purple room vents: SIGNIFICANT DAY TODAY....TO ME FOR SOME REASON

It was 53 years ago today when I was an ignorant naive 18 year old, I met my first husband. I was sitting on some wooden steps down a deserted lane of buildings out at UBC, waiting for a previous boyfriend, a true loser, who had all my worldly goods in the back seat of his bright red 1965 mustang. I needed them. I was going to transfer them to my mother's camero. She was at the university for summer school courses and I had come down from Kamloops to visit her. He never showed up. Obviously he had hawked all my stuff. He was poor. After all he was a sewing machine repairman. A mobile one. Sigh.

I should have got up and left by this time. It was two hours past meeting time and it was clear he wasn't going to show. But something kept me there.

After a two hour fruitless waste of time, a motorcycle pulled up and parked over by the little parking lot. A handsome dude got off, took off his helmet and shook out his very long down his back red hair, very Fabioesque like. He glanced over at me and then walked up the other road and disappeared. I still stayed. Soon he came back and over to me and asked if I had the time. No. I didn't. We briefly talked about nothing and then he asked if I wanted to go for a ride. Sure!!! I recklessly answered!!!

I dashed into mom's dorm room and pulled on some impossibly tight jeans (jeans by intravenous) and dashed back out. He was still there!!! I hopped on, sans helmet, like I knew what I was doing. I had no idea, I had never been on a bike, a Kawasaki 500. And off we went. It was beyond thrilling. I loved it!

We ended up at Queen Liz park where we sat and talked and talked and talked (about spirituality and Lobsang Rampa of course, it was the sixties after all). We ended up down at Jericho Beach, eating Church's Fried Chicken til the wee hours. I thought it sooooo romantic.

We were pretty much inseparable from that point on til we were no more. The date was August 11 1969. We only lasted long enough to produce two awesome kids and we had some amazing times in those few years. It's a date I never forget for some reason. I don't remember our wedding date, Feb. something. But that day we met I always remember. Every year!

Monte and I just took Smudge for a toodle about. There is a native gas station and store a few miles away towards Uky. It is the most unique store you will ever go into.

They import stuff that I guess us white peeps can't. That has to be it. The two things that stand out to me is their massive selection of Kool-ade and a very unusual selection of different pops, both diet and not diet.

I found a magical recipe for no carb popsicles and it calls for diet jello and flavoured Kool-ade. So out we went, my mission to pick up weird Kool-ade.

Twelve packages: watermelon, Jamaican, Pina colada, grape, strawberry kiwi, lilikoi, dragon fruit etc... And I bought a cherry Mountain Dew with cream soda flavour!!! I can honestly say it's the best flavoured pop I have ever drunk. It's so much fun going out there.

We stopped at the farm nursery on the way home. I picked up freshly grown, on their farm, strawberries and tomatoes and chard. OMG!!!! The strawberries are amazing!!! On the way out the big door I noticed a beautiful four foot tall, strong, hibiscus bush. It had a massive bloom, another one ready to pop tomorrow and a zillion tight buds. Kathy gave Bill a smaller hibiscus one year and it stayed alive, producing a new flower every day, for years. He taught me all about them.

So, seeing as how money is short right now it isn't the right time to be buying a hibiscus. But it reminded me so of Bill and our poor sad Maui. I actually went to the car and put my bag into it and then made the decision if it was under sixty dollars, highly unlikely, I would buy it. I marched back in, found the lady that works there, asked her what the price was and it was forty dollars!!!! I sat it on the floor between my knees and managed it all the way home. I will put pics below. Now every time I search for the new flower of the day I will think of Spod and our beautiful Maui memories.

I am going to take Ange out to Teshat market tomorrow and buy her and myself a couple of cream soda cherry mountain dews!!! And on the way back I am going to stop at Nesgaards and pick up more strawberries and a couple bags of beautiful carrots I saw. We are so lucky to have them here in town.

Next week we are going to use found coinage from all over the place and the cars and we are going to the Spice Hut. I am having a massive craving for palak paneer. That spinach dish is magical. That will be the only over the carb limit meal of this whole month before my A1c is due the end of August. I don't think it will be too awful. Right now it has dropped to 2.8 and I don't feel great. Time for a V8, a quick awesome carb fix. Waaaay better than fruit juice. We buy four cases of 24 every month from No Frills. I put one whole case on the top shelf of the fridge. There is nothing like an ice cold V8. I can only have one thought when my blood sugar drops below three.

Well that's it for today. It was a lovely lovely fun day today. I am happy. I weighed and am down twelve pounds. I am soooo wrinkly it's funny! I am going to go get a pic of our hibiscus now and post here, TTYL

'I would rather live one day in Maui than a month in New York.' Charles Lindbergh