OH! THE SMELLS

 The smells of spring coming in the window behind my head, and the noises, are almost euphoric.  Freshly mown grass, birds chirping and singing, robins squawking, lawn mowers mowing, the faint smell of lawn mower gas, children playing outside, neighbours chatting and laughing......so wonderful!

We went to Tofino yesterday to visit Graeme.  Half the road is fantastic and beautiful and half is pretty tough driving.  It is very very curvy and a slow toss aroundish.  Plus the traffic is only let through once an hour where they are still trying to fix the giant land slide that happened over two years ago.  I have been going to Tofino for almost three years now and we have been held up every time, coming and going.  We waited almost an hour each way yesterday.  But we sat back, relaxed, didn't sweat it and listened to awesome music.

We drove to Ukey while we were there. After picking up Toony we drove into Tofino to find a spot to have a meal.  You know, I hate Tofino.  Its like a mini overcrowded  Whistler...which I intensely dislike as well.  No one is over twenty, physically or mentally.  They all are super privileged, have too much money and are white.  There was not one person of colour there.  They all wear goochie toques, overpriced hiking boots, long flowy scarves, no masks and would be carrying ten dollar coffees, but there is absolutely nowhere to get one.  If there was it would be closed. And sometimes you would see them sitting on an overcrowded patio drinking booch.  And there was nowhere to eat, and if there was there would be nowhere to park.  Stupid town. 

 It isn't even pretty.  You can't see the ocean in Tofino.  At least in Whistler you can look up and beyond the sea of spoiled brats and take in the mountains.  So we drove the half hour to Uclulet, can't spell it sorry.  Thats why I call it Ukey.

I love Ukey.  Back in the day we occasionally would hop into our boat in our place in Bamfield  and cross the Broken Island group and go to Ukey for lunch at the Blue Crab cafe.  It would take about an hour at least and about 200 bucks in gas and that was in the late nineties.

Yesterday we found a little place with room on the patio and lots of parking and full of normal people, even some old ones!  The boys did drink kamboucha, or booch as we call it.   They had hot dogs and I had smoked salmon sliders.  Yum.

On the way back we stopped at a place recommended to us by a strange lady that was sitting on the dock to the Zed hotel while we waited for Graeme.  I can't even describe the place she recommended.  It is a boardwalk through a strange twisty tree bog.  I shall put pics below.

Well Ange has hired someone to move her in on the 29th.  Actually it is Stu, my handyman and his sidekick.  We are pretty excited about this!!!  It is going to be really nice to have a woman in the house.  This will be the first time in many many many years I haven't lived in an all male house.  April was the last one and even then there were two or three men in the house to her one.  I can't wait.  In a way I really envy Ange.  To have one big room that held everything I owned and kitchen and bathroom elsewhere...someone else's problem.  So simple and perfect.

Well thats it folks.  Have a lovely day, lovely spring and stay safe.  TTYL

'An arrogant mind lives in it's own little reality where it is entitled to everything.' VKBoy

STILL WORKING ON IT

THE BOYS

LONG LONG WAITS

ON THE WAY TO THE ZED DOCK

THE BOG  BOARDWALK THROUGH TWISTY TREES 

IT LOOKS LIKE HIS EYE FELL OUT ONTO THE GROUND

COVID! YES? NO? MAYBE? NOT!!!!!!

 Firstly, I apologize for the husband I mistakenly gave you Sherri!!! I took a good second look and he isn't even close to Michael.  I way prefer YOUR husband!!! And Monte has decided to try his hand at;kombucha and I was telling him about that moonshine with the ginseng in it! I did have a wee cup of it....bleh!!!!! I think it was their version of kombucha.  It was def tea based!

It has been a pretty good week.  Turkey dinner turned out great and pretty easy.  Prepping the day before, or two days before in my case, sure made it easier.  Trouble is I have never been able to eat right immediately after all the cooking.  I just can't.  So I sat with Monte and Ange, dished it up onto my plate, pushed the food around, and after about an hour when we were in the living room I went and grabbed my dinner and totally enjoyed it.  What a tool.

Monte, through his entire life, becomes obsessed with things..for periods of time.  When he was young it was lightening, then weather in general, then the Nazis history, etc....As an adult I can give you two examples...fountain or cartridge pens.  Holy Hannah!!!  I don't know how many he has now and all types of ink.  And then after a month or two, boink! it stops.  He still loves them but the obsession is over!

Then recently he had a shorter obsession with Casio watches.  Jeez, he spent hours watching YouTube videos of specialists reviewing and talking about them.  He bought two for himself and one for me.  And mine has an alarm we can't turn off.  It goes off every single morning at 6:00 am.  Yup.  Fortunately they are not expensive at all.  They are in the twenty dollar range.  One thing I can say though is that by the time his obsessions are over he truly knows every possible single thing about the subject.  Everything! 

And currently, and this one is an old one he's revisiting, are film cameras and photography in general.  He took photography at high school and then again in college.  I have a feeling this one will last, like his music has.

So, that being said he has dragged me, willingly!, to some pretty interesting places for picture taking.  The latest one was up a steep hilly road to where the cell tower for the Coombs/Errington area is.  OMG!!!  The subsequent canyon off the edge of the cliff was as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Now I am not generally afraid of heights.  Reasonable heights.  This canyon and the Grand Canyon are NOT reasonable heights.  And I suffer from horrible vertigo.  I have actually fallen into lakes etc...because of vertigo.  And I don't like to blame it, but it could be part of the cause of my always falling at inappropriate places and times.

And there is one thing that definitely makes the scary experience way way way worse and that is to have one of my kids there.  I don't care if they are two or twenty or fifty years old.  I just get a panic dead weight in my gut and start to shake.

So I get out of the van with Mr. Man and hike up the remaining hill to the top and holy jeez!!!!!!  I almost fainted.  I think I would have been okay staying away from the edge etc...if Monte hadn't been there.  I snapped a few pics then I had to go back down to the van.  I just couldn't stay there.  God!  What a weenie!!!  I will put my three or four pics at the bottom of this.

At turkey dinner, as we sat down, Monte mentioned that he had a terrible headache.  A really really bad one.  I suggested he use one of our test thingies and test for covid.  He did and it came back positive!!!!  My immediate feeling was relief. Finally we could just get it over with and stop frigging hiding from the elusive killing monster that was so disrupting our life.  But a few minutes later he said it went to negative.  So he slowly and carefully did a second test and it was definitely negative.  So back to dodging and ducking the viral monster.  We are just having to adjust to a new way of living.  It certainly cured us of shopping trips!  Not that I was much of a shopper before covid.

Well it is now afternoon.  Monte will be up soon and dragging me, again willingly, out the door.  He has somewhere new he wants to show me.  His friend he has reconnected with, Bryce, has lived here all his life and knows all the interesting awesome hidyholes and shows them to Monte.  I have hauled out Buster, my old old Nikon D90 and dusted it off.  That old camera has been around the world more than once with me.  I have to smack the lens now and then to get it to work, but it always does.  I need a new camera and I know what I am going to get.  More on that next time.

No food chat today.  Aren't you lucky???!!!!!  Take care, stay healthy and TTYL

'The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.'  Susan Sontag...on photography

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS STUPID BLOGSPOT DOESN'T PUT THE PICS ON IN ORDER.  HOW HARD CAN IT BE FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!!!

THAT IS AS CLOSE AS I WOULD GET

EGADS!  I CAN HARDLY EVEN LOOK AT THE PIC!

AND THEN THERE IS A VERY MISPLACED PIC.  SLEEPING BARRELS.  I ALMOST DIED LAUGHING WHEN I SAW THESE.

LEAVING NOW....SO FREAKING SCARY

MADRONAS, OR ARBUTUS TREES.  I WISH PICS SHOWED THEIR AMAZING COLOUR

THIS AMAZING RAINBOW MET US WHEN WE GOT HOME

THIS WAS MY FAVE SHOT OF THE DAY

WHAT THE HELL?

 Today is turkey day in our house, or at least it is supposed to be.  I woke up this morning absolutely feeling awful.  Not covid awful, just tummy awful.  I have actually had to take gravol.  My stupid stomach has shanghaied my favourite kind of day.

I did all the planning, the shopping and yesterday I made candied yams to reheat today, I made a wonderful strawberry trifle, I made four loaves worth of stuffing all ready for the thawed turkey. I even set the table.  Ange was all ready to come over this afternoon and I can't even think about food.  Writing about the prep was making me gag.  FUCKADOODLE!!!!  Not happy. I know this will be gone by tomorrow so the whole thing has been postponed til then.  Ange was actually kind of relieved.

She is packing up stuff to bring over when we pick her up.  She said she was glad to have an extra day cuz she isn't quite ready.  Plus its raining.  So tomorrow it is.  Monte is asleep.  He doesn't even know yet.

Well I do believe the gravol has kicked in.  I am tired and woozy right now but at least my stomach feels 100% better thank God!  I hate nausea.  It's worse than pain, I say til I am in pain!

Stay safe, survive covid if you get it, and be happy!  TTYL. (random pics today.  I am just going to spin the wheel and post where it stops!). TTYL

'Some days there won't be a song in your heart.  Sing anyway.'  Emory Austin

ME HOLDING 8 MTH OLD KEVIN

HOEGAARDEN. MMMMMMM

MR. HAPPY

COOKIE AND ME...A BAD SELFIE

IN CHINA....A HOME VISIT.  THAT LOVELY LADY IN THE STRIPED SHIRT IS SHARRI...OUR WONDERFUL CRUISE FRIEND AND HER HUSBAND.

HORROR HOARDERS

Everyone is familiar with that hoarder show on TLC.  I actually gag when I watch that show and I am not a gagger like someone I know....you know who you are!!!!  There are different types of hoarders I have learned.  There are animal hoarders, garbage hoarders, memory hoarders, people hoarders (you know, those people that can't go anywhere without befriending every two legged creature within sight and inviting them home for dinner), lazy people posing as OCD hoarders etc....  But I think they missed labelling one.   And I admit that I am one. They need a category called 'Horror Hoarders'!  Those are the ones that don't realize they are hoarding something but when they do see it, they are horrified!

I decided to reorganize my cabinet in my room that holds the majority of my clothing.  And, unable to help myself I counted my shirts.  I have 43 shirts, so far anyway.  There are probably some missing from the count.  Forty Three!!!!  I couldn't believe it!!!  And I don't think I have thrown even one out since our house burnt down, even the torn or stained ones. The house burnt down in 2003.  Holy Hannah!!!!

So I sat down on the bed and gave myself some time to ponder this crazy affliction.  Why?  Why do I have so many shirts? And thats just t-shirt types, not even my blouses.  I have a lot of those too.  And I did figure it out.

I am not OCD.  I am fat.  Yup.  That is exactly why.  When a fat broad gets a shirt that fits, you hang on to it way past it's due date.  And I think it may have something to do with that fire taking away every piece of clothing I had built up over the years.  I remember panicking.  I had one outfit, the one I had on....jeans and a t-shirt...which I still have by the way.

Today I decided to sort, chuck, repurpose and keep my shirt hoard.  And I did not chuck or repurpose even one shirt.  I kept every single one.  I just can't throw them out.  I can't.  I have a much deeper (unwanted) understanding of hoarders now.  I guess if the nazi's were coming with guns aimed at me with orders to shoot if I didn't eliminate half my shirts, I would eliminate half my shirts, but I would be totally pissed off.  I would rather eat a bowl of rice pudding, that is my default comparison. My stomach slams shut if I even try to swallow a spoonful.  I simply hate beyond hate rice pudding so its saying something if I say I would rather eat it than throw out shirts in the face of a hoard of gun toting scary men.

There is actually one more item I hoard I will admit. I hoard books.  And I call it hoarding when it reaches the point where I have so many more books than I can read in the next ten years, the life I have left.  But no one would ever know I hoard them.  Know why?  They are all somewhere where no one will ever see them....on my kindle!  So that doesn't count as hoarding..right?  I cannot resist a book that looks good and is right up my ally.  And I read on average three to four books per week.  I counted it out and unless I read an extra book every day, I will not be able to  read every book on my computer.  Thank goodness most of them were either free or under 2 bucks.

As the long time readers of this thing know, I have no problem throwing things out.  In fact I love it.  But when it comes to clothes that fit me, or deleting books, nope.  Can't do it and won't do it.  So please do me a favour, I may love you to pieces but don't ask for the shirt off my back.  You won't get it.  Stay safe be happy!!  TTYL

'Some are saving their right now for later, when tomorrow could be never.'  Justin K McFarlane Beau

Maui memory....Myles and find April!

Myles, April, Cookie and Spod (Billy)

GODOT hole

the King of the house

ON THE MOVE AGAIN

 Okay, not really on the move again.  But I am tempted, but I think four full moves in almost as many years is enough.  But.....the rats!  I am learning way more about rats than I ever really wanted to.

I am now hearing from neighbours and the Orkin Man of PA, there is a rat problem in this village and not only that, QF, the grocery store we live three doors down from has the biggest rat problem of all the stores in town.  Those suckers are everywhere.

Monte is getting his van back on the road.  Canadian tire had to give him a new battery due to a warranty and a shoddy battery draining fix that was done by them eight months ago.  I told him I was positive it was the alternator but apparently the mechanic at CT didn't think so. Three times!  This is the third battery. And the alternator suggestion was rejected three times.  Well guess what???  He was WRONG!!!!!

There is a mobile mechanic with a stellar reputation in town and Monte knows one of the guys fairly well.  So Monte gave him a call and they arrived today in their big mobile shop truck.  And when they checked out what was draining the battery and wrecking it, its was the alternator!!!!!!  I wanted to go with Monte to get the new battery and say a big I told you so!!!

But, when they got into the van to check it out, start it etc...they discovered that the rats had invaded the inside of his van.  OMG!!!!!  They pissed everywhere and tore junk up!!!  What the hell!!????  So these guys also have a friend with a detailing company so the van was driven off until tomorrow to detail and shampoo it.  I hate those effing critters!!!!

We talked with the exterminator today and he is coming tomorrow to take a look at things and to give us these little packets of some sort for both vehicles. I guess rats utterly hate those things and won't go near them.  So we shall be strategically placing them in the recommended spots in our van and truck.  And he will be letting us know what we can do with the sheds etc...Apparently its really good to have those cats hanging around.  He said if they weren't the problem would be a whole lot worse.  Thank god they aren't in the house!

Well no food talk today.  To soon after rat talk.  Take care people, be glad you don't live in PA!!! or near a grocery store.  TTYL

'RATS.  In sewers.  In religion.  In words like pirate, desperate and narrative. Rats infest this glossary as surely as words and mushrooms.'  Jeff Vandermere

HEY THERE MARG!!!

 Okay clearly we are on the same page Marg!!!  Monte and I have quit going into stores or meeting strangers too.  Trouble is Monte does run into new people over at Bryce's where he goes a lot.  And he has to go into Animal Ark to get rats for his snake.  And the new gal moving in to the rooms downstairs doesn't wear a mask in public.  So I think it is inevitable we will get covid sooner or later.  I have cleaned out the three sheds (well Graeme basically did) and cleaned out my junk drawers so the kids don't have to should I kick the bucket.  Figured it was only fair to them!

Monte brought Bryce home for dinner unexpectedly. Fortunately I had a roast in the oven, thawed a bag of my gravy, made splendiferous yorkies, skipped the potatoes and made a massive amount of green beans.  Delicious!!!  The only thing missing was my birthday present from my sister.  I am all out.  She always gives me a box of her home done pickled beets with a promise of a year's supply.  Unfortunately she lives in Kamloops.  Kind of hard to replenish! But the upside is that when there ARE pickles available, they steal the show.  It wouldn't matter how amazing my yorkies and gravy are, all the guests rave about are the pickles.  They really are that good!!! So when I don't have any, all they rave about is my gravy.  So there!

So the other day Mont and I decided to go picture hunting.  We drove over to Qualicum and headed up Island.  We stopped at a wonderful roadside cafe on the ocean for lunch.  One problem with that, I forgot to put my teeth in.  Jeez!!!!!  I have zero upper front teeth.  I do have a couple of teeth on the sides and no teeth down below except four front ones.  So I can eat but downright messily.

I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a tomato rice soup.  Neither were very good.  In fact I think half the sandwich is still sitting in the back of the truck. But I don't have too much trouble eating soup and sandwiches with no teeth, it was the pickle.  There was a long fat slice of dill pickle on the plate.  I picked it up and went to take a bite, forgetting that pickles cannot be gummed.  So then I slid it to the side of my mouth to get my one upper snaggle tooth into it to break a piece off.  Lets just say that by the time I was done there was pickle juice and slobber cascading down my chin and dripping onto my shirt. Poor Monte.  He was rightfully disgusted.

I am currently sitting in my bed, posting.  I have a bowl of left over cold cooked green beans with chunky salt on them on one side and a hot cup of coffee on the other.  I absolutely love cold cooked green beans and chunky salt.  Its better than fries!  Breakfast of champions!

We have been getting out every day looking for places to take pictures and go for walks.  I think we are going out to the fish ladders on the river today.  Its a nice little walk from the parking lot and its glorious sunshine out.  I think I will make a thermos of strong black coffee to take and maybe a roast beef sammich with horseradish and make a picnic of it.  I def will have to remember my teeth for that!

I decided I was going to absolutely keep the main part of the house clean, completely clean until Milly comes two weeks from Thursday.  I denude the kitchen counters as much as possible, wipe up little spills on the kitchen floor right away, nag the heck out of Monte to keep the table clean, nag Monte to keep the coffee table cleared off, nag Monte to keep the stairs clean etc.  And do the dishes and kitchen completely every single night.

Now I know that most of you already do that.  I have my friend Cookie and my sister Kathy in mind.  Their places are spotless every night when they go to bed.  Simply put, mine never is unless it's a Milly day.  And so far, it is now day three I have succeeded!  It feels so good!  I love getting up in the morning the place is pretty and clean.  I don't know how long I will be able to keep this up but I shall give it the old army try!

Speaking of clearing things up, I finally found someone to take out the three horrible ugly bushes out front of the house.  I hated them with a passion.  I honestly, and this IS a judgement, don't understand people that plant those frigging bushes.  They are ugly, smell bad and spread out inappropriately.  And neighbourhood cats like to spray them.  Everyone that plants things know this yet every frigging house I have lived in, and thats a lot of houses, has had awful junipers to get rid of.  There are so many pretty flowering bushes out there so why why why do people pick those ugly ones.  Shame on anyone who is responsible for that!!!!!

My latest purchase from Amazon, it came yesterday, is a souffle dish!  I used to make all sorts of soufflés in the past, cheese, chocolate, orange, pea and chicken...it's kind of like poutine.  You can turn a soufflé into pretty much any flavour and they are super easy and fast to make.  Plus you can put it together in the morning, leave it on the counter and bake it later when you need it.  I used to make them a lots in Monte Creek.  And best part?  The savoury ones are low carb!

Well enough food talk.  The only problem with having the house clean is there is very little to do with your time when you get up!  I will probably be blogging more often now!  Maybe I will blog and post pics on the days we go a'walkin!  Take care folks and try making a soufflé!  TTYL

"The only thing that makes a soufflé fall is if it knows you are afraid of it."  James Beard

THE BEAVER POND HIKE

THE PHOTOGRAPHER....RAIN OR SHINE

Qualicum Beach

BEAVER POND HIKE

CAFE OF THE TOOTHLESS LUNCH

WHERE PAT IS LAID TO REST

MARINA WHERE WE SPEND LOTS OF TIME

RAINY DAY DRIVES

COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED

BIN A WHILE

 It has been a few days since I posted!  I have actually been really busy for once.  I finally got Ange's place all clean and ready for her.  I went and picked her up so she could have a look and she LOVE'S it!!!  Thank goodness!!!

I need to make a smoking area for her.  She has a friend Monique who has attached herself to us and I am pretty sure she will be joining us often. She has been a godsend for Ange.  She smokes.  And right now Ange does too.  She says she is quitting when she moves over, she smokes from boredom and rattling around in that house of hers.  So I shall dig a couple of chairs out of one of the sheds and set them up in the carport.  The other thing that we need to take care of is getting her cat fixed.  He is a he and we do not need him spraying down there.  Trouble is that it's only a hundred bucks at the SPCA, where there is a very long waiting list, and 300 to get the vet to do it.  So even if we have to pay, that cat needs to be fixed before moving in.

Today I picked up Ange for a quick trip up to a new store to me called the Wearhouse (sp?) and a quick stop at Walmart.  Monique met us up there.  When we went into the first store I was kind of shocked to see that neither of them were wearing a mask.  They are crazy.  Especially Ange, she has horrible underlying issues.

There was a knock at the door the other morning.  It was Carolyn, Monte's original mental health nurse.  Now that Monte is no long a 'committed' person and is voluntarily taking his meds, they don't have to keep track of him.  But she dropped in to see how he was doing and suggested we keep in touch once a month just in case he needs help at any time.  I was so impressed!  She is the nicest possible person.  She gets her people together every week and takes them on hikes and walks and museum trips etc...  I think she would love him to join them.  

Anyway she came in and Monte wasn't up yet but she and I visited for about an hour.  So interesting.  And she was mentioning that due to certain demographics, if that is the right word, Port has a high number of covid cases.  So Monte and I are being super careful again, wearing our KN95's everywhere we go.  I was warning Ange.  I would hate to have her get sick.  I don't know if she would do very well with covid.

Once again I am battling stupid Telus.  Our internet has been cutting in and out, a lot, since the last round we went with Telus about two months ago.  So finally we spent about four hours total, two calls, with them and they didn't fix it.  So they sent a guy.  So in comes the grumpiest little cranky man.  He wandered back and forth between the modem in the spare room and the living room.  He was here for a long time.  I don't really know what he did to fix it.  I asked what was it and he said, and I'm not kidding, "someone unplugged it and plugged it back in". At which I answered, well it sure as hell wasn't us.

Then five minutes after he left he sends a copy of a message to Telus, stating that I had agreed to a 168 dollar charge!!!!  FUCKADOODLE!!!!!  I exploded.  I immediately called Telus and let fly.  She finally told me that if the charge was on the bill on the 7th, to call them and see what the technician said.

  If they charge me there will be only two outcomes.  One...I absolutely will NOT pay them.  And there is no way they can get money out of me, they don't have my credit card number.  And I will cancel my two year internet plan I just signed up for and will not be paying that out.  And I will be switching to shaw.  I also mentioned to her that I have been with Telus since I was 19, even when they were on strike, and I get a gift from them every year for being such a good customer, and I have to have them fix my internet every two months and I have put up with that.  Grrrrr......I WILL win...there is no doubt about that.  The bastard.  I did NOT agree to it like he said.

Well now I am mad all over again and it is 2:30 in the night.  Great way to go to bed!  Oh well....internet, a necessary evil.  Stay safe, eat lots and TTYL!

"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."  Steve Wozniak..co-founder of Apple Inc.

If you know me you will know how significant that quote is.  Just check my back yard...brooms, mops, vacuums, toasters, the dog if its throwable etc....