purple room vents: BEAUTIFUL VANCOUVER

Vancouver IS beautiful, its just too full of cold unfriendly and sometimes snotty people. On just the drive over here to North Van from Tsawassen we encountered several pushy road ragers. But on the other hand the traffic congestion has risen to a level that would drive a saint to murder. It IS nice though to be back into a more diverse population. Victoria is so white bread.

Here is an example. We decided the other morning to head down to Victoria's public market. There aren't many over there. Here in Vancouver Metro each 'burb has its own version of a public market. Granville Island, Lonsdale Quay, New West Quay, Richmond Night Market. All of them are full of a rich array of different nationalities selling every conceivable food, produce and product.

The Victoria public market takes up a portion of the old Hudson Bay building's first floor. As we entered I noticed that there were no spicy yummy smells. No soapy smells, baking, cooking…nothing. We then walked along the middle to the end in less than five minutes, encountering maybe fifteen stalls. Very disappointing.

But we had planned to lunch there, so on that note we wandered back through scanning the few choices for a lunch. We finally decided on the Cow Bay seafood lunch counter. We ordered a large order of fried oysters to share (11 bucks), two cups of chowder and a diet coke….all came to 35 dollars.

When it arrived I was rather taken aback. There was a little rectangular dish with four odd looking deep fried balls. The little cups of soup looked good. Looked….but it had zero seasoning. What a way to wreck a good chowder! No seasoning at all. And the salt in the shaker was too big for the holes so I ended up taking off the lid and adding a fair amount…so did Spod and he never adds salt. But salt added after is NOT the same as salt added then cooked into the food. People don't get that. "Oh I didn't put any salt in…people can just add their own after" It ain't the same people. A good cook does NOT do that.

Anyway I ate most the soup but left some, wasn't enjoying it enough for the calories. And the oysters…it was like they had chopped them up, mixed them in batter…a lot of batter, then wrapped it in a wonton wrapper then deep fried it. So there was no oyster flavour, raw batter and a very crispy hard to bite shell..and there was only four..for eleven bucks. In the end I was glad there were only four. But the diet coke in the can was really really cold and delicious.

There weren't many people in the place and not one brown person. Everyone was quiet and polite and BORING!!!! Not going back any time soon I tell ya!!

I am sitting in a hotel room right now. Spod is having a biopsy done on a growth on his nose at the moment and April has just walked down from Myles's place. When Spod gets back we are going to meet Spod's buddies at the Rusty Gull for lunch. I shall report back!

Well now, that was a hoot! We finally got down there and the two guys were already there. It was so good to see them again. And its so much fun listening to them poking at each other. You can tell they all have been friends for a long time…they say perfectly awful stuff to each other and its so funny. Lunch was really good too. The food there is always good!(Hi Claire!! It was so good to see you and catch up on all the news today!)

Claire, bless him, keeps up with this blog. One of the first things he said to me today was "You haven't posted since Tuesday!" Every time I start thinking about either not blogging anymore (always a very very short thought cuz I enjoy it so much) or even stopping (god forbid) I remember the few people that do read this regularly and it keeps me going. I know how I feel when a blog I have been following for a long time shuts down. One time a blogger I was following didn't blog for a while, til we all were worried and leaving comments. Then suddenly there was a post, from her husband, she had died. Such a horrible shock.

Tonite we are meeting Arnie and Bradley for dinner. Myles and April are coming with us too. They picked a seafood place out in Horseshoe Bay. Oysters Rockafeller!!! I shall be one of those annoying diners taking pics of my food and I shall post it here. I see restauranteurs are complaining how people with their cell phones are causing their bottom dollar to decrease…by taking up more time at the table taking pics and doing whatever on their phones before they order, during the dinner and after. Suck it up!! I say. Its a changing time and thats just the way it is. So I will be one of those at dinner tonite and I don't care!

Well Spod ended up getting sick…again. His belly hurts and his nethers are keeping him busy…back and forth. I am making him go to a doctor Fri. morning. Our doctor is gone til Aug 7th and he needs help before then.

He stayed here and we changed our location plans to the pub below. So it was just Arnie, April and Myles. We had a wonderful time. Good food, good drinks and good visiting. And making plans. Aryn is coming over to Victoria tomorrow for a few days. We are going to make sausages. Hmmmm….not sure what kind. I have a meat grinder, which is a good start. On our way out of town tomorrow we are stopping at an exotic meat place to buy the 'casing'. I don't really know what its made of and don't really want to know! So I am off now. TTYL