A fair and equitable approach to...polygamy?

I thought of this idea yesterday when I read that Stephen Harper decided to go all "OMG, but if they legalize same-sex marriage then they'll legalize polygamy!!!!!111!!!1eleven!!" (Never mind that if you Google the words slippery slope it returns information about logical fallacies...) I didn't blog about it since I didn't want to dignify his comments with a blog entry, but today both CBC'S The Current and Prime Minister Paul Martin chose to comment on it, so it's not like my blog is loud enough to add to the din...

It occurred to me that the idea of polygamy being legal doesn't bother me at all. I find the idea squicky and certainly wouldn't want to live that way myself, and I wouldn't march and write letters in support of it or anything, but I simply don't care one way or another of other people decide to do it.

However, the existing models for polygamy, being a tad old-fashioned, aren't exactly equally fair to everyone involved. So I invented a way to update polygamous marriage for the 21st century.

All you have to do is invoke one simple rule: each person in the marriage must marry every other person in the marriage by taking separate vows for each person.

So suppose A and B want to get married. At the ceremony:

A vows to love and take care of B forever
B vows to love and take care of A forever

Some time passes, and A gets the idea of also marrying C. Suppose B consents. So at the ceremony:

A vows to love and take care of C forever
C vows to love and take care of A forever
B vows to love and take care of C forever
C vows to love and take care of B forever
And, of course, A and B could renew their vows to each other if they choose to do so.

If A dies, B and C are still married to each other. All existing married spouses are treated as a unit, so if one person wants a divorce, they have to divorce ALL of their spouses - you can't divorce just one or two.

There you go, Mr. Harper, since you seem so eager to start a dialogue about polygamy, you now have a viable model for the 21st century. Now you just have to figure out how it would work WRT taxes, insurance, next-of-kin etc.

Lakeview Cellars Riesling

I decided to try this wine because Gord Stimmell, the Toronto Star's wine critic, said it had peachy flavours in it, and I wanted to see how a wine managed to be peachy without being one of those wretched "flavoured wines".

Well, it does in fact have peachy/apricoty undertones. I never would have been able to put a name on it myself, but where most Rieslings are dry and limey, this one is peachy. And it's the flavour of a real peach, not fake peach! This gives is a sort of nectary sweetness (even though it has a zero sugar rating) and a warmth that evokes summer without evoking "refreshing drink for keeping one cool," making it enjoyable for sipping indoors in cold weather. I've never actually felt a cold drink was suitable for sipping in cold weather before!

Of course, the outside of the bottle doesn't betray any of these delights. The glass on the bottle is green and the label is nondescript. I doubt I would ever have given the bottle a second glance if the description hadn't intrigued me, so yeah, book, cover, blah blah blah fishcakes.

My eyes hurt

My eyes have been bugging me all day, and now they don't want to stay open. I'm not tired, but my eyes want to rest. In fact, I'm typing this with my eyes closed.

But before I go to bed, I have to:

- Do the dishes
- Take out the garbage
- Brush my hair
- Finish reading today's paper
- Refill my phone
- Drink some milk
- Do some reading.

Plus I haven't done any household chores either yesterday or today, so technically I should be mopping the floor and taking out the recycling, but that isn't gonna happen today.

My eyelids have been so dry lately. I've amassed an impressive collection of eye moisturizers - even more so considering that I don't use moisturizer on other parts of my body except around my eyes! I think I've finally come up with a moisturizing combination that words - I'll take a couple more days to confirm that it does work, then I'll blog about it.

I just sneezed. I sneeze loudly. I take after my father - he sneezes in the basement and you can hear him on the second floor. I'm the only woman I know who sneezes loudly. I'm not too proud of that distinction, but I have no idea how to sneeze quietly.

If you don't understand what I'm talknig about here, you don't need to know.

As I mentioned once or twice before, I was hesitant to use the washroom in the building where my class is held because the building is very old and the washroom is in the basement. Today I ended up having to use that washroom, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected. Based on the state of that washroom and based on some further pondering, I have come to the conclusion that my alma mater had an inordinate number of you-know-whats.

I don't want to jinx myself here, but in the almost two years since I moved out of res and into my own apartment, I've had fewer panic attacks than I usually had in a semester at Alma Mater. At Alma Mater, I was almost always in a state of generalized anxiety, but since I moved out I've spent more time with zero anxiety than experiencing clinical anxiety. And this is taking into account everything - panic attacks brought on by nightmares, anxiety brought on my things other than you-know-whats, anxiety brought on by the other problem I was experiencing a while back.

I am slightly curious about the reason for the difference, and whether it means that there was a higher than usual frequency of you-know-whats at Alma Mater, or whether I'm experiencing a lower than usual frequency in this phase of my life. Either way, I'm glad. It is nice not to have to go to the bathroom with cringing trepidation all the time.

My building is making strange sounds

I was awakened at about 1:30 am by a loud popping sound that sounded like it was coming from the floor below my bed. The springs of my mattess vibrated. I don't know what was making those sounds, but I've been hearing more of them, from different parts of the building. The ones closes to me sound like they're coming from inside floors or walls. It reminds me of that sound those metal-painted-like-faux-wood sliding closet doors make when they settle. It also reminds me of a person's joints cracking. I have no idea what it is. I guess it can't be an emergency since it's been about 20 minutes and no one has made any emergency announcements or anything, it's just weird and kind of scary. I guess I'll try to go back to sleep.

ETA: I'm going to turn off my computer for the rest of the night just to be safe. If I'm not online before ~8pm tomorrow (i.e. Tuesday night) don't worry, it doesn't necessarily mean that the popping monsters have gotten me :)

This amuses me greatly

Rejected chemical weapon ideas from the Pentagon

Perhaps it isn't proper to be amused by chemical weapons, but these are totally the kinds of things I'd think of when I'm in one of my can't-sleep-being-silly moods.

A solution for the Union Station bus terminal

A couple of years ago, they built a bus terminal across Bay St. from the rest of Union Station. Despite signage and warnings to the contrary, many commuters (myself included) cut across Bay St. instead of walking up to Front St. to cross at the lights. They built an overhead walkway across Bay St., but that didn't help because it was still faster to go outside and cut straight across. Recently, they've put in metal barricades on either side of Bay (and on the median too?), but commuters just keep going over, under, around or through these barricades.

I have a simple solution: just lock the Bay St. doors of Union Station. Make sure they can't be opened from the inside or the outside. Perhaps install a system where they can be opened if a fire alarm is going off (or make an alarm go off when they are opened?), but don't let them be opened during normal operation. That way, people will only be able to get in and out of Union through the overhead walkway or at Front St., so they will have no reason to cross in the middle of Bay. After all, you wouldn't cross a street in the middle of the street if your destination was not directly opposite your current location, would you?

Jackson-Triggs Proprietor's Reserve Chardonnay

I read an article not too long ago about how Ontario growers had a bad year recently and are therefore allowed to mix other grapes into their non-VQA wines. The article postulated that we should therefore buy only VQA Ontario wines for the next season or so. Now my palate is not refined enough to tell that there's something particularly wrong with non-VQA wines, but tasting J-T Proprietor's Reserve reminded me of why VQA can be so much better.

Basically, this wine has everything I like in a chardonnay, all perfectly balanced, wtih nothing that I don't like in a chardonnay. On a quick gulp it is smooth and buttery and extremely easy to drink. On a slow, deliberate taste it has apples and pears and all those lovely green fruit tastes along with toastiness and vanilla and creaminess and all those things that make chardonnay comfy. I'm not entirely sure and I don't have any popcorn on hand to check, but I think this would go marvelously with buttered popcorn. (As well as most fish, but I don't care about that).

This one has now rocketed to the top of my "to bring as a hostess gift" list.

The most brilliant idea ever: pet medical insurance as employment benefit

Su and I just thought of the most brilliant idea ever: pet medical insurance as an employment benefit! If you have less than the average number of dependents, or perhaps for add-on to the basic employment benefits, you can get medical insurance to cover your pets' veterinary needs. Employers must implement this NOW!

Potterverse Ponderings

I got thinking about the Sorting Hat. We know that what House the student wants to be in influences the Sorting process. For example, it put Harry in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin because he was vehemently opposed to being in Slytherin, and it is implied (although I think it may not be said outright) that it put Hermione in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw because she wanted to be in Gryffindor.

The problem is that the students being sorted are only 11, and they might not have the insight to realize which house would really be best for them. For example, when taken alone I am a Ravenclaw, but I'd do better in a Hufflepuff environment. If the Sorting Hat suggested to my 11-year-old self that I might do well in Hufflepuff, I would mentally shout back "No, no! Not Hufflepuff! Ravenclaw!" My 11-year-old self would feel this way because she would probably have heard that Hufflepuffs are "duffers", and would know that she is the intellectual type. However, because Wizarding children are home-schooled, she would be completely unequipped to consider what type of social environment would be best for her in to live in over the next seven years. If the Hat made the decision between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff based on her insistence, she would have a miserable seven years in a competitive House like Ravenclaw. But my 11-year-old self was nowhere near developing the self-awareness needed to determine that she might do well in Hufflepuff. Would the Hat be able to dig this out of her mind anyway and put her in Hufflepuff despite her protestations? Or is the student's request the deal-maker?

Village of the Small Houses by Ian Ferguson

This book is a fictionalized autobiography ("a memoir of sorts") of the author Ian Ferguson's (of How to Be a Canadian fame) childhood growing up in Fort Vermillion, in northern Alberta just below the Arctic Circle. It's a sweet, sometimes poignant, always funny account of the vagaries of life In The North.

This is an extremely enjoyable book with a brilliant cast of characters! You'll laugh, you'll go "awww!", you'll keep reading on to see what happens next. This book stops when the author/protagonist is 15, and I think if Ferguson can keep up this tone as he leaves childhood, there is definitely room for a sequel!

Jacob's Creek Chardonnay Pinot Noir

This wine was recommended a while back and I put it on my "to try" list just to see what a white/red blend is like, but I could never find it in-store. Today I happened to notice it while looking for something else - turns out it's a sparkling wine, so it was in the champagne section, not the Australian wines section!

It's corked like a champagne bottle, so there are the same difficulties with opening it. The wine itself is golden in colour - you can see the chardonnay, but there's no visual hint of the pinot noir. The taste is kind of like sparkling apple cider, richer and fruitier than shampagne. If you concentrate, you can taste the pinot noir undertones, but I think if someone had handed me a glass of this without telling me what it is, I wouldn't think of that particular taste as a red wine taste. I'm not sure how I feel about it being bubbly though. The taste is kind of incongruous with the bubbles, and I don't know if the bubble were a necessary part of the process, or if they thought the bubbles would add to the experience. I suppose I could let a glass go flat and see how that affects the taste, but that would require time and planning.

This would probably be good if you want a sparkling wine but don't like the dry taste of most bruts, or if you want a cheap alternative sparkling wine. I've never had real champagne, so I can't tell you how that compares, but I'd imagine it's not intended to compare.

So you take a dead tooth, you see, and you put it under your pillow...

You know what's fun? Find someone from a culture that doesn't have the tooth fairy - preferably from a culture where baby teeth aren't special at all. Then try to explain teh concept of the tooth fairy to them.

Meanwhile, it was summer today! When I left work, it was 18 degrees! Unfortunately, by the time I got home from class, it was 4 with a wind chill of -2. And my umbrella was totally destroyed by the wind. Anyone know where you can get an umbrella that doesn't get completely destroyed when it's blown inside out?

Green?

My blog looks green to me right now. I don't know why - I didn't intentionally do anything to make it green. I don't know if it looks green to anyone else. But I might like this template better, although I think the body font size is a bit big, so I might keep it. I don't know.

Another strange job dream

Last night I had a dream where, in addition to my current (fulltime, professional) job, I still had my first job (parttime, fast food) because I had forgotten to quit. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't been in to work for 18 months since I started my current job, so I went in to the fast-food restaurant to straighten things out. I walked in and started counting out my float - still in civies, without changing into my uniform - and the employees (who were all new people because of the high turnover) kept asking me who I was. Then the owner came up, greeted me brightly, and started showing me all these new ways of doing things, with no mention of my absence. I went to the back and looked at the schedule, and it was in some code I didn't understand, and didn't explicitly mention the times that people were scheduled. Surprisingly, I was still on the schedule. I asked the owner how to read the new schedule, and she mentioned in passing that I hadn't been in for quite a while. I decided to be honest, and admitted that, while this is really stupid of me, I had gotten another job and completely forgotten that I had this one. The owner was super nice about it, saying "You know, my brother did the exact same thing!" (which is totally out of character for her). I then began considering giving my two weeks notice, since I didn't really need this job any more and the commute was a bit excessive. But I was hesitant to do so because you don't just quit jobs!

When I woke up it took me a moment to get my bearings and remember that I had, in fact, quit that job 4.5 years ago when I moved to Toronto.

This is at least the second dream I've had in the past month where I've had an extremely entry-level job in addition to my current job, and while I was tempted to quit it there was a lot of pressure not it. I'm kind of concerned about what this might mean...

Yoga is evilly addictive!

The problem with yoga is it's addictive. Not a fun happy addictive like The Sims or Lays Salt & Vinegar chips. It's an evil, life-destroying addictive like tobacco and cocaine. I started doing yoga because I heard people talking about it, and it seemed like it could be fun and might have some nice positive side-effects. I continued with it because I enjoyed how it made me feel. But now, if I don't get my daily yoga fix, my body goes into withdrawal. My tendons scream at me and nasty thoughts float around in my head and I can't function properly until I do a surya namaskar and a couple of nice, slow triangle poses. Then my tendons calm down and my evil thoughts get locked away into my little zen box and I can get on with my day. And I'm not even into the hard stuff - I just do the postures, not the meditations, and I slack on my breathing, and I'm not at all into the spiritual aspect of it!

The moral of the story is, unless you need it for medical purposes, just say no to yoga!

Things they should invent for MS Word

Word really needs a "Select All, including headers, footers and text boxes"
feature.

Oyster Bay Chardonnay

I recently got up the nerve to go into Vintages. Contrary to my expectations, there weren't any big intimidating bouncer-like sommeliers there just waiting to be all snooty and disapproving and intimidate me into leaving. It turns out that you're free to just browse around however you like, and there are some reasonably-priced wines in there. It's not the most user-friendly setup though, and while I would unhesitatingly go in there to pick out a specific wine, I don't find it conducive to browsing. Kind of like major department stores.

So anyway, in Vintages I found Oyster Bay Chardonnay, which I had heard good things about, but had never been able to find before. I assumed that it would have a whimsical label since a) it is from New Zealand, b) it has the name of an animal in its name, and c) it rhymes. But instead it has a classy, subdued blue and white label, which may be why I had trouble finding it before.

As for the wine itself, it's fruity and smooth. The fruit is a bit different than you usually taste in wine - a bit more appley and less grape/pear/citrus I think - and it's also kind of buttery. There's a certain aspect of chardonnay that I find slightly unpleasant (but can't name) and this wine is missing this aspect. The result is something that is so yummy that I want to drink it in big gulps instead of sipping in a dignified manner. I think it could be easily overpowered by food, but it would make a lovely aperitif as long as you don't want to make it last a long time.

Jeans that don't gap in the back!

I have found jeans that don't gap in the back! They are called Point Zero, and they are available at Sears and The Bay. No, I don't know where they are available outside of Canada. And for people who got here by Google and aren't following along my quest for non-gapping jeans, Lee One True Fit jeans DO gap in the back on me, but Point Zeros don't.

The tricky bit about these pants is that the sizes are different for different styles. I bought two pairs in different styles. In one style I wear a size 34, and it's the smallest it could possibly be without being uncomfortable to sit down in. In the other style I bought a size 33, but it's a bit big and I could probably comfortably wear a 32 (but they didn't have any 32s). So make sure you try on each style anew rather than just buying the same size in every style.