Category: Food

Sundry and various

Church was good; I like the water ingathering service because people do the “How I spent my summer vacation” by using the physical and metaphorical linking of water.  The Tea Lights (my secret name for a harp/recorder/cello trio composed of church members) were fabulous, as always.

I was opening and closing, too; I had to be there for 8:45 and didn’t get out until 1:30, and I forgot the flipping signs so I had to drive all the way back and get them.  I was going to put them back in the building and realized that they need to have the times amended so I am going to get little laminated bits to cover the inaccurate times this week… and THEN put them away.

Paul and Keith came over and Paul and I attempted to put 25 years of being incapable of sharing a kitchen behind us.  The chicken stir fry came out pretty good. Then Katie turned up and we watched True Blood’s season 3 finale, all together for once, and I have to say A-Skars (Eric Northman) got all the good lines.  Then Keith, who has his driver’s licence (did I mention that he finally broke down and got a driver’s licence previously? Guess not!) drove his sister home.  Aw.

Now I’m going to fold laundry and have a shower and really get at my day.

I let Paul drive Ziva last night

And I complained non stop.  Some things never change.

Anyway, I ate supper (stellar meal, fresh tomato and fresh basil salad, pork chomps with Paulegra spicing and Chilliwack peaches and cream corn so fresh it was like an explosion of sweetness) with Paul and Keith last night, and I was expecting Part II to be me whining at Paul to put the new Resophonic strings on John’s resonator guitar, but instead he says, “We’re going to Rev Katie’s place to get her hockey gear.”

Turns out Paul’s having a visitor from Seattle who is a ginormous hockey fan who is planning on taking it up as a hobby – she’s about my age.  She’s coming to town and Paul thought, “Rev Katie doesn’t play hockey any more, maybe she wants to ditch her equipment”.  Strangely, she did, and we also got in a nice visit, more social than bitching about church thank goodness.  But honestly, I didn’t think I would be hauling women’s hockey equipment across the Pitt River bridge when I got up yesterday morning; all I can say is: my life is full of incident.  Got home around 9, watched tv for a bit and collapsed.  I drove home BTW….

Unbelievable, very stressful but ultimately good things happened at work yesterday, and of course I can’t talk about it but I am very, very, very stressed out.  Good stress and bad stress.

Round up of events

Up at 4:30 yesterday, fed myself and Jeff breakfast (bacon scrambled eggs), then fighting with two different printers to get the order of service printed out. Got to church around 9:30, discovered we had a plethora of sound people (after my initial fears) but my karma must have just been to the spot remover, because there wasn’t a single feedback squeal all morning.  I hug them all, those sound sound people.

Lots of people out to church and we had a lovely service talking about how it is normal to be afraid of change, and we have had had a lot (as in far too much for this cowgirl), and we’ll be okay, but we have to stick together and be nice to each other.  I know, a hopelessly Pollyanna-ish take on events, but accurate, and my goodness people were thankful to have everything brought up to date.  We did our absolute best to neither minimize nor dramatize the financial and volunteer crises facing our church.  The minister was in the congregation, which provided some reassurance that the board is coping with this crisis as a unit, which never hurts.

It will be okay.

Then I took Sue to lunch at the Amelia, then I bought lemons, then I made lemonade, then I took it to Tom and Peggy (with special guest Joe, squee, whom I haven’t seen since he made his wife so spectacularly rotund) and I watched them pour concrete and then beat a hasty retreat.  Then I came back to my place and apart from a half hearted attempt to throw food into the microwave for Jeff, Katie, Keith and Paul (had them all over, heart full of happy) I didn’t do another thing for the rest of the day, oh, except take the awning down with Paul’s help.  It was full of insect eggs, so just as well.  Either moth or katydid, I’d have to look it up. I looked at the wind and sky and determined it was time to get the awning down before the weather got wetter or windier.

Now, for nautilus3, a flickrset of Birds of BC. I only know about this because Paul found a dead bird and took pictures, and be darned if I can identify it.  I may need to call on experts.

Eddie let me cut all his nails and he hardly struggled or wailed, and he made no attempt to bite or scratch.  The same cannot be said of Margot, who popped her claws into me the last time I trimmed her.  I guess Eddie is finally getting over his antipathy to me.  If, and only if, I’m sitting on the downstairs couch and Jeff’s sitting there too, Eddie will let me scritch him.  Sometimes.

Finally made it to the Orange Room

It’s a restaurant / bar in New West I’ve known about for some time but I’ve never been.  Véronique and I had a bit to eat and a little something-something to drink, and it was very yummy and convivial.  I am hoping at some point to get custody of the church website, currently her bailiwick, so we worked through my extreme rudeness in asking for it when I wasn’t really authorized by the Board to do that (sorry!) and how any handoff will be handled in this ‘real life’ we keep hearing about.

I recommend  the Orange Room; pricey but really nice and comfy.

We also talked about some trends in second wave feminism which includes a culture war with transpeople, which I had been dimly aware of but not really up on, and candidly it’s appalling, but it’s hard for me to entirely sort out how icky it is because I’m not in possession of some background.  Anyway, I need more reading material, so I asked for it.  I do think gender essentialism, unless you’re talking about the mechanics of getting and bearing children, needs an enema.

Katie has moved into a place with the help of her father.  I came home and the top mattress off my bunk bed was gone – so that’s done.

Grr-thwack

Zombie walk this aft.  Katie K and I will meetup at the Art Gallery and drag our shambling carcasses down the parade route.  I can haz corn syrup and food colouring, and clothes to sacrifice. Oh yes, there will be pix.

Church meeting earlier this afternoon.  I’m an invited guest rather than a regularly scheduled attendee; I suspect I am the Katelijne Adorne of my crowd, and happy I am that there is precisely one reader of this blog who will get the reference.

Leo is whomping up Finnish pancakes in the kitchen.  Lawsy me, and there’s BACOM tooooo. Linda indulged me by watching the most recent Futurama episode with us last night, of which much internet woo, and I have to say “The Prisoner of Benda” is one of the best episodes ever and it’s FULL OF MATH.

Tomorrow, hymn sing at Tom and Peggy’s (ever so much more fun than it sounds, my irreligious pals).  I’m thinking about going into work and doing some documentation, but I bet I turn lazy and stay home and watch depressing movies instead.  Leo and Linda will head out sometime Sunday.

It is my sad duty to report that Katie and Daxus are dating again.  Hence the title of the post. I am keeping my mouth shut (apart from giving Suzanne and my mother a heads’ up, and Paul and I had a brief and eyerolling confab yesterday) and hoping that a cooler head prevails.  It’s too bad that her staying away from him was a condition of tenancy.  As of the end of this month she’s homeless – you read me? – and only Paul is prepared to take her in, as Jeff and I -after a brief and dispassionate strategy session – do not wish to borrow more grief than is already our portion.

Did I say recently how much I love and appreciate Jeff?  He really is Made of Awesome.

The quinoa is as tall as me and four cobs of corn have set on.  I let the peas go to seed.

Friday night falldown goes mobile

Last night me and Jeff and Paul and Keith and ScaryClown went to the Peak for dinner and then to Inception at the Dolphin afterwards.  We could have gone to see the Blue Meenies at the John B Pub afterwards but it was 9:30 when we got out of the theatre and I was ready to go home.  I dropped ScaryClown off at Brentwood and headed home in the lovely cool dusk.

Inception is not a classic movie – by me – but it sure is visually stunning and challenging, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Staying at home….

I needed a mental health day, and by gar, I got one.

Here’s an interesting comment about the HST coming to BC.  I hadn’t realized stamps will be taxed.

An external report on the G20 riots.

Chocolate…. is there anything it can’t do?

Memory drugs that work… right around the corner? I can’t remember if this article said that or not.

Chevy no va

What the hell is wrong with people?  Chevy is no longer an acceptable nickname for a product? Who writes this shiz?

I went on a coffee date last night.  You know, you try to let guys know that you aren’t up for a booty call, and they just run away.  Not much of an advertisement for the boys in the world.  I was nice enough to give him a ride home, anyway.  Not exactly what I had in mind when I purchased a vehicle.

I’ve been listening to the On Spec album, and to my astonishment, I’m really enjoying it.  I’d add a link for the album, but the On Spec website pushes poo with its nose, and the R Cat site is even worse, so, not so much.  Anyway, it’s called “Because we hear voices” and if somebody had told me there were no vocals on the album I probably would have listened to it sooner.  It’s very mellow – or cinematic – or game play – electronica.

I canNOT get the Lords of Acid’s “I Like It (Hey Hey Hey)” from their Farstucker album out of my head.  It is ludicrously catchy, worse than the Tapioca Song.

Prior to the coffee date, supper with Jeff and Mike at the Twist.  The dry ribs there are amazing.

Yesterday

Yesterday we went for a drive in the open-air chaise (ie the Camaro – pOp was wearing his pimp hat, a broad brimmed leopard velour creation, which added to the carnival atmosphere) and we drove in the country, saw THE biggest patch of skunk cabbage I’ve ever seen (it went on for literally city blocks in depth and width) and went to Dan’s Market, where we ingested treats and coffee and where I picked up treats to bring back to Vancouver, then outside where we fed ducks and chickens and goats (and I petted a duckling, goodness but they are soft, and admired the glossy plumage on the chickens, who looked magnificent), then went to an apiary and picked up lovely beeswax candles, including two I intend to inaugurate the next time I attend small group ministry, and then through the beautiful green and undulating countryside to a greenhouse which specializes in lovely smelling and odd-times blooming plants and thence back home.

After some uninteresting bits we went downtown in Ziva to Village de Valeurs, where I got the outfit I’m currently wearing (brown cords and a very nice top for work) and one other pair of pants for myself (stretch cotton with a vibrant black and floral pattern).  Katie got a purse for job hunting (she says it’s not professional to be carting about a skull and cross bones pack), two pairs of jeans and a pinstripe wool blazer so she can have a suit.  I smirk when I think she’ll look like Al Swearengen when she dresses up for an event.

Katie cooked supper – chicken Caesar wraps. I never taught her to cook; somehow she managed to teach herself. She apparently does much of the cooking in her household.  And further to the comestibles, they had yet more Lion Winter Ale at the Hillside Liquor store the day we came into town, woot.

Generally we are hanging out and being mellow.  I have been relieved of doing anything at all for transcription of family books, but will have to work on it back in Vancouver, which is good as I definitely type faster on a keyboard I’m used to.

As you can see it’s excitement central around here, and that is as it should be….  to give you an idea of the parents’ priorities, the pictures on the walls are of grandchildren and pinball machines.

That giant sucking sound you hear is car ownership

Sixteen hundred dollars poorer, she emerged.  And I still need an alignment and the car DESPERATELY needs to be detailed.  There’s a lip gloss tube EMBEDDED in the driver’s side carpet like a dinosaur bone emerging from a dig.  I also just realized that the dangly thing hanging from the rear view mirror is a beaded toy flogger, and since I don’t swing that way (pitching OR catching), I should prob’ly take it down. But it’s PURPLE.

Anyways… drove ScaryClown home with me last night and we supped on Swiss Chalet that Jeff brought home and drank beers and watched TV.  At one point Jeff said something so funny that ScaryClown and I were rendered absolutely helpless.  Unfortunately, despite its merits as humour, it is not repeatable, even by me, but please accept my assurances that it was convulsing.

Then the phone rang.  I could hear it but Jeff couldn’t (I answer the phone for a living so heard it over the tv noise which was hockeygamish at the time).  I picked up the phone, but because it was behind me & I wasn’t really paying too close attention I had the receiver upside-down.  Jeff thought I’d gone insane because – well, Jeff thinks I’ve gone insane most of the time, but he’s low-key about commenting – I was picking up the phone and saying hello hello with the receiver upside down – for no apparent reason. He said, brow furrowed, with that crystal clarity people use when talking to halfwits, “The phone is upside down,” at which point Keith and I were actually able to start communicating.  ScaryClown at this point was laughing so hard he lost control of his ketchup.  Keith said, “Ah.  Well, I was going to ask if ScaryClown was still there, but I can hear him laughing, so I’ll be there in 15.”

He and Paul came over (announcing pie and yet another six of Lion Winter, Paul found another source, and commenting that the car looks nice) and we had a very pleasant evening.  The highlight was the scary awesome Mt. St. Helens footage.  You know that this blog started with me commenting about Mt. St. Helens every other day, so I have a special fondness for it, and will stay fond of it if it stays dormant.