he said but who knows he is probably saying  " I hate my &%$#^%&^ life and wish I could build a helicopter with my axe!" It's a good watch and I highly recommend it.

More "CLEANSING" Repercussions

I know what you are thinking- no posts for 2 months and then bing, bang, boom- 2 in a row. Is it because of "the cleanse" and feeling energized because of eating really healthy fude lika dis?

(See, it isn't all beige glutinous mush). No, it is because of the cleanse and in particular the no booze- got nothing to do, so as Van Halen says-might as well jump  blog.  I'm sure he sang that.

So because of "the cleanse" I had purchased some organic virgin coconut oil to use in making some fake sugar by mixing it with cocoa and agave to make some awesome cookies found on the Chocolate Covered Katie's Website.  Katie, a young, attractive, veganista blogs about chocolate recipes that really rock- what could be bad?  Haven't yet made the cookies but this is more about the virgin stuff. So I was showing Dani my oil (ok, I was showing off my oil) - let me show you my oil:

yup that's some good looking oil, no?

So Dani says "hey you know this stuff is great for your hair- just grab a handful and mush it on, leave it on for 20 minutes, wash and rinse and your hair will be shiny and lovely.  Yes it is true, I needed more details about what a person does in the shower for 20 minutes while waiting, but she clued me into the fact that you can put it on before you got in the shower (ohhhhh....).

So Dani knows this stuff (she does have shiny, lovely hair) and who am I to look shiny, lovely hair in the mouth, so I did try it.  I wish I had worn a button shirt instead of an over the head shirt (still learning) but when I got out of the shower - well blow my lips off- my hair did feel good- silky, smooth, manageable- bouncy even. But then again it always feels better when its wet.

I dried it in my usual way- air- and went to work. BIG MISTAKE. This virgin oil gave me a rogue curl that could not, would not, be tamed. I wet it with Moroccan oil (you know hair of the dog- treat one oil with another) water, smoothing gel- nada! This is that hair-

DO YOU MIND, HAIR? It's bad enough having thick, ropey, curly, GREY hair but a hair that curls one way and then the other in one curl- that's just wrong! Product! What I need is product.

HOW MUCH CLEAN IS ENOUGH

So I am 10 days into my 21 days cleanse and I am NOT loving it. I am not eating gluten, processed sugar, animal products and not drinking alcohol. I am supposed to not have any caffeine but no can do- that would kill me- do you mind- this is tough enough. And 2 demi cups of French roast in the morning with frothed almond milk is not really cutting it so it is like giving up my morning coffee- it's certainly giving up delicious morning coffee- good enough.

I have  to blame credit Mr. Lovely for getting me into this. He had been out to Vancouver to visit his brothers and had partaken (he says once, but I bet more than once in his 3 day visit) of some Chinese food (politically incorrect  maybe - but I mean no harm - it's just that this way everyone knows what I'm talking about) and was on a mission to find some similar quality CF here in our small Ontario city. Good luck! In the past 30 years we had already tried 3 of the 5 places in town and I'm sorry to say they were not up to Mr. Lovely's standards. So here we were chomping down on yet another attempt at spring rolls, beef with snow pea pods, singapore noodles, and lemon chicken, all mostly smothered in miscellaneous goop -ok not the spring rolls but man were they greasy-yeesh. I got to thinking- hey I don't have a clue what I am eating and how smart is that? Not so! I also had spent quite a few nights having my cocktail- (a delicious Spanish wine called Garnacha Centenaria) standing at the counter and devouring about 1/2 large size bag of Miss Vickies (Jalapeno flavour mostly- though the sweet chili  and sour cream is also pretty darn good and I do like to shake it up sometimes). So I had told myself- yup tonight after work I'm not going to have a drink or any junk fude (that's the way Gary Larsen's animals spell food- cause you know they are animals so can't spell right).  But guess what- I have no will power and I was always putting that resolve off to the next day. But that Chinese food meal put me over the top. So I decided to go all out and hence the 14 day cleanse.

Here is  some of what I have been eating:

organic beet humus;

sweet potato and kale peanut soup;

the banana cream part of a banana cream pie (no pie crust cause of no gluten) made with silken tofu, bananas, crushed cashews and medjool dates (for added sweetness- not that it needed it) YUM- you can tell it's nearly gone;

no it's not chopped liver- it's a quinoa burger made with quinoa, sautéed onion and sundried tomatoes, and black beans- actually very tasty though a bit messy.

HOLY CRAP BATMAN, right? Are you so impressed? Ya me too! I have been cooking- (though the humus was from the store and the soup was c/o my buddy Kate) the rest is yours truly-that part is good- I suppose.

And although Mr. Lovely has also given up the booze and processed sugar for his "cleanse"- it is pretty darn hard to watch him chowing down on Jesse's country bread (Jesse makes his fantastic bread in his outdoor oven and it is amazing (I may miss that the most!) with  4 yr. old Balderson chedda cheese and then lace into a perfectly BBQ'd (just slightly bloody) steak.

And my friends?  Well-they are as supportive as they can be given they have lost a drinking buddy- Dani PB said "what?- this is a terrible idea!"  My book club pals called me "boring" (ok they were hooting it up not even discussing the book anymore and I wasn't drinking so I had to go- it was no fun) and LL said - 10 days- surely you will get enough benefit from that.

So I am thinking how cleansed do I want to be? Surely 12 days is clean enough!

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

So the other day I was getting dressed, (so practically in my nuticals), and because I was up high, reasonably far from the sidewalk and behind three columnar oak trees (the bay window of my bedroom is too, I don't just fly around bare assed) I had my blinds open so I could enjoy the great outdoors when something unpleasant and well downright scary happened! Two mourning doves- the cooing type of chicken flew up on the sill just outside my window and started, well walking around on their little feet and making googly eyes  at one another.

taken from inside- my actual sill

OK, I know they are not chicken chickens but to me most semi-domestic or urban birds, chicken size (or sometimes bigger) & colour are chickens, whether they are pigeons, doves or ostriches- to me are chickens and they are, quite frankly, not welcome in my world. I love the cute little birds- the chickadee dee dee dees, the nut hatches ( the red breasted kind on account of their bandito mask- so cool), the cardinals, the gold finches, the hummingbirds with their ability to fly in one spot-awesome, even the hoo hoo hooter owls-which I have seen out in the wild- magical really) oh and I 'm sure there are more but these big birds that fly around your head and want to peck your eyes out ( a la Al Hitchcock- ya he knew) well get them away from me. ( Let's not even talk about seagulls- the worst and most heinous chicken there is-  they really will peck your eyes out-  I'm not even kidding, and they eat garbage dontchaknow?)

Well these 2 chickens were sitting there, pretty as you please, and even when I walked up ( me inside of course and them outside on the sill) and shooed them away did they fly away like good little chickens- NO! do you mind chickens? this is my house and my sill! Don't you have a wire or an inner city street or something to hang out on?

I started thinking- hey are these chickens going to roost here? (surely not ), which of course led me to think of the expression "The Chickens have come home to roost" which made me wonder about how that expression every came to be. And so going to trusty Mr. Google and World Wide Words, I discovered "The older fuller form was curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost, meaning that your offensive words or actions are likely at some point to rebound on you."

AHA! I knew it- yes curses are like chickens and chickens are like curses- it all makes so much sense.

A (Very) Dark Corner of the Internet

I've been reading in the New York Times about the New York city cop, Gilberto Valle, who has been charged with conspiracy to kidnap, rape, kill and cannibalize women. That is not very nice Gilberto! You and that  ex LA. cop are giving cops a bad name this month. From your picture you look normal

and well fed. I guess you never know.

I am fascinated by the legal aspect of when does chatting on the World Wide Web actually become a crime.  Now I'm no lawyer -well actually I am -(I just like that figure of speech) so I know that there has to be both a mens rea- (guilty mind) and actus reus-( guilty action). Yes, it is creepy to the max for him and these other internet dudes to be even fantasizing and putting into writing these horrific ideas but when does it cross the line? To be convicted of a "conspiracy"  (now I'm no criminal lawyer- that part is right) my understanding is that there must be an agreement between two or more parties to commit a crime of some type in the future and some overt act in furtherance of the agreement. His defence is that it was just pretend-a fantasy if you will.  This is some messed up fantasy. The prosecution says- it is very real-that the accused discussed a "specific real woman that he knew and was discussing the logistics of fitting her into an oven".  Working out the logistics of fitting her in an oven- do you mind?  Really the whole thing is do you mind? He has pleaded not guilty.   I will continue to read with interest.

 Two cannibals were eating this clown that they had boiled for dinner- one turns to the other and says "does this taste funny to you?"

Wake Up and Smell the Whole Wheat Quinoa

Mr. Lovely finds it (epi)curious what has happened to the food life in our family. Curious and if the truth be told, sad.
We used to be a family of carnivores for one thing- we wouldn't fret about little things like healthy diet or ethical considerations or wheat belly or complexion. We would all happily chow down on cheese steaks on white buns with sides of potato salad and cokes  -ah, those were the days, right Mr. L?  Nowadays we have three vegetarians, another who won't eat "white carbohydrates" and sugars of any kind, one just trying to eat healthy and live a quiet, simple life (guess who that is?) and one who remains stuck in his meat and carb diet, his processed food, and his junk-a-holic ways

www.pizzadelivery.org

 and who refuses to see that the world is changing right before his eyes.

First off the vegetarians. They are real vegetarians, not pescetarians, (will eat fish) or semi -vegetarians aka flexitarians ("mostly" vegetarian but will eat meat, chicken and fish rarely)- a real term according to wikepedia. Semi vegetarian! Flexitarian!-do you mind? I can't keep track of what my vegetarians consume from week to week-are they are ovo-vegetarian, (yes to eggs, no to dairy products) lacto-vegetarian, (yes to dairy products- no to eggs), or ova-lacto vegetarian-oh what the heck- yes to both. My daughters have tried being vegans for a time, which excludes all animal products including eggs, dairy, beeswax and honey. Seriously who eats beeswax and I just don't get honey- maybe somebody can clue me in.

They ingest stuff that we know vegetarians eat like nuts, seeds, tofu, both the more and less firm variety, and almond milk but also "crazy" stuff like seitan, t.v.p. ( textured vegetable protein) tempeh, quinoa, and soy cheese. Oh my!

And Mr. Lovely can't seem to remember that they don't eat animals at all- he is constantly offering them bites of his hamburger or chicken wings or shrimp cocktail or getting excited about the great roast beef meal we can all enjoy for our next family gathering. When I point out "but Lovely they are vegetarians-" he will get this surprised ( as though this is the first time he is hearing this even though they have been vegetarian for a very long time- Ed for over 6 years and Meg and Phil for close to 2) and then mournful and dejected look on his face, and then he will commence to moping.

Thankfully they are all excellent cooks cause for sure they would be having salad and soup all the time when they visited if it were left to me. And Mr. Lovely- well he would just buy them processed "box vegetarian" dinners. Yes he is a big fan of the boxed  "fudes"-boxed Indian meals- [korma in a box, butter chicken in a box},  (more like a cardiac arrest in a box), boxed lasagna, boxed chicken wings, boxed pizza- you get the idea.

sikharchives.com

He is further befuddled by Al, who won't  have milk, white pasta bread or potatoes or sugar of any kind  -a bit for his body but mostly for his face- he wants to keep his complexion clean and clear and thinks those items interfere with that agenda.

So Mr. Lovely can't just rustle up some spaghetti (and by that I mean- good honest spaghetti- not that whole wheat stuff) and meat sauce (his favourite meal) because he has no takers- not a one. We are all living healthier these days.

(Tiger Print for Vegetarian Food Fair by Lemon)

It is a new world out there, Lovely- wake up and smell the whole wheat quinoa.

Sally (Season 2)

Just when you thought Sally had wrapped up for good, along comes more Sally. If you are anything like Mr. Lovely you will skip this post decrying "I can't take any more of Sally". But if you are like me you will see it through to the bitter end. I mean how hard is it to read one page (a page with pictures yet).

Before the family had evolved to it current enlightened state of ignoring Sally there was a time during which Sally was still the object of disdain.(If I was the emoticon type, I would put a sad face here). It was during this time that one of Sally eyes mysteriously "fell" off. Luckily I found it under one of the sofa cushions ( along with some other misplaced items of no consequence).

I had my own suspicions about what happened and not being one to keep silent, I let the alleged perpetrator know that I suspected foul play. Oh yes, there was the expected denial and feigned indignation and I never did get to the bottom of it but I think we both know what happened, right Phil?

At any rate, the sewing of an eye is way beyond my capabilities (and yes I know what you are thinking- it is really just the sewing of a button, but sadly, that too, is way beyond my capabilities) and so I had to make the trip to R my trusted and lovely Hungarian seamstress to perform this delicate operation. I asked Mr. Lovely to take Sally in and he brought her other eye in a baggy to make sure that the right button got sewed on. But when I went to pick Sally up -quelle horreur- R had sewn on a matching eye. When I asked R what happened to the eye in the baggy she said that she thought we had made a mistake and brought in wrong button because it didn't match so she put on one that she thought matched better.NOOOOOOOOO!!!

Not wanting to hurt R's feelings, I took Sally home, knowing that there was no way on earth that Sally could live with this affront to her good looks.  Within the week I  had importuned my good friend Laura P to sew on one new properly mismatched eye that restored Sally to her former beauty. If only all cosmetic surgery could be repaired this easily cause bad cosmetic surgery is the worst- do you mind!

A few months later we were going to "the country" for a one week vacation. As there were different schedules we went in two cars, Mr. Lovely, Al , Ed and me going up first, Meg and Phil to follow the next day.

Meg and Phil arrived and began unpacking the car when Phil began to relay this very disturbing story. He said that Meg was in the car and had left her water bottle inside and so he went back in the house to get it and then heard a scurrying sound and a slamming of a car door. He didn't think anything at the time, but when they were halfway up north and stopped for gas he looked in the back seat and saw this:

Sally, that scamp, not wanting to be left behind had hopped a ride. Too bad she forgot her swimming trunks as it got pretty hot and she had nothing to swim in. C'est la vie when you are living fast and loose.