AUNTY JOAN RUSSELL. LORRAINE JENNIFER APRIL MYLES AND ME

 I left out the dinner we all had at Pier 7 at the bottom of Lonsdale.  On purpose.  I wanted to make a post just about that.

Well let me start with the least important thing...the food.  I kind of am leery to go there because they specialize in truffle fries.  I have actually had the waitress move us to a different table because people  at a table beside us ordered them and I hate the smell of truffle oil.  I don't like the taste either.  But I love raw shaved truffle.  Go figure!

But I sat between Aunty Joan and Myles and Myles ordered them, the bugger!  lol!!!  When they came I tried one off his plate and there wasn't much truffle taste and there was basically no smell.  Sure not like the time before!

Jennifer, being originally from BC with free access to seafood now lives in Alberta, landlocked North Trumpville with little or no access to fresh sea offerings.

So naturally we ordered the seafood tower and let me tell you, it was SPECTACULAR!!!!!! Raw oysters with minuette (sp?), lox, scallops, prawns the size of my head, candied salmon, mussels, clams, crab legs  etc....Truly a masterpiece. I had the poke bowl.  It was delicious but not as good as Maui's from the Costco poke bar.  No Canadian poke bowl will measure up to that.

And now the people.  It was as wonderful  as our so special visit with Aunty Jan and Uncle Jim...mentioned in the last post.  Aunty Joan is mid eighties but you would never know.  How does a woman reach that ripe age not looking a day over 65.  She just doesn't change...and the same with her sense of humour!  She is a pure joy to visit with.  And we visited...boy did we visit!  We both can talk our socks off and we did!

The only less satisfying time was not enough of it to visit with Lorraine. She is probably one of the nicest most interesting people on this planet.  She used to work in the classy fat lady store, actually I do believe she managed it, in Park Royal.  But she changed occupations in the middle of her working life, such courage and smarts, and is now an IT person.  I so admire her and one of these times I AM going to get a chance to visit properly with her.

Then there was Russell.  He is the head guy from what I know (which might be a tad off but I don't think so) Rick and Morty.  He has some pretty impressive awards under his belt!  He is a gifted animator...thus April and he are close.  He is such an amazing influence and mentor for April.  And it doesn't hurt that he is so very much like Bill!  He definitely inherited the Heyman genes!  He rates as one of my fave nephews!

And Jennifer I have already described in my previous post.  What a freaking live wire she is!  And she plays the piano too and she is in a serious band and can sing like the dickens.  All my kids turned out to be musically talented one way or the other!!!  And to watch her enjoy that seafood just made me happy!!

The next day I drove (or Jen drove...don't remember) out to the airport for her afternoon flight back to Calgary.  Before leaving I phoned Cookie for directions to her place from that direction.  I was driving the van and it does not have a thingy that tells you where to go.  I know I could probably get Surrey (my East Indian man helper on my phone ( I call him Surrey not Siri) to tell me where to turn and drive etc... but I really don't want to stop using my brain and memory.  So she gave me instructions and I got it all except I ended up going through the Deaz (sp?) Tunnel instead of the Alex Fraser bridge but I found my her anyway.  When I can't spell a word I just write it phonetically.

Anyway it was an incredible evening.  We left stuffed and satisfied and happy.

TFL&TTYL

NOT MY FAULT!!!!!

 Usually my hair stands on end when I hear that phrase 'Not My Fault'.  I have a real true blue beef with people that don't take accountability seriously.  And sometimes it isn't actually their fault.  But that phrase still bugs me.

And now I am using it.  Blogspot somehow lost the sign in button.  I tried tried and tried a hundred different ways to get into the guts of my blog so I could write a timely post.  But nope.  I really hate blogspot for lots of reasons but I am not a techie type of person and any other blogging site is so not user friendly.  Anyway one magical morning, upon the hundredth attempt, there it was, back again.  Now I am going to be nervous every time I click on my blog to make a post.  Grrrrrrr........  I know how freaking annoying it is to keep checking your blogs you read and they don't consistently post.  My apologies.  

I had a good time in Vancouver.  Firstly I took Jen out to the airport and then on to Cookie's.  Jen was pretty glad to be heading back to her youngest.  He was going through a lymphoma scare which has turned out to be mono thank Ohm.  His older brother beat lymphoma which makes siblings subject to it as well apparently.

As usual I had a fantastic visit with Brian and Cookie.  The food and drink and visits were fabulous.  And speaking of drinks, I drank all their PC  root beer flavoured sparkling water.  No sweetening.  Normally I don't like drinks like Bubly (sp?)  but the pc root beer one is amazing.  Cookie kindly took me to Stupidstore and helped me buy them out of their stock.  One ended up being a diet A&W diet root beer case.  Monte was quite happy to take care of that for me.  I love visiting them.

I was privileged enough to be shown all of her quilts she has made.  She is truly gifted.  They were stunning!  And now she is making me not one but two quilts in the next year or two.  One for my purple bedroom and one for out here in my living room.  I already am the proud owner of two of her quilts...in fact I received her very first one she ever made on my fiftieth birthday!  And I love it!

Back to April's for a couple of nights and then home James.  It was good to be back home.  Ange and Monte were happy and I was happy to dig into cleaning and cooking again.  Not so much tv.  Now with Roku I find I watch tv sporadically, stuff I really enjoy and the tv is off as much as it is on.  Not like before when it went on first thing and stayed on whether it was being watched or not!

In spite of my tailbone, which really does limit my physical activity time lengths, I came home with the resolve that I wasn't going to let it slow me up anymore.  I need to be on my feet the majority of the day doing stuff.  It is just too easy to sit in this chair to the point of getting bedsores on my backside!  lol. just kidding.  But I started yesterday.

  I made a giant pot of applesauce, dressed up a shoulder pork roast and got it into the little oven (my stove oven door is duct taped), butchered a fifteen pound salmon, vacuum packed the pieces, cleaned then cleaned the kitchen again and again.  Today I will be making corned beef hash for our communal dinner.  Ange donated the roast last night and is donating the corned beef today, bless her heart.  I am also cooking a big tail off the salmon to make salmon burgers tomorrow.  But before that I am going to tackle all my music books.  Holy doodle I have stacks and stacks.  Not sure what I am going to do with all the ones I won't be keeping.

Well enough for today.  I have a mass of music books and a very messy room to tackle.  TFL&TTYL