I will never listen to your voicemail. 

(I started writing this post yesterday.)

Happy International Women’s Day!

A lifetime of suffering, one day of celebration!

-Alexa

Once again, I empowered women by enriching their knowledge of bikes and letting them in on the secret that men generally overstate their bike maintenance know-how. Truly, I have yet to meet a non-bike mechanic whose skills match their claims. I’ve definitely been “well, ackshually’d” by these men the few times I’ve tried to give empirical advice.

Fine. Enjoy your garbage bike, you smug man.

As soon as I got home from the three-hour repair clinic, I scrubbed the grime from my fingernails, eager for a more ladylike diversion. My order of yarn from Denmark arrived while I was in Vancouver and passed through customs without incurring any duty fees.

There was only one thing stopping me from starting on my army of Koroks: this blog post. I can’t keep Zoée waiting for my recap of my extra-queer, birthday-flavoured trip to Vancouver.

Continue reading “I will never listen to your voicemail. “

Butter Showdown.

With a pissed off iliopsoas keeping me from engaging in my newest hobby, running, I had to find other ways to make my final week of unemployment stimulating.

The alternative was to load up on butter. About $40 worth.

As a hobby baker specializing in cookies and a former Fraser Valley girl, Fraser Valley Creamery or Naturel were my go-to brands. I never noticed a significant difference between the two and naturally assumed they were superior to the cheaper alternatives. Recently, I’ve started shopping at grocery stores that aren’t lorded over by Jim Pattison or Galen Weston, and by doing so, I’ve found myself baffled by the butter options available. Organic. Grass fed. New Zealand style. Hand vs machine churned. Cultured butter. Medieval bog butter. “Great Value”.

…and goat butter. If you’re a fan of BotW or TotK and are wondering what dish five sticks of butter makes, it’s dubious food. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Anyway, Google insists that the Irish brand Kerrygold is the ultimate butter, but it doesn’t seem to be available in Canada. Likely due to the lobbying efforts the Canadian dairy cartel. Besides, all these review sites are crammed with ads, and I’m wary of heavily monetized sources.

Like a true radical, I set out to become the internet’s most trustworthy source on Canadian butter. Nobody paid me to do this: I did it out of love for baking, and for feeding my pals the most delicious baked goods I can possibly make.

Continue reading “Butter Showdown.”

Come for cookies.

I guess I’m going to start providing monthly updates on the ambient lighting at chez Zoée. Last Saturday, in an effort to make their living space more crafting-friendly for their nyctalopic (yes, I just learnt this word) pal, Zoée hung an extra lightbulb above the couch and urged me to take the corner space.

Before I left for the mainland last Friday, my lighting technician encouraged me to bring a crafting project to work on, as they were on a roll with their first-ever knitting project: a sweater.

Yes, a sweater!

When I got into knitting a decade ago, I would never have ventured to make a sweater, even after completing five toques and a scarf. Choosing a sweater as a first knitting project seems completely insane to me, but Zoée seems to be managing it well.

For our enchanted evening of entanglement, I packed two skeins of yarn. Rather than knit yet another toque, I wielded a crocheting hook to form the cap portion of my mushroom guy. Not only can Zoée make a sweater in a dimly lit room, but they can also follow the plot of Bridgerton while doing so. The only scene I caught was Daphne experiencing her first post-nut clarity.

I’d paid for my ride and lodging with jizz cookies and egg salad sandwiches.

Continue reading “Come for cookies.”

Last year.

This feathered sentinel spent the better part of an hour examining weary travellers behind the glass doors that separate the passenger area of berth 5 from the outdoor deck. Most of us humans were sitting around, eyes locked on our phone screens. Two guys in their early 20s went outside and traded turns looking out at sea wistfully while the other took pictures. Both went inside immediately after their photoshoot to upload their artificially contemplative snapshots to the ‘gram. Witnessing this mini-photoshoot unfold amused me more than seeing a similar photo crop up on my* Instagram feed.

Continue reading “Last year.”