LOOOOOOONG WEEKEND

It was a very very long weekend.  I wish I had paid more attention to the current rules.  I took the suggestion of staying home or local to heart and did just that.  Seeing what everybody else has done I should have done what I really wanted to do.  And that was for Monte and I to go to Tofino and see Graeme.  We have all had our shots and being outside there is easy.  Also, we could have hopped into the truck and gone to Uky and had lunch at the Blueberry Cafe.  That'll teach me!

 Restaurants open tomorrow, Monte and I are going to Smitty's to celebrate!  Turkey dinner here we come!!!  They make the best.  Let's hope the numbers don't go back up when restaurants open.  Since shutting them down and restricting travel, the numbers have really gone down!  Please Lord, let's hope they stay down!  I don't think the restauranteurs will be able to keep from exploding, (even though they have done fairly well with patios and takeout/delivery) if they have to shut down again.  And I am worried that Horgan will start handing out our money to them again.

Well I finally made the smoked cod chowder.  It turned out beautifully, at least according to Monte.  He loved it!!!  I didn't eat any of it.  I just don't like smoked stuff.

  In 1996 Bill and I and the little kids went to Maui.  We bought a can of smoked spam.  Now I quite like spam, done the right way.  And clearly to me, smoking spam is NOT the right way!! I haven't been able to stomach smoked anything, especially fake smoke, since.  In fact if you put a plate of smoked spam and a plate of rice pudding in front of me and on my life I had to eat one or the other, I would be dead. 

 The best way to eat spam is to coat it lightly with a little brown sugar and fry it without burning it.  It will caramelize and it is delicious!  Add a ring of fried (air fryer people, don't judge!) pineapple on top over a mound of rice.  If you pop a poached egg on top you have a Hawaiian breakfast!!

Well guess what?  I got a very polite, apologetic email from Joe, the patio guy.  He was asking me if I was still interested in having the patio done.  Heehee!  He said he hired two new guys so he would be able to fit my job in.  I answered YES immediately.  Now, I had put the money aside for the job but when I could see he wasn't coming and there was no one else in town to do it, I sent the money off elsewhere!  So now I have to collect up the money all over again!  Which I am more than happy to do.  I am so excited to get that patio out there and really happy with where the money was sent to! A win win!!

For some of you long long time readers you may remember how my extremely overstuffed garage in Langford drove me nuts.  When I moved I made sure that my garage in Kamloops did NOT fill up like that other one.  I could always park my little jeep in it.

Well I have a similar thing here that sits in the back of my brain, driving me nuts.  It's my spare bedroom.  It's a lovely steam punky type bedroom.  It is twice the size of the room I chose for my bedroom/purple room.  But it has become a storage room, a really messy, can't hardly open the door, storage room.  There isn't a lot of storage in this house so things get 'temporarily' put in that room and now it is lodged in the back of my brain.  It is awful.  It is going to take me yonks to get it cleaned up!!!  And the trouble is there is nowhere to move that stuff to.  Jeez!!!!

I just had a horrible shock.  Right after I typed that last thing I remembered that I planned on making a phone call to my old hairdresser in North Van.  Annie has been doing my hair since forever.  She is the only one that truly knows how, and is willing, to do a proper spiral.

So I called to make sure she is still working there and to let her know I will be getting her to do my hair in the middle of Juneish.  Only to be told that she had passed away!!!!!!  I was totally shocked!!!  She developed brain cancer and died.  She was only in her very early thirties and was a mom of two young kids, very young kids.  I am upset, she was a friend.  And the hairdresser I had before her, in the same place for a long long time, Elaine, had a brain aneurysm!  She didn't die but she was incapacitated. She was my age and she had a huge crush on Bill!  That was why I had switched from her to Annie.  So awful.  I hope I don't get attached to another hair dresser.

The challenges for this week:

35.  Buy a new travel item.  Now that kind of makes sense seeing as how we will be travelling again soon.  I think I will buy a 2022 cruise...that counts as a thing doesn't it?

36.  Donate to a charity.  Well I am going to count my patio money as that was not that long ago and that is what I actually did.  :)

That's it for today.  I am feeling kind of sad now so I am going to sign off and go find an appropriate quote for today.  Stay safe, noodle, talk to an oldster. TTYL

"Problems are inevitable.  Misery is a choice."

-Ann Landers. (again)

I NEED ANNIE