to all you asshole "cyclists" out there

Yes, this will be a bit of a raging blog entry. I have witnessed a few "cyclists" in the past two days who have irked me enough to blog about it. This is not about cyclists who wear helmets, have lights, use their bell, ride on the street, and obey traffic laws. This is about the assholes that fancy themselves as cyclists, but are just really dicks on bikes.

1) Ride your bike on the street - NOT THE SIDEWALK.
The sidewalk is for pedestrians who are WALKING, hence the name. The only people who should be riding on the sidewalk are children. Just because you have a bike with wheels that are under 61cm, it doesn't mean you can ride on the sidewalk . If you're too chicken shit to ride your bike on the road, then DON'T RIDE A BIKE. Don't ring your little bell to get pedestrians to move out of your way.

2) Don't ride like a psychopath
I was riding in the passenger seat of my friend's car along Dundas Street last night and some fucker was riding recklessly. This fucking eejit was zooming between cars stopped at a red light. I nearly opened my door into him when he flew by my side of the car and I could have killed him. Maybe not killed him, but it would have probably been the most painful lesson he had ever learned. As I am fuming, I wish I had actually opened the door, but I'm glad I didn't. Someone else can open a door into him. What a fucking twat.

3) Obey traffic signs and laws
I was walking on Queen Street and a person on a bike ran a red light and nearly caused a collision between a streetcar and a car. Do these people not understand that pedalling through a red light can result in serious bodily harm to themselves and others? Don't glare at drivers who start driving when their light goes green when you evidently did not have right of way.

I own a bike, I have lights and a bell, I wear a helmet (I have no intentions of going brain dead from falling off my bike) and I stop at stop signs and red lights. I try and defend cyclists when I'm talking to drivers, but the stupid assholes on bikes makes it really hard. Toronto needs to start issuing tickets for these jerks.

Okay, I think I'm done now. ARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

mushroom & asparagus risotto with side of out of shape legs and confusion

I figured that since Ontario asparagus is in season, I should get my fill of it while it's fresh, local and cheap. I jumped on my bike for the first time this year and pedaled to the grocery store and got the necessities and started cooking as soon as I got home and unloaded my groceries. Things I did not have for this risotto: dry white wine, fresh cracked black pepper, and butter. I still have to get a pepper mill and I'm still deciding if I really want that gorgeous pepper mill at Canadian Tire that costs $60. I don't know if I'm willing to pay that much when one can get perfectly good pepper mills for less than $30. I need to find the perfect spot in my apartment with good lighting for better food porn shots. The middle of my living/dining room floor seems alright, but the food is a bit lost with all the white. I am not willing to buy more dishes for the sake of better food pics.

mushroom & asparagus risotto

buttom mushrooms, Ontario asparagus, arborio rice, extra virgin olive oil, Campbell's low sodium chicken broth, fresh grated Parmesan

Biking to the grocery store was harder than I remember it. My thighs were burning when I got home and it felt like my legs were going to give out. I suppose it's not too bad considering it's the first I've cycled about 9 months. It was great last year biking to work, but now that I live only two blocks north of work, it's a little pointless to be biking. It'll be good on nights/days when I'm scheduled for shorter shifts and I can go meet up with people around the city. I now have it locked up outside of my front door. The other bikes in my row of houses are just locked to street signs so I'm guessing that means that the occasional weirdos that roam this area at night are not interested in bikes.

Now to the confusion part. I now have a downstairs neighbour (who I will now refer to as DSN). It wouldn't be so confusing to me if downstairs was in good condition, but it's NOT. It's a long story as to why I'm in the place I'm living now so I won't get into, but the apartment I'm in is in much better shape than the one downstairs. There is so much stuff a.k.a. junk down there that I don't understand why anyone would move their stuff in there before getting rid of the junk. There is construction equipment, a bed with a stained mattress (*barf*) from the previous tenant as well as a ripped leather couch, a huge office photocopier and bags of garbage. There isn't a stove down there and the bath tub/shower are in a different room from the toilet. I am so confused.

Some of my stuff was (and still is) downstairs so the plan was for DSN to help me move some stuff up yesterday before he moved his stuff in. We spoke on the phone on Wednesday and from what I gathered, he was going to move stuff in the mid-afternoon. I waited around until 2:30 and finally texted him asking him when he was planning on moving stuff. The reply was between 5 and 6pm. I went out and ran some errands and was home until 6:30pm and then I left to meet Jen for dinner. When we got back to my place after dinner, my DSN was just sitting on the steps and I couldn't tell if he had gotten into the apartment. He called the landlord and he let him in so that kind of worked out. I don't know if he was expecting me to be home ALL DAY or not, but he didn't sound pleased when I told him I wasn't around to move stuff until next Sunday. As there are no curtains on his windows, I peaked in earlier today and saw shit loads of shoe boxes. I mean shit loads, upon shit loads of shoe boxes. I am so very confused.

On another note, I am volunteering at the Hope Volleyball Tournament on Centre Island this Saturday. I was a lot more excited about volunteering before I received an info sheet saying that volunteers should catch the 5:30am ferry. Are you kidding me? The tournament doesn't start until 9:00am!! Geez!

inDulge

Now I know that in my previous post, I was planning at getting a move on getting rid of the 10 pounds that I gained over the past few months, but sometimes a girl just has to give into her cravings. The Leslieville Cheese Market opened up around the corner from me about two or three weeks ago and it has been calling my name since. Upon leaving work, my plan was to eat steamed asparagus and a grilled cheese sandwich. No asparagus appeared on my walk home so I picked up some avocado and headed to the cheese shop in hopes of finding something I would want. Today's lunch consisted of:

1. Organic baguette
2. Camembert cheese
3. Hot sopresatta
4. Cherry tomato & avocado salad with Briannas Dijon Honey Mustard dressing

Gareth's mom introduced me to Briannas Dijon Honey Mustard dressing with avocado at the cottage over the Victoria Day weekend. I am now in love with this product line and will be sampling my way through the other varieties. It's a toss up between the blue cheese or the creamy French as to which I will try next.

Steps: 16,607 from 3:00pm to 2:00am. I put my pedometer down to put on my jacket in the morning and forgot to clip it on before heading out.

Mood: calm

Listening to: the humming of the refrigerator

little legs on a quest for basil

I was cut early from work this evening so I decided to just chill out at home instead of trying to find someone who had the night off that would want to go for dinner. My plan was to go to The Kitchen Table to pick up cherry tomatoes, basil, balsmic vinegar, bocconcini, and some milk for tomorrow's cereal. Organic 1% part skim milk was on sale for $1.99 (score!), but there wasn't any basil. So I got everything else and made my way up to Queen Street thinking that the fruit market at Portland would have basil. Maybe it did, but it was closed. That place keeps such erratic hours. I passed by a Wine Rack on the way back to my place so I decided to stop in and now I'm sipping on some Sawmill Creek Autumn Blush. The guys that were working there were in the midst of kicking out a drunk bum and telling him never to come back. I appreciated the live entertainment. Anyway, I ended up going to the Fresh 'n' Wild at King and Spadina for basil which basically had me walk in a loop from work, to home, and basically almost back to work again. In the end, I got my basil and had the lovely salad pictured below.

I sliced the cherry tomatoes in half so I wouldn't be chasing them all over the plate. Drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic reduction.

I had pulled some meat sauce out of the freezer so I had that over whole wheat spaghetti as my main course. I usually make a big batch of meat sauce, eat three meals of spaghetti with meat sauce and freeze the rest for later. I don't have a microwave right now so I do have to plan ahead if I want to eat the frozen stuff. I pulled this out of the freezer three days ago and let it thaw in the fridge and reheated it on the stove.

I cooked my pasta for 11 minutes because I like it a little past al dente. I use two jars/cans of tomato sauce (what ever is on sale) and add browned ground beef, onions, mushrooms, garlic, and fresh herbs and simmer for an hour or so. Sometimes I'll use hot Italian sausages instead; I pull the meat out of the casings and brown it like I would ground beef. By adding all the extras to store bought sauce, it really stretches it out to multiple filling meals. I'll cook once and eat at least six times.

As for the "little legs" part of this post, it is referring to my little legs, of course. A few of us at work started wearing pedometers because we were curious as to how many steps we took in a shift. I put my pedometer on when I got to work at 10:30am when I got to work this morning and just unhooked it from my belt before I sat down to start this post. So far today, I have taken 11 526 steps which equal 8.06km and 439.53 calories. I recently stepped on my bathroom scale for the first time in months and I discovered that I have gained back the 10 lbs I lost last summer. Time to get stepping!! Regular progress reports to follow...