When You Were Young: Musical Youth

January 12th, 2011 No Comments

Gonna let it rock,
let it roll.

- Jack and Diane, John Cougar

Coming out of the sum­mer of 1982, my mu­si­cal tastes cen­tered mostly on clas­sic rock. (I was 13 — don’t judge.) We had just been as­signed our lock­ers (I shared one with Daniela) and we were con­tem­plat­ing de­sign ideas.

Sept. 30/82

Hi again! The rea­son I’m writ­ing in black is be­cause the blue pen ran out. Yeah Ol’ Bluey ran out on me again. I have to fix it. Well, it’s an­other bor­ing day of school again, and home­work. Oh, well, we’re gonna put those pic­tures up again! Do you wanna know who I have? Well here they are:

1) Beatles

2) Stones

3) Zepplin

4) Cougar (John)

5) Van Halen

6) Police

7) Sunshine Boy (hunk)

For some rea­son, the list was scratched out. Was I em­bar­rassed about my choices back then, too?

Oct. 4/82

Sorry, I’m late! I was fix­ing my bag. Anyway, Vinceto knows I like him and we’re hav­ing base­ball prac­tice this af­ter­noon, then I have to go to the doc­tors at my ap­point­ment at 4:00. We’re hav­ing Mass, and I have to study for a sci­ence quiz! What a hec­tic day! And to top it all off, we’re hav­ing a French test to­mor­row. Whew! I just found out that Marilyn has the Doors, “No one gets out of here alive” and I told Boogie [Daniela] and she flipped! Oh sorry I’m writ­ing so messy, but my arm is hurt­ing. Oh, I hate crowded buses, and I think I got a good mark on my English, oh well, gotta fix my bag, or it’s go­ing to suf­fer. Bye!

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Eating: Croatian Goulash

January 9th, 2011 No Comments

Nothing would be more tire­some than eat­ing and drink­ing if God had not made them a plea­sure as well as a ne­ces­sity. ~Voltaire

I love food. You wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily know that if you went solely by my blog post­ings. I rarely blog about food. Well, that’s about to change.

I’m not go­ing to make my blog only about food — there are oth­ers that do a great job of that and they can be found in my links. But given that I make it a rule to en­joy the finer things in life, I’m go­ing to start shar­ing them with you. And noth­ing can be finer on a cold winter’s day than goulash.

My mother has made this dish for as long as I can re­mem­ber. Derived from the well-known Hungarian va­ri­ety, the Croatian goulash (gu­laš) is more of a sauce served over pasta, gnoc­chi or po­lenta. We’ve al­ways had it over pasta, with some hard goat’s cheese grated on top. I started mak­ing goulash years ago, but can never truly repli­cate my mother’s recipe. Perhaps it’s be­cause she sea­sons it dif­fer­ently each time. As the beef and onions are cook­ing, and be­fore the tomato sauce is added, she takes every sin­gle jar of spice from the cup­board and adds a pinch from each in the pot. We’re talk­ing Italian sea­son­ing, pa­prika, salt sea­son­ing, Vegeta, Mrs. Dash and god knows what else. I’ve tried my own blend of spices but it never comes out like hers. I think the se­cret lies in the hap­haz­ard­ness of it all.

So, I cheat. Instead of adding spices, I add pre­pared tomato sauce. My pre­ferred brand is Olivieri’s Arrabiatta Sauce but any other brand will do. I like arrab­bi­ata be­cause it gives it a lit­tle kick. (Recipe below.)

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It’s the end of the world as we know it

January 4th, 2011 4 Comments

The un­ex­plain­able deaths of birds and fish in Arkansas have led some peo­ple to spec­u­late that the apoc­a­lypse will soon be upon us. The whole Mayan-calendar-ending-next-year thing has also added fuel to the fire (and given us one spec­tac­u­lar guilty plea­sure of a movie, 2012). While I’d be the first to roll my eyes at crazy Bible-thumpers rant­ing about the end of days, re­cent events have given me pause for thought. Cases in point:

1. Bikini Bottom Groom & Go. Available right next to baby’s first pair of heels.

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When You Were Young: Square Pegs

January 3rd, 2011 No Comments

You don’t drink, don’t smoke
What do you do?

- Goody Two Shoes, Adam Ant

This week’s jour­nal en­tries in­volve an ode to avian friends, the be­gin­nings of high-school drama and our hero­ine (me) fail­ing to see the irony in watch­ing a show called Square Pegs.

You’ll see many ref­er­ences to Daniela in my jour­nal en­tries. She’s my old­est and dear­est friend. We’ve known each other since the fourth grade and re­main close to this day. She’s gone on to ac­com­plish so many great things in her life — some­times with runs in her nylons.

Sept. 21/82

Hello again! I just had typ­ing and I flunked. Instead of typ­ing it twice and re­turn 2 times, I wrote 2 lines once, and re­turned once. Then I had to type 2 more lines like that over. Oh, well, life’s like that. Anyway, I stayed up last night till 10:30 do­ing my English com­po­si­tion about my 2 bud­gies. Oh, that guy that likes Daniela is so ugly, I guess he for­got to take off his Halloween mask. Everything she says, R — – , my other friend, does what she says! Oh, and I have a lit­tle com­pe­ti­tion. Yeah, she likes Vincetto too. Oh well, he said to write con­tin­u­ously for 10 min­utes, and, oh, by!

Sept. 23/82

Hi! Well, I just wanted to put a lit­tle colour in to­day, be­cause it’s a gloomy, rainy day. I flunked typ­ing, I know I did. I made so many mis­takes and we’re get­ting marked. As I look to my side, I don’t see Vincetto any more. I guess he switched classes. Well, I soaked my beans for the sci­ence project last night and I prac­ticed on my flute. It’s hard to play, but that’s life. I turn around and see Daniela with a big run in her ny­lons, and then I think of her as a lit­tle kid, with her plaid pants, and clash­ing shirt, and me in my Brady Bunch pants, hop­ping around. Oh well, it’s so b-o-R-I-N-G!

Sept. 27/82

Oh, my throat is hurt­ing so much. I want to go home, but we’re hav­ing a sci­ence quiz, and I don’t want to miss that. We had typ­ing and we learned [il­leg­i­ble] 6 new keys. We’re get­ting our es­says to­day, and I won­der what I got. Oh, to­day is the sea­son pre­mier of “Square Pegs”, and I don’t want to miss it! R — – told me about the party and I don’t re­ally be­lieve her! Oh, and guess what! Walter is com­ing to our school to see how the guys look like at our school that like R — – . I re­ally real sorry for M — — , be­cause R — – was sup­posed to call him on his birth­day, while she was par­ty­ing around. He was heart­bro­ken and I think R — – ‘s crazy to let him go, be­cause he’s nice. It should be 10 min. gone al­ready now so I got to say good­bye. Goodbye!

Send in your own con­tri­bu­tions to whenyouwereyoung@bonniedean.ca.

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When You Were Young: Losing My Religion

December 30th, 2010 No Comments

Gentlemen of the world
You want to ed­u­cate our young
But soon they’ll be on their own.

- Nova Heart, The Spoons

The sec­ond en­try from my un­earthed grade-nine jour­nal finds our hero­ine (me) sort­ing out her sched­ule, mak­ing new friends and test­ing the bound­aries of sacrilege.

Sept. 17/82

Well, Journal, I’m here again on an­other bor­ing school day. This guy, I won’t say his name, whom I like, is not in his seat. I guess that he switched classes, since the new sched­ule came out. I did aw­ful in typ­ing, and thank God, she isn’t go­ing to mark it! Right af­ter this, I have study pe­riod. Oh, that guy came in af­ter all, and he sits be­sides me too! After, I have re­li­gion, and then lunch. Now, every­day af­ter school, we hang around with Nikki and the gang from St. Wilfred’s. Oh, my friend Daniela told me a joke she heard. It’s about three nuns, and, oh, well I can’t spend all my time writ­ing on you, so see you af­ter the weekend!

Remember to send in your con­tri­bu­tions to whenyouwereyoung@bonniedean.ca.

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