My walk to work is short and direct and I love the feeling of the crowd also headed with single-minded purpose up Bay Street to various office towers. The first half of my walk, until I reach Front Street, is the ugliest in the world and quite unavoidable for the Gardiner runs east-west along the lake, across my walk, and I have to walk in a dark, dank, pigeon-infested underpass.

But… and I enjoy it every day, this is the view from my “doorstep”:

Yes, it’s another CN Tower snapshot, but it’s my view. I figure that everyone natively from or from around Toronto sigh and yawn. But it’s the people from away, like me, who really like the pointy tower year after year after year.

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My brain shouldn’t be but it was in overdrive!!

It was a wild and crazy weekend starting with the Mad Dash to Pearson after work. The flight looks so promising and feasible at 7:20pm but insert a most tardy and unhurried Airport Express bus fighting Friday rush hour traffic downtown and I was totally on edge until I got to the airport.

There wasn’t a moment to spare and I went to security where the officer guarding the entrance to the roped area was actively avoiding doing work and sending people downstairs to a smaller security checkpoint via stairs not meant for travellers with luggage. That is, no downwards escalators but only stairs and a girl ahead of me with her carry-on luggage tumbled down the stairs! The upstairs guard said the downstairs checkpoint was smaller but empty–a lie–and I was the last person to enter the frustrating queue before they turned people coming downstairs around to go back upstairs.

My carefully preserved Prairie Girl cupcake for Lil Sis was knocked over while exiting the security scanner and peppermint frosting smeared off the chocolate cupcake and onto the box. :(

And the flight was delayed by over and hour. Add that to a most frustrating queue with NPY a few weeks ago when his baggage receipt printed but not the baggage tag and we waited so long in the full-service check-in line just about to boil over because of lackadaisical union labour ethics. I am about to join the chorus of people who swear off Air Canada. But the more corporate and international Air Can brand draws me more than casual and joking Westjet so AC hasn’t lost a customer in my quite yet.

A couple of months ago, on her way back to Halifax, Mum left her cell phone charger with the Toronto airport security people and it was good excuse for her to get a new phone. I think the Korean soaps give her ideas and she wanted a big bright screen and “text messaging” and not a $0 flip phone. And when she saw the “large print” and large on-screen keyboard of the Galaxy Note, she could not be turned.

Instead of working on Saturday night, I set up mum’s new phone and wrote instructions and played many Scramble with Friends games with Lil Sis who is regularly shut out because she has a Blackberry (but is now convinced to go Android/Samsung in 18 months since she’s also anti-Apple for inexplicable reasons). She thinks I’m biased but I don’t think I am to believe that mum would learn to use an iPhone just a bit easier than Android. But mum thinks the iPhone is too small!!

On Sunday when the biggest event of the day is managing the onslaught of Mother’s Day orders, mum and I made another trip to Bell Aliant. Having played with the Galaxy Note overnight, she realized the device is too large and her old, stiff fingers cannot grip the device securely, she feels it’s not private with such a large screen, and her brothers who are a tad more computer/Internet savvy than she is wield simple phones and will have a field day ridiculing her with her Galaxy Note. So we were back to find the next largest Samsung and it would be the Galaxy IIS HD and LTE phone. So I had to set up another phone!

All while fielding the calls from customers to order take out. And calling Bell ExpressVu support to order new remote controls for the PVRs. And calling Bell Mobility to unlock mum’s account to manage her bills online. And fielding some panicky calls from my grandmother in Toronto who was overreacting to something.

And then we worked worked worked from 4pm until 8pm. I love having the cleanest job just answering the phone and handling cash but it gets awkward just standing at the counter and people are waiting for orders not yet completed.

Tying up loose ends and having the “serious talk” with mum that needs to happen every trip otherwise it’s not typical of our rapport… brings me to 2am this morning.

There’s still a list of errands for Lil Sis to help out with since she’s staying a day longer and I’m stressed out about it because I want it done and for some of my parents’ large utilities bills to get adjusted.

I say it with the best of intentions and need to mean it this time. From now until the end of June my life can consist of not much more than work, study, and running.  No room for error for seven weeks.

Except, I’ve got big plans for the rest of the year that requires planning this far out. Crazy, but I wouldn’t really have my life any other way.

We couldn’t help it. We had never been to. We weren’t thrilled with the notion of going to cities we had been to before like Montreal and Ottawa. And “nearby” cities like Chicago, New York, Boston and Quebec City aren’t so nearby. She found the hotel (Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which I successfully Pricelined for cheap. A former colleague had just set up in Ann Arbor so we could visit him on campus. People made faces when I said we were going to Detroit but their faces were soon erased when I would quickly follow up that we were also hitting Ann Arbor. Detroit was a top U.S. city of yore. Wouldn’t we see some of the old swagger?

Not really. We went into the city on Saturday afternoon and the kind of quiet you experience on the weekend in a financial district was present throughout the city. People have so clearly vacated the core. Plus, all the professional sports teams were playing away games that evening. It was eerie. We made our own fun anyhow getting Coney Island hot dogs for which Detroit is famous, strolling along the waterfront, and learning that the hub of activity that weekend surrounded the epicenter of the Detroit Free Press Marathon taking place that weekend! An American marathon alone is fascinating to me after my positive experience at another one (Portland ’08), but I soon learned that it’s a truly international marathon because the marathon and half-marathon courses wend their way from Detroit into Windsor via Ambassador Bridge and back to US soil via Detroit-Windsor Tunnel! Neat!

We visited my newly minted professor colleague for brunch on Sunday and for a walk around the University of Michigan campus. Lil Sis fell in love with the campus and U of M sports and we both loved spending time in the college town area. I think of part of Halifax as college town (the South End) but it’s nothing like Ann Arbor. She’s stoked to return and get into massive Michigan Stadium, housing U of M’s football field and eclipsing all other American university stadiums. But given the popularity of the college football team, we probably have to sell some of our organs to get the coveted U of M vs. Michigan State tickets on the Saturday, October 20 afternoon!

I couldn’t let go of the idea of doing Detroit (the only other US one I would do might be Chicago, and by driving that is another four hours farther than the four hours to Detroit) so, five days ahead of the most recent fee increase, I registered! I love how there is a ticker on the website showing somewhat real-time registration statistics. The International Half-Marathon clearly is the darling race with twice as many spaces for participants than all the other races combined. I’ve come to believe it is the perfect distance and we will get in the international segment and a quick tour of the cultural parts of downtown and tidily finish our race. Marathoners, on the other end, have a tough slog through what looks like residential neighbourhoods. Yawn.

I wonder (I’m sure there’s blog posts about it) how border crossings will be. Perhaps because you will be held up for a few minutes, this marathon could never be taken truly seriously. But it’s unique!

I must say, I had the most difficult border crossing at Detroit-Windsor entering Detroit. Since we left at about 6 p.m. on a Friday, we arrived at the border four hours later and the guard couldn’t quite believe that two girls, alone, would visit Detroit. We couldn’t exactly claim we were there for the shopping (why not Buffalo?) and we looked out of our minds to want to just visit. It smoothed things over when I mentioned that we would also visit a friend in Ann Arbor until he asked about my friend! He probably just wanted to see me squirm but, oh, did I really dread the possibility of having to explain my colleague’s work (also my past line of work) and if the question of my colleague’s nationality were to be raised! I was miffed enough as it was, no offense to my colleague, when the guard wanted to know if who I am visiting is my boyfriend. No!!

I wonder how easy it will be to cross the border when we simply say we’re coming into town to watch the U of M game and run in the marathon! Should be a breeze, except for the part where I keep running across the border and then try to leave for good.

‘Cuz, you know, I’m a beauty blogger now on top of a running and reading blogger… I can survive quite fine and well not visiting a mall except sporadically, picking up beauty products as needed from the pharmacy guided by what is on sale that week. But when you work just above an amazing subterranean mall and walk by shiny shops everyday in the winter when you scurry out of the cold, some of those shiny displays start to stick.

I kept seeing the The Body Shop‘s Mother of All Sales banners after Christmas and I started to succumb. In addition, I’m paying off moving fees, a truckload of new furniture, and I had $250 of gift cards from The Body Shop from the past two Christmases. In the absence of me telling my parents what I need and they could give me for Christmas, Mum shopped The Body Shop. I wasn’t overly grateful at the time but now I am! On my first foray, in January, I got six diverse products worth $89 for $60.

Vitamin C Daily Moisturizer SPF 30
50mL $20 (B3G2 price $13.48)
This lotion contains Amazonian camu camu berry “which is known to have one of the highest contents of vitamin C in nature”, a vitamin that “encourages collagen production, improves elasticity and protects against damaging environmental aggressors”.
In the shop, I smoothed some of the Seaweed line and Vitamin C line on the back of my hand. Both contain SPF 15 but while the seaweed lotion felt so smooth going on (refreshing) the Vitamin C felt a little stickier. In no small part because my friend Vina raved about the product line, I went with the Vitamin C; I also prefer the citrus scent, finding it much more refreshing and the promised (and delivered) radiance was a draw. I really do feel like I have a healthy glow from the product. Just a little bit goes a long way making this product, at B3G2 surprisingly reasonable.

Nutriganics Softening Cleansing Gel
100mL $15 (B3G2 price $10.11)
This cleansing gel is enriched with organic babassu oil from Brazil that helps smoothes and revitalizes skin and aloe vera that hydrates and calms sensitive skin.
This winter was surprisingly mild but my skin still rebelled worse than I can ever recall, so it was my main motivation to pick up a good cleanser. I didn’t notice the “First Signs of Ageing” on the side of the bottle, which means you use it before progressing to the Natrulift “Signs of Ageing” line and then the Wise Woman lines. Drawing from something familiar, the gel smells like tea tree oil products I have used in the past. It feels like spreading a thin cream around your face and barely lathers. But it’s been remedial for my skin.

Peppermint Intensive Foot Rescue
100mL $18 (B3G2 price $12.13)
This skin-smoothing moisturizer cools and deodorizes, a customer favourite since 1985. Peppermint oil promotes a cooling sensation while cocoa butter is an excellent moisturizer and sweet almond oil that is rich in essential fatty acids help restore the skin’s moisture barrier. To round things out, grape extract smoothes the skin and has gentle exfoliation properties.
Another consequence of a dry winter in the east: really dry feet! Gross, huh? So Must-Have Item #2 from The Body Shop was their intensive foot lotion. NPY gets a kick out of how I apply lotion to my feet which is to squirt lotion directly on my feet, flop on my stomach, and have each food rub the lotion into the other. In the case of this product, I dip my heel into the heel-sized pink container and brings heels together to spread it around. The lotion is thick and absorbs quickly into the skin. The bonus is how it smells like a potent candy cane!

Vitamin C Eye Reviver Duo
20mL $22 (B3G2 price $14.83)
This lotion contains Amazonian camu camu berry “which is known to have one of the highest contents of vitamin C in nature”, a vitamin that “encourages collagen production, improves elasticity and protects against damaging environmental aggressors”. This product is best if you want to refresh and revive delicate skin around the eyes and minimize the appearance of dark shadows.
When I was pre-shopping at The Body Shop’s online site, I thought I wanted Nutrilift (“Signs of Ageing” but I didn’t know it then) eye cream. I’m not a user of eye cream but wielding a gift card and the Mother of All Sales made me feel adventurous. But presented with a dazzling array of products in-store, I tapped a sales associate’s expertise.
Me: “What other lines have eye creams?”
She: “All of them! Do you want to reduce fine lines/wrinkles? Get rid of dark circles? Reduce puffiness?”
Me: “Dark circles and puffiness.”
She steered me away from Nutrilift and towards Vitamin C. Although I bought the eye reviver duo in January, I only tried it in April when NPY visited because what do I care if I have dark circles around other people? I apply the Vitamin C moisturizer from above thinly over my face except around my eyes. First, you use the end of the stick marked “1.” with a roller applicator spreading a cool liquid on your dark circles and just around the outer corner. Then I use the end marked “2.” that looks like a lip gloss wand and dab and spread the shimmering white formula on just the dark circles. There is an active ingredient–at the very least, it tingles–in the wand end but I know the principle is that reflective particles will make the area look lighter and you will look younger and free from worries. I feel invincible with that stuff on.

Rainforest Balance Shampoo
400mL $14 (B3G2 price $9.44)
This shampoo contains seaweed that helps balance, purify and clarify hair and aloe vera that moisturizes and protects hair. It is best for oily hair and you want to reduce excess oil for hair that looks clean and fresh all day.
Given I buy $2 shampoo (Herbal Essences, if I can) from the drug store, this product was the biggest splurge even with a gift card and Mother of All Sales. That is, my usual shampoo would be $3.50 for a 400mL bottle compared to this shampoo’s B3G2 price of $9.44.
Also for this product, I busted it out when NPY visited, three months after purchasing it. Honestly, I hadn’t gone through all of my other shampoo yet either. I picked up Herbal Essences Drama Clean which I love to gently make my hair squeaky clean and works well despite hard Toronto water. And I like having NPY use it because it reminds him of China when we used it every day to wash away the city’s dirt. He was all too eager to use the Body Shop shampoo that has a spa-like eucalyptus scent and while I didn’t notice much with my coarse hair, he thinks it makes his hair softer. I wouldn’t get it again because my hair does not need $9/$14 shampoo!

Delipscious Tinted Lip Balm in Berry Crush
4.2mL $10 (now $3)
This lip balm contains virgin cold-pressed coconut oil, organic beeswax and cocoa butter, all of which moisturizes skin, conditions lips, and help to replenish moisture levels. The fruity flavour is made from food-grade ingredients, including natural watermelon and raspberry seed oils.
Who can have too many tubes of lip balm? Not me! And this sale price did not depend on buying other items and who can resist 70% off? Not me! Who is sometimes (often times) too lazy to put on lip colour after applying lip balm? Me! It smells lovely like artificial, perfumy berry scent like the Lip Smackers of your youth but at least an effort has been made to make it more grown-up (“food-grade ingredients”). Yet it’s shimmery and still feels way youthful being dispensed from the twist tube. Regular price $10?! Crazy!

Home-cooking Chinese meal

I really wanted to share the very homestyle-tasting bamboo shoots and mushrooms dish I learned to make recently. It was so successful that now I need to be sure to have some bamboo shoots in my pantry to make this dish in a pinch. I was a little heavy-handed with the sauce. And I knew it wasn’t very real-vegetable heavy so I tossed together a “fusion” sautee with two types of zucchini (NPY’s favourite) in hoisin sauce and lemon with cute button mushrooms. And for a fruit dessert, I’ve discovered Cara Cara oranges (a cross between orange grapefruit) and strawberries.

Spam & Egg “Mc”Muffin Meal

Ever since making the Spam and egg breakfast sandwich a month or two back, I really wanted to share it with NPY and looked forward to his arrival. I shopped for hashbrowns and picked up Milo for a really hearty meal. It was all fun to prepare because I have a Cuisinart grill on which I can make the whole spread at once.

This meal really held me for a while!

NPY’s Request: Mac ‘n’ Cheese

NPY made a request and I wanted to fulfill it: to have some homemade mac ‘n’ cheese. I pinned a Lunch at Six Point Beer Mac and Cheese recipe and followed it except it was very flexible. Chose the beer (sweet Innis & Gunn), pasta (cavatappi which we love from cavatappi Alfredo at Cactus Club), cheese (Asiago, provolone, and Bremmer), and instead of bread crumbs, I crumbled some of the sour cream and onion Popchips we have around. I will eat potato chips if it is part of a meal.

Since the pasta dish was not so veggie at all, I threw together a soy sautee of asparagus, zucchini, and tomatoes. Because when the kitchen is nice, cooking is easy… almost fun.

Thompson Diner

After the Yonge Street 10K and we stopped moving, we were cold! It was only about 6 degrees. In addition to the streetcars on Queens Quay being messed up due to construction, the additional load from runners and spectators meant it didn’t look like we’d get on a bus soon so we started walking and Bathurst looked viable for brunch.

The wait for a table felt long. We ordered and the wait was long… for everything. I had barely formed an idea from the menu what to order when Lil Sis pointed out the Brunch burger that had fried egg topping a burger that is on a donut! Both Lil Sis and NPY had eggs Benedict and I shared with them part of my burger and fries so it wasn’t so bad for me after all. ;)

Real Sports Bar & Grill

I walk by Real Sports all of the time and more recently I learned it had been voted in 2010 by ESPN as Best Sports Bar in North America. Not shabby! There is a two-story television screen surrounded by medium screens on the left and right and smaller screens line the bottom edge. We got a good seat along the back row of tables (even better would have been a booth but it was just the two of us) and overhead, a second level dining room gets a bird’s eye view of the big space. We were there to watch the all-important game 5 between Canucks and LA Kings with the Canucks fighting to stave off elimination from the play-offs. My reservation was half an hour before the game started and we watched as the place filled up and I was delighted that the big screen switched from the Raptors game to the Canucks game at 8 p.m.

NPY ordered a predictable beer while I tried The Winner. I couldn’t get away from the name! I has a mixture of vodka, Red Bull, Gatorade and OJ. When I told Lil Sis about it, she made a face. But it looked like an innocent tall glass of orange juice and it provided me with a buzz and energy. We ordered a pound of wings dipped in a winning sauce of maple bacon mustard. The wings (about 7 of them) were meaty and delicious. I loved dragging it through the tzatziki.

Ten-Ichi Japanese Cuisine

Since our last visit in late January, Ten-Ichi moved to a different unit in the same plaza and renovated so NPY was treated to a modern-looking restaurant. Just like last time, we waited for about 20 minutes and I had made a reservation! I was eager to show NPY our favourite dishes and in the second round, he confidently took control and made an order in order to fill in his gaps. I raved about their hand rolls – crispy nori sheets used each time – and after NPY had his first hand roll (a salmon one), he ordered two more unagi ones! We had a lot of fun and ordered a bevy of desserts. I didn’t take many pictures since we have been there twice before.

Destiny Tea House [yelp.ca]

There’s an amazing little “plaza” at Highway 7 and the 404 with all the Big Box Restaurants you would want to hit up for a while: The Keg, Marlowe, Alice Fazooli’s, The Melting Pot (new!), Jack Astor’s… and Destiny. NPY was impressed by the size of the place and wondered if it gets filled. It might suffer during the dinner rush but I have the feeling it’s really busy and hopping in the late hours and after clubs close (if they are still open). Service is just as you expect in a Taiwanese shop (less than non-existent, worse than at other Chinese restaurants). It was cold while NPY visited and additionally it was a rainy day so we warmed up before dinner with warm milk teas.

Bannock

Bannock is one of those new iconic restaurants in Toronto that I’ve actually wanted to try. I’m getting older, or the scene isn’t so exciting, or I usually have no one to go with, but I don’t have great hankering to try much around here… except Bannock. “Canadian Comfort Food” is its tagline and I made sure we got comfort food for at least one of our dishes. I would have liked mac ‘n’ cheese but I thought I saw one served and it looked puny and I was making my own later in the week.

So we went with a shrimpwich that was just okay and as a cold sandwich, not so comforting. But it was light and the bread was buttery. NPY’s Arcadian chicken pot pie was a success with generous and big pieces of tender chicken and the mashed potatoes were creamy with a fragrant gravy that was strongly chicken.

Prairie Girl Bakery

I wish there was more choice but since there isn’t, it seems that Prairie Girl has the cupcake market in downtown Toronto cornered. My closest location is in the PATH and at lunch time the queue to order/pick up cupcake orders is long and dominates the hallway. I was successful getting the the flavours I wanted when I went down around ten in the morning, my strategy from now on as I might indulge and get these cupcakes, oh, once a month.

We enjoyed the chocolate cake with strawberry icing over lunch and the cake was divinely moist and the icing so fluffy. We saved the cafe au lait chocolate cake (the day/week’s special) for dessert in the evening but by then the chocolate cake was getting chewy and the icing was more solid. Still intensely flavourful.

Spice Route

When I asked V for a suggestion where we could all meet up, she suggested Spice Route. We’ve wanted to check it out when it turns into a lounge later on but it was also a cool place to have dinner… but the reviews are not so great. We all go in wary because it’s an Asian fusion place and we have high standards for that stuff.

The dining room is really dark so my photos are so grainy! We would have ordered separate dishes as it was most convenient and we have different tastes and waved away when the waitress asked if we had dined there before and explained it was “family style”. But something about how it the food was plated and we switched over to family style and shared all the food. Mongolian beef that was spicy and tenderized slices of beef. Teriyaki beef with cabbage-wrapped steamed rice was well done. Soy miso cod was good but not plentiful and came on a bed of Shanghai noodles. Seared yellowfin tuna was alright.

Mill St. Brewpub

After poking into every corner of the Distillery District, we walked into the most lively spot, Mill St. Brewpub. The New York Rangers-Washington Capitals game was on one of the screens and NPY could point his bar stool towards it. He got an organic ale from the microbrewery while I pored over the beer flights and got a G&T instead. NPY surprised me, ordering a pulled short rib poutine. Nice to nibble on and just as we were finished it, all the screens were changed to the Blue Jays-Mariners game. Time to leave!

Tofu Village [yelp.ca]

A trip to Toronto is not complete without a Korean meal! Given my homebase is downtown, we went to Korea Town at Bloor & Christie. But which restaurant of the tens to patronize?? I’ve been to the North York version of three of the top four Korean restaurants in the Annex: Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu, Owl of Minerva, and Joons Korean Cuisine. We walked by Imonay and Tofu Village, both of which have 100% ratings on Urbanspoon with 24 and 16 votes, respectively. NPY liked the look of Tofu Village better so we ended up there. After a wait, we were seated in a packed dining room.

I hate to point it out but I was jarred and then a little worried because my usual barometer to read how good a place can be had to be re-calibrated. In North York, all of the customers are Asian. It’s the nature of the neighbourhood and proximity to Richmond Hill and Markham. I like the flaked firm tofu that came with our banchan and each time I see the bean sprouts dish, I am reminded of how I want to figure out how to make it. I ordered the oyster soon tofu (tofu soup) “medium” on a scale including plain, mild, medium and spicy. We were a little full from the day but tofu soup will open up my appetite.

Lil Sis was visiting that weekend and for the fun of it, I dragged out unwrapping the box and each time she would pass by the box, it was little more unwrapped. I likened the reveal a little to how people make an occasion out of opening a new Apple product. So, if you don’t subscribe, here is what unwrapping a Glossy Box is like.

Here is the obligatory shot of the postcard that describes the products enclosed in the Glossy Box.

And… here are the samples, 5.5 of them.

Here are my thoughts on the March 2012 products:

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion
71 mL, $2.40 (card indicates $11.99 for 354 mL)
Okay, I have to admit that I was a little crestfallen to at first to see this product in my Glossy Box. It’s something so normal and you could pick it up at Shoppers Drug Mart, not a designer brand you would see at Sephora. My sister, new to the idea of Glossy Box and waiting to be wowed, made a passing remark about the Aveeno product. I read a couple other reviews and it seems to me that while I got Aveeno moisturizing lotion that you could grab in the sample section of Shoppers Drug Mart, some people got Bailey lip gloss which cannot be got at Shoppers.
On the other hand, will I use this whole product? Yes! It is a no-nonsense lotion that sets about the task of moisturizing without frills. It has a healthy “oatmeal” scent that doesn’t interfere with other scents you might want to wear.

Bailey Cosmetics Kabuki Brush
1 unit, $40
Bailey as in Brian Bailey of Project Runway Canada, not that I watch the show. He naturally started off in fashion and has now branched out into cosmetics and it seems you can get to know his line best by watching The Shopping Channel which purports to be the exclusive provider. I didn’t even know this counted as an item and the highest value item in the box, at that. When I tried it with the blush below, I did experience the luxurious feel of the goat hair bristles. I finally own a Kabuki brush and at a steal of a deal!

evian Brumisateur Facial Spray
50 mL, $7.00
The one product in the box you wouldn’t find me buying, ever! Refresh? I traditionally think the most refreshing thing is a good blot and adequate hydration. But it’s the toning feature of the facial spray that I was most intrigued by although I don’t quite know how to quantify the results of skin toning. As a runner, I recall the feeling of running through light mist and it is nature’s gift which can apparently be canned and be put in your purse. The nozzle of my evian spray was wonky so the dispersal was less misty and more spray bottle, but you know what to expect.

Pandora’s Makeup Box Blush St. Tropez
1 unit, $18
Watching some Extra Petite videos recently, I felt thoroughly admonished for not adding some colour back whenever I wear a “foundation” (usually tinted moisturizer, infrequently real foundation) with a quick sweep of blush. Another problem is I didn’t have blush. Now, that problem is solved!
The blush comes in a summer-inspired cute floral package with a paper closure that opens up and looks like open arms waiting to hug you. The packaging truly makes me happy to wear the product and it did indeed go on very light, natural-looking and lasted all day.

Sebastian Re-Shaper Hairspray
43 g, $19.95
I have finally learned how to do some things with my long, coarse, heavy, unmanageable hair but the styles still keep falling out and I realized I don’t have in my arsenal and could stand to pick up some hairspray and look what comes along!
The nozzle seemed a little wonky on the sample size bottle and as I used it, the scent seemed to me like perfumed flowers and pleasant. I  swept my hair up in a bun to be all serious at work and it worked well to keep the wispy pieces in place.

Algemarin Foam Bath
15 mL, $2.40 ($3.99 for 5x 5mL)
I’ve been meaning to take a bath and allow myself to relax with a long soak in my tub. After having house guests for four straight days and two hard 10K training sessions within 24 hours, tonight was the night for a bath. This little pouch from UK brand Algemarin was a most fortuitous arrival! The indigo-coloured product makes your bath a brilliant turquoise blue and bubbles up luxuriously. The scent was natural and refreshing and my skin was happy and soft afterwards.

Total value of the box, as per enclosed Glossy Box postcard: $89.75. A monthly Glossy Box subscription is $15 and includes shipping for which I mentally knock down the price a little. This month, I appreciated the mixture of every day products (lotion, hairspray) with the pampering ones and I was highly impressed with the value of the box. It sounds like the next box is on its way and I look forward to what it will contain!

It is with the heaviest heart ever that I have the time to blog and write this post because it means that NPY’s weeklong trip to Toronto is wrapped and he is back in Vancouver. After last October’s trip that was nothing short of disaster on all fronts, I needed to make sure this trip did not permanently scar him about the city that will, in some way, always be a part of me, my home-away-from-hometown. So these are the things that I did to make sure I struck a balance between presenting the city as a place to call home and making it feel like a trip with new things to see and do (emphasized in bold).

Part way through the week, he asked me if I wasn’t making it so nice with the activities I had planned that he could stay. Yes!! No!! I just wanted him to have a good trip. Toronto ain’t so bad….

• cleaned out a drawer so he wasn’t living out of a suitcase, freed up a bathroom bin
• apartment tour to show off the amenities like fancy gym, squash courts, basketball court and pool
• a home-cooked pasta “carb-loading meal”
• a trip to my local market, Longos in the fancy Maple Leaf Sports complex
• meeting up with me and Lil Sis at the Exhibition grounds after the Yonge Street 10K
• indulging in one of our traditional post-run brunches at swanky Thomson Diner

• getting good use of our two-rides-for-one TTC day pass zipping to Bloor-Yonge/Yorkville, Bloor-Christie (Koreatown), Chinatown and Kensington Market, including a visit to Carole’s Cheesecake Cafe for taffy apple cheesecake that pleased NPY (apple) and me (cheesecake)
• watching the Canucks’ last game of 2011/2012 on the two-storey screen at Real Sports (North America’s best sport’s bar, according to ESPN)
• “road trip” to the ‘burbs to check out large and new-ish Vaughan Mills mall that has the Banana Republic Outlet that delights us
• visiting an enormous bubble tea house, Destiny Tea House, at the “plaza” of big box restaurants at Highway 7 and East Beaver Creek
• an all-you-can eat Japanese food feast at Ten-Ichi in Scarborough where NPY ate three handrolls

• DYO salad and DYO grilled cheese lunch from Druxy’s, a favourite and standby for me
• my gift of a $10 GC to Second Cup so he can enjoy the honey vanilla tea latte I discovered
• on-the-point directions through the PATH from my work (southern tip) north to the Eaton Centre
• meet-up with his client at a Panera, in Canada only in Ontario so far
• take a dip in one of two condo hot tubs followed by visiting the sauna–not just for fun but therapeutic reasons
• lunch at Clipper Cafe, for Bay Street people “in the know”
• pre-movie dinner at Bannock for Canadian-sourced comfort food
• finally watching The Hunger Games and NPY, who ignored all reviews, was roundly impressed and says he’ll read the next two books in the trilogy!
• lunch from Soup Nutsy was marred by it being 1 p.m. and they were out of the sherried lobster bisque I wanted NPY to try and the chunky chicken noodle soup he wanted to try; dessert to our lunch was a divine chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing from Prairie Girl Bakery
• totally spoiled him for dinner because I can now easily execute two dish dinners in my dream kitchen (i.e., roomy, bright, modern, long counters); dinner consisted of beer mac & cheese, soy sautéed asparagus-zucchini-grape tomatoes, NHL Alumni Hat Trick wine (a blend of Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Chardonnay), fresh fruit dessert of mango and strawberries, and a second cupcake from Prairie Girl Bakery with chocolate cake and cafe au lait icing.

• lunch at Marche was unfortunately very average
• dinner with L&V at swanky, lounge-y Spice Route and an eye-opening tour of SPiN, the table tennis club found in New York and Milwaukee
• since making it for myself a few weeks ago, I was looking forward to making Spam & Egg “Mc”Muffin with hashbrown patties as our lazy Saturday brunch dish

• followed by a big exploration day on the TTC pass we could share: Toronto Music Garden where we made our own fun, St. Lawrence Market, Distillery District and a visit to Mill St. Brewpub to catch part of the NYR-WAS game until all the screens were changed to Blue Jays baseball, bleh. We strolled through Trinity Bellwoods Park and sought out the exterior of Being Erica’s apartment at 337 Palmerston Boulevard. We ate in Korea Town at Tofu Village which has exceptionally high reviews.

I almost feel like I was on a week-long vacation with some work that occurred at regular intervals during the day. It was brilliant but real life resumes now.

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Then two days later, I made an update. Then another one a day after that. I was… weblogging! I changed the font colour every day and put a horizontal bar (<hr>) to divide the days. Here are the first three days, reversed from the reverse chronological order how it appeared in the HTML file, complete with formatting. (Note: the font was Arial but I think my Typominima theme CSS template is overwriting that tag.)

April 23, 2002

I have been inspired by this site to do something along the same line. But do you think there is quite enough content going on in my life to post??

These days, it’s nothing but study-study-study. Four more finals to go and my senior year is a closed book! My favourite show, after Star Trek, just started up its final season yesterday and the title character, Felicity, is mulling the implications of her senior year starting. I didn’t see the episode but that’s because I’m saving it as a treat for < 1 week from now!!

April 25, 2002

I saw that Felicity episode today because I took the afternoon and evening off. < WoW > I wish I had seen the episode much earlier this year, like in September when it was supposed to have aired. She is one confused girl and I can really identify with her! There is something iminently scary about having to start my future and that whatever path I take has to be my decision. You know what? I sat there hoping that her parents would just swoop in and enrol her in premed and pay for her fourth year. Even if I don’t agree with a university student having to rack up a student loan (a Chinese thing), I do have to agree with the incomparable feeling of declaring your independence, of asserting your self-sufficiency.

DL recommended me to this site: guicookies. Apparently it’s really new because there only 347 users and I could actually get my own name as my username! *Almost* renders my links page obsolete, which is exactly why Dung recommended it to me because my links page so sucks! :p

April 26, 2002

Today’s font colour is in honour of my extinct “random links” page. Apparently I overwrote it when I was shuffling files on my borg (CS) and is2 (general) accounts and now my carefully cultivated list of links is just a copy of my index file!!

Oh, Berryhill, my choice of graduation photographer, called saying my preview prints are in. I really want to pick them up today! But it can definitely wait until Monday. Three more days to go and that is how much time is left when I start my countdown. My chemistry classmates have been counting down since the beginning of term!

You might not want to join me but I went on a little walk down memory lane and posted from my back-up other posts from around my blogiversary over the years

• 2003: April 22, April 24 - I tend to forget that there were stretches when I went clubbing a lot and I thought I was so intelligent about life decisions
• 2004: April 22, my sister and I went for Indian food in Halifax
• 2005: April 23, marked 3-year blogiversary
• 2006: April 23, a delicious tofu recipe; I also found an April 23 post I wrote for Vancouver Metblogs about the Sun Run
• 2007: April 23, my “I hate cilantro!” post
• 2008: April 21, Sun Run post
• 2009: April 23, marking 7 years
• 2010: April 17, running merchandise for girls
• 2011: April 28, super-fun round-up of places I went to eat during my Easter Toronto trip

Frankly, only the first few years’ posts were fun. Back when I was so blissfully ignorant and young and wrote about everything!

A few days before the race, Lil Sis’ called me and asked if I had gone running yet outdoors and it had kind of slipped my mind! When I was training (without the faintest idea of a structured program) for my first half-marathon back in 2004, I nearly didn’t do any outdoor running but did squeeze a couple in and was grateful for them. I’ve been working out in my condo gym at the convenient time of 11 p.m. and I wouldn’t fathom going outdoors at that hour in a neighbourhood still largely unfamiliar to me. I was just a little worried about how I would fare on pavement with fresh air to breathe. Otherwise, I felt like I had trained quite well against the program I had adopted from a Sun Run communication because in addition to running workouts, I would interweave Stairmaster+stepper workouts for my “off days”.

After work on Friday, I wended my way through the PATH to the Sheraton Centre where the packet pick-up and Mini Expo were being held. Mini Expo indeed. There was no fanfare. I rudely declined the one samples booth that was in place–raspberry chews or chocolate energy balls by PowerBar. Couldn’t justify the calories. I also snarked that the new-fangled chip-in-bib better work on race day because I had to pass my chip over the testing mat to get it to read my name. It had been a long and stressful week. For having a better expo: +1 Vancouver. For having just a slightly more expensive 10K but the race t-shirt is a technical one (albeit from RaceMerchandise.com) and there are finisher medals, +1 for Toronto.

Lil Sis’ drove and parked downtown near me and we planned to take the subway from Union Station to Eglinton, midtown. As we entered the station and dropped our tokens in the slot, a scratchy announcement was made over the speaker and Lil Sis’ asked if it was directed at us. Why would it be? And so we head downstairs to the platform while the thought entered my mind that the subway was not running. An impossibility, I thought, at 8 a.m. on a Sunday!! But the platform was deserted and the screens did not show the trains were not running and I lead us, running back up the stairs. Only then did I notice there was an operator in the booth and he spoke to us over the microphone. “The subway is not running until 9 a.m.” I squawked because I’m completely incredulous because it is 8 a.m., not 7 a.m. “But we need to get to Eglinton!!” “Then you better start running!” He laughed. It’s like 6 kilometers away. Seriously, he told us to go a street over to Yonge and pick up the bus which was still the “Night bus”. I was bitter and complaining and anxious the entire way. -1 Toronto TTC for not running; -1 Toronto Yonge Street 10K newsletter for not mentioning it.

The bus actually drove up Avenue most of the way, diverted from its Yonge route because of the race, and we walked from Lawrence and Yonge down to the start line about a kilometer away but you couldn’t see the start line from the stop. It felt very unideal. We went into the Starbucks at Yonge and Craighurst and queued up behind 15 runners to use their bathrooms and left because 9:00, gun time, rolled around and the queue hadn’t budged. We left the queue in the assumption that once you start running, your feeling of needing to pee diminishes. (I wasn’t queuing for myself, didn’t have any liquids except for what made my oats congee.) On our way to the start line, we went into a Second Cup with no queue and Lil Sis was henceforce relieved.

From a distance even we could see the crowds at the start line banner had shrunk and we approached from behind the patrol car that tails the race and noticed that everyone left behind the start line had a “Walker” bib. Okay, we’d run ahead of them when their wave started. But the announced on the megaphone was saying how everyone had to tread in such a way that not both feet left the ground at the same time (i.e., speed walking). Would Lil Sis and I get disqualified, turned around, if we sprinted over the start line?! A volunteer noticed my bewilderment and told us to start running so we did sprint across the mat and Lil Sis implored that we did not go too fast. We were the last runners to cross the start line, or so it seemed to us. Too late, I lost my breath. The horrible combination of sprinting out of the gate, the hardness of asphalt, and fresh and cold air flooding my lungs meant I was gasping for breath for the first four songs (or about 16 minutes). I only started to get my breath again when my music slowed down to Sweetbox’s Everything’s Gonna Be Alright. Lil Sis was ahead of me from 10 m onwards and I kept my chin up and straining looking for her long-sleeved deep orange form and swinging braided ponytail amongst all the orange–this year’s shirt colour!–shirts.

Without a watch or mile markers until I saw the first one at 4K–pastel-coloured banners sponsored by Milestones and featuring a colour image of brunch I really wanted instead–I really didn’t have an idea of my pace. And that was okay as I adjusted my expectations. I wasn’t going to be on the 55-minute mark because I knew I wasn’t fast enough. But I could trust my training and run non-stop for an hour as I had done a few times on the treadmill. And compared to the treadmill where I set a speed and perish by falling off the back if I slack off, I could slow my pace down to catch my breath, for a break, but no stops for the 10K. A test of my endurance.

The terrain between Eglinton and Bloor was gently rolling with great downhill stretches and small uphill climbs. Everything was so quiet on a Sunday morning and it wasn’t even so early. To keep an eye on Lil Sis and just because I can, I ran down the center line of Yonge Street. Starting to see the CN Tower was awesome. Approaching the CIBC and The Bay at Bloor was awesome, back “home”. I kept an eye on approaching the large billboards at Dundas Square, currently a large round billboard poster for the television show, Missing.

Most of the music on my playlist is pretty old but one song I had never heard during a workout was the Ludacris et al number “Shera Di Kaum” from the 2001 movie, Breakaway. The inspiring lyrics are below (with my response):

Yeah we were always told growing up
We have to strive to be the best [Oh, most certainly I  was told that]
Always strive to success and second place is not an option [How about 4,000th place in a race?!]
That’s what we were told
So no matter what came up in my life, I got through it [I have gotten through it!!]
That was my motivation
Now nothing can stop us [Don't stop running!!]
We will never lose, never fear, overcome all and persevere [Persevere! Endurance! Don't be afraid]
Be the best and we down to show it [Be the best you can be]
Any place, anything, we will overthrow it

Approaching the 7 km mark and we were thankfully downtown where the recognizable street names were so much more dense, I realized that I was closing in on Lil Sis and I made sure my pace was even to not got ragged again chasing her to catch up. She was having cramps from the beginning of the race and when she suggested taking a short walk, I took it! After a minute or two, as the Journey song “Don’ Stop Believin’” was ending, we started running “lightly” knowing under 20 minutes remained.

Other than the finish line, the loudest stretch of cheering was on Richmond Street where people held up stock signs with cheeky messages like “Stop reading, start running!”, “Go Random Stranger Go!” and “Your feet will forgive you.”

After allowing us to slow to a walk, running again was mentally difficult and Lil Sis pulled ahead again.

At 9 km, my usual blister on the arch of my right foot popped up again and my hips started to feel stiff. Just as I got to the Three Days Grace “Pain” song. “Pain, I can’t get enough / Pain, I like it rough / ‘Cause I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all.” Be we motored on and when we got to Bathurst, the finish line was so close you could smell it. Lil Sis motored ahead but 200 m from the finish line, she stopped. My 56.8-minute playlist wrapped up and I was into the next song as we crossed which meant we finished in 57 minutes something.

At first, NPY was to accompany us up to the start line and then explore the city by way of finding his way down to the finish. He was flummoxed how he would not have time to relax and had to dash via public transportation to the end while we dashed there on foot, and he wouldn’t arrive much earlier. Because in a point-to-point race, the finish line is… 10K away. And so I realized how the route for the Sun Run is pretty convenient such that it was a loop and spectators who see you off at the start have the time to pick up a coffee and stroll over to the end. +1 Vancouver? There are arrangements made because of the P2P race, like driving your gear from the start to finish in yellow school buses which Lil Sis thought was brilliant (and cute), and (for a fee) shuttle buses between the start and finish. The Sporting Life 10K that spawned the new-this-year Yonge Street 10K has the additional great feature of free shuttle buses to Union Station because it’s a tad far from Bathurst to Yonge… and the streetcar line was a mess until May 7 requiring a transfer for that short distance.

I like getting medaled after a race and realize it’s been a while. I spied NPY right away after we crossed and was thrilled he saw another race. We shuffled through the long finishers chute and grabbed some Gatorade. We declined the free cans of Michelob Ultra beer: +1 Toronto!! I wanted what people were holding, bowls of Oasis yogurt or something but we also just wanted to leave the muddy field (+1 Vancouver’s finish line area)–thank goodness on several levels that it was not raining.

The race results were posted by the time we sat down for brunch at The Counter/Thomson Diner and it confirmed that we finished in 57 minutes (57:44 to be exact) but I was more surprised by my ranking and how small the race actually will be. I should have known that as the newer of the two spring 10Ks (politics and such formed a split), it would be smaller, with 5,000 participants compared to 25,000 for the Sporting Life 10K in three weeks. Neither are Sun Run scale that aims for 50,000 registrants each year. I also hadn’t done my “ethics” and as a race run by CRS, the charities will see far less than the Sporting Life 10K charities. I toyed with the idea of watching the Sporting Life race but I actually won’t be in town that weekend.

Back to the results. I’ve had 10K finishes a minute faster or slower than this finish but my ranking amongst females and in my age category has not been so low. It was a more “elite” race, perhaps enriched with serious runners who consider it a practice race for the Good Life Marathon on May 6 (I should go out and watch that one) than I’m pretty sure the Sporting Life will be. So while it was a decent race for me “I don’t do 10Ks any more”, it was a little disappointing as well.

56.8-minute playlist

Kanye West – Stronger (Harder, Better, Faster)
Jay-Z f. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
B.o.B. f. Hayley Williams – Airplanes
Timbaland f. Keri Hilson – The Way I Are
Sweetbox – Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
Addictiv – Tonight
Adele – Rolling In The Deep
Modest Mouse – Float On
Ludacris et al – Shera Di Kaum
The Killers – Mr. Brightside
Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’
Destra Garcia – Celebrate
Melissa Etheridge – I Run For Life
Three Days Grace – Pain
Jay-Z f. Kanye West, Rihanna – Run This Town

**** Race results ********
Gun time 1:09:21.0
Chip time 57:44.0
Place in female+age category 329/499
Place in females 1,772/2,906
Overall palace 3,743/5,186

1. Running: Instead of online shopping for books (like I used to) or clothing (which I never got the hang of), I went “shopping” for 2012 road races and filled up my social (er, running) calendar up to December by April 5. Several races were already on my radar and I registered for them early on. The Yonge Street 10K in April is the Toronto 10K to run and I need to do it to “compare and contrast” with the Vancouver Sun Run. The crazy Quebec City Staircase Challenge in June came on my radar a few years ago and now I’m fulfilling that “dream”. I registered for two run-of-the-mill half-marathons ambitiously four weeks apart in September and October. My body should be able to handle it, but they are both away races and I have to plan the trips. Registering for the Las Vegas half-marathon in December was “only logical” to get the minimum number of two Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathons in the same calendar year to get a Heavy Medal. And it was by pure luck I learned about the Toronto Pearson Runway run in June from BlogTO.com and I had to register for that, too. And that’s it. Because I have this scary feeling that I have over-committed.

   In other running news, the training is going well in no small part because I love my condo gym. It is large with five treadmills that aren’t free until 9 or 10pm. I fell into the questionable habit of working out around 11pm when I’m guaranteed the machines I desire to use. At first, I was all too happy to catch primetime shows since the treadmills are LifeFitness machines but I couldn’t be guaranteed not to have to wait for a treadmill during primetime while at 11pm, I get my pick. My go-to television show is re-runs of Star Trek: Voyager on the sci-fi channel but many episodes really exacerbate the feeling of absolutely wasting my time and mental capacity. I started listening to audiobooks and happily knock off a workout and “reading”.

2. School: I goofed up a little and did not initiate necessary paperwork in time and have to pare back my plan from four courses to three this year. I had also given the historically crazy-busy month of March the respect and space it was due and extended a course since it wasn’t getting done on time and I had nothing else to take due to paperwork mix-up above. Although drawn out, the past six months of this one blessed course is hopefully the hardest thing I have to slog through.
3. Work: I never would have dreamed how crazy and satisfying working can be. I couldn’t be more pleased that I’m finally getting the Big City (on Bay Street, no less), Big Co. experience without which my life would feel incomplete.
4. Travel with Lil Sis in April: Couldn’t. Unofficially I can’t take vacation in April. Other than small weekend trips for the races, the autumn looks unlikely, too.
5. Relationship: Living on my own has helped me and NPY stay connected much better than when I had a “roomate” in the fall. Skype and national My5 are a boon.
6. Travel with/to/of NPY: NPY visits me for a week starting today and I’ve booked my week off to visit him in August. After he’s safely back in Vancouver and in a couple weeks’ time, I start planning Hawaii in late October. It’s like the only place he wants to go so I want to make it happen this year.

Bonus Resolution #1

On top of these resolutions, on Shrove/Fat Tuesday (February 21), I resolved to give up chocolate for Lent. Although I crave salty food far more than I do chocolate, when it comes to buying a snack when at work, I will go for chocolate as opposed to a rustling bag of chips. Theoretically, chocolate can last over a couple of days. Theoretically, there is some value to (dark) chocolate and none whatsoever for Cheetos. Further, I can indulge in hot chocolate at any time at work, all leading to novel chocolate cravings that needed to be nipped in the bud with a moratorium.

Although I gave up chocolate, I seriously sinned a few times eating cinnamon buns and who knows if I unwittingly had chocolate in Tim Hortons’ “French Vanilla” cappuccino. Otherwise, I made it through the 40 (+6) days of Lent plus a few days after because I didn’t know Lent was over. My first taste of chocolate after that (Birthday Cake Oreos) wasn’t even so satisfying. Nothing against the Oreos which are actually delicious, but I really nipped that craving in the bud.

Bonus Resolution #2

While contemplating what to give up for Lent, I considered my largest food weakness: potato chips. It is such a big addiction of mine I can’t merely give it up for 40 (+6) days. Instead, I reclassified it as a poison for me. I’m addicted to that stuff and cannot have so much as a single piece similar to how a recovering alcoholic can’t have a single drop. Other than ill-advised and heavily regretted rice chips snacks and corn chips in a Frito Lay pie, I have stuck to this resolution.

Bonus Resolution #3

Also on Shrove/Fat Tuesday, I wildly resolved, and told NPY that when I see him in person next (two months from that time), I would weigh the same as when he met me six-years-less-two-months. He’s so sweet to say it’s not necessary and I look fine but that’s the trap–I feel fine and generally look healthy even if I’m 10 pounds above and below where I am right now. It’s sad to sign off this blog post with a “fail” but this was a bonus resolution! The clean, lean living of above did get me closer to my goal but only 2/3 of the way. I’ll share at a later time a tool at work that has really helped my progress and enabled me to lose 10 pounds in four months. This resolution required me to lose about 10 pounds in two months which is impossible because I will not/cannot severely restrict intake. My new goal, for when I next see NPY in August, four months away, (sniff, not sooner), is my 1999 weight which is 10 pounds less than right now. That’s reasonable, right?