TEETH

 A few minutes ago I was sitting here in my chair, reading a book online.  Happy.  Content.  Eating a Weiner sammich.  I finished the sandwich and put the plate to the side, briefly listened to what was happening on the tv, it was funny, laughed and boom!  My upper teeth flew right out of my mouth and landed on my laptop keyboard.  I know they are somewhat loose but to fly out of my head? I sat there for a wee while, just staring at them in disbelief!!!

 What if I had been at an important appointment and that happened?  What if I was at a lawyer's office, discussing a very important will and my teeth falls out of my head? What if I was leaning over to flush the turlett!!!  Oh God!!!!  Does this mean I have to start using tooth glue?  Damn!!!  It's always something!!!

Back before laptops and internet, and only two channels on tv, I used to buy those mixed puzzle books.  My favourite by far were the cryptograms.  The quotes and sayings were in code and you had to crack them.  You really needed to understand the rhythm and patterns of English to solve them.

Well, I ordered a couple of cryptogram books from Amazon.  Nothing but cryptograms.  And, quite smugly, I just knew I would be amazing at them, especially compared to forty years ago.  Now, I play scrabbley games on my phone and have tons and tons more experience with words and word patterns. And I am super good at Wheel of Fortune!

Yeah.  Right.  Maybe not so much.  In fact it's so hard I found out, on number one no less, that it isn't even so much fun because it's so hard.  What happened????  I used to be pretty good at this!!!

But I am persevering and I am now up to number ten.  The quotes are pretty cheesy and mostly I solve them by figuring out the name of the writer.  They always put that at the end of the quote.  And they are pretty easy to figure out...Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost.  Those are all the letters you need to get started and solve the puzzle.

  But then my eyes are so bad now I actually had to move the lamp closer to my chair, put it on the left so my hand didn't shadow the writing, and even then try to keep the guessed letter over the code one.  Jeez it's a bitch getting old.  

Speaking of which, I remember going into my Mom and Dead Bob's condo.  Everywhere in the bedroom, bathroom and living room there would be pills on the floor.  Like did they even get enough in their system?  It was mostly Dead Bob's pills.  I was thinking pretty scathing thoughts I must admit.

Well, now, I am totally relating and feeling bad about my thoughts back then.  I swept my floor and swept up enough pills to last another month.  They come in explosive blister packs that explode everywhere.  Sometimes pills get shot all over the place when I push them open.  Just another sign of living large at almost seventy!!!!!

For the next few posts I am just going to include a quote from my cryptogram.  You can see..they can be pretty cheesy!  Stay safe and happy.  TTYL

'A person's a person, no matter how small,'  Dr. Seuss   Horton Hears A Who

...

MY FUZZY SUITCASE....NOT MY PIC

NO WHINING OR HOUSE TALK

 Wendy's!!!!!!!  It finally opened!!!!  Ange and I decided to go get supper the third night it was open.  Well, scrapped that pretty quick.  How can you tell when a town is desperate for some new cuisine?  When the line up has over thirty cars in it.  That lineup went around the store, over through the parking lot to the front road and waaaaaaaaay down to Canadian tire.  Ridiculous!!!  

A couple of nights later Monte and I decided to try.  The line up was about half what it was for Ange and I.  We decided we could do it.  An hour later we were def questioning our decision!  That is until we got our food.  We drove down to the river and dove in.  Oh Lordy!!!!  It was delicious!!!  I got the apple pecan salad with blue cheese.  You can't beat that salad!!!!

I bought a new suitcase.  I knew it wasn't going to be huge, after all they did list it as carry on but it looked bigger than that in the picture on amazon.  I wouldn't try to do carry on with it.  I would end up being one of those people I complain about.  They bring barely legal sized suitcases then take up all the overhead room, usually not even over their own seat but over everyone else's.  But I don't plan to be on a plane anytime soon so I'm happy.

Now it's time to see how much I can ram into it.  When you are a biggun' you can only take about half of what scrawny people can take.  The long weekend in July the whole family goes camping.  I am only taking what fits in this suitcase.  And after the weekend I plan to spend time with the girls in Vancouver. But at least they have laundry facilities!

So I took some practice pics with my amazing new camera.  It is very easy to use but....I hooked it up to my laptop and downloaded the pics.  And....they were all black.  No pic.  No nothing.  Just black.  Turns out they were shot in raw, not jpeg.  So....what is the point of raw if you can't download them.  I don't get it.  Where's my old D90.  That trusty dusty old thing shoots whatever.  Sigh.  I don't like new things.

Well as you can see I am scrambling to find things to post about.  Other than Wendy's I don't even have a food account to tell.  So I will sign off.  Take care, stay healthy and TTYL

I found this quote about blogging.  I thought

    (continued after totally inappropriately placed pictures)

MY NEW BEDROOM LOOK.  NO LONGER STEAM PUNK.

ANGE'S CAT HIDING IN HER STOOL!  LOL!!!!!

ALMOST THERE

BATHTIME FOR LEELOO

NAUGHTY APRIL!

NEW OLD BIRTHDAY CAKE PLATE

it truly appropriate for todays post.

"A farmer is a magician who produces money from the mud."  Amit Cilantro

Now I am not producing money, but I produced a post from nothing!!!!!

Now for some random pics:

RATASTIC

 I am always horrified by how much money just simply flows out of this house.  Every time I turn around there's another bill to pay or insurance or a house project that needs doing or something to do with a vehicle.  But those things I just mentioned, you at least get a return on it.  You get something for your dollar.  But.....

As I mentioned somewhere before we had a problem, a really big problem with rats.  I needn't go into it again.  And I do believe I did mention I hired a vermin guy to come in and take a look at the sheds and decide what needed doing.

So the rat man divided the job in two.  Firstly, for 300 dollars he got rat proof wire netting and hammered it up and over every single possible opening in the sheds.  He did an absolutely fantastic, worth every dollar, job.  Then for 450 bucks he was going to come back every week and check the traps and reload them if necessary.

It wasn't until three weeks passed by that it dawned on me that he hadn't been back!  I have to unlock the sheds for him and there had been no unlocking.  And I had already paid him!

  One of the things he had mentioned to me was that as soon as possible he was moving to South Dakota.  There was a girlfriend there and a very tired and disdainful attitude about Port and BC in general.  And now I was pretty sure he had used my 450 to help finance his escape. 

So I emailed from the website, I emailed from an actual email address on the website, I phoned and left messages....to no avail.  When I went looking for more info on the company I saw an address in an area I wasn't real familiar with.  My next move was to take huge Mr. Man with me and see if Ratman had done a runner.  But before I could do that, Monte made a pretty graphically correct negative google review.  It was a very polite and well worded one, but he made it pretty clear that this was a company not to be trusted.

Well that worked!  I got a pretty frantic call from Jeff, otherwise known as Ratman, apologizing ten ways to seven, explaining how he has been super busy and we had just slipped through the cracks.  He couldn't have been more sorry.  And to top it off his boss was not happy with it all.  Man! I thought he was a single worker, no staff.  Plus I hadn't received any paperwork or receipts, my bad.

Long story short I talked with the boss the next day and sorted it all out.  Later that day Jeff popped around with a cheque for 450 bucks and he did a check of the traps.  He is also popping around next week to check again and to leave little bags of rat deterrent to put in our vehicles.  Monte removed the review and I left a good one.  This guy did two four year tours in Afghanistan.  And he is apparently the boss's number one employee.  A simple mistake, that had me going for a while there. Kept me awake for a couple of nights!

I am also hiring my handyman again to fix the burst pipe in the shed from freezing, the front gate that has fallen off and replace my kitchen faucet.  One great thing about this house is the water pressure.  It gushes with huge force and delights me every time I do dishes.  It is strong enough to clean stuck on food on plates!  How often do houses have that nowadays?  Never!!!

So this morning I was getting the house all clean and ready for the housekeeper when suddenly the pressure from the kitchen tap dropped to about half.  I panicked!!  I ran around to bathrooms and laundry rooms checking pressure there.  There was still lots in those places.  So I have concluded that the old, loose, basically busted kitchen tap is at fault.  Grrrrr....  I need a new tap.  I just don't know how to change it.  I don't even know what kind to buy, except I am pretty sure it's just called a one holer.   So many things.  I miss Spod!!!!!!  He knew all about this stuff and could do it.  Crap if I tried to change the tap I would go down and under the sink and never be able to get up again.  

I also want a new tub.  The one I have is olive green, stained and very 70's.  At least it matches the turlett.  Plus it isn't very big.  I just know if I planned to get into that thing, I would have to keep my phone handy. I'm pretty sure the fire department would have to be called to help unsuction me.  I would like a tub I can actually use without fear.

Well enough complaining today.  Sorry bout that! At least I got my money back on the rat fiasco!!!!  Take care people, stay safe and TTYL

'You know you're big when you sit in the bathtub, the water in the toilet rises.'  Art Donovan

KEVIN, ME AND ARYN A ZILLION YEARS AGO

ME, MONIQUE AND ANGE...IN MATCHING COATS!!!

MONTE, PAT AND ANGE

ADVICE

Normally I kind of hesitate to give advice.  Like, what the heck do I know.  Well I can confidently give you some advice on one thing right now.

When you are eating a piece of bread, and bring it up to your mouth, which just happens to be near your nose I might add, and that piece of bread smells like pachouli....the most vile odour in the world, you know absolutely that the bread is mouldy, even if it doesn't look it and I advise you to NOT eat it.

Pachouli is truly the most chokingly terrible smell there is, besides body odours of different sorts.  And I am not going to apologize to those people that have the audacity to wear it and freely and gaily walk through crowds or sit close to the public in restaurants.  Shame on you!!!!

I was eating a piece of bread, only three days old I might add, with a fat layer of tuna fish salad on it, open faced.  I was so looking forward to it, to the point where my mouth was gleeking.  As I opened my mouth to take a giant delicious bite, I screeched to a stop.  I smelled pachouli.  I even looked around to see if some unwanted entity had entered the kitchen.  Nope!  I then started to sniff around, which led my nose to the crust on the bread.  What the hell???!!!!  And that is when I finally nailed the exact odour that is pachouli.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it before.  But now I can.  It smells like really bad mouldy bread.  

I looked it up once.  Pachouli was put on dead bodies that were laid out in parlours, as they did in the old days, to mask the smell of a dead decaying body.  So you people out there that have faulty smellers, if you wear pachouli, that is what you smell like. Masked decaying body or mouldy old bread.  Either one is of the utmost unpleasantness.    Just STOP IT!!!!

It has been fantastic having Ange here.  When someone moves into your house for a time, you know that eventually they will be moving on.  Consequently you don't really pay much attention, if any, to the things that might bug you other wise,

But when someone is permanent you are taking something of a risk.  And I can see with Ange there simply isn't anything, not one thing, that is upsetting or annoying about her.  She absolutely knows her boundaries, is open enough but not overly so.  It has been such a delight to have her here.  We are both fairly early risers so we get ourselves a cup of coffee and meet in the living room for an hour of convo and world problem solving.  I am so enjoying her company.  And Monte loves her.  They have lived under the same roof for years and they understand each other well.

I am cutting this short tonight.  I am too happy to write anymore.  Stay safe and healthy and hug someone.  TTYL

"Bad hippie!  No pachouli!!"  anonymous

"I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bellbottoms, or pachouli oil, or bean sprouts...it just rubs me up the wrong way."  Tom Waits

EMILY GAVE MOM A PENIS SHAPED GRAPE POPSICLE.  SHE WASN'T SURE WHY WE WERE LAUGHING

THEN SHE SAW IT!!!!

THEN WHAT DO YOU DO WITH GRAPE FLAVOURED FROZEN PENIS POPSICLE?  YOU ATTACK IT!!!!

A LITTLE TRIBUTE TO MOM IN HONOUR OF Mother's Day!!!

WONDERFUL KIDS

Mother's Day is the most important day of the year to me.  More important than my birthday.  More important than Xmas and all holidays in between.  Actually what I should say is its the most meaningful day.  Some years ago I started to say that out loud, around my kids.  They definitely got the message!!!  Although I think they would have come up with the importance on their own, I must say.

I always end up with beautiful flowers one way or the other.  This year they sent money to Monte who tore out and when he came back he came back with a beautiful armful of roses and flowers. I so so love them!

Then yesterday Monte and I went to Parksville to the Masala Hut and had an amazing Indian feast!  It was delicious!  Naan, roti, dips and chutneys, onion cakes, fish pakoras, veggie pakoras, aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower), eggplant mush, a hot sauced paneer (cheese) and lamb saag.  So so good and half of it came home with us!

It was such a beautiful day yesterday so we went for a long drive.  Eventually it took us past the Teshat Market, our native gas station, pot store and grocery store.  Arnie was looking for a specific native jigsaw puzzle and they had it!  So I picked one up for her.  We didn't take even one picture of anything!

Monte believes everything happens in threes.  Firstly he sold a lens he has for 600 dollars on FB Market place.  He was so happy.  He made sure that the interac email payment came, he has auto deposit, then mailed it off to an address in Surrey.  When he left the post office and was sitting in the van, he double checked his deposit and it came from an aol(?) address, a scam address and of course it didn't deposit a dime.  So he tore off into the post office and they said that they couldn't give it back to him.  He phoned the main post office and made arrangements for the package to be intercepted and sent back to him.  He then phoned the police and reported it.  They were very interested and called him back later for more info.  He did get it back, feeling stupid.

Then on his way home he got pulled over for speeding, something I nag him about all the time.  The cop really like his last name, Heyman, and he liked Monte so he did give him a ticket, but a really cheap one.  This always happens to him.  He is likable and gets away with stuff.  He came home feeling stupid.

Then last night when he got home from his friend's house, he was collecting up his stuff, he picked up a can of some kind of boozy drink his friend gave him and it exploded, right smack into his camera bag.  His DSLR got soaked.  And it no longer works.  Jeez!!!  It is sitting on the coffee table in a giant ziplock full of rice.  He was so down and disheartened last night.  Beaten down.  Fingers crossed, this is it.

It's so nice having Ange here.  It really is.  She and I get along super well.  She is extremely smart and she is one of the most well read people I know.  She reads Michener, Rutherford and any other book she can pick up! She is a big big fantasy fan too. That being said there was a humungous book fair the other day, and we went!  It was huge in there and not overly crowded so I donned my R95 respirator and headed in.  I came out later, loaded down!  I bought eight almost brand new Company's Coming recipe books!  I collect them!  I also got a couple of books off the Vancouver Island table.  I love book fairs, even though I almost can't read regular paper books now.  I need those senior books with giant printing!!!Ange came out more loaded down than me.  She doesn't have tv yet.  I am waiting to see if Telus is going to charge me that 168 for the technician coming to the house to fix THEIR equipment.  If they do I will become a Shaw customer and they can get stuffed for their bill and contract.  When I know, I will then get her hooked up with whomever wins out. So for now she reads reads reads!

Well I best get off my duff and clean the kitchen.  I have been pretty good at keeping it clean.  Right now it needs a tweaking and it is already mid afternoon.  And I need to go outside right now and chase some cats out of the yard!  I am outside chasing cats and stupid deer away so often!  Especially cats!  At least the deer don't crap right where we will be weeding!

Stay safe, be happy and TTYL

'If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.'  Solon

OUR ANNIVERSARY WAS ON THE SIXTH

MY BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS

THE GORGEOUS PUZZLE I FOUND FOR ARNIE

BUSY BUSY BUSY

It has been crazy busy around here this past week.  We finally finished moving Ange in downstairs!  Took a number of trips back and forth and she had a couple guys she hired to do the big stuff.  But she is all set down there, cozy and comfy and she is loving it!  Ange is so easy to get along with and its so awesome to have a female 'roommate'!  It kind of lets Monte off the hook too.  He doesn't feel so responsible for leaving me alone a lot now.

We made a trip to Nanaimo yesterday.  And I am now a very proud owner of a new camera!  It is fantastic.  For those in the know it is a Canon DSLR, mirrorless, full frame with a lens that is 24 to 240.  It is fantastic!  So much so I took the wrist strap off Buster, my old D90 and switched it over.  I love it!  When I get some pics, which will be next post, I shall show you!  Mind you I still think old Buster did a pretty fine job.

I think I mentioned that back on April 19th the Rat Buster came and sealed up everything and set some traps.  For 450 bucks, outrageous, he was coming back once a week to clean out the traps and reset them for one month.  We haven't seen hide nor hair of him since.  I am pissed right off.  That is two visits he has missed so far.  So this afternoon I am going to call them, give 'em hell and either take care of the problem myself and get my money back, or extend the contract.  What the hell is wrong with the frigging people in this town.  They are so unprofessional and flakey.  I am mad!!!!  All in all I paid 750 bucks to him and he did less than half his job.  So far.

Ange has bought herself a humble camera and the three of us will be picture hunting.  She is familiar with more places around here we can go.  It is so much fun.  You round a corner out in the bush on a logging road and voila! there is a wonderful place to hop out and get pics.  Out of the three of us Monte has the real eye.  His pics are amazing. He mostly uses film and those pics just have a different feel and patina to them.

We stopped a Coombs yesterday.  Oh Geez!!!!  We never get out of there without a big box of goodies.  Four kinds of cheeses, four or five kinds of sausage or salami, baguette or focaccia, spanakopita, candied salmon, Riviera butter (which isn't the same as it used to be...so disappointing), ginger bread loaf (Ange)...crazy good stuff. I also bought a small packet of Monterey Jill cheese.  It was pretty good!

In Nanaimo at the mall where there is a London Drugs there is a grocery store called Fairway.  I didn't go in, mostly because I don't have even one inch of room in my pantry, or fridge or kitchen shelf, or my big red cabinet.  Seriously.  Zero room.  So I holler after Monte, 'Don't buy anything.  If you do you have to put it away.  And good luck with that!!'

He comes back with a bag.  It has about six or eight jars in it.  Three of them are crispy chilli oil, which we can't get here in Port of course.  I didn't even look at what the other stuff was.  And I see that they have been nicely set on top of the big red box that holds all my envelopes of flavourings like chilli, taco, mushroom soup mix etc...  Thanx Monte.  Now I can't get into my box.  That box sits on a red bench in the dining room beside my row of cook books.  There is simply no room left for anything!!!!!

Ah jeez.  I gotta go.  I hear my turrlet running.  I tell everyone to flush the turrlet gently or it runs.  But it seems that is a hard concept for people.  And we pay dearly for our water here.  Methinks I am going to have to make a sign and tape it to the John.  Mostly to remind them.  I guess the lid off the top of the toilet and leaning on the wall isn't enough of a clue.

AND ONCE AGAIN BLOGSPOT PUTS THE PICTURE IN THE WRONG PLACE.  LEELOO...DOESN'T REALLY LIKE WEARING COATS!!!

Well I shall be posting a little sooner next time.  Jeez when I see how many times I backspace, deleting typing mistakes, I think of typewriters and how we used to have to haul out the white out or the erase strips and slowly correct a typing error.  Now we just back space and retype.  We can be as sloppy and uncareful as we want these days!  Thats it for today.  Stay healthy and safe.  TTYL

THEY MATCH!

LOVE IT!!!!

SO SO TRUE