Jewish Christmas

I flew back to Philadelphia on Sunday, and Carl and Micaela were really sweet to pick me up from the airport. We dropped my bags (plural - I had to buy new luggage to hold all my stuff. Typical.) at my place and then headed directly into Chinatown for dinner.

Here are Carl and Micaela enjoying their first ever Jewish Christmas at Lee How Fook, entirely surrounded by a restaurant full of Jews celebrating Christmas the way we know best-dinner at one of the only places open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Winter in Edmonton

I've been away for a while - actually I'm still away. I flew up to Edmonton for my mom's surprise birthday party last week and have been here ever since. I couldn't talk about it because mom actually reads my blog (at least, she'd better), and it would ruin the surprise that my sister and dad and I had been keeping secret for three months. Well, no need to worry about that - dad spilled all the beans the day before the party (just because mom ended up in Emergency on Saturday, humph). So the party wasn't a huge surprise, but it was fun. Happy birthday, mom!

I've been crazy busy running around the city meeting up with friends this week. I did go to West Edmonton Mall today for the sole purpose of watching all the frantic Christmas shoppers and laughing at them, but I was disappointed that the mall was relatively empty. I guess people were well prepared for gift-giving this year. Darn.

And the wonderful thing is that it has been freakishly warm in Edmonton this week. It's been above freezing for the whole week and I did not need to break out the long underwear once. Nor did I have to do up my coat to go outside for most of the week.

I fly home bright and early tomorrow morning and land in time to go to Chinatown with Carl and Micaela for Jewish Christmas (dinner at Lee How Fook). What are the odds that the Tim Hortons in the airport will be open at 6 am tomorrow morning so I can get a box of Timbits to bring home with me?

Roomba pet!

You know how I have a Roomba? And how all my friends think it's really cool and tease me about it being my pet substitute? Well, now I can get even closer to anthropomorphism with Roombud, which sells cute little costumes for the Roomba



And, I just found out that there is also a Scooba, which is a floor-washing robot to go along with my vacuuming robot.

Dance like you've never danced before!

I really don't like dancing. I'm very self-conscious about the fact that I look pretty stupid on the dance floor. Give me choreography and I can fake it pretty well, but club dancing is right out.

But now I can learn how to dance properly. This might all the difference. Well, not really, but it's hilarious to watch. Check it out.

Luna Bar Maggot update

As I wrote last week, I found a live maggot in my daily Luna Bar last week. I sat down and emailed what happened to the Luna Bar people:

I took a Luna bar to work today for breakfast (as I do every day). Today, however, I had a bit of a shock. I opened the bar and started eating it. I looked down at the bar after about two bites, and notices a crumb (I thought) moving. Turns out it was a small maggot or something- quite alive and happily living in the bar. It looked like the bar was sealed before I opened it, so I have no idea where it came from. Needless to say it was a pretty unpleasant experience.

I received a response from one of their customer service guys today:

Hi Dena,

Thanks for taking the time to contact us about your unpleasant experience with finding bugs in your Lemon Zest Luna Bar. I am so sorry that this happened to you and apologize for your discomfort. There is a simple explanation for what has occurred with your Luna Bar. What you discovered is an Indian Meal Moth. I assure you that while Indian Meal Moths are definitely unappetizing, they are not harmful to ingest, and do not become parasites.

These moths are pantry pests that are attracted to grains, dried fruits, chocolate, nuts, cardboard, birdseed and other preservative-free foods. The moths seek out food sources when they are ready to lay their eggs and the larvae are so tiny they can enter sealed packaging though microscopic pores and weaknesses. This can occur at any point in the distribution chain.

We do not know where the infestation occurred, but we are confident that the Indian Meal Moths you encountered did not originate in our warehouse or bakery. Our warehouse and bakery are kept scrupulously clean, and both are equipped with pheromone traps, which are checked on a daily basis. Additionally, after the Luna Bars are baked, each bar is sealed in a Mylar wrapper.

Unfortunately, as you found, the moth larvae can occasionally find their way through the packaging. Of the millions of Luna Bars we’ve sold in the past year, moths affect a very small percentage. While this doesn’t make finding them in your bar any less unsettling, I wanted to assure you that it is not a common experience.

I hope that this information will help to ease your concern. I would like to send you a box of fresh-from-the-bakery Lemon Zest Luna Bars as our sincere apology for this incident.

If you have any other problems or questions in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me at jhantman@clifbar.com or at (800) 884-5254, ext. 105. Thank you for your understanding; we appreciate your business.

Take care,
Jeff - Consumer Service
www.clifbar.com

Book of the Day

I started a new book yesterday: Irma: Memoirs of a Vampire Gone Dry, by Laine Jacob.



I'm quite enjoying it so far. I thought it would be chick-litty, but it's really more "literary" than I expected.

First Snow!

December 4, and we had our first snowfall of the winter!



Just snowy enough to realize that winter is here and to melt all over the place and make it wet and slippy to walk on. It still doesn't get below freezing in the daytime yet, but it's a beginning.

Survivor Philadelphia

It's the disgusting food challenge!

I usually have a Luna Bar for breakfast every morning. This morning I took a slightly squished LemonZest bar. Here come the disgusting part. I started eating it this morning and then looked down at the bar. There was a little live maggot on the bar! Ew! Ew!

Needless to say the bar went into the trash, and I had potato chips for breakfast instead.

Thanksgiving

In honour of it being the day after Thanksgiving, here is a look at one of the projects that the Children's Librarian at one of the branches did with her kids:




Apple Turkey!

Materialism rocks!

I have now found my favourite shoe store. I was at Franklin Mills on Sunday and bought the cutest boots in the world (at least for now).

The Clarks/Bostonian Outlet sells Clarks (and it's sub-brands) at about 50% less than list price. They're still expensive, but oh so worth it. Clarks are the most comfortable shoes I've worn. I bought a couple of sandals at the Clarks store in Scotland, and they were the first sandals that I have bought that I have not had to break in. From now on, I'm buying Clarks (or Merrells) Cute AND Comfy! A great way to follow my father's rule: Always wear comfortable shoes.

Unintentionally funny book cover of the day

Um, is it about a handyman who can't reach the ceiling? Possibly his shirt is stuck up there.

No! It's about some pro wrestler. Check out the leather pants - not the most practical attire for a handyman. Wouldn't want to spill paint on those puppies (or cows, whatever).

Actually, I'd probably want to read the book more if it was about a handyman.

Oooh, Shiny!

A group of us went for drinks and barbeque the other night, which is not the important part of the story. Liz and I were offered rides home, and we were walking through the parking garage to the car when Ernestine noticed a really classy car. We looked closer and realized it was a Rolls Royce. I have never seen a Rolls in person, so it was really cool. It was a Silver Spur, and it looked like the passanger door was actually monogrammed (I know some car afficianado will now tell me that that's some standard Rolls thing, but I was impressed). Talk about conspicuous consumption.

New addition to my reading list

I just picked up the new book by Lynne Truss. She's the author of Eats, shoots, and leaves - which is supposed to be a really good an funny book on grammar (which I haven't read, but Lucie would probably encourage me to do so). Her new one is called Talk to the hand: the utter bloody rudeness of the world today, or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door.



UPDATE

I finished the book last night (Monday) and spent the rest of the evening being hyper-polite to everyone. Cute book, easy and fast to read. I like her writing style. She is very self-deprecating and funny.

Cool stuff being made

My dad loves going on tours of factories. He's been to paper factories, cement factories, a strip mine, a shellfish factory, a hydroponic tomato factory, and tons of others. In honour of my dad, and all the other mechano-geeks out there, here's a great website that has videos of things being made.

Want to see an aluminium can being made?

How about Campbell's Potato Soup?

Sit back and enjoy the show!

Strike, Day 7

No more strike! Just as I was beginning to enjoy my walk into work, SEPTA and the unions settled and I can go back to being a lazy bus rider. Yay, I guess.

The end of a season

You know it is fall when the fruit carts pack up for the season. My fruit girls near the library left last month, and I believe that today was the last day for the fruit salad and smoothie guy down on JFK Boulevard. In honour of this sad occasion, I trekked down to the cart to get my last strawberry/banana/pineapple smoothie of the year.


Goodbye, beloved smoothies and fruit salad. I will try to eat healthily during the cold and bitter winter months, but I can't guarantee anything.

Strike, Day 3,4, and 5

As promised, I have been walking too and from work for the past few days. It's actually a really nice walk in - Rachel and I meet up at Broad St and walk up together, so I have a very chatty walking buddy. It takes about 45 minutes, I get in at the same time as the shuttle from hell, and it's a much nicer experience. On the way home I walk with Micaela, and occasionally (ok, once) her boyfriend picks us up halfway home bearing Godiva chocolate. Yum.

Yesterday I ended going up to a branch in North Philly to help weed, and on the way back a drive that usually takes 20-25 minutes took about an hour due to the massive amount of traffic. Because so many people are driving instead of taking the bus, the whole city gets completely backed up. Walking is easily faster than driving in Center City.

And it's going up to 23 this weekend! I must plan outdoorsy things to do.

Strike, Day 2

My well intentioned plans to walk to work every morning fell by the wayside today when I decided to take the library shuttle in to work. Of course, you're now picturing a van or a bus or something, right? Well, the library shuttle is neither of those things. It is one of the library delivery trucks. When it pulled up to the corner I was waiting on, the driver hopped out and went 'round back to open the door. By door, I mean the sliding door on the back of delivery trucks. Because it's a delivery truck. There was a wooden plank bench along each side of the interior. We all sat along the sides, laughing about how bad it was. Then the truck started moving. This thing had no shocks - it was like taking a very fast wooden wagon ride over cobblestones, and with every sudden stop and start, we were thrown about the back as there was nothing to hold on to. At least there was some light because the roof was translucent. It felt like a prisoner transport. It's really nice that the library is providing shuttle service, but I think I'm done with it.

I believe that tomorrow I will walk to work. I'm pretty sure it will take about the same amount of time, and be much more comfortable.

These boots were made for walking

SEPTA has gone on strike as of 12:01 this morning, so now I will be walking the 45 minutes to and from work for the forseeable future. It's not that bad, as I typically walk home anyways, but I am a lazy girl and like taking the bus in the mornings. I'm sure all this extra walking will be good for me, as long as the weather doesn't get crappy. This week it's gotten nice again, so that's good. I, at least, have the option of walking, which is so much better than poeple who are now stranded without bus or subway service.

The last strike here was in 1998 and lasted 40 days. Hopefully this won't last as long.

Important invention honoured

My friend Liz can sleep through anything. That's a good thing, when it means that she can sleep through sirens and loud drunk people outside her window. It's not such a good thing when it means that she sleeps through her alarm clock.

A few months ago I found Clocky, an alarm clock that hides from you so you have to get out of bed to find it and silence it. This would be perfect for Liz!



This month the creator of Clocky, Gauri Nanda, won an Ig Nobel Award in Economics.

From the Ig Nobel website:

ECONOMICS: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Gauri Nanda