October Occurrences 2020

by Liz Heather in , , , , , , , , , ,

Forgive the lateness of this monthly post! I wish I could say it’s late because I’ve been crazy busy, but it’s really been because I’ve been lounging my ass around various corners of my parent’s house and trying my best to not watch any American news. Here’s what went down last month.

  • I started watching The Parkers and, as expected, it’s pretty great. Kim for life.

  • I got a lash lift aaaaaand it was bullshit. My eyes have never been more irritated and that’s coming from someone who went through corneal surgery. I think lash lifts are supposed to be for people who already have long lashes. But if you have long lashes, then why the hell do you need them to be lifted? SCAM.

  • Are eyelash curlers bad for people with short lashes? I was told they were. But that was by someone who also recently fucked my lashes, so I’m not sure what to believe now.

  • So many new movies were watched in October: Killer Klowns From Outer Space (absolutely great), Motel Hell (also great), Moment of Truth: Stalking Back (too real, a little hard to watch, but I’m really looking forward to watching other made-for-tv-movies from the series), Hush (a great movie, but again: too much, I might not be able to handle modern horror & I’m fine with that), Summer Camp Nightmare (great), Goodnight Mommy (parts of it were really cringe-y to watch but it was incredible), Mom (so, so underrated), Wolf (it was actually pretty good, how on earth had I not seen it before?), House on Haunted Hill (the old version and it was great! It ends abruptly but it’s still a fun movie), Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (80s as hell, but not as terrible as I thought it’d be), Creepshow 2 (just a good time), Frogs (terrible and not in a fun way), Cujo (just a story of neglectful pet owners), Night of the Demons (not bad, not good), This Is Paris (it was really, really good. It’s definitely hard to watch if you’ve dealt with abuse in any way, but it’s really well done) and I got through about nine minutes of Cats before I just had to call it.

  • The next season of Shrill started filming!

  • I finally went to Sleepy Hollow and wrote about it over here.

  • A recipe for mini meatloaf ghosts created by the ever-delightful, Chef John.

  • Among the top three of funniest Fresh Prince scenes ever.

  • Ate the hazelnut & cappuccino cronut this month and it was spectacular.

  • Started getting the cashew yogurt from Trader Joe’s and it’s so addictive.

  • The new SNLs have been all right, nothing special. And look, I love Jim Carrey. Forever will. But he isn’t good as Biden. It’s such a weird choice. Highlight of the episodes this month? The Bieber performances, surprisingly.

  • I made the Impossible Burger at home (you can buy them at any Fairway Market) and they’re absolutely the top veggie burger on the market today. So damn good.

  • There’s this restaurant in Mississauga (Erin Mills Pump & Patio) that does such a good job of replicating this now-off-menu pasta that I used to love from Snug Harbour and I’m so thankful to have found it. (It’s the Hunters Penne Pasta with chicken, cremini and shitake mushrooms, Italian parsley, black truffle oil in a white wine cream sauce incase you want to taste heaven.)

  • We went to Downey’s on Halloween this year and for the first time got their homemade cheese bread. Life will never be the same. Some photos of the day below.

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🎃🎃🎃 🔁: @kjp

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  • If you find yourself in NYC in November, I beg you… please go eat the Thanksgiving croissant from Milk Bar. You will regret nothing.

Some things that I’m looking forward to doing this month: reading Lindy West’s new book, decorating my parent’s house for the Christmas season, and SNOW.

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in September over here.

October Occurrences 2019

by Liz Heather in , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forgive the lateness of this post! It was an insanely busy month and I’ll try not to let this kind of delay happen again. SO MUCH HAPPENED! Details below.

  • I went on two trips this month! The first was to the Bahamas and it was so great. I stayed at Atlantis (because well, that’s where my parents were staying and they kindly let me stay with them, IF YOU MUST KNOW) and while Atlantis was super nice, it really felt like what I imagine a big cruise ship to feel like. I’m not meaning that as an insult at all - it just felt sort of stiff, well maintained, with a very controlled environment. I tried lionfish for the first time (very good), drank Bahama Mamas and slid down the shark-surrounded Leap of Faith (horrifying). We ate at Jose Andres’ restaurant Fish and it was absolutely unreal. The seafood was phenomenal.

Parents in the Bahamas

  • My second trip was to New Orleans for the week of Halloween! I’ll do a full post on this one because there’s too much to say. (Full post here!)

  • In some upsetting news, I accidentally “recovered” my phone and lost most of my Bahamas photos. I was so upset because it was completely my own fault. I hadn’t backed up my photos to my computer yet either, so it truly sucked. I do have iCloud but I never opted to pay for the extra space so it’s been full for about a year already. Enter my saviour Marla who told me about Google Photos (which is free) and I’ve already started using and backing up almost daily. I’ve moved on from losing the photos by rationalizing it in thinking that I wasn’t meant to have those photos, they were meant to be memories.

  • Remember when I told you to watch Tuca & Bertie because it’s so lovely? Well, if you did, this is a really great piece about Bertie’s boyfriend, Speckle.

  • Can’t get enough of the Pink Lady Apple flavour of Health-Ade. So goddam tasty.

  • Years ago, I watched and hated the second Sex & The City movie (too xenophobic, cliched and generally terrible) but I rewatched it on a plane recently and while it’s still a bad movie, I had completely forgotten about the storyline about Carrie and Big “defining the parameters of their own relationship.” Best part of the movie! I won’t give away too much, but you may want to rewatch this stinker if nothing better is on.

  • We rewatched all of the Sleepaway Camp movies and they really hold up well. Such a solid series.

  • I did two of Nathan’s podcasts this month: one where we talked about vaping and one where we talked about what annoys Nathan and my Joker thoughts! I had a lot of Joker thoughts. Quick summary? IT BLEW. I feel like the world grieves for broken men and I do not wish to.

  • I tried pumpkin-flavoured Kit Kats and although a little gross at first, they really do taste like pumpkin. And after two or three bites, become delicious.

  • In keeping with autumn flavours, I tried the pumpkin cream cold brew from Starbucks (I know, despite this one instance, I am still trying to stay away from the corporations that are slowly eating away at society as we know it). Anyway, the drink was only MEH. It’s wild how we’ve made milkshakes acceptable for adults to drink at 8am.

  • I’m not sure if I’ve already shared this tip, but I have THE greatest advice for someone who’s trying to avoid a cold from starting. You know that point right before you get a cold, when your throat feels a little tingly and sensitive? And you know that a cold is coming right around the corner? All you need to do to avoid this from happening is buy the blue Listerine and gargle with it once in the morning and once before bed and gargle for about 30 seconds each time. I SWEAR TO GOD THIS WORKS. But only with the blue Listerine. I’ve tested this theory twice now and it absolutely works, someone give me a medal for curing the common cold. (And if you really don’t believe me, buy the travel size before you commit to the larger bottle, geek.)

  • Riverdale is BACK! The season premiere episode dealing with Luke Perry’s death was so good and so sad and that’s all I have to say about that. This tweet sums it up.

  • As for the more recent episodes of Riverdale? The latest Halloween episode was pure and complete madness and I love how nuts it’s becoming. This tweet sums it up.

  • I started watching the new season of This Is Us and I think I figured out what’s wrong with this show: every character on it is almost TOO in love with their partner. It’s enough already, we get it, love exists. The show is so wildly saccharine now. Maybe it was always that way and I never noticed before? Either way, I might be passing on it this season.

  • I read and reviewed Abbi Jacobson’s newest book and you can see that full post over here.

  • I really hate cleaning shower curtains and the mold-free one that I got from The Container Store (only $10) has lasted me a full six months before getting gross. Highly recommend!

  • Cannot stop playing this song or this song.

  • J. Crew was having a pretty sweet sale and I bought this gorgeous-fitting underwire 90s swimsuit that I can’t stop praising. No one told me about underwire swimwear! So fucking flattering.

  • My absolute favourite place to get Halloween costume accessories is by far the Village Party Store in Manhattan. They somehow have every single thing you’d need for a costume, they’re super inexpensive and the staff is so helpful (eons better than any Spirit). I was talking about costume stuff with one of the guys who works there and he mentioned how a group of women had just come in to get stuff for their group costume: they all were going to be different Keanu Reeves characters. Is it just me or is that the greatest group costume you’ve ever heard of? He said they were definitely going to do Neo from The Matrix, Ted from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Jack from Speed, Duke Kaboom from Toy Story 4 and Sad Keanu. PURE GENIUS.

  • My favourite SNL sketch of the season so far, for sure.

  • LOVED the new season of Big Mouth. But can we pleeeeease stop with the musical episodes? NOBODY LIKES THEM.

  • Speaking of Big Mouth, I watched the movie Disclosure and wowza. Great movie. Can’t believe I’d never even heard of it before. Just rewatched it again with Nathan this past week. So good.

  • Another great NYC Halloween store is Abracadabra on 21st street. It’s a more expensive place to shop, but if you just want to browse then definitely visit this place. There are tons of interactive displays and the whole basement has incredible costumes for rent.

  • You can see this year’s Halloween costume over here, if you so please. In other costume news, Baby Dog was a lion. Roar.

Lion!

  • I finally tried Mario Badescu’s Drying Lotion and whoa. I get the hype. It fucking obliterates pimples. It’s hard to sleep in since it goes on like calamine lotion and smudges everywhere if you lay face down (do people sleep like this? I sleep like I’m in a coffin & Nathan hates it because I look like a mental patient but it’s so fucking relaxing, I can’t stop), but it works really well if you can figure out a way to sleep without it rubbing off.

Some things that I’m looking forward to this month: celebrating American Thanksgiving since I missed the true (Canadian) one last month while I was in the Bahamas, introducing Nathan to the Momofuku Thanksgiving croissant, taking Baby Dog for autumn walks in Central Park, getting my copy of Lindy West’s new book that arrives in my mailbox tomorrow, still working on doing things off of my autumn list, reading Jenny Slate’s new book, if you find yourself always losing your poppy I find it helpful to attach mine to a safety pin rather than just the regular pin that comes with it, and I’ll probably definitely see A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood even though I do think it’s unnecessary.

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in September over here!

October Occurrences

by Liz Heather in , , , , ,

This is how I feel when October comes to a close.

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Even though this is technically still the best time of year (the leaves are gorgeous, Christmas is coming, the first snowfall is only a few weeks away, a fresh year is quickly approaching), it’s always hard for me to say goodbye to October. Maybe that’s one reason why this post is so late? I couldn’t bring myself to actually move on? In any case, November has begun. So here’s what went down in my world last month.

  • The family and I took a train ride along the South Simcoe Railway on their autumn leaves tour and it was prrrretty cute.

Mom & Dad

Gary!

Me & Camden

  • I have officially introduced Riverdale into the lives of four other human beings in my life. Do you understand how crazy that is? I feel like every person on the planet is constantly telling everyone else what show they should be watching and we’re all silently ignoring so many of these recommendations because there’s simply not enough time to watch everything that everyone says is great. So when someone actually gets into this show - it makes me immensely happy. It’s just a pure show. Anyway, the new season started and it’s great and I’ll continue to scream about how much I love it. I’ve also started following Skeet Ulrich on Instagram and I think this is the first time I’ve intensely wanted to send inappropriate things to a stranger since I was a teenager? Feels weird.

  • Watched the first episode of Kidding and really couldn't get into it. Will always love Jim Carrey but this one seems like a hard one to latch onto.

  • Watched an episode of Rel and all I can really say about it is that Sinbad is the best part. So I guess that’s something. I don’t think it’s possible to make a good family sitcom these days and I don’t know why that is.

  • Watched the movie Wild and it was really good. In the same way that I really liked Under The Tuscan Sun. I love love love movies about women that aren’t centered around a love interest. The scene where the little boy sings to her made me weep for some reason.

  • Took a break from The Twilight Zone for a bit and then got right back into it with the episodes The Mask & Number 12 Looks Like You - and man… this is one of the best shows of all time. Better than Black Mirror. Better than everything!

  • Rewatched Friday the 13th Part 4 and it’s still a good horror movie, but not as good as I remember. Hate when that happens.

  • Have you ever seen the kids movie The Halloween Tree? I’d never seen or heard of it before recently and I really liked it. I know this is a common thought amongst people who cling to the past, but the animation back then was way better than it is today.

  • Speaking of kids movies, I saw the second Goosebumps movie with my family and the first one was better? Needed more Jack Black.

  • Finally watched Popstar at my brother’s insistence and it was really funny.

  • So obviously I saw the new Halloween. There was no way it could’ve been good, I realize this, but I went anyway because you have to go. The main problem with it? You see Michael Myers WAY too much. It’s ridiculous. It’s not scary if you’re constantly seeing his face. Anyway, the original is really the only good one anyway and I’m fine with that. I forced my niece Layla to watch that one on VHS and that’s the only way that movie should ever be watched, in my opinion. It’s perfect.

  • FINALLY saw Trick R Treat and of course it’s terrible! Don’t even remember why I’d wanted to see this one so badly. Maybe ‘cause the cover looks so good. I love bags on heads.

  • Watched Fright Night for the first time and it wasn’t terrible, but dear Christ, that kid who played the best friend? Definitely the worst actor on planet earth. WOOF.

  • I’ve only watched the first episode of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina but I’m in love with how dark it is so far. I could also relate to all the half breed talk! And Balki’s in it! Excited to see if the coming episodes are as good.

  • I was on Nathan’s podcast again! Think this is the best one we’ve done together.

  • I have seen so many posts about how good On The Bun is in Mississauga and… what the hell? It’s average at best. The Burger’s Priest is eons better (and there’s a Mississauga location at Eglinton & Hurontario now too).

  • Speaking of good food places in Mississauga, Luca Pizza will now and forever be the only place I’ll force my family to order pizza from. So crazy good!

  • Tried some of the poutine at Costco and it’s almost identical to the old St. Hubert one that existed years ago. It’s eerie.

  • There’s a (somewhat new) Nordstrom Rack in Heartland in Mississauga and IT IS GREAT. If I were to describe why it’s so good, I’d go so far as to say it’s a higher-end/better/still affordable version of Winners.

  • Gary came to visit from Scotland and whenever he comes I try to make him sightread something that I love on piano and he never disappoints.

  • Of course the family and I went on our annual Downey’s visit.

  • I never go to Krispy Kreme mainly because, well, do I have to have a reason? Their donuts are insanity on a plate so I just need to not be near the building. That being said, my niece Layla really wanted to go so we did. And if you ever happen to be there right when the apple fritters come out of the oven? It will easily be the best tasting thing you’ll ever put in your mouth. That being said, they are dense and pretty rough once cold. Not sure how that makes sense, but it’s probably a good thing. The longstanding best apple fritters are still at San Remo’s in Etobicoke.

  • I hadn’t been to Playdium in Mississauga in maybe fifteen years, I can’t believe it’s still even there. STILL SO FUN. Really hope teenagers are still going on dates here and making out in the go kart line.

  • My friend Marla gave birth to the sweetest little boy, her second son!

  • Went to the ROM for I think the first time (?) and it was very meh! I mean, I think it was good technically? I don’t know what I was expecting. Also, maybe I’m being mean about it because the museums in New York are so much bigger and better? I realize that’s a pretty dickish thing to say and yet I’m not deleting it.

  • Absolutely love everything about this video (below).

  • Went to the CN Tower with my family and I haven’t been in such a long time, still a good time.

  • I finally started trying out recipes from Chrissy Teigen’s newest cookbook. The “Taters, Shrooms & Peas with Parmesan Cream” recipe was incredibly annoying to make mainly due to the instruction of “microwaving your potatoes” - why on earth would that ever be an easier way to cook a potato? It took so long with the trial and error of deciding how much water was needed to actually cook them in a microwave, and incredibly frustrating. And it didn’t even taste amazing! So I’ll definitely never make that one again. Her “Jalapeño-Cheddar Corn Pudding” though? AMAZING. I was blown away at how good that tasted. The serving size was so crazy off, though, which seemed odd. It could’ve fed twenty people. So since I’m one for two, I’m excited to try other recipes from the book soon.

  • I went to Halloween Haunt at Canada’s Wonderland with Layla, her friends and Harmeet and it was such a fun time. The best part of the whole thing are the actors who jump out to scare you, for sure.

Me & Lay

Me & Har

  • I’m not a huge Starbucks fan (I can’t seem to find a drink that’s not terrible for you & actually tastes good), but since they put out a Halloween drink, obviously I had to try it. The witch’s brew frappuccino was actually pretty good! PURE sugar, but good for exactly two sips. The chia seeds were so weird and good.

  • I finally saw Tews Falls! Been wanting to see this baby for awhile.

Tews Falls

Maya & Layla

  • I took Harmeet to Long Point Eco Adventures to stay in a camping pod for one night and it was really, really nice. Our stargazing tour did get cancelled because of the clouds, so we made the most of the evening by going across the street to the Burning Kiln Winery and it was a great time. If you know anything about me, you should be aware that this is the only way that I’d ever “camp.” On the drive back, we saw some insanely large pumpkins for sale so I obviously bought one and it’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever spent money on.

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ten more days... ☠️🎃👻🍁

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  • Will never get sick of how New York looks at night.

  • Baby Dog had an extremely relaxing month.

  • It should be obvious, but of course this Halloween was the best one in years, mainly because it’s been so long since I’ve given out candy to trick-or-treaters. You already saw my costume. A huge thank you goes to my mom who sewed the zipper onto that red sweater and who allowed me to yell at her for an hour whilst trying to take the perfect costume photo. No idea why some of the people in my life let me get away with murder sometimes, but super thankful for them. So many things happened on Halloween that it’s kind of a blur to me now. I made this craft that really worked out well, I got sick of my costume so I did a Halloween inspired makeup look for the evening, I watched horror movies on a loop all day - everything was perfect.

The lawn of my parent’s house

The front of their house

Can’t get over how much stuff happened this month. Excited for November!

(If you have any interest in past monthly roundups, they can be found here: September 2018, August 2018, July 2018, June 2018 & May 2018.)