purple room vents: A NEW DOG!!!!

HAH!!! I bet you thought we got another dog!!! Hahahaha!!!!! We did NOT!!!! We have decided to be dog sitters for friends instead of owners. Like I did with Emma. But unless some dog unintentionally, on our part, wanders into our lives there will be no new dogs living here.

Nope, I am talking about hot dogs, only in this case my new dog is not a wiener. I now use cucumbers. We have a fantastic cucumber farm here in Port. It is called Rage's...you may see them in your local stores. They grow the Japanese style delicious amazing cucumbers!

I had some hot dog buns in the freezer. We are slowly but surely using up stuff in the freezer. But alas! I had no wieners. I then had the brilliant idea of using one of the cucumbers! They were the right shape and size!

I slathered on a whack of mayonnaise (it's low carb), salt (lots) and pepper (made it black) and popped in a cucumber. It was delicious!!!! Better than a wiener!!! Mmmmmm....next new try is going to be bbq'ed carrot. I will steam it first then bbq it. I shall add mustard and relish and onion to that one. I shall let you know how that turns out. I have to actually buy carrots first though.

On our last jaunt out we ended up in Parksville. It was lunch time and we ended up at a Ramen place for a bowl of amazing Ramen. Jeez that stuff is delicious. Afterwards we were just toodling around and ended up at French Creek, a really huge mid Island marina/store/seafood purveyor. I had read all about the seafood they sell, both fresh and frozen. So in we went.

Well 75 bucks later, with a bag of cod two ways, fresh salmon for smoking, stuffed sole for dinner and a pretty good idea of what will be on our list next visit, we had to skedaddle home to get the frozen stuff into the freezer. (that is exactly why we need to use all the stuff that is already crowding out any space in there). Monte made up the most interesting brine, very spicy and gingery, and threw in the salmon. He then fried up the fresh rock cod for our dinner. I did some wee potatoes in the air fryer and cooked up some beets and asparagus. Lovely dinner!

Yesterday he got the smoker going and popped in his very brined salmon filets. I cooked up the stuffed sole, wild rice, dill sauce and made a greek salad. Yet another stellar dinner!

Okay enough about food. This is not and never will be a food blog. I swear! LOL!!

I had a visit from Pat right around supper time last night. Poor Pat. He has been in the hospital with congestive heart failure. But he won't stay in there! He sneaks out and goes home. They have a fit because he has an eight thousand dollar monitor on him. He smokes pretty heavily and can't go too long without a smoke. He gets panic attacks if he can't smoke.

Anyway, last night he asked a favour that I just couldn't fulfill and I feel like crap about that. Pat has been a huge help to me over the years with Monte. If it hadn't been for him that year Monte was awol, I would maybe have become an unrecoverable basket case. I will eternally be grateful to him.

He needs an electric scooter. He is on disability but that doesn't run to covering the rent on hugely expensive equipment. And to rent them you need a credit card for the just in case scenarios of it going missing or getting damaged. And of course he doesn't have a card, and he asked if I would rent it using my card for him. And I just can't do that. If the scooter got stolen or damaged, there is no way would he financially be able to replace it and the cost would end up on my card. I just can't even take the chance of that. And I feel so bad I can't help him. He was desperate and was almost not even coherent and having trouble breathing. Ahhhh ugly all the way around. I just feel bad.

I just got off the phone with him. He has managed to borrow one from a friend of a friend. Thank goodness. He phoned me to not only tell me that, but to thank me for saying no yesterday, it ended up saving him a lot of money and he didn't want me to feel bad about it for even one moment. What a guy! He cares way more about others than he does for himself. He is also Port's harm reduction officer.

Well enough for today. No challenges today and no mention of the c word. Take care and try a cuke dog...they are pretty amazing! Take care TTYL

'Nobelist of all dogs is the hot dog; it feeds the hand that bites it.' Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter