HOUSE WEEK

This week is what I call a house week.  I think I went out only on one day.  I picked Kathy up and went down to the Kiwanis meeting.  We are gearing up for the radio auction so it was a busy meeting.  Pea soup and salad....mmmmmm.

I listened to a lot of 'Monte music'.  He's on fire right now.  The improvising on the piano is nuts!  He has obviously jumped another notch in talent.  His stuff is amazing.....and loud.  I'm not complaining but boy that boy has a set of lungs on him and strong strong hands.  Sometimes I am afraid he's going to pop a piano string...and I don't think thats ever happened.

Well, we are losing Anton today.  He is now walking around without a crutch.  He has been here two months and I can't begin to tell you how much we are going to miss him.  He is such a gentle soul and so so interesting.  Anton was a born philosopher and loves to philosophize!  We have spent many an hour here in the kitchen having deep intellectual conversation!  Unfortunately I do believe I did the talking and he would occasionally get a word in edgewise.  Between Monte and me he didn't get much chance to say much.

  He bought Monte's drums but can't put them at his house so I know he will be back lots to practice.  I will feed him when he comes up!  Its been a pleasure to cook lots of food again.  Monte just doesn't eat enough to make cooking worthwhile.

Oh, one thing I did was go out with Monte!  Not something I have done in ages.  We took care of several errands and then ended up at the thrift store.  I need a new chair for the kitchen.  I found the one I liked most at Country Furniture.  850 bucks.  It is going to be two months before it comes though.  Damn...so I didn't buy it.  I figure I will see if I can find one in a store that is already here.  While I was looking at chairs,  I also looked at dressers.  He needs one bad.  But they are so expensive and theres a good chance he won't actually use it even if it is in his room.  He says he is happy with his 'floorobe'.

So I figure lets get a cheapy at the thrift store.  So in we go and yes, they had one, but it was huge and clunky and really really ugly.  So no.  And then I spied it.  It was emerald green, shiny velvet and small.  It was the perfect chair for my kitchen.  I zoomed over and sat down in it and I swear, it actually hugged me.  Yup!, this was it.  Twenty freaking dollars!!!!!  Twenty!!!!  So I paid for it and carried that sucker out of there.  And now it is proudly sitting in my kitchen space...and its way smaller than the last busted one...so much easier to deal with!

I was supposed to go to Penticton today but the family is not home so I shall go tomorrow.  I think I will be there for a week.  I can't wait!  Halloween, Fenton's birthday, Burger 55....Tandy's birthday...all in all an exciting week to be had. TTYL

MY AWESOME NEW CHAIR IN THE BACK OF MONTE'S VAN

ANTON EATING MY LEFTOVER FOOD BLESS HIS HEART!

MY HOUSEKEEPER USED A SCRAPER ON MY DISHWASHER AND WRECKED IT.  DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS ON WHAT CAN FIX THIS?

FAB WEEKEND AND BIRTHDAY!!

What a wonderful time we had this weekend.  April and Myles arrived up here late Friday night. Apparently the week before, Kathy and Kerry were in Vancouver and had dinner with April and Myles.  April mentioned that they wanted to get a good dining room table and chairs.

Well, as it happened, Kathy became aware of a lovely table and chairs being sold by a lady in her exercise class.  She sent pics and they were beautiful.  Not only that but they were seven thousand dollars when new.    And she was selling the table and eight chairs for a really good price.

So, on Saturday we headed up to the loveliest cabin you ever saw at Sun Peaks where the table was.  It was a beautiful drive.  And the table and chairs were stunning.  But the kids really wanted a table that would start small and expand out to bigger.

So I had the brilliant idea that they could have mine....from Bamfield that goes from a two seater to a table that sits 21.  And I would take the lovely one from up there.  It seats 8 which is the max my little dining room can sit.  It makes no sense for me to have  the Bamfield table, I will never be able to use all the leaves in the buffet that goes with it and this would keep it in the family.  I will be arranging for movers to go pick it up next week.  I will put some pics of it on here.

Saturday afternoon we went to Kathy's for appies...delicious appies I might add.  Then we headed down to the ghost train...my awesome birthday present from Kathy and Kerry.  It was sooo much fun.  All kinds of people were running around all dressed up and scaring the heck out of the customers.  The train crossed the river and went to the end of the reserve and back.  There were surprises along the way and everybody had a hoot.  We went back to Kathy's after for birthday cake, yummy Lazy Daisy cake.  That was our Mom's go to cake so it was a little bit like having her there with us.  What a fantastic day it was!

Yesterday K&K came up for coffee and we ended up heading down to their place to go for a walk.  They live right on a massive big ravine full of trails.  And it was a truly lovely walk...not hot, not cold, just right.  Back to Kathy's for snacks and a little SNL...so funny!  The kids packed up and hit the road for Vancouver by six.  Its always so quiet when they leave.

Now it is Monday morning and I have a few problems to solve.  One of them is my hair.  I really need to figure out why its falling out.  Its so thin now I can't do it.  I think I will go talk to a hairdresser and to the doctor if necessary.  Sigh!  I hate appointments!

So here are a few pics.  TTYL

ATOMIC BOMB

ON OUR WALK

ANOTHER PICTURE TAKER

A HIKING WE SHALL GO  A HIKING WE SHALL GO  HI HO THE DERRY OH A HIKING WE SHALL GO

WAITING FOR THE TRAIN, TRYING TO MAKE SCARY FACES

A SURPRISE GHOST WEDDING WE PASSED

ISN'T THAT BEAUTIFUL?

MY AWESOME BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

ESOPHAGIAL SPASMS

Owy owy owy owy owy owy....I don't get these spasms very often...maybe five times now over the last five years, but when they do come they are killer.  I had one today.

Some of you may remember my blog post the night my mom died.  Who am I kidding...no you won't.  LOL!!  But, as a family we all gathered around her bed in the extended care place she lived in.  We spent the day there visiting amongst ourselves and, at one point, using an iphone and facetime, played charades with an absent Monte.  We did all this over top of a basically comatose Mom, bless her.  We all went home around eleven that nite, knowing she would maybe not be physically present by morning.

Shortly after a rum and coke at Kathy's we all headed to bed when a searing terrible pain hit my chest.  I had had this a couple of times before and was pretty sure it was a heart attack.  The pain fit all the criteria.  

I called Aryn upstairs and told her I needed an ambulance.  I never gave it a second thought....a heart attack needs an ambulance.  Long story short, embarrassing story short, a long night in the hospital spent with my very worried children and leaving a very worried Spod at home, I was told it was just spasms.  Jeez!  Thank goodness, but way to steal my mom's thunder.  She died during the night.

  And I tell ya, those suckers hurt, really really hurt.  I have had two since that night and now one today...right out of the blue.  It lasted about a half hour and somehow in the middle of them I become convinced that they will never go away.  The best treatment, actually the only treatment, is to get busy and move around a bunch.  So I did laundry and dishes and put a load of stuff away in preparation of the housekeeper coming tomorrow. It does help but it still hurts like freaking hell.  And, of course, there is always the possibility that this time it actually is a heart attack.  Oh well, alls well that ends well as they say.  I am still alive and I have clean dishes and clothes. The upside!

I am NOT growing a garden next year.  Monte thinks he is going to and hey! go ahead, but leave me out of it.  Stupid garden.  The chard grew so big and fast there was no way we could eat it fast enough..and I don't have freezer space for anything.  Guilt.  The spinach was so prolific and went to seed before we could deal with it all.  Guilt.  The cherry tomatoes (I hate cherry tomatoes...they are so useless and we planted field tomatoes, NOT cherry yet they all turned into cherry tomatoes)were so prolific they broke the plants and there was no way in hell we could keep up with them. Guilt.  The squash grew one measly little squash.  The cantelope and basil died.  And we got one feed out of the carrots.  Between the guilt and the disappointment I am not stupid enough to do that again.  Monte is going to do some research and figure out a different plan for the garden.  He thinks.

Well I gotta bounce.  Myles and April are coming up tomorrow!!!  I have a bedroom to ready for them.  Good thing Alice is coming tomorrow!  TTYL

OUR BEAUTIFUL MOM

OUR INTREPID MOM

SAYING GOODBYE

ITS MY MONEY NOW GIVE IT TO ME DAMMIT

I haven't mentioned a lot about my joys of getting my money for the sale of my condo.

They insisted that it had to be deposited into an American account.  So I had them deposit it into our Maui bank account.  Aryn was there and she went into the bank with death certs and wills etc...and a power of attorney requesting that they close the account and send me a cheque.  She was reassured that that would be no problem, they just needed a letter from me with my signature.  Easy peasy.  So on August first it was deposited.  I sent the letter immediately.  I still don't have the money.

I won't go into long boring details but between the Bank of Hawaii insisting that the cheque be sent any way but by regular mail and the TD bank here putting a permanent hold on it, yes, permanent, I just might never get my money!  That's pretty much three months now.  I have purposely kept my cool through much of this and not got angry or impatient, but I'm not sure how long thats going to last!  Not only could I be making good interest with the money but I would be able to pay down the line of credit I have.  Its not good business to have huge sums of money floating around in outer space.

The other boondoggle I have run into is getting the forms from the passport office to send with my passport to Que. to get a 'true copy' of my passport.  Godammit!!!

I actually went down to service Canada but they were worse than useless.  I phoned passport Canada and after explaining over and over how their website won't let me, or six other people who have tried on their own computers on my behalf, download the two forms, the woman in Ottawa says, ' just a minute please' and when she comes back informs me that 'well I just tried on mine and its working just fine."  Really?  Did she actually just do and say that?  So I asked, "Well then, where are you?  I will come right over and you can print them for me."  Ottawa.  Exactly.  Stupid cow!  In the end she is mailing them to me.  The IRS sent me another demand for the passport copy.  They need it to give me a tax number.  They will just have to wait.

Well I best get at it.  Crap to do...lots of crap.  TTYL

PLAYPENS, PLAYS AND APOLOGIES

First off, let me apologize to my sister publicly.  I did say NO LEFTOVERS.  On a very rare occasion, very rare, I do make a mistake.  Not taking at least one sandwich or lunch worth of leftovers was a big mistake!  I have discovered I would rather skip the dinner and have a leftover meal.  Next time I will remember this.

And, two nights ago my lovely sister invited me down to her place for a leftover dinner!!!!  I had stuffing, gravy, carrots, yams and so on...delicious!  And then afterwards we went to a Noel Coward play at the Sagebrush...a stellar evening!  Thank you Kathy!!!!

A wonderful friend, Tata, pm'ed me with a wonderful story about her now passed dog.  And in this story was a simple solution to our problem with Molly.  Her furry friend was giving her the same grief Molly is giving us.  When she took him to the vet the vet suggested she restrict his area he had access to.  That way his pooping and peeing would be in a much smaller area.  And thats what she did, very successfully!

So I got thinking about it.  I can't leash Molly, she is too small and wiggles out of everything but.....I remembered that when we had her up in Bamfield we had to keep her in the house....even when the doors were open or when we had company that were not in the habit of keeping an eye on her.  Eagles eat little dogs over there.  So I kept her in a playpen...with lots of out and play time but in between direct attention times she was in the playpen.

I went straight to Walmart and bought a playpen.  It was the cheapest one and it matches my dinner dishes...which is important as I keep her in the dining room.  And its like she almost remembers because she settled right in and is totally happy.  And such a difference for me...I am sitting here right now posting and I don't have to keep a small part of my brain and my ears tuned into where she is and what she is doing.  Such a relief!!!  And I can pull the playpen through the doorway partway so she can see me.  So no barking or angst.  Thanks Tanya!!

I was supposed to go to Penticton this week end but I am still getting over the cough and cold I have had and didn't want to pass it on to them.  So I am going to go over on Halloween.  And thats great because its also Fenton's birthday on the 31st.  I have a whack of Pokemon cards for that kid!  And I have a whack of colourful crazy tape and ribbon for Elise!  It was her birthday on the ninth.  She is in a tape faze right now!

Alice, the housekeeper, was here before eight this morning!  So as I sit here right now my house is spotless.  I baked a delicious smelling loaf of bread and I am going to Costco!  What more could one want!!!!  TTYL

SEE?  IT MATCHES MY DISHES

I AM SITTING IN MY KITCHEN CHAIR WHEN I TOOK THIS

STUPID DUMB PASSWORDS

In the perfect world there would be NO passwords.  I would have posted sooner but I COULD NOT get into my blog page.  Its a google blog and Monte used my computer the other night.  All because he was too freaking lazy to get up and get his own.  He signed out of my facebook and signed in to his.  And DIDN'T put it back.  So I have to now enter passwords for all my google accounts yardy yardy yar.  And of course none of them work and so on and so on.  I did obviously figure it out but now this post will have an angry edge to it.  Sorry.

We had a wonderful thanksgiving.  There were thirteen to the table at Kathy's.  I made the turkey and gravy and carrots and stuffed squash for the vegetarian.  Oh, and I made eight loaves of stuffing.  Some of it got cooked in the crockpot.  Dinner was spectacular!  But I forgot to get a few leftovers.  Dangit!!

At first we thought there was only going to be nine people.  So I made the executive decision this year, for the first time in my entire life to get a smaller turkey.  I was very nervous.  At first I picked up a forty pounder and hoisted it into the cart.  Then I got thinking about how hard it is to ram those huge suckers into my plug in external turkey cooker thingy.  So I lugged it back into the bin.  I picked up a fifteen pounder and slung that into the cart.  But then I got to thinking about all the stupid leftover turkey that would need to be dealt with over the many days afterwards.

So I dropped that one back into the nest of giant birds.  I dug around and found a nine and a half pounder.  Perfect!  But I gotta tell you I had repeated doubts and second thoughts until that sucker was on the platter and being eaten.  Especially when about three times I heard of people being added to the roster.  It isn't in my nature to not have enough of anything!  But it seems to have worked out.

After dinner we all went downstairs and did karaoke.  Jeez!  We laughed until we simply couldn't.  And we sang our hearts out!  So much fun.  

After karaoke we went out into the cold garage and play "cage rage" and particularly hilarious variation of beer pong.  Its the same one we played at mom's funeral.  What a crazy game!  It was so much fun.

Today we had a seriously down day.  I made bread and vegetable soup and thats about all I did.  Oh yeah, I cleaned up an enormous amount of Molly pee and poop.  Stupid dumb little dog.

One of our guests at dinner was a gal called Jill. I have known her for years through Kathy and Kerry, family friends, plus she was at one of our retreats.  She is so funny and totally enjoyable.  Apparently their family has an old old dog with hearing and sight problems, very similar to my state with Molly.  But they were doing something rather interesting.  They had a checklist of ten things to check on Misty's quality of life.  When enough of them are checked it is time to send her to doggie heaven.

Such a good idea but I was thinking, in my selfish way, what about MY quality of life with a dog.  What if she is running around and playing like a puppy but crapping and peeing everywhere?  Her quality of life is great, mine? not so much.  What about when she gets into the garbage and spreads it everywhere?  Again...she is having the time of her life and I am getting acid reflux bending over endlessly cleaning up after her.  

There is a bit of an upside....like when she runs into walls, (not hard enough to hurt herself) and runs the total wrong way when she is called cuz she can't hear properly.  And just a few minutes ago the craziest thing happened.  

She was using the basement as her personal bathroom.  So I got two rubber maid lids and leaned them on the top stairs against the floor to block the stairs off.  I headed past the top of the stairs on my way to my purple room and as usual she was dogging my footsteps and took a wrong turn.  She ran smack into the lids, which fell over and she somehow ended up on top of one and literally surfed it all the way to the bottom of the stairs.  OMG!!  It was soooo funny!!!  And she hopped off at the bottom, all goofy and happy and came barrelling back up the stairs.  Silly blind dog!

Anyway, today was relaxing but tomorrow is going to be hella busy.  Lots to do.  TTYL

RAINBOW CARROTS FROM MY GARDEN

ANTON DOING M&M KARAOKE...HE DID SO GOOD!

KATHY SENT ME THIS PICTURE OF HER DINNER....HER LEFTOVERS DINNER....I AM JUST A TAD BITTER...NEXT TIME I AM TAKING A PLATE AND BRINGING HOME A LEFTOVER DINNER!  LOL!!

ROOT BEER, BURPS AND MY SISTA!!

Today was Kiwanis day.  I picked up Kathy and we headed down for a really interesting and fun meeting.  Oh and a delicious reuben sandwich.  But afterwards we headed over to the North Shore and hit up a few places.  One of them was a wonderful produce place called New Leaf.  So we picked up a variety of pears, yams etc...and.....two ice cold bottles of sugar free root beer from some obscure company.

The moment we got into the jeep we cracked those babies open and knocked them back.  Nothing tastes as good as ice cold root beer from some little company somewhere...this was no A&W crap...this was real, strong, black, delicious sassafras root elixir.   Mmmmmm......!  Then we burped and burped all the way home.  Such a lovely way to end our little galavant!

One of the places we went to was the dollar store. God I love a good dollar store...even though everything was more than a dollar.  Its amazing how they have everything you need, plastic containers, cupcake papers, cake mixes, fancy schmancy tape for a certain grandchild's upcoming birthday, pretty boxes, cans of veg. soup etc....I staggered out of there with lots of goodies!  I think Kathy bought one pack of pins.  I don't know how she does it!

My hair is falling out.  It has been for about ten months now.  I thought it was due to the last perm I got, but its gone on way too long now.  I am actually getting bald patches under the fuzz.  I did some research and I have a feeling it might be caused by one of the medications for blood pressure I am on.  Off to the doctor. 

 I went to Dr. Google first though and discovered that there are about twenty three things that can be causing this.  I ruled out one
immediately...depression.  Geez, I don't think I could be depressed if I tried.  But there seems to be a lot of possibilities out there.  Maybe I will become bald...which was a little bit on my bucket list anyway.  I can give it a try.  At least then hats would fit me!

Well its time to clean the kitchen....again.  It seems its always always in a heaving mess.  Sigh....TTYL

DEAD WILLIE AND BAD MONTE

I got up yesterday morning to a very distressed bunny.  He had made himself a little warm hole in his shavings and was laying there peacefully but now and then he would rapidly kick his legs.  I have had enough bunnies to know when the end is here.

I covered him up with a towel and just let him be.  Every now and then I would hear his little feet kicking, then stillness.  Finally around supper time he just lay still and went off to bunnyland.  I felt a lot sadder than I thought I would.  I had a good year with him and he was so inoffensive and endearing.

Day before yesterday I had to go downstairs to turn the underground sprinkler system off for the guy who came to blow the lines.  I hadn't been downstairs for a really really long time and I was totally shocked and appalled at how messy and dirty it was.   I couldn't believe it!!!!  There have been a lot of 'boys' down there doing projects and jamming and I think its shameful the state the place is in.  But Monte's area, that he doesn't even use anymore, was by far the worst.  As I looked around I got angry...really angry.

So I phoned poor unsuspecting Monte (he was at school) and let fly.  I almost never ever get really angry with the kids and even if I do I never really yell and stamp my feet.  But I did this time and I threw in a few jim dandy guilt trips for good measure.  He was shocked!  In retrospect it was pretty funny.  So we made a plan.

I had to remind him that we are responsible for whatever our invited guests do...mess or burn the house down.  Poor April can attest to that.  And that we needed to write down exactly what his responsibilities in this place are and he had better keep up with them if he wants to live here blah blah blah.  And typical Monte he was so contrite and cooperative.

  As a result of what we laid out and planned, he was emptying the dishwasher at four in the morning this morning.  He had spent most the night at the school with Levi in the darkroom and when he got home he immediately did his nightly chores...dishes and garbage.  Hopefully it will last.  And just in case anyone is wondering...I told him I was writing about this in this blog...hahahaha!!!!  He was kinda okay with that believe it or not, not that he had much choice.  My motto, "if you don't want embarrassing crap in my blog, don't do it."

You know, when I sold my condo I got the money, the whole amount minus a hold back of about fifty thousand dollars for american capital gains, on August first.  It went into the bank account in Maui, which I promptly closed and asked them to send me a cashier's cheque.  We showed them Spod's death cert and the will.  I still have NOT got that money!  First it sat for a month in the Bank of Hawaii...they didn't know how to send it here...so much emailing and discussion but they did finally mail it.  We had them send it to Aryn because by the time it was being sent, I was in Paris.  She and I have a joint account she can deposit it into.  But no.  She couldn't.  The bank wanted us to have an american account.  Which I don't have.  Then they wanted to put a three week hold on it.  Jesus H!!!!  Finally, after much angst and talking and spending time, lots of time, in the bank, Aryn finally had to let them put a hold on it. So it will be at least another week before I see it and now its October.  They did waive the exchange fees which gave us an extra ten thousand so I guess I can't really complain but seriously...don't ever buy property in the US.  Its been the most complicated ridiculous process I have ever gone through.

I had originally planned to go down to the passport office to get a true certified duplicate of my passport.  The IRS needs that to give me a tax number, for capital gains payment purposes.  I spent that first night back from Paris at April's on their couch.  In the morning I spent about an hour trying to find out exactly what the process was.  I sort of thought you just go in, they go photo copy it and sign and seal it and away you go.  Yeah right.

You have to download two forms off of their website, fill them out, pay forty five bucks by credit card and send the forms and passport to Gatineau Quebec.  It takes about two weeks in all. Jeez!  So I have tried and tried to download those forms but a pop up keeps popping up saying I need Adobe Flash 2 or something like that.  Okay. So I download the program but when I hit install another pop up pops up and says there is malware in the disk and to not proceed.  So now what?  And all of this was supposed to be back to them by Oct 3.   Well if they want my money they will wait.  I just am not sure how to solve the problem.

Well I best go start my day.  There are a lot of things to do.  I am going to get a loaf of bread going first then maybe attack the garden.  TTYL