Archive for July, 2007
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back from seattle.
By Karen | Monday, July 30th, 2007 | No Comments »
Kurt and I are back from our quick jaunt to Seattle. We took in Pike’s Market on Lindsay and Chris’ recommendation. Pigs everywhere! I had no idea that pigs were so closely associated with the market. I got camera happy and photographed every one that we came across.
day trip to seattle
Of course, we had to watch the famous fishmongers throwing halibut around like there’s no tomorrow. Video below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWrXo5vqVO0[/youtube]
There are a few things from last week still to ramble on about, such as last night’s fireworks spectacular and meatless wednesday #2. Check back soon.
my favourite salsa song.
By Karen | Thursday, July 26th, 2007 | No Comments »
[Update: Found better lyrics matching the version of the song shown below. Si hablan espagnol, pueden ayudarme a corrigir las muchísimas faltas en mi traducción? Muchas gracias a todos!]
Ven, devorame otra vez by Lalo Rodriguez has long been a favourite salsa song, as much for its lyricism as for its musicality. Such passion and ardor! Unfortunately, the English equivalent is almost crude. But it could very well be the fault of my extremely poor translation skills.
Found the video: enjoy!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IpggldF0Xs[/youtube]
and what is all this, you ask?
By Karen | Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 | No Comments »
Please bear with me as I migrate this site over to my new Wordpress host. The functionality may not be all there, but I’m working on it!
Feed URL is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/karenhamilton
Comment feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/karenhamilton-comments
it starts: our first week doing the Nature Challenge.
By Karen | Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 | 5 Comments »
If you don’t know about my hero-worship of David Suzuki, you must not have had a conversation with me for longer than 5 minutes. I had long wanted to usurp his job as host of Nature, but only recently have I come to respect the environmental aspect of his work. After (gasp!) finding him on Facebook and reading his call to participate in his Nature Challenge, I, with Kurt in forced tow, have decided to commit ourselves officially to this effort.
The 10 points of the Nature Challenge:
- Reduce home energy by 10%
- Eat meat-free meals once a week
- Buy a fuel efficient, low-polluting car
- Choose an energy efficient home and appliances
- Stop using pesticides
- Walk, bike or take transit to regular destinations
- Prepare your meals with locally produced food
- Choose a home close to regular destinations
- Support alternatives to the car
- Get involved, stay informed
Reduce home energy by 10%
I’m really bad about leaving the computer on. Something about staying connected, I guess. We’re now shutting down our computers when not in use, on top of trying to take shorter showers, not using the thermostat unless it’s below zero (Dec / Jan), and only using the room lights when we need it. The last item has become such a habit that we often turn off said lights when we walk out of a still-populated room–oops.
Eat meat-free meals once a week
This is the hardest lifestyle change for someone as carnivorous as myself to make. Last Thursday was our first attempt at going a day without meat and seafood. Knowing how difficult the transition would be, I had been eating vegetarian breakfasts since Monday. [Others have expressed curiousity at how I can have a meaty breakfast every day...suffice it to say that I'm Filipino and pigflesh is very hard to avoid!]
So anyhow. Thursday comes along and I have a pleasant breakfast and lunch of italian pasta salad and broccoli / cheddar soup. So far so good. 4 0′clock comes around and…bam! I want meat. The craving is extreme: I find myself daydreaming about a nice beef brisket sandwich and and all I wanted to do is jump out of my cubicle and bury my face in the Pig Sampler platter of the BBQ house across the street. I think my skin felt like bugs were crawling all over it. I may as well have been addicted to meth.
Luckily, work and this blog migration has been keeping me busy, so I didn’t succumb to those meatacular urges and managed to flee home at the end of the day, grumpy and starved for protein. Kurt arranged a dinner consisting of spinach and cheese ravioli with marinara sauce and sugar-snap peas. It sounds better than it was–both of us felt extremely malnourished after the meal. I think I could have cried. Fell asleep that night with dreams of going to Memphis Blues on Friday and literally …pigging out.
What happened on Friday, however, has thankfully inspired us with how we can sustainably reduce our intake of farmed livestock. We found a terrific restaurant that has a ton of great vegetarian fare that we plan to emulate for our home-cooked meals. Thank you very much, Habit Lounge!
Buy a fuel efficient, low-polluting car
Check. I’m sure our Hyundai Elantra is also collecting dust from sitting in our garage for weeks on end.
Choose an energy efficient home and appliances
Can’t really choose our appliances in our rented apartment. Our tower is fairly new so most of the installed appliances are relatively energy-efficient. Kurt also claims that our HDTV is EnergyStar-compliant….
Stop using pesticides
I’m pretty sure we don’t use pesticides, but if any of you disagree, please let us know and we’ll work on this one.
Walk, bike or take transit to regular destinations
This is the best thing about living downtown. When our company had a “Bike Week”, I had to not participate, as buying a bike would contribute more to our ecological footprint that continuing to foot it to work.
Prepare your meals with locally produced food
Another difficult part of this nature challenge for us. We’re starting to be more conscious of where our ingredients are coming from, but it often takes more energy to drive to the local farmer’s market than going to the grocery at the foot of our building and grabbing what’s on their shelves.
Choose a home close to regular destinations
Check! 5-7 mins to work by foot for both of us. Grocery, medical clinic, and drycleaners in our building complex; salsa dancing in 4 different walkable venues downtown. Man, I love downtown Vancouver!
Support alternatives to the car
We recently took a Prius taxi coming home from the airport…that count?
Get involved, stay informed
Well, we’re doing the first bit…what are you doing?
Visit the Nature Challenge website
oh harry, i already miss you.
By Karen | Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 | No Comments »
sigh. seven books is not enough. extremely well done, rowling.
now let’s see if i can keep my mouth shut about the ending.
why don’t i live in montreal?!
By Karen | Thursday, July 19th, 2007 | No Comments »
Can’t believe I’m missing out on Eddie Izzard again. If you live in Montreal and plan to go to this year’s Just for Laughs Festival, make sure to check him out. He’s headlining at two shows this Friday and Saturday at the Imperial Theatre. Show info here.
kare vs. bruce.
By Karen | Monday, July 16th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
totally the pot calling the kettle black. at least i don’t announce it to the world in t-shirt format.
lucas and karen’s wedding.
By Karen | Saturday, July 14th, 2007 | No Comments »
This has been a week full of love, laughter, friends, and family as we celebrated the marriage of my brother-in-law Lucas to his long-time sweetheart Karen Mack.
I’ll let the photos and video speak for themselves…all the best to Luke and Karen and wishing them a lifetime of happiness together!!!
12 videos are uploaded in raw (unedited) format and are available here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=51B15298029F3C7E
off to toronto.
By Karen | Monday, July 9th, 2007 | No Comments »
Wedding #2 in the Hamilton family is happening this Saturday and boy are we excited! Another Karen is being welcomed into the fold. I really don’t know what is up with the Hamilton men and their penchant for K-named women (Karen, Karen, Kaleigh!).
So we’ll be in Oakville, ON from July 11-15th, with just enough spare time from the wedding festivities to tour the Niagara wineries with Mel and Andy. While I’ve come to accept the sad reality that I will not be able to salsa at Babalu’s, I hope that there’ll be enough time to sample some of Toronto’s culinary delights. Ash swears by Salad King’s Golden Curry Chicken. Any other recommendations?
canada day weekend review.
By Karen | Monday, July 2nd, 2007 | 1 Comment »
This weekend has been action-packed…generally the way I like my long weekends! It started out with a less-than-stellar salsa night at Diavolo. Not many of the regular crew around. I think we were all saving our energy for Robson Square on Sunday. Got a massive bruise on my right foot from some jerk that managed to step on both my feet at once…not even an apology. It’s now swollen and purple and I think will last all week. God, I hate the lack of dance etiquette sometimes.
Thankfully, Edwin and Elmer dropped by near the end of the night and made up for the dance suckiness with a lot of drinking =) When Diavolo wrapped up, we continued the dancing and gin-and-tonicking at the Red Room and Shine (which has *awesome* music on Fridays–gotta go back again soon!). By 4am I was pretty smashed but happy that the night ended on a fun note.
On Saturday, I paid dearly for Friday night. Kurt and I nursed our various illnesses instead of seeing Rumba Calzada at the Roundhouse as planned. By dinnertime, the nausea passed so made my way over to Coquitlam to spend the evening with the family. As usual, the night was filled of endless food, lots of music jamming and several hours of karaoke with the aunties. Funny how much I enjoy these nights with the fam as an adult…we all used to think it was torture in high school.
Sunday was a first foray into tennis with Jay, a short glimpse of the Jazz Fest and the bike race in Yaletown, and a great day of reconnecting with Jamie while Kurt and Dave watched the U20 soccer matches at Swanguard. Jamie and I took in the first Sunday Afternoon Salsa of the summer at Robson Square, followed by a very satisfying meal at Alpha (restaurant review updated here) with her and Kurt. The sake was flowing so we didn’t make it to Canada Place to see the fireworks up close. We did manage to take in a bit of it from our balcony, so I guess that was our Canada Day celebration!
One minor disruption was the breaking of my cell phone on the way back from tennis–not cool. My number is forwarded to Kurt’s cell for now. If you get the chance, please email, IM, or FB me with your number.
Coming up: Transformers movie, Ratatouille, and Lucas and Karen’s wedding in Oakville. Can’t wait!!!
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