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This weekend, we celebrate. Zoya is turning six years old, and this Saturday we have planned a small party to celebrate. There will be a few kids, a few grownups, good food, a space-themed cake, space-themed balloons, and some merriment in our backyard pool, if the weather holds up. This is not an elaborate celebration, but instead an excuse to bring together people we love in a small gathering to…
Below, a quick roundup of a few of the things I learned over the past few months. Migratory freshwater fish are in steep decline, with populations down roughly 81% since 1970. These species depend on long, connected rivers, but dams and human pressures are cutting off their routes. ( CMS ) The Rymer variety of cooking apple, once believed to have died out, has been found on a rural property in the…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past two months. The Secret Agent The film is gorgeously shot, beautifully paced, superbly well-acted, and the sound design is impeccable. The story was a little lackluster for me, but that didn’t take away from just how exquisite this movie is technically, and how well crafted the entire…
The Knicks won! It’s old news by now, but I’m still riding the high of the Knicks winning the NBA Championship. The last time they won, I wasn’t alive, and the last time they even came close was twenty-seven years ago. This is truly a historic and exciting win. We moved to New York when I was really young, but those early years were formative in my sports fandom. The Mets (who won the Series when…
For a four-year span starting in 2020, Canada Post told stories about its stamps. The premise of the Canadian stamp stories section of the website was simple: take a deeper look into the new series of stamps that were released by Canada Post in that month or year. Each release was accompanied by notes on what the stamps meant, why the themes were chosen, and why that release was important. The…
Our pool has a solar heater. There are a few advantages of having a solar heater. First, you don’t have to pay a hefty gas bill when you want to use the pool. Second, your pool heating is much better for the environment than a gas heater. The advantages stop there. The great thing about a gas-heated pool is that you turn on the heater, wait a short while, and your pool is warm enough to take a…
The spring has been filled with rain and a pervasive chill; the winter refuses to release its grasp on us this year. Through it all, we’ve had moments of joy: Getting a few cases of Indian mangoes (kesar, alphonso, badami) to enjoy and rushing to eat them as they all ripened within days of each other. Spending a few minutes enjoying the cherry trees in full bloom in front of the Civic Garden…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past two months. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous , Ocean Vuong (Re-read; originally read in 2020.) There are many reasons to be enamored of this novel, primarily its lyrical, beautiful prose. Written as letters to the protagonist’s mother, the words are meticulously chosen to evoke poetry, to…
This past Christmas, L got me a copy of Zaynab Issa’s recent cookbook, Third Culture Cooking . The book means a lot to me because it showcases Zaynab’s recipes, which closely mirror many of the dishes my grandmother used to make when she was alive. Zaynab, growing up in an East African-Indian family like mine, was the first person I encountered in the culinary world who ate the food I did growing…
Below, a quick roundup of a few of the things I learned over the past few months. A number of studies show that various vaccines (shingles, RSV , flu) are associated with “ off-target” benefits like reduced cardiovascular risk, lower rates of dementia, and lower Alzheimer’s risk for older people. ( NYTimes ) Bariatric surgery far outperformed GLP-1 weight loss drugs in a new real-world comparison…
Over the past week, I’ve had the chance to run into, and connect with, people I haven’t seen in decades. In many cases, these were once close friends in my teens and early twenties. Through the vagaries of life, we have lost touch and built our own lives without each other. There was no formal parting of ways; instead we each rode our own wave and floated in the sea as we became enveloped in our…
This has been going viral across the internet, so you’ve probably seen it already, but it would be remiss for me not to share it: De La Soul did an NPR Tiny Desk Concert on March 3 . This performance, along with the release of Cabin in the Sky last year, really remind me of just how much I miss Dave. His vocals were sublime, his humor infectious. I’m glad that Pos and Maseo are making sure that…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past two months. Flashlight , Susan Choi This is a big novel—large in its geographic and chronologic expanse—that isn’t shy to grapple with big issues. Whether it is navigating geopolitics, or the machinations of grief, or the impacts of absence, Choi isn’t afraid to take big swings in the plot,…
So there’s a blog question challenge going around — I discovered it from Gabz — and mostly because I just can’t think of things to blog about these days, I thought I’d answer these questions and see where they take me. Why did you make a blog in the first place? I’ve been writing on the web since before the term “ blog” was popularized. I used to hand code a website where I would write about…
On my 44th birthday, I went out for tacos for lunch, stopped by a conservatory and admired some plants and a giant koi, had chili dogs (one of my favorite things in the world to eat) for dinner, and then had ice cream sundaes with a homemade peanut butter chocolate sauce for my celebratory dessert. It wasn’t a bombastic day, but it was instead just what I wanted: quiet, filled with good food, and…
As of this week, we have been living in London for ten years. The passage of time is strange: it feels like we just moved here and yet it also feels like we’ve been here forever. In some moments, I feel like I’m still a displaced resident of Toronto, and in many others, I feel like settled here, like this is where I’m supposed to be. Life has changed a lot in the past ten years: we bought a house,…
One afternoon this past week, the sun was shining and there was a light wind blowing across the neighborhood. It was bitterly cold outside, but after the deluge of snow we’ve been getting over the past little while, having the sun peek through the clouds was a welcome respite from the greyness of the season. I was inside, making a cup of tea in the kitchen, when something caught my eye outside the…
There were a few months, last year, when I couldn’t walk for a hundred meters without losing my breath. It didn’t really matter what type of exertion I did—even going up the stairs at home or crossing the street to head to a restaurant were triggers—my body just couldn’t keep up with the level of activity I was doing. The symptoms would start benign: first, I would start to pant, then quickly I…
There’s a line in Train Dreams when someone tells the main character—played with grace and aplomb by Josh Edgerton—clearly: “ Hey, you better hold on to something.” The phrase is literal and metaphorical at the same time. What are we holding on to in order to keep us grounded and stable amongst tumult? More importantly, what fleeting moments of our days are we holding on to in order to tell the…
Small moments that brought me some joy in 2025: Watching Zoya pet the goats at Maplewood Farm Checking out the lights at VanDusen Botanical Gardens Going to see Cirque du Soleil Watching Zoya’s winter dance recital Eating “ baguette dinners” with L featuring great tinned fish and cheeses Hosting a chili party where many of our friends huddled around our fireplace eating chili and key lime pie…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past month. The Big Con We used to have a joke when I worked in government policy: if we wanted senior leadership to take our recommendations seriously, we should just have a consulting firm present our work to them. The Big Con is essentially that joke wrapped up in an extensive lit review; the…
Below, a quick roundup of a few of the things I learned over the past few months. The official number of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — tracked by NASA has reached 6,000. There are more than 8,000 additional candidate planets awaiting confirmation. ( NASA ) In the first six months of 2025, renewable energy outpaced the world’s growing appetite for electricity, leading to a small…
It’s not easy to capture why certain kinds of media speaks to you, and why some just refuse to stick. In many ways, it’s not about the objective quality of the movie or television show or album, but more about your emotional state when you came across them and how it was able to connect to that state. Over the past year, I’ve been keeping short “ media diet” posts that have helped me remember how…
And so we come to the end of the year. The last few weeks of the year are contradictory ones: there is so much to do, and not enough time to do it all while still focusing on the rest that everyone says we should be getting. People always promise there will be less to do at work, but often the timelines get tighter for things that need to be done before the next year begin. The weather can be…
Just over a month ago, we spent a week in Italy: a little celebratory trip full of sightseeing, relaxation, and great food. The focus of the trip was, of course, the food, but we did manage to spend a bunch of time looking at sights like ornate historical buildings and immense galleries of art. The art was, perhaps obviously, awe-inspiring; being in the urban centre of the Renaissance (we spent…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past month. Sing Sing There is a beauty to Sing Sing that comes from more than the incredible acting or the heartfelt and moving story. It is a beauty that emanates from the love that the filmmakers put in when making this movie, a beauty that radiates from every scene in the film. It is a story…
Somewhere in my parents’ basement, hidden away by other boxes and crates, is a small box of ephemera from my childhood and youth. My parents didn’t keep much from when I was growing up—we didn’t have space for it at the time, and we’ve never really been much for keeping things without lasting significance or use—but they’ve managed to fill one box with a few things they think capture my time when…
I’ve seen a few of my internet friends ( Gabz , Amit ) do this little blog post prompt, so I thought I’d try it myself, especially since I haven’t posted anything here in a long time. Do you floss your teeth? Occasionally, but not regularly. A few times a week, I guess. I should be more regular. Tea, coffee, or water? Coffee (usually a cortado) when I’m working from a café or meeting a friend, tea…
Below, a quick roundup of a few of the things I learned over the past few months. Researchers from MIT and Scripps have unveiled a promising new HIV vaccine approach that generates a powerful immune response with just one dose. By combining two immune-boosting adjuvants, the vaccine lingers in lymph nodes for nearly a month, encouraging the body to produce a vast array of antibodies. ( MIT ) Yahoo…
Over the past few months, I have indulged myself by eating various fruit crisps that L has made. She has made a lot of crisp, using in-season fruits like peaches and blueberries and strawberries and apricots and rhubarb and a variety of other local produce we have been able to get from the farms around us. Her topping is perfect: just the right mix of oats and butter and sugar, and when well…
A quick look at the movies, television shows, music, and books that have captured my attention over the past month. Perfect Days A quiet, contemplative film that not only reminds me to relish the small moments that bring me joy in my life, but to also notice when I’m moving too quickly to enjoy the beauty in the mundanity. Also, I’m very impressed by the public toilet infrastructure in Japan. The…