TODAY IT IS MEATLOAF DAY!!!!

ANGE AND I MADE THE TRADITIONAL TRAIN CAKE FOR THIS TIME OF THE YEAR.  WITH EASTER AND FOUR BIRTHDAYS, OVER THIRTY YEARS AGO OUR TWO FAMILIES AND FRIENDS WHO WERE NEARBY GOT TOGETHER AND MADE AN EASTER/BIRTHDAY CAKE.  SO THIS YEAR WHEN WE ARE SPREAD OUT SO FAR ANGE AND I DECIDED TO MAKE ONE FOR EVERYBODY AND SEND A PICTURE.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHY DOROTHY APRIL AND ANGE 

Today is Ange's birthday dinner (a few days late).  It is the middle of the night still and I have lists dancing through my head.  First thing this morning I am going to set the table.  Then finish unpacking the grocery delivery that came last night.  I took out the fridge stuff but forgot there were two bags of frozen raspberries in one of the bags.    Crap!!!!

I was going to mention the cookies Ange bought.  They are Dare's new Boston Cream Ultimate Doughnut flavour.  It's a sandwich cookie with one white and one brown cookie piece.  The inside is white icing.  She wanted my opinion of them. 

 So I took one out of the box, anticipating a Boston Cream doughnut flavour.....and even before it got to my mouth I could smell that it was no Boston cream.  And then I took one bite and within a few seconds spit it out into a tissue.  I'm not exaggerating here....It smelled and tasted just like a rat's nest.  They were just plain awful!!!  We made rude remarks then threw them away.

About ten minutes later I was in my chair and on my lappy and I could swear I could still smell that smell.  If you don't know what I am talking about, next time you get the opportunity, if someone actually finds a rat's nest and is destroying it, give it a snort.  Trust me, you will never forget that smell.  And that is what I kept smelling long after the box was disposed of and long gone.  Then as I picked up my coffee mug I noticed a weeny teeny piece of the cookie where I had set it had fallen off.  Minuscule!  And I could smell it from some distance.  That is how bad it was!!!  If you go on Amazon and look them up, both Ange and I left reviews you should read.  Hahaha!!!

Ange and I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon on a project.  There are four people with birthdays clustered in this couple of weeks.  Ange, niece Dorothy, daughter April and sister Kathy.  And they are spread out through the week.  So Ange and I decided to create a birthday surprise for them that they will find out what it is on April eighth either in an email or on Facebook or here.  We had so much fun planning and executing it.  Just in case they read this thing I can't say what it is.  But I promise on the eighth I shall make a quick post and reveal!

Well I am getting sleepy.  I took a strong gravol last night, time release and I feel the next layer kicking in.  Around eight last night Monte made his dinner.  It was based on some of the ground turkey we bought at Costco.  I cannot stand the smell of ground turkey cooking.  It actually makes me super sick to the stomach....and he bought a ten pound log of the pink slimy goo.  I just got sicker and sicker as it cooked til finally I took a gravol.  It barely worked but did make me sleepy so I went to sleep fairly quickly.  I still woke up at three though!!!

Well the birthday present is out of the bag a day early.  It's pretty much April's birthday today in Vietnam.  I am going to try to post the pic here.  All for now...TFL&TTYL

 

DINNER DONE!

 I always forget how tasty our family recipe for curried chicken is.  You take that first bite and it immediately takes me back to the beginnings of that recipe that my sister and mom invented a hundred years ago.

I have had to make a couple minor changes.  For one thing Lipton doesn't make dry mushroom soup mix anymore and that was what was used to make the roux that thickened the sauce.  And no matter what I did by the time I had browned the chicken, the flour dredge in the frying pan was too burnt to use. So I would brown the chicken, layer it in the pan with the onion rings and pepper rings and then make a proper roux with butter and flour (lots), add the curry and seasonings, use chicken broth and make a boatload of yummy sauce, and lastly add fistfuls of brown sugar til quite sweet but not overpoweringly so.  I would pour the sauce over it all and into the oven til all brown and bubbly.  So darn good.

I also made subjit with carrots peas and potatoes.  But I did find out something new.  I made an apple crumble (and absolutely no oatmeal in the crumble...it's a big shovel list for me).  I bought ten apple crisp and eight grannies.  So at six in the morning I was sitting in my chair watching Water Rats, peeling and peeling and peeling.  All went well with the apple crisps.  Then it was the grannies.

Now I do not know who that Granny Smith was but she invented a crap apple.  Not only is it not fun to just chomp down raw but they are impossible to peel easily.  Jeez!  Thanks Granny Smith, thanks a freaking bunch!

Anyway it all turned out super delicious and by end of day I was completely bagged, my back was beyond help and my neuropathic feet were swollen and screaming.  What a loser.  But I so totally enjoyed the whole day and the visiting was awesome.

  Bryce is so bright and interesting and a real sweetheart.  At one point Monte and Bryce were into a heavy animated discussion about something I can't even repeat here it was so far above my mental pay grade!  At one point I just started to laugh.  I mean seriously you should have heard them.  Two men with ridiculous IQ's discussing something I have never even heard of or read about.  It was funny.

Now on another note...an embarrassing one.  It's the fact that I can't listen to music I love, new to me or old, without crying.  I have tried so hard to learn to stop that.  I start trying by distracting myself, hum loudly along, deep breathing, but nope.  Tears just roll down my face.  Jeez!!!  (shovel list). I don't know if it's because I am super sentimental or whatever or if its just old people cry too easily shit.  I don't know but it is just really aggravating.  And it isn't just crying!  I feel it right through me to my toes.  It's like my insides melt into pieces.  So painfully annoying and embarrassing.

But it isn't just music.  It is also tv.  I remember years ago watching Judging Amy with Tyne Daley.  She is one of my fave actresses.  But in the show if she started crying I would unbiddingly start crying right along with her.  I remember when a sad scene was coming to a head with her in it, I would start saying don't cry don't cry and sure as crap she would start crying...and so would I.  Dammit!!!

But now?  I start crying at any sad scene or anyone crying.  And boy! if they are playing a sad sad haunting song at the same time I almost collapse.  What the hell is that?

So now it is time to turn my attention to the next dinner.  Ange's birthday dinner is going to be her favourite, her choice, meatloaf.  On the sixth her friend Randi is coming over and we are going to have a birthday dinner.  I really like Randi. She is a lot of fun.

Next post I will tell you about the new cookies Ange bought.  There is a reason for telling this one!!!!

That is it for today.  I am going to try really hard to post a wee bit more often.  But only if I have something to report.  Have a great few days and TFL&TTYL

THEY WERE SO CUTE

I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE

MY ARM AND SHOULDER SEIZED UP

YOU'D THINK I WAS BUSY...I'M NOT!!!

    ONE OF MY MOST FAVOURITE PEOPLE...SHE WILL BE HUGELY MISSED BY EVERY ONE WHO WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO KNOW HER.  KERRY'S SISTER WENDY

 You would think I was too busy with life to take time to post a post.  Well I am not.  I think as my retirement continues my brain is atrophying.  When I talk to my contemporaries they are all busy with grandchildren and hobbies and people.  That's three things that are NOT in my life.  No grandchildren, no hobbies and no people.  But....that being said....

It is Ange's birthday tomorrow so next week she is having a friend over and I shall make dinner.  The request was for meatloaf...Ange's fave!!  And I love making it.  

Then on Sunday we invited Monte's friend Bryce over for a dinner.  We are buying a three boner prime rib and I shall make Yorkies and a boatload of gravy.

  He is the most interesting person.  He makes mead (from fireweed), flavoured vinegars, sauerkraut...no kombucha thank goodness.  He also does briskets and I am the grateful receiver of the trimmed off pure fat.  He is a most fascinating character!

I heard from April today.  They are in VietNam now.  They spent three days in Thailand on the beach and met up with a couple they will be continuing the trip with.  April is sicker than a dog.  That poor kid can't get a break.  She is also terrified to eat over there.  She keeps her epi pen right handy just in case.  I guess one of the letters on her passport looks like a number and by the time the security people figured it out they missed their plane.  They are in Saigon and have had to get a hotel for the night and they fly on tomorrow.  

When she told me they were in Saigon a shiver ran through me.  Hangover from the Vietnam war which still horrifies me all these years later.  Anyway they are spending the night in a Holiday Inn and travelling on tomorrow...meeting up with their friends.  Can you imagine the hassle that would have been before cell phones?

It's time to clean my house.  It's a mess and I have no one to blame but myself.  The dining room table is piled high again.  I am so sick and tired of cleaning that effing thing off.  I think when dinners are over next week I am going to upend the dam thing, take the legs off and get Monte to help me move it to tinny.  Eventually when we have manpower around it is going to Monte's office.  It is just too big and messy in here.  I think I am going to go back to a small round table and four chairs.  If there are five of us to dinner...one of us has to sit on the couch in the living room to eat.

So, speaking of that, I shall get off my butt and go clean said table.  I have no idea where all the oven stuff is going to go.  I store four frying pans and a dutch oven in the stove oven.  I need the oven on Sunday to make dinner.  Dang it.  Where's my junk dude!!!!

Gotta bounce!!!  TFL&TTYL

I DIDN'T DIE...FELT LIKE IT...BUT I DIDN'T

 Finally!!!  I was sick for 12 days with a few lingery days at the end.  My throat is sore from super heavy duty coughing.  Jeez Louise!!!  I was trying to remember the last time I was really sick and I couldn't. Oh piddlyass things and I did have an uncomfortable covid for two days.  A very mild case...thank you vaccines.  But really sick for days and days?  I honestly don't remember.

I haven't been out of the house even once since getting home.  It is buck*uck ugly out there.  Rain snow wind...nope.  Not going out in that!

I made a recipe, a follow along recipe the other day.  It was pounded out chicken breasts, something I never ever buy...never have ever bought a breast.  I don't like chicken much to begin with but breasts?  Why?  Tasteless dense chewy meat.  I feel the same about pork loin.  Have never bought it.

I used a cast iron frying pan.  Best casserole dish ever...no matter what you are making.  First layer went down..seasoned chicken.  Second layer was equal parts cream of chicken soup and sour cream...only I used mushroom soup plus poultry seasoning.  Thick layer.  Third layer was a couple of boxes of stuffing with lots of butter and chicken broth.  I packed that on top and into a 375 oven for an hour or more.  I wanted the top crunchy.

  What I appreciated about this recipe was zero canned tomato of any kind and zero freaking cheese.  I like cheese just fine but holy moly when you read recipes online the vast majority  are either Mexican or buried in cheese. This one smelled delicious!!!

Ange:  ate it but didn't say much about it.  I don't think my cooking is totally to her liking.  She doesn't eat fat.  To me fat is where the max flavour is...any type of fat.  Poor thing..fat doesn't agree with her digestive system.

Monte:  Absolutely totally loved it.  He usually just eats and says thanks.  This time he immediately made yum noises then actually out loud told me how much he loved it.  I had put the extra one in the fridge and I saw the next morning it was gone!

Me:  hated it.  OMG!!!  I could only take two bites.  I hate chicken breast and I don't think I like sour cream in mixed dishes.  I will make it for Monte...maybe.

Now I am on the hunt for a new dish to make.  I want one with no tomato, no cheese, no pasta, very little starch, no sour cream and doesn't look like a dog's breakfast on a plate.  Sigh!  (shovel list). The possibilities are getting slimmer and slimmer.  In the meantime I shall just stick to my raw wieners, sliced up tomatoes in homemade mayo or thousand islands.

Well I think today is the day I get ou1t of the house. The sun is actually shining out there! Monte is sleeping at the moment and probably will be for a while yet.  He was awake most the night.  But when he gets up I will get him to drive me down to the bank.  The reason why I'm going will maybe be mentioned some other time.  Makes me tired thinking about the why.  It is a massive (shovel list). 

I think I am getting tired of running the whole show here without help from Bill.  Car insurance, property tax, income tax, busted kitchen sink, broken florescent light fixture in kitchen, filthy needs paint walls, front door lock not working (it locks just difficult and dead battery), dishwasher in desperate need of deep cleaning by expert, I also desperately need double pained windows, house insurance is due and it is outrageously expensive due to wild fire hazard in Port, hot water tank needs replacing,  microwave door broke, van isn't running, a mystery pool of water shows up in the middle of the downstairs bathroom now and then,  deck needs massive repairs and work.....etc.  I wish I was a renter or still married to a handyman!  I am not really fully enjoying widowhood or retirement. lol!!!  Other than just selling this house and moving I am not sure how to solve all that.

Well time to put some green on and clean the mile high pile of crap on the dining room table.  Thank goodness the kitchen is clean!!!!

Sorry for whining.  TFL&TTYL

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN JIGGITY JIG

 Home and sicker than a dog.  Wowza I haven't been sick like this in years.  This is way worse than the two days I had covid.  Coughing like a banshee..good thing my tonsils are gone...they would be stuck to my front room window by now...launched from my trusty dusty worn out chair.  And there is soooo much to do here and I can't move.  Whine.....

I spent two nights in the hotel with Mr. Man.  He was busy visiting his friend and going to Anton's for dinner...only the most amazing pasta palace.  I honestly do not remember what I did in that room....I got sick and I think my brain left to go elsewhere in a happier place.

Yesterday we left and drove straight home.  Although I will admit to dragging my sorry ass out of the car on the ferry and went up and got a bowl of their clam chowder, the most addictive stuff ever.  Then I skedaddled back down to the car to cough my lungs up in peace.  I hold my eyes in with my fingers when I super cough like that and I try not to do that part in public.  

Thats it.  All I got.  I can't think.  I shall catch up later when my legs are straighter, as my Billy used to  ALWAYS say.  TFL&TTYL

THE GANG ALL WAITING FOR A SUNSET 

I AM JUST PROVING I AM THE WORST SELFIE TAKER EVER

WE WENT FOR A WALK DOWN AT THE WATERFRONT

PARTY IN THE FRONT....NOT SO MUCH IN THE BACK

I GOT TO CUDDLE MY GREAT NEPHEW!!  

SMOOTH SAILING

The trip home was amazing for me...thanks to my incredible sister.  She had arranged on her phone a day or two before for a wheelchair to meet us as soon as we were about to line up for baggage check and then again in Calgary.

Now I will admit it was somewhat humbling.  That was the first time I had to admit to not being up to normal walking.  And after blowing out my knee one year on a cruise, Bill had to push me around Singapore in a rickety noisy wheelchair and it wore him out.  I was worried about poor Kathy pushing big old me through ridiculously loooong airports.  She kept saying she was fine but if pushing me could tax a huge tough man I knew that pushing me wasn't easy.  

At one point we came across a fairly long uphill ramp.  I was about to hop out and walk up, no way would she be able to push me up that hill, when a lovely looking pilot came along and told her to drag his luggage up the ramp and he would push me.  Which he did!!!  During this whole experience I was overwhelmed by the kindness of people.

We landed in a very snowy Calgary.  It was nine at night.  In the end we spent longer sitting around on a traffic jammed airport tarmac than we were in the air flying to Kamloops.  But we finally got to the Kamloops Airport by around three in the morning.  And there was Kerry, a very welcome sight, all ready to take us home.

I want to mention Jackie here.  She was one of the ladies on the trip.  Her dad and Bill signed up for the RCMP at the same time.  And way back when her dad was a teen they moved right beside my mom's parents in Kelowna.  What a coincidence!

The reason I mention her is she is the one that had the kutzpa to go to the lobby about the lack of decent stairs in the pool.  And down below I have put a picture to show what her smarts caused!!!  We were all so very proud of her!!!

I had one day at Kathy's before catching the bus to Vancouver.  I called Anne and made arrangements for her to pick me up.  She invited me to a lunch across town.  It was in the back of a thrift shop, run by a Catholic Church.  I am not sure if it's everyday or not but they serve seniors a free lunch made by a variety of people from the congregation.  And it being the first weekend lunch or something it was borscht and perogie day!!!  Now this is not something I would normally feel comfortable just showing up at but she was really wanting me to meet some of the people there.  So I agreed.

Well let me tell ya, it was fantastic.  Homemade pirogies and sour cream and the best borscht I have ever had.  And there were lots of seniors there.  I got talking to one lady across from me only to find out we went to Norkam together and knew all the same people.  What a head psyche that was!!!   She filled me in on how many and who are dead.  Yikes.  I feel a bit lucky to be alive. Overall what an awesome experience it was.  I am so glad I did the trip and did the lunch.  

I think over the last seven years since moving to Port I have become people and experience shy.  No one visits me on the island (I don't blame them) and I have lost interest in making friends.  I think I will revisit joining the senior club in Port.  They have about 65 different things I can join.  

Well this is getting long and a little diary ish.  Til next post TFL&TTYL

WHILST IN THE THRIFT SHOP I CAME ACROSS THIS GEM.  I WOULD GIVE MY RIGHT YOU KNOW WHAT TO HAVE THESE IN MY LIVING ROOM AT HOME.  WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

JUST A LITTLE NACHOS WHILE WAITING FOR THE SHUTTLE TO THE AIRPORT

THERE SHE IS!!!  JACKIE, STANDING ON THE VERY STAIRS SHE TOLD THEM THEY NEEDED.  HOW POWERFUL IS THAT????!!!!

 

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A COMPLAINT

 I am dead serious. This is NOT a complaint.  I am about to point out all the ridiculous anomalies of this four and a half star resort.  Everything, and I mean everything, is just a little off.  It's like they put together a great idea that slid just a bit as it was completed.  But without a doubt this has been by far the most interesting!!!

I am sitting right now at a small pedestal type table outside of their coffee shop.  I have to keep a foot on one of the feet to keep the table from seriously wobbling every time I press a laptop key.  I tested each table before sitting and they all wobbled..some much worse than the one I chose. 

 On one of the tables is a public use jenga game.  Seriously.  It isn't possible to play jenga on a wobbly table.

Most of the hard chairs for sitting, whether at a restaurant venue or at these tables are supremely uncomfortable because they are missing most of their backs.  It is possible they are designed to keep us moving but jeez...we need some time to gorf down our food or finish our Nine hole Golf game or crib game.

All over the resort property there are stairs and ramps and without notice..different levels of floors.  The level changes are very small and not noticeable from five to six feet above.  Suddenly you are a couple inches lower or higher.  Very off putting.  And the stairs down to the small crowded beach are old rickety wooden ones that are totally uneven.  Other cement stairs here don't have railings..not good for some of us tippy or drinky people!

And speaking of stairs, the one pool for the three nine story buildings has a wee set of stairs attached to the wall of the pool and are very very hurtfully narrow.  Painful!!!  And if statistics are correct sixty percent of us have diabetes of some sort.  This means we have very neuropathic feet...again, painful!!! 

 One of our crew who shall remain nameless, bless her, had the ovaries to go to the lobby and give them what for and told them they need to put proper stairs in and out of the pool!!!  I was so very impressed with her!!!  In fact we have made suggestions to her about other things she should go to the lobby about!!!

The beds...oh the beds.  They are big and very comfy.  The bedding fresh, beautifully white.  The pillows are plentiful  various sizes for our comfort.  These lovely beds are placed on large sticky outy wooden platforms.  I now have a gouged leg and so does Kathy from rounding the corners of those beds and taking  chunks out of our shins.  The last time I did it, and of course at exactly the same spot it had already happened once or twice, I swore like a seasoned sailor and proceeded to walk over every inch of the room, bleeding the whole way then climbed into that pristine white bed.  And it's clear that due to our age in that room it wasn't.....well you know.  It was from an injury dammit!!!

The food is all Mexican...which is lovely.  But after a while it becomes monotonous.  Every meal is basically the same stuff.  But...their soups are unbelievably delicious.  Nothing even slightly off about them!!!  The salsas are also great except you can't tell if they are perfect or blistering hot.  You have to ask and sometimes they don't even know. 

 Today at lunch I asked a lovely Mexican waiter which of the ten bowls of rainbow coloured salsa was safe to eat.  He didn't know.  So he took each spoon and dropped a glob on the palm of his hand and licked it up!!!  hahahaha!!!!  He eventually found the right ones.  That is definitely taking one for the team!!  Then he told me he didn't like hot ones!!!!

This morning I came down for breakfast and there was a line up out the door.  I went past it to the girl signing everyone in and she said it would be a half hour wait.  Now so far we have been able to get a table but honestly I wasn't surprised.  That buffet dining room is so small..at least small for three nine story buildings.  I was mad.  Half an hour later it was not so busy but still....just a little off.

Lastly, well there is more but you get the drift.  I left the bedroom this morning and guess what?  The elevator isn't working.  Sigh.  I can walk down from the fifth floor but I am not sure my fat ass would make it back up before our stay here is over.  I found a person that works here and she got someone who finally fixed one of them.  Always just a little something...keeps it interesting!!!

One last word...one more thing.  This one is not a little off.  This one is perfection.  And that is the employees here.  Whether it's the restaurant staff or the cleaning crews or the bartenders....the men and women who work here are absolutely amazing incredible people.  They are so attentive, friendly, kind, no judging people.  I love them.  It is amazing how you can make friends with them so quickly and so memorable.  I will remember Filipe from the dining room forever.

Next I will write about the seven people I am here with.  Hahahaha!!!  Just kidding!!!  I would never do that.  Let it suffice for me to say that this is an amazing awesome group to be friends with.  I don't feel worthy.  TFL&TTYL

AWKWARD POOL AREA

WHERE I WAS SITTING OUTSIDE THE CAFE BLOGGING THIS POST

NOTE THERE IS NO USA FLAG!!!!

JUST A WEE BIT OF  PIXELATED EYE CANDY

RAMPS AND STAIRS AND RAMPS AND STAIRS

A LOVELY ECHOY LOBBY

ANOTHER LOBBY, STORE AND BAR.COFFEE SHOP AT THE FAR END.

OUT THE LOBBY WINDOW

NO, THAT IS NOT MARSHMALLOW SALAD IT IS TONS OF DELICIOUS CIVICHE

SO WHO LOST AND WHO IS GLOATING AND WHO DOESN'T CARE AND WHO IS THAT???

DRINKING AT THE BEACH FROM FAT LADY CUPS