My kid; A douchebag?!!!

Our kids don't need to be our buddies. They can like us when they're 30. Mostly what kids want is for a parent to be in charge."-Greg Ramey in DETAILS

Baked Red snapper

So last Sunday's dinner was Red Snapper. The boy had requested a fish, so this is my first attempt at preparing a whole fish. We selected a fresh looking, bright red fish ('Vivaneau' en Québec) and had him cleaned by the fishmonger at the local grocery.

I stuffed the red snapper with some onions and cilantro, drizzled both sides of the fish with olive oil, then wrapped it in aluminum foil. The package then rested in a baking pan in a 425 F oven for 35 minutes.

I served it with a corn and red pepper compote seasoned with tumeric, and some steamed greens.

The end result wasn't as pretty as I'd hoped, but tasted fine.

School closed= playtime

So the recent cold snap has caused Anton's school to close today due to a broken water main. So what to do but Arrrh! Be Pirates! who make origami animals! Arrh! That be a frog and that be a bird! Shivver me timbers, alright.

My Facebook divorce

I wrote this over a year ago...but I found it and thought it read better than I thought, so I am publishing it now.


When I first signed up on Facebook, about two years ago, I joked with my wife that marriage was easy. She signed up, I indicated I was married and ticked her name as my partner. Voila! a Facebook marriage.

Tonight, she indicated in her status bar she was packing. She changed her relationship status to single over a month ago. Facebook, after all, has no counselor, and no narrative of depth. It aids contact but not communication, and creates networks. But a network's value is its size, more than any single node. Remove any given node- in this case, a person- and the network still exists. It maps over relationships, nodding superficially to marriage and friendships but essentially subsuming them into a network that can include people one has never met face to face, or aquantances met once in a bar or workshop.

Perhaps this is the future, where relationships are rendered superficial because of the ease with which they can be added, re-categorised or even removed. Un-tick 'married'... Voila!
Facebook divorce. The paperwork, the failure(and yes, divorce is a failure because marriage contracts are not on the same time frame as say a lease, but we hope, for a life time) can be handled later.