GODOT

 That's it!  My beloved chair's name is Godot.  If you don't understand that name, and I certainly wouldn't blame you, you should look it up.    He is a wonderful character in a play we studied at school.  Godot, for me, represented all kinds of philosophical meanderings that I'm sure Becket never intended!

  I considered Galt from Ayan Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', my fave book, but he was ambitious and successful, all things I not only am not, but don't aspire to be!  I really do sit in my chair and stare out the window, just like Ingmar Bergman said he did in that quote in the last post.  Godot is much more suitable.

Another fave book I read was 'The Journeyer' by Gary Jennings.  It was all about Marco Polo.  Fantastic book!!!  So I considered Marco for about ten seconds.  Then swimming pools and ratty little kids yelling Marco, Polo, incessantly, came to mind and I discarded that thought right quick.  So Godot it is.  I really do relate to him who never shows up!!!

It was garbage day the other day.  And unfortunately the time change has removed the comfort of being outside at seven in the morning, completely looking like hell itself, but, under the cover of darkness.  Graeme has been taking out the garbage on garbage  morning, but he is gone sadly. I hadn't realized that the light had changed at that time of the day.

I was in a pair of torn sleep short shorts, you could see my undies, old t-shirt, no bra, no teeth, hair awful, slippers....and as I quickly dashed over to the waiting bins I hear a "Howdely Doodely neighbour!"  For a second I thought Ned Flanders was next door.  But no.  It was Harry.  He lives next door.  A lovely friendly person about my age.  I did NOT want to see anyone, especially a male neighbour!  But being a mannerly person I couldn't just ignore him.  So I stopped to say good morning.  And then horror of horrors he CAME OVER TO SEE OUR NEW DOOR.  Now he's up close!!  I surreptitiously held the side of my short short short sleep shorts that are torn from hem to waistband, together and tried to keep turned away a bit.  Waaaahhhhhh!

We had a lovely conversation.  He had had cataract operations two weeks ago.  Great.  Now he can really see.  After a lengthy convo he finally went back over to his place to put his garbage out.  I see I will have to sneak peaks out my bathroom window from now on to make sure he either has already taken out his garbage or not in the middle of doing it.  Its either that or actually get dressed.  No.  Not doing that.

I was just talking to April on the phone.  She was mentioning, and I was agreeing, how the younger generations blame everything on us boomers.  Apparently we made a big mess of everything, from the earth to expensive housing and everything in between.

I get awfully tired of their ridiculous conclusions.  I am proud of being a boomer!  We boomers are the ones that put a man on the moon.  We boomers are the ones that developed communication and our lives are before and after that one.  We boomers are the ones that invented and developed technology.  We developed air travel from bi planes to jets.  We invented soft ice cream!!!  I myself personally went from a crank phone (our number was a short and a long) to a little snazzy computer phone tucked in my bra.  As a matter of fact it is the boomer generation that made the most massive intelligent progression of civilization in the history of mankind, thank you very much.  So the younguns can just sit down and take a back seat.  They will never equal the boomer generation.  And that's all I have to say about that.  Rant over!  LOL!!!

Tomorrow I am making butter pecan tarts.  Lots of them.  Monte has been invited over to a friend's place for dinner and I suggested he take dessert.  Upon talking with the host, it was decided dessert needed to involve nuts.

So now I am trying to figure out how to candy nuts.  I can chop up nuts and add them to the tart mixture, but I would like to put some candied nuts on top.  Thank goodness for google.  Google is the biggest recipe book on earth!!!!  It has everything and then some.

 Bryce, the host, makes sourdough!  I mean who does that?  Except a friend out at Shuswap!  Ollie's husband Wayne!  Ollie is the one that makes amazing apple salsa and Wayne makes honest to goodness sourdough!  And apparently Bryce does too.

Bryce is also making melt in your mouth, apparently, pulled pork as well to go with that sourdough.  So that amazing dinner deserves butter pecan tarts!  Hmmmm. I wonder if he has coleslaw.

Well this has turned out to be a very random wandering post.  I shall stop now.  Take care, stay safe and TTYL

I have actually done that!!!!  More than once.

 Listening to the news has made me even more aware how infinitely lucky I am to be born Canadian.  I remember years ago watching all those women, grammas, babies, children,  filing single file out of Yugoslavia.  And now watching those poor Ukrainians out of the Ukraine and the Russians out of Russia.  I am thinking of those pregnant moms, carrying two year olds, Grammas with sore backs and hips, women in the middle of cancer treatments, diabetics that need insulin, and on and on.  Leave? or stay and get bombed?  OMG!!!!

And not only that makes me so grateful to be in Canada.  I got a phone call today from the diabetic clinic in the hospital.  They are all poised to help me with more up to date education, teach me about insulin and how to use it, help me restock my testing supplies....and give me a week to record my tests so they can see how well my meds are working for me. And she offered me in person help or over the phone, and I accepted the latter.  And to top it off she totally agreed with my plan to spend the next three months lowering, or trying to lower, my a1c (three month average) before committing to insulin.  I thought she would give me the gears about that but she was totally supportive.  I am so so lucky. 

 Bill always said the only luck you ever have in this life is where you are born.  All the rest is either how you react to everything or if you take the bull by the horns and make your way. That belief is probably why he was so successful.  Oh and because of me of course!!!  Hahaha!!!  Behind every man is....well you know that old mantra!! Man o man, I loved that guy.

I wanna mention something here.  I have talked with a couple of people that used to blog, briefly. I asked them why they stopped.  Basically the answer was that they couldn't be bothered.

  When I go to find a long term blog to read like a book, I used to love reading people's blogs, there simply aren't any.  I am not wanting to read recipe blogs, or sewing (god forbid), or fishing or any blog that has a singular interest.  I want to read peoples reality type blogs.  They are so interesting for the most part.  But there aren't any anymore.

What I find when I seriously start looking are blogs that get started, some of them lovely, but after a few entries they just die out.  I see that there are awards, awarded by the blog gods, for best blogs etc... but they are all about something specific.  I think they should hand out an award for longevity...even if it's a humdrum blog like mine. LOL!!!  I have been blogging since 2007.  So I am not famous and my readership has remained pretty steady, not growing.  But all you loyal readers are my friends, even if I have never met you.  I love talking to you!  I just wish it was easier for people to comment.  I would love to hear about you!  I would love to turn the tables!

I wish I was a botanist.  That is just one thing I wish I could be. I used to want to be a hockey player.  Yeah.  We all know how that thought went. But as a botanist I would be able to make plants that make sense.  Now I don't want to usurp Mother Nature, but seriously?  She didn't do the greatest job when it comes to helping out rank amateurs like me.

Firstly I would invent a flower that had the ability to grow easily in any soil in any condition of weather and climate handed to it.  Why isn't there one out there that actually grows like weeds do, that isn't a foxglove or dandelion?  When my poppy seeds come I just want to throw them on the newly weeded dirt out front and have them just grow.  Is that so crazy to wish for?

And when I plant a blueberry bush, I want to make one that prolifically produces blueberries IMMEDIATELY!  Not next season, and not seven seasons away, but right away!

And I would make sturdier sunflowers.  I mean why why why are they made so that when their oversized heads fill with seeds they fall over and droop like a tired old man?  I would make one with a thick tough stalk that would hold it's head up to face the sun!

I feel like Walter Mitty, creating fanciful thoughts in my head whilst I sit in my beloved recliner.  I think I will name this recliner, it has become such an entity in my daily life, and not always in a good way.  Hmmmmm....I will give this some thought.  I shall give it a significant name by next post.  And I shall take a picture.  Some people have cats.  Others have dogs.  Even more have babies.  I have a recliner.  Don't underestimate its importance in my life!  It deserves a name.  Stay safe peeps and enjoy life.  TTYL

PRO CHAIR

'A house that does not have a warm comfy chair in it is souless.'  Mary Sarton

CON CHAIR

'I'm very very lazy, I love to sit in my chair and look out the window and do nothing.' Ingmar Bergman

MY CHAIR

'When I go, God's going to have to give up his chair.' Brian Clough

 

DIET TIME AND GERANIUMS

 Well here we go again.  I went over my lab results with the doc today and she is putting me on insulin.  I feel like a giant failure. Giant being the key word there.  Sigh.  So a dieting we go. Again. Double sigh.

Monte and I just spent the last hour going over our plan, grocery shopping on the Walmart site for our plan and committing to it.  Also we have made a consistent walking routine and blood sugar measuring each day.  I was just telling him that there are three things you need to look at closely when you notice you are avoiding them.  Weighing, checking blood sugar and only wearing stretchy tights instead of finite jeans.  And I am avoiding all three and have been for quite a while....and it is showing on all fronts.

I think I am going to put off the insulin thing, not tell the doctor, and spend the next three months being severe with the eating and exercise.  Then if my a1c is still too high I will do the insulin.  Keep in mind my currant a1c number is acceptable in Europe.  Here in Canada the standard acceptable number is three points lower.

I am not happy about the new covid showing up.  I was just getting comfortable stepping out again.  And nobody is wearing a mask anymore in this town.  I am kind of shocked at just how many aren't. I went into Shoppers today and picked up my test kits, and it's about time we were able to get them.  I feel a bit better with them around.  Having people around is just unavoidable.  I was thinking about Stu, the handyman and his side kick.  They see hundreds of people, go into their houses etc...and don't wear  masks.  The same goes with the delivery guys from the Brick.  And now Ange is moving in, along with all the people she sees.  She told me though that she will be super careful.  Like they say, everyone is going to have it before its over.

I am going to grow geraniums this year.  Bill always told me to grow them.  So this year is going to be a geranium year.  I just don't know how.  Do you buy baby plants and plant them or do you buy seeds and go from there?  I think I shall have to YouTube it.  The only problem with that is it seems to only be zealots that make those videos.

  "You must purchase small starter pots, 3" by 2".  Then you purchase special starter soil mixed with sea sand and potassium, three parts each.  Fill the pots five eighths full and bury the seed 2/10ths below the surface. Add two tablespoons of water per pot,  five minutes post seed planting. Place in a cool, approximately 18.5 degree, dark dry place.  Place two tablespoons of water in each pot daily at nine o'clock in the morning."  Jeeeeeez!!!!!!  Gimme plastic ones!  It never turns out the way I see it in my head anyway. 

 Last year I planted sweet peas in containers all along the balcony.  In my head I saw a beautiful wall of gorgeous multi coloured heady smelling flowers.  Sure.  The reality was very very different.  Straggly green vines with some droopy leaves, not even trying to climb the wires up put up and I literally got about six sad little flowers. I am so not a gardener.  But gotta keep trying!

Well I am tired and my brain is buzzing out.  Welcome to Marg, a fellow Port Albernian! Stay safe people and wear a mask if you can!  TTYL

SCRAMBLING

 So many things converging all at once here.  Who knew that after two years of basically nothing it suddenly gets kind of busy.  Waaaaahhhh!!!!  I don't like busy, I am finding.  I have developed a need to have hours, if not days, to make decisions and to get something done.  Sigh.

Graeme is leaving tomorrow.  His bus goes around 11 in the morning.  So he is busy today packing and sorting.  He will be leaving stuff here, out in the she shed.  He will be missed.

I am being hounded again by both the drug store that delivers my prescriptions and my doctor's office.  Jeez!  This is when I way prefer clinic doctors.  They don't give a hoot about you and basically leave your health and timing of lab trips to accommodate pill refills to us.  Family doctors keep frigging track of you and start nagging when it gets close to renewal time. I made, ages ago, an appointment at the lab for tomorrow.  I have it all under control thank you very much.  I admit I am a very ungrateful person when it comes to doctors.  Grrrrrr....

One thing I did do though was refuse to go into the office for an appointment.  I told Lisa the lady making the appointment that because of covid I would not go in but I would be happy to do a phone consult.  She reluctantly agreed and so I will have a call on Monday with said doctor. I can keep my pj's on and not get dressed!  yay!!!!!

Garbage day tomorrow.  Just once I would like to live in a neighbourhood where the garbage isn't picked up until after ten in the morning.  And in all the times I have moved and lived in various places, the garbage is always picked up at seven in the morning and can't be put out the night before.  If you do you get a 75 dollar fine.  There is one fat bastard by-law old dude that sneaks around at night just looking for garbage cans on the street.  He single handedly keeps Port Alberni swimming in money.  I hate him.

And, fun of all funs, I need to empty the fridge, completely.  My new one is being delivered on Friday.  I started yesterday, getting ready for garbage day tomorrow (at an ungodly hour in the morning) and holy Hannah!!!!  how many jars of condiments does one household need I ask.  Anchovies, mint jelly, chutney, relishes, mustards, worchestshire sauce, salsa, jams, marmalades, maple butter, pickles, olives, sombal olek, butter, mayo, dressings, patak curry pastes, and on and on and on and on......oh and I found a jar of duck fat.  Duck fat.  Why?

And the next problem after that is how do I get the old fridge moved downstairs.  I have a feeling the Brick guys will def not be into that.  We will see.

Ange needs to see the place downstairs.  The boys have done a stellar job of emptying it out except for what has to stay.  But...the carport is plumb full of garbage.  Dressers, boxes, crap etc...I really need to call my handyman guy to haul it all away.  I know Ange is excited to be moving in down there but I have a feeling thats only because the alternative was so awful.  I really hope she likes it.

Well I must sign off and go gitter done.  Stay safe, wear a mask or two and TTYL

'Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.'  Mason Cooley

  

600 POUND LIFE

 I think we have all pretty much watched that infamous show involving humungous people.  I always feel so bad for them.  Being addicted to food is deadly.  Drugs, alcohol and tobacco you can quit cold turkey, or close to, and easily avoid the stuff forever more.  I am not saying it's easy, but easier than food!  You still have to eat, several times a day. Imagine a drug addict being given an unlimited supply of their drug of choice then being told they can only take a small inadequate amount three times a day.  How successful would that be?

As you know my Monte man has to take a medication that keeps him ravenously hungry all the time.  It really upsets him and makes him angry.  I have heard him say numerous times how pissed off he is that he is always hungry.  And even though he never eats a ton of stuff, the medication makes the people taking these meds balloon out to unimaginable sizes.  I am not saying he is 600 pounds but he may as well be.  His one advantage over a lot of the ones we see on the show, he has slim legs and butt.  The weight is concentrated on his trunk.  He is very heavy through his upper body.

A couple of weeks ago he was sitting on the couch.  He put his hand on the arm of the couch and pushed, hard, to stand up.  His hand slipped off the arm and he went down with a hell of crash.  When you reach a certain size, falling is a very serious thing.  Firstly it shocked him, then he struggled to get up, and then he had to take a few minutes to adjust his brain around it.  And he did.  He happily carried on.

But....Slowly over the couple of weeks since it happened his back started to hurt, and it escalated to where now he can hardly walk without taking huge amounts of aspirin...and even then he has to freeze to the spot and not move.  When he does move, the pain is such that it makes him gasp...sounds like nerve pain as opposed to muscle.  And it is not getting better.  I would take him up to the hospital to get it checked out but we already know he is too heavy for the X-ray table and they wouldn't be able to do an X-ray anyway, so what would be the point?  By chance, for another matter, he has a doctor appointment on Tuesday.  We shall see.

I got a call from The Brick, my fridge is being delivered next Friday, a week from today.  Great news and all but I have no idea how we are going to move the old one downstairs.  I am going to try to get the guy that built the wall, Stewart, to maybe move it.  I am also going to get him to haul all the garbage in the carport to the dump.  That carport is full.  I can't believe I have so much garbage out of the sheds.  I moved that crap here when I moved and I thought I had discarded a ton back then, but clearly not enough!  The one thing I would have loved to keep, all my awesome footwear, got royally chewed up by the rats, little bastards.  They did a lot of destruction to a lot of stuff out there.  The joys of living beside a grocery store.

My bro and his squeeze are coming for, and bringing, dinner Sunday night.  We love love love having them over!  Antonia phoned me yesterday from Costco in Courtenay to ask what would we like for dinner?  She listed off a few things like lasagna, shepherd's pie, Mac and cheese.....Well!!!

A hundred years ago, in Bamfield, both Kathy and kids, Stan and Antonia and us were at the house there.  We decided to have a Mac and cheese cook off!  So Antonia, Kathy and I each made our own style of m&c and we had all 11 people sit at the table for dinner.  I had large paper plates which I drew lines on to divide the plate in three.  Then we put a glob of m&c on each section, which I had numbered.  We ate.  Then I passed a prepared gridded paper with the appropriate 11 names with three numbered boxes beside their name.  They were to tick the box of their fave dish.  Well, I won!  But Monte, Kathy and I ticked Antonia's!!!!  It was to die for!!!!!

Mine is like cheese sauce soup with macaroni floating around in it.  Antonia's was an adult version, baked, drier, buttery crumbs on top, a mixture of cheeses and absolutely delicious.  Kathy's?  Kraft dinner with a can of tomatoes in it!  And OMG!!  That was def Spod's fave!!!!  His mommy used to make tomatoey m&c and add chopped left over pork.  He loved loved loved that!!!!

So when I heard her Mac and cheese suggestion I jumped on it!  We took a quick march down memory lane and had a good laugh!

Well that's my food talk for this post!  Time to get this day started.  I took aspirin down to monte a couple of hours ago so he should be able to rise and shine.  There is a lot of work to do and Graeme, bless his heart, is staying a few days longer to give him a hand.  Graeme is such a good person and such a valuable friend.  How he manages to put up with us like he does is a bit of a miracle.  Take care, be safe and TTYL

I'm very loyal in a relationship. Any relationship. When I go out with my mom, I don't look at other moms and go, "I wonder what her macaroni and cheese tastes like."

— Garry Shandling

GIGANTIC MISTAKES

As I mentioned not too long ago, and included pics, I bought a bucket of chicken gravy.  A bucket.  A BIG bucket and to date I have used twelve tablespoons of it.  That bucket is definitely going to outlive me.

I don't remember if I mentioned this a long time ago but when I moved in here a couple of years or more ago I bought a fifty pound bag of flour at Costco, pre covid days.  I need a minute here just to remember going into Costco with no mask and no worries.  I so took that for granted.  Not any more......

Anyway, back to the flour.  When I got home and opened it to make bread....it was sugar.  Fifty pounds of white sugar.  Fifty huge endless pounds.  We don't even use white sugar in this house.  Nothing against white sugar but we are black coffee drinkers, no cereal, I only cook and bake with brown sugar, (and I go through a lot of brown sugar). In other words when I die, and the kids clean out the house there will be a thirty pound bucket of chicken gravy in the kitchen corner and a fifty pound bag of white sugar minus two cups I did take out once, buried under coats and stuff in the front closet. But then.....

I was doing my usual recipe browsing this morning.  And guess what I came across!!!!!????  I found a very simple recipe on how to make brown sugar!!!!  You just thoroughly mix a tablespoon of molasses into one cup of white sugar and voila!!!  Brown sugar!! Makes sense..you are just putting back what they took out to make the white sugar.

  And that is what I am going to do from now on.  I have the perfect sealable container already fit into the overly full baking drawer and I shall keep it full of brown sugar, using up that fifty pounds of white!!!  Now to figure something magical to use pounds of gravy on!

As I have mentioned we buy our groceries at Walmart, curbside pickup.  You can't get everything but it's close enough.  I just went to Amazon to maybe order molasses.  The regular container was fourteen dollars!!!  That was the cheapest!  So I went to the Walmart site and the same one there is 1.97.  Stupid amazon!  What a rip off.

Slowly but surely we are getting the room downstairs ready for Ange.  Mostly it just involves removing everything.  Until Graeme has vacated the room and stored his stuff out in the shed we won't be able to complete the job.  But I really would almost rather have Graeme and all his stuff here than an empty room.  I know it's necessary but he will be missed. 

Food talk:  I froze a bunch of Pilsbury crescent rolls...you know, the ones that scare the hell out of you if they explode as you peel the paper off of it. I thawed a couple of them out and made some pretty interesting crescents.  Yesterday I made one of them up...putting grated cheese and a sausage in it.  I had a whole load of sausages left over from breakfast.  They were delicious.  Today I made the same thing but this time I put a Xmas gherkin from a jar Monte got for Xmas in each one.  Boy were they ever good!  They would make a good hors d'eurve.  Yesterday I also made egg bites for the first time.  I bought a couple of containers of liquid egg.  I filled the muffin tins with crisped up bacon, onion, jalapeño and grated old cheddar.  They turned out great!  These are good for Monte who happens to be low carbing right now.  He loved them!  But a pain in the patoot to get out of the pan.

Anyway, that's it for today.  Check labels people, that's my current advice!  Stay safe and happy.  TTYL