I'M GOING TO DRIVE YOU NUTS WITH TOO MANY POSTS ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!

It's been a peopley and cooky type of a few days.  Both which I really enjoy.  I just finished making a cheese burger impossible pie.  It is so easy and so delish!!!  Looks great too I must say.  Thank you bisquick!

On Saturday night we had one of Monte's friends over for dinner.  He is the drummer in his band.  His girlfriend was working and couldn't make it.  So what do you make for someone you don't know, other than he isn't vegetarian, after all he is a native Port Albernian.  Hahaha!!!

I played it safe and made a super saucy cheesy Mac and cheese.  I also made coleslaw Paula Deen style and ribs, and garlic bread...sort of.  A long time ago my cousin Heather made this delicious bread.  You take a loaf of garlic bread, slather a layer of mayo on it, cover it with parmesan and bake it in a really hot oven til the edges are very browned and crunchy and the top is browned.  I finished the dinner with an apple crisp and ice cream.  Yummmy!  Boy did he eat...lots!!!  He also took leftovers home with him.

He did something interesting...for a boy anyway.  At some point he headed to the loo.  I was in the living room manning the music, Monte was still at the table.

He was gone quite a while but I didn't really pay any attention.  Later, after he was gone I noticed a couple of things that didn't make sense.  One, the guest room door wasn't closed tight.  And I know I closed it.  It's kind of messy in there and I didn't want him seeing it so I shut the door.  When I finished in the loo I noticed that the turlett paper was new and on the roll.  I never put the paper on the roll.  It is always on the floor where it's easy to get at.  Plus I remember that the floor roll was almost gone.  I had forgotten to replace the paper.

He must have noticed no paper, needed paper, and instead of coming to me with his dilemma he solved his own problem.  He went hunting, into the bedroom, the Costco sized package of paper is at the end of the bed and he took care of business on his own.  This may not seem so momentous to you folks, but I am not used to boys just taking matters into their own hands, probably out of respect for my boundaries, which I do appreciate.  But Colton's action impressed me for some reason!

Monte and I decided to leave the freezer until tomorrow, Wednesday.  Thursday is garbage day and the weather, thanks to the Pineapple Express has decided to warm up, just what rotting maggoty meat does NOT need.  So I did get quite a lot of it done, the bulk of it will wait until tomorrow, less time to get smelly.

  I am just remembering when I was about 16 we had been on a family trip.  When we got back somehow our huge freezer, which happened to be full of the usual household freezer stuff plus a whole cut up, wrapped and frozen bear, had unplugged.  When we opened the freezer it was half full of vile, really really vile freezer juice and very very rotten bear meat, never mind all the other stuff.  OMG!!!!  I cleaned it out as I think I was the only family member that could stomach the smell.  I have always used the mind over matter mantra when it comes to rotten fridges or freezers.  As a result I have done a few for friends over time as well.  It's been a minute though.  I think the last one was my friend Anne's many years ago.

This week it's Ange who is coming to dinner, on Thursday.  She is coming over to download some stuff off Disney and Netflix.  Plus she is bringing her tax stuff over for Monte to help with.  I shall decide what to make tomorrow.  I will probably write about it.  I love to write about my food as you probably already noticed!  Til then, stay safe and TTYL

IMPOSSIBLE PIE...CHEESE BURGER.  YUMMMM!!!!!

"No one roasts rotten meat and puts it in the mouth of their friend and then says 'you mouth stink    Tshi proverb

 

X!?ZZX!!!!! THAT'S ME SWEARING

 The other day Monte and I were in Save-On.  We decided to load up on meat, meat that would cover Christmas dinners for a week.  Company dinners.  We bought roast chickens, pork shoulder roast, whole salmon, breakfast sausages, sandwich meats, pork chops and tons of hamburger.  (I don't remember exactly what it all was) We also picked up a few different seafood choices.  I sent it all downstairs to the freezer there.  I didn't have my upstairs one yet.

Last night around one in the morning we were heading to bed.  Monte, who had gone down a few minutes before had gone to the freezer to get one of his frozen rats (yes you read that right) to feed to Smooch, his snake. He hollered up the stairs those dreaded words I have heard about four or five times only in my whole life.  "EVERYTHING IN THE FREEZER IS MELTED!!!"  I guess the freezer door didn't shut completely when we loaded the meat into it.  And that was a few days ago.  Oh god.  My immediate thought was the 200 bucks worth of meat we had just bought, never mind all the stuff that was already in there! And it was my fault.  I knew how stuffed that thing was before I sent down all the new meat.  I knew it!

The biggest problem is one that I have been working so hard on and now it was going to be sorely tested.  When I was forced to compost in Langford, I fought it.  I ranted and railed and hated and whined and stamped my feet.  I hated hated hated composting.

So this time I made the decision, a solid committed decision not to let composting get to me. Mind over matter.  And I have been very successful!  I smile as I lift the lid off the gaggingly smelly canister by the sink to put left over food into it.  I happily take the sucker out and wrastle with the stupid hooks on the lid of the compost bin outside, in the rain, in the dark, gagging at the permasmell.  Oh yes.  Calm. Cool. Maintaining a great attitude.

But now, OMG!!!!  There is probably over 300 pieces of something, mostly meat, in that freezer.  And every single one of them has to be unwrapped before putting them in the compost bin.  Every. Single. One. Of. Them.  

So do I thaw it all out completely then unwrap sloppy, on it's way to half rotten, meat to separate the garbage part from the compost part?  Or do I re freeze it all and then, with freezing hands attempt to peel off the frozen plastic wrapping that is now covered in meat juice ice? Or, most tempting and seemingly sensible to me at the moment, is just shut the freaking freezer door, tight this time, and walk away.  Be like those hoarders on tv.  Just never open the damned thing.

  Back in the day I would have just quickly removed three hundred things and flung them into the garbage bin or driven it all to the dump. But no, now we have to mess with it into the correct bin.  Plastic wrap in garbage, cardboard food boxes into recycling and meat and sloppy melted or lumpy frozen, depending on my decision vegetables, into compost or toilet for flushing. 

All I can say is that my committed, mind over matter, decision to have a good attitude, IS WANING RAPIDLY!!!

Sorry for the poor me rant.  but......POOR ME!!!!  Hahaha!!!  I will let you know how it goes.  Garbage day isn't for a week and we are experiencing the Pineapple Express right now...much higher temps than normal.  Sigh.  Stay safe...TTYL

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” 
― Maya Angelou

That's a lovely platitude Maya, but jeez!  I don't think I need to encounter hundreds of pounds of rotting meat to know who I am!!!!  I am pissed off.  That's who I am!

CRAZY SAVE

 As I have mentioned before we clean our house before Milly comes.  I don't clean out the microwave or do the floors, I leave that crap for her, but I do pick up everything and clean the turletts.

So that being said, today is the preclean day.  So in keeping with the drill I started with the turrlet.  I had grabbed the appropriate brush and started to scrub, forgetting that I had stuffed (I was going to say tucked, but that conjured up a much too quick and dainty action to what the reality actually is) my giant brand new amazing iPhone into my bra.  And that is NOT a safe place for it to be when I must be bending over, not something that happens a whole lot in my world.

So as I was scrubbing away, I felt the phone pop out the top of my bra and shirt and head straight for the john, like a bullet.  Holy jeez!!!!  NOOOOOOO!!! And before you could say bob's your uncle, my left hand, not my dominant dexterious hand, shot out and, just as my two thousand dollar plus phone was about to hit the water line, I caught it!  I actually caught it!  Miracle of miracles!!!  And that phone is so big there ain't no bag of rice in this house big enough to bury it.  This just shows how much I love my new phone.  I love it as much as I hated the google plus xl.

I am feeling super accomplished at the moment.  I managed to get all my xmas cards done today!  I have all my names and addresses in a folder on my lappy.  So organized!!!  Not really my forte.  And for xmas last year Monte gave me a small metal replica of a Canadian mailbox and it had 100 stamps in it.  So I even have the stamps and they will be in the mailbox tomorrow!  So not like me!

Now it is wrapping time.  I have all the presents and I have the wrapping paper, tags and tape.  It's time.  I am not a fan of wrapping.  I have always had Bill for years do the wrapping.  He would sit in his comfy chair and slowly but surely wrap it all up.

  I remember in Langford, the first Xmas after he died, I set up a wrapping station in the garage.  Costco tables, rolling office chair, radio, all the wrapping accoutrement.  I remember it was freezing out there! But it was quiet, sans peeps, peaceful and I loved it.

After the wrapping it is shortbread cookie time.  But this year I am going to put a deep thumbprint in the middle of them and fill them with raspberry jam.  Maybe that will make them more tasty!  I have used the same recipe for years and years and years.  I shall share it here:

1 pound of butter/three cups of flour/1 cup of icing sugar/half a cup of corn starch.  Mix it all together until it forms a smooth as a baby's bottom ball.  This truly is the best shortbread cookie ever! I originally got the recipe from our neighbour out at Monte Creek many many years ago.  It never fails.  I wish I still had Gramma's (Bill's mom) xmas cake recipe.  It was the best I ever made.  And I wished I had my mom's mincemeat recipe.  She used real meat and suet and we mixed it in a five gallon pail.  So yummy.

Anywhooo, that's it for now.  I am so excited for xmas this year.  Stan and Antonia will be coming on Boxing Day.  The kids will still be here so that is just the icing on the xmas cake!!!  Stay safe and healthy and TTYL

WHAT STORM?

 Here I sit all comfy, cozy and safe whilst armageddon is happening everywhere else.  Nothing nefarious seems to happen here in Port.  Yes it did rain billy oh for days but it just ran down the hill into the river/channel out to the ocean.  Other than getting soaked every time you stepped out the door (which isn't a frequent event in my house) you would never know it was 'extraordinary'.  Right now though it has started to snow!  Much better than the rain.

Much to the chagrin of the grinches in my life I have put up my Xmas tree.  It isn't decorated yet and won't be until the normal time for tree upping, around, I would say, at least December.  But there have not been a whole lot of turkey type events over the last two years so I want this one to be drawn out and spectacular.

So I put my little tree up.  It isn't big.  It sits on a table in the middle of the front room window and it has a million lights on it.  And there it is.  That is what I love most.  I can sit, listening to Abba and Boney M, just staring at the lights on the tree that are creating a soft christmassy glow in the darkened room.  I put the fireplace channel on the tv, sit back and relax.  That is the best part of Xmas.  So I started a couple of weeks early this year.

My boys, Graeme and Peter are gone.  Peter is really gone.  He packed up all his stuff and is moving to Vancouver with Graeme.  Sigh.  I miss them and its been less than a day for one and a week for the other.  It is very quiet around here now.  I hope Vancouver doesn't kill their souls.

Shopping.  Hoarding.  I have to admit that I made a big shopping list at Walmart's site and picked it up yesterday.  I did buy eight pounds of butter.  That was the only hoardy thing I did.  The rest was basically Christmas dinner, sans turkey.  There isn't even one turkey in this town.  But I got all the bread for stuffing, which I am making today and freezing.  I bought frozen green beans in case there aren't any fresh ones at Xmas.  I bought eight cans of cranberry sauce (that is NOT hoarding, that is stocking my pantry AND Christmas prepping).  I bought fifteen pounds of potatoes.  Frozen peas for the carrots and peas.  Sweet potatoes. Turnips for turnip poof.  Now I just need the turkey.  But just in case, just hedging my bets, I did buy two big whole chickens.  But if I am any judge of humans, they will get that gravy train open out there pretty damn quick.  Meanwhile I am going to make a boat load of the shortbread that no one really really likes, but it's tradition.

Last night I thought about a bunch of things I forgot, like eggs etc..so I made up another Walmart list, and when I went to pick a time slot for pick up, they all said full.  Like no time available...for days and days.  I noticed a note that said due to the food chain interruptous, they will not be able to supply us.  Jeez! That was fast.  I am glad I got the first batch in!

One of the things we have planned, we being April and Myles, Bradley and Aryn, possibly Stan and Antonia, Monte and Myself, is a massively large charcuterie table.  I would say board but it is going to cover the coffee table.  We will put a parchment paper over the table and let it develop.  Meats, pickles, sauces, dips, crackers, spinach dip and bread chunks, cheeses, olives, veggies, fruit....that is if the gravy train is back to delivering food to us in hinterland out here.  

Well I have to go out now into the sloppy mess outside, the snow turned to rain, and move the garbage cans.  Milly is coming, thank goodness, and she needs a spot to park.  All for now.  Take care, stay safe, keep dry and TTYL

Adults can take a simple holiday for Children and screw it up. What began as a presentation of simple gifts to delight and surprise children around the Christmas tree has culminated in a woman unwrapping six shrimp forks from her dog, who drew her name.  Erma Bombeck

THE SUGGESTED CHARCUTERIE!!!!!

FLASH BANGS AND ROTTWEILERS.

 I think I have mentioned that we have a neighbourhood dog, a rotty, that barks tirelessly and for hours upon hours mostly at night.

Occasionally this asshole dog escapes their yard.  This amazes me.  They have an impossibly high fence surrounding their whole house and yard.  It is the kind of fence that is tightly built, you can't see through it, not even an inch.

The other night we had a collision of two actions that  happened very close together causing a rather unusual but really funny outcome.

Grimbo, or should I say ToonyKoot, or for those that don't understand, Graeme, went for a walk.  In other words he wasn't home...and peace descended upon the home.  (I love you Toony). It was evening, thus dark out and I think raining.

I walked into the kitchen to get things ready for a greek dinner Monte was going to pick up, leaving in about five minutes. A dreadful smell wafted out of somewhere in the kitchen.  And I mean pukingly dreadful.  Upon sleuthing and sniffing I discovered it was the compost container.  I have a large one and disgusting smells are a downfall of large ones.  Stuff stays in there too long until it's full.  It needed to go out immediately.  So I asked Monte to empty it.  He was leaving within five minutes.  In the meantime I whipped it out to the line up of refuse choices we have in our yard.  I set the can down on the ground right in front of the compost wheely bin.

Monte put his shoes on and out the front door he went to empty it and continue on to his van to go pick up the food.  Within two seconds he was back in the house and announcing loudly that that effing rotty was out there (which just happens to be right at our front gate) eating the revolting stinking crap out of the beaten open compost kitchen container I had just set out there.  FUCKADOODLE!!!!  And there was no way he could walk past the aggressive snarling brute.  What to do?  Monte had to get that food order but the dog was clearly going to be there for a while!

So.....and here is the good part!  Monte dug into his leftover fireworks from halloween and got out his left over flash bang and a lighter.  Two minutes later there was the loudest bang you ever heard and that dog shot off like he'd been skinned!  I hope he had a day or two of the craps and pukes. Hahahahaha!!!!!  Now to start using them on the neighbourhood cats!

I think Peter is coming home today.  He has been gone for the last ten days to Nanaimo, staying with his sisters who live there.  On Friday Toony is heading back up to Tofino.  They called him and asked if he would be willing to go back to work for three weeks until they hire a new employee of some sort.  This shows what a good employee was.  I have always said that out of all the boys I know he would be the one I would hire first.  He is very intelligent and it shows when he does a project...or playing jeopardy.  The house is going to be awfully quiet.

Well that's it for now.  Stay safe.  TTYL  

If you listen to dogs barking you will go deaf without learning anything. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

(except for unmitigated hatred...which can't be good for your soul)

THIS POST IS FOR COOKIE

 Just a quick note to thank you for the frozen pink salmon at Costco suggestion.  I did buy a bag.  It had five slabs in it which is about the amount that this household eats for supper with just enough leftovers for snacks the next day.

I was going to cook them the way you told me Brian cooks them.  But as the before cooking time started some suggestions came from the peanut gallery...which I totally love.  So after much discussion, and this was mostly Monte's suggestions, I ended up with an entirely different dish.

I put three slabs, skin down, on a tin foil covered pan.  I then packed on loosely a big fat layer of stuffing I made out of old dried buns.  I then laid the other two over the top.  I had seasoned the fish first.

I then cooked it in the toaster oven on high on convection...which is exactly what an air fryer would do if there was room in them.  Half way through I removed the two top fish and set aside.  They were getting too done.  I kind of guessed when to take it all out.

Meanwhile I made a béchamel sauce, with lemon allspice and nutmeg and parsley.  I served it with a greek salad and Kathy's pickled beets.

It was delicious.  I mean really delicious!  So thank you for showing me those fish.  And not only are they thirty dollars cheaper than sockeye, but pinks are my all time fave salmon.  And just think...the Alaskans won't eat pinks.  They feed them to their dogs.  Crazy!!!!  Sockeye and halibut are my two least fave fish because they are too dense and dry.  

So thank you!  We will be making trips to Nanaimo Costco frequently I think!   TTYL

THE GARBAGE BATTLE CONTINUES

I have a much greater understanding now, now that I am responsible for the garbage in the house, of Bill and our fear of garbage day.  It was always an angsty time the night before garbage day.  He took on garbage day as a personal competitive 'beat you' battle with the garbage laws.  And now I am getting that way.

There are certain households, you know who you are, that announce in that smuggish tone that they just have one teeny tiny container per month of garbage.  Seriously.  They just don't have normal busy peopley lives I say!   When I pick up something that has to leave the house....I have to decide, compost? recycle? or garbage.  Well if its a take out container with sandwich remnants it clearly is garbage.  It's styrophomy stuff and greasy. It has to go into the garbage.  Even crunched it half fills the under the sink garbage container.  And all the envelopes from Amazon have bubble wrap on the inside....garbage.  Soft plastic of all sorts....garbage.  Old shirts and pants and clothes....garbage.  Old pill blister packs, a mix of plastic and cardboard...garbage. 

 Well you get the point.  I guess if your old clothes are good enough and you aren't a perpetual slob, they can go to Sallyann.  If you are in perfect health and don't need pills you won't have that garbage.  If you are paranoid and won't use a credit card on the internet...you won't have unrecycalable plastic packaging.  And if you never order food in or bring home leftovers from a meal out, well that's where the no life part comes in.  I do know that when it is just Monte and me we occasionally didn't have to put the garbage bin out.  But that didn't happen often.   One thing you can do...a bit of advice, get real familiar where the public garbage cans are and USE THEM!!!!  No offence to anybody!!  LOL!!

I went with Ange yesterday to the funeral home. It was interesting.  The director was so sympathetic and understanding, just shy of being unctuous. There will be no service or memorial (I offered to make egg sammiches).  Ange just wants it over with.  And I must say when it was all done with the director she was much different.  It was like a huge weight had been lifted from her.  I was happy to see some of the old positive Ange return.

Well it's pizza night tonight.  Friday night is pizza night.  I shall collect money from the boys, they each order what THEY CAN EAT!!!  No over ordering!  They can feel free to share, but they have to eat what they buy.  I will be getting a personal pan pizza.  Thank goodness Pizza Hut makes a personal pan pizza of each of their pizzas.  And you can't beat their crust.  Mmmmmmm....

Well that's it for today peeps.  Stay safe.  TTYL

'For one minute walk outside.  Stand there in silence.  Look up at the sky. And contemplate how amazing life is.'  anonymous 

ps:  This is what Monte and I do once in a while.  We drive out to Cameron, a long long stretch of road between two large fields (where I  always get the pics of yellow broom).  There is zero light out there. And we look up at the sky.  And just know that life is amazing.  Except for garbage day.

Some random pics:

MY SHOT OF FAIRY LAKE...WHERE THE PROTESTS ARE HAPPENING.  OTHERS HAVE TAKEN IDENTICAL PICS...THIS JUST HAPPENS TO BE MINE.

ANTON'S NEW BABY GIRL.  LADA.  BORN OCT 27TH.  HE IS OVER THE MOON HAPPY!!

A BAD PIC OF LUZY AND ME.