Far, Far Away

2010-05-02T14:57:00.001-07:00

I know I mentioned on Facebook that Roger had made our Wavey (the Wonder Cat) a cat stand, using a satellite dish as the top perch, and several people asked for pictures, so here they are:

2010-04-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

I finally dug out the cord to upload my pictures! Yay!

So, first things first. I guess the most timely thing is the garden. Roger and I have been busy preparing our garden space. I dream of bumper tomato crops (and someday, canning my own tomato sauce, 'cause I miss Mom's so much!)--and peppers and squash. When we bought the house last year, we knew neither of us was interested in keeping the pool, so the plan since we first saw the house has been to turn the fenced-in pool area into fenced-in garden area. Roger disassembled the pool a few months ago and he's been digging the garden beds for me, sifting out the rocks (LOTS of rocks) and adding nutritional stuff to the dirt.

With my gimp leg, I haven't been too useful in the digging. My part is in getting the plants going. I had good luck starting my seeds in coffee filters and baggies a few years ago when I made myself a little container garden, so I decided to try the same method here. Last time, I kept them in glass jars in front of a south-facing window. Unfortunately, there were two problems this year that I didn't have then: 1) a cat that likes to jump into windowsills and 2) one south-facing window, small, no sill. My improvisation was to tape the baggies onto the window. The cat couldn't get them that way, plus they'd get maximum sun exposure.

These pictures are from late March, when many of the seeds that had sprouted radicles (or molded) had already been removed--there were maybe 20 baggies to start with. Mostly, I started tomatoes, but also sunflowers, beets, chard, basil, thyme, watermelon, honeydew melon, carrots and chives. A lot of them were older seeds that I wasn't sure would germinate, but to my great delight, the only seeds that didn't show me any signs of wanting to germinate were the carrots (from 2004). Of the sunflowers seeds I had from our old neighbor's fabulous garden on Willingdon, nine of them gave me radicles and in peat pellets, they've mostly thrived. Wavey did discover my first, precocious sunflower on the kitchen table, however; bad kitty, no treat.

Next year, I'll just use paper towels. They held the moisture better, allowed for more air in the baggies, and overall, the seeds seemed to prefer them.

This is the contraption Roger made to help him sift out the rocks. The black cloth on the ground behind it is my weed-inhibitor and that bed is ready to plant as soon as the seedlings are ready.

And these are my seedlings in (and some graduated out of) the cold frame. When I ran out of room under the cold frame, I improvised and turned a couple of bakery containers from the grocery store (cinnamon rolls) into little cold frames. We cut some vents into the sides of the lids and they've worked pretty well--except that the seedlings are on the brink of needing more space.

And then there are the flowers. The previous owners had made several flower beds and planted them full of perennials, and since I have no idea what's going to bloom before July, it's been a fun treat to go explore the garden beds every few days.

In the bed in front of the pool/garden fence, there are plants that I'm told will be lilies of some kind, plus some lamb's ear, a single tulip (there's also a single tulip in the front of the house), and some kind of little purple bell flowers I don't know the name of.

This is in the pool/garden area. These little purple flowers with ferny leaves are coming up outside of the bed too. (Any idea what these are?) In the back, you can see the spiky beginnings of new hasta growth.

I have a whole bed devoted to star-gazer lilies. (I got to enjoy those last year.)

I'm not sure what this shrub is either. It will maintain the red tip leaves for the rest of the summer. I had no idea what flowers to expect, but I really wasn't expecting these soapy-looking bunches.

There's a little area next to the house where there's evidence of a hot tub having been there several years ago, and around the edge are planted some of my favorite plants that are just starting to regenerate.

This is my echinops plant, which will produce those spiky little flower balls that get used in dried flower arrangements.

Another surprise. I'm not sure what they are, but I'm pretty sure they weren't actually planted there on purpose, which probably makes them weeds. (I've seen more gorgeous weeds here than I ever knew existed. It makes it hard for me to pull them up!)

2009-11-08T15:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's been forever since I've posted anything. (Sorry, Mom.) Mostly, this is because I take pictures, but Roger replaced my 256MB memory card with a 2GB card and now I never run out of space and so I'm never forced to transfer the pictures. That's right, I'm blaming Roger.

So, if you're still checking this blog for updates, what do you want to know about and what do you want to see pics of? Clearly, I haven't posted pics of the new house yet. Or the move. (Believe it or not, we're still not done with the boxes. Even our books have just recently begun being unpacked.)

To tide you over, I am posting pictures of the cats. Wavey, who will be six months by the end of November, is scheduled to be spayed this week. Big Kitty (known by former caretakers as Purr-Purr), I'm sorry to say, died in September; Roger & I miss her quite a bit, but Wavey adapted quickly to being the only cat in the house.

Wavey and her two brothers, Peanut and Jack (I think)

Wavey and her brothers being watched over by their mother Marianne.

She was so tiny!

She was also the most interesting one of the bunch, as it turned out--and the most adventurous.

Big Kitty sleeping on a makeshift nest of paper.

Big Kitty liked to be touching us at all times if we were within reach. This pic taken on a break from packing at the apartment.

When she was tiny, she used to curl up on our shoulders against our necks. . .

. . . or walk behind.

Big Kitty wasn't too happy about Wavey being right there when she woke up, but this is the first time the two of them were so close without Big Kitty having a hissy fit.

When Mom & Dad & Katie & Grandma came to visit in September, Katie managed to grab both cats for a picture.

Big Kitty was always a lap cat (for us) and Wavey followed suit. (I think this is our last picture of Big Kitty.)

Foil balls and coin wrappers are endlessly thrilling.

And Wavey's fascinated by the TV & our computers.

2009-07-09T00:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight is our first night sleeping in our house.

This morning we were informed that our apartment is being shown tomorrow at five, and the only way for us to make the place navigable to anyone else was to start moving some boxes to the house; we hadn't done any of that yet because it's been rainy and chilly and if you don't have to move when it's like that, you don't. So we've been postponing the real move-in day. (All our stuff is out of the storage room we were renting, though, and stacked in the basement--we did that on Sunday.)

It didn't rain today. In fact, the sun came out for a few hours.

So we are sleeping in our house tonight, because once we started packing boxes into the van, it made sense to undo the bed and load it into the trailer (we borrowed from a friend), pack up Kitty and her stuff and move it in tonight. She's been wandering around the mostly empty (and echo-y) upstairs, hollering for the last hour and will likely continue to do so for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we go back for kitchen stuff and the rest of the books. We have OJ in the house, but no glasses, bread but no plates. I love this in-betweenness of moving. We just took our first showers in the fancy-looking shower in the big bathroom and now I'm on the hunt for a brush or comb.

And once I figure out which bag/box the camera landed in, I'll have pictures of our moving and house and kitty (and us, if we can manage to catch each other not behind boxes) for you all to enjoy.

2009-06-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Wedding Cake Endeavor

A couple months ago, Roger told me that his coworker Debbie's daughter had decided not to have a wedding cake at her wedding, even though she would have liked to have one. And I agreed that as long as everyone involved understood that I am an amateur cake maker, and hadn't even held an icing bag in my hand for years (because Sarah was usually the one of the three of us who wanted to decorate cookies with that kind of detail), I would be happy to try my hand at a small wedding cake so that the bride and groom could have that moment of feeding each other--or smashing it into each other's faces, whichever they decided to do.

The bride's grandmother volunteered her top tier (which had been in the freezer for 63 years) to use as the top tier for this cake. The original buttercream had to be removed and I would redecorate it to go on top of the cake. Debbie came up with a mirrored cake plate--a huge relief to me, because it couldn't hold a very big cake--and there was a 6" high Eiffel Tower as the topper. (The groom proposed at the Eiffel Tower.)

At first the plan was that I would use fondant. I would make or get some almond paste to seal up the top tier for a few reasons. First, it was fruitcake and the color would bleed through fondant. Second, almond paste could be used to even out the holes left by fruit that had fallen out. And most importantly, the cake had been spending 63 years next to fish, as one whiff would prove.

Debbie hooked me up with some fondant a baker friend of hers made so that I could play with it.
My first trial run was a chocolate pound cake that I was thrilled with; it wasn't very chocolatey. But I tried out the fondant on it anyway. It was easier to handle than I'd expected, even though I did end up with a couple of rips to deal with. The fondant trial, though, made me realize how smooth the underneath has to be; that cake (which I'd tried to level off with a knife) had some serious bumpiness going on underneath the fondant.

Still, I was pretty confident that I could make a good-looking cake with fondant as long as I could get some almond paste to wrap the top tier. April and Marlene, the lovely ladies at The Huckleberry Hutch (one of my favorite stores here in town and possibly my favorite kitchen store ever), suggested I go to a bakery to buy some, but all the bakeries I called didn't have any (because it wasn't Christmas, when they usually have an abundance on hand)--and there aren't a lot of bakeries in town anyway. But when I explained my project to Maxine at Black Tie Pastries, she suggested I just use buttercream, and told me how to get a smooth look similar to fondant (but she also gave me a recipe for my own fondant in case I needed it).

I never did locate any almond paste, but another trial run with a cake I really liked (and so did Debbie and the bride), showed me that crumbs were going to be an issue with buttercream. A little internet research advised me to apply a crumb coat, so I called my mom for a refresher on making her frosting (because I knew that would work well as a seal layer if I made it a little more glaze-like), and voila!

63-year-old fruitcake

Cake with the crumb coating (thanks, Mom!)

The Wedding Cake
(after suffering several moving bumps and subsequent repairs)
I put the top tier on its own board for easy removal, lest
someone tipsy should decide to see what 63-year-old fruitcake tastes like.

And here are a couple pictures from the wedding, which was just the kind of wedding you'd expect at the end of a fairytale. (I queued the music for the ceremony, too, so I had a unique perspective, even though the window filtered some of the color.)

2009-06-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Lots of news! First, I'm now a permanent resident of Canada! I even have a social insurance number already!

When we were planning our "run around the flagpole" trip, we found in our envelope of temporary resident papers a letter explaining that it's no longer necessary, if I'm already in Canada, to leave the country and then re-enter as a permanent resident (which did seem a rather silly hoop to have to jump through). So we called the number provided and scheduled an appointment with our nearest immigration center--Nanaimo. That's a way easier trip than Washington. Just three hours, give or take, each way.

So we drove down the night before our appointment, slept in our Westy at a rest stop and had a crazy lady encounter at 3:44 AM when a woman came knocking on our window asking for gas money with some story about her car breaking down and having her 7-year-old daughter with her. Her story changed two or three times as she desperately tried to reiterate why she needed money. (I was inside the van with the phone ready to dial 911 in case things got exponentially weirder.) I was going to just barely mention this, but Roger swears this is the woman who knocked on our window, which I find more than a little creepy.

By 6:30, we were in Nanaimo, looking for a place to eat breakfast. Nothing seemed to open before 7, and we were shocked to realize that the main stretch of Island Highway before downtown Nanaimo offered not a single Denny's or IHOP. (We were shocked, I tell you.) We settled for the only open cafe we found and had muffins (that was the worst pumpkin muffin I've ever had) and hot beverages (my green tea smelled and tasted like freshcut grass).

Getting my passport stamped was almost anti-climactic--but not quite. The woman who processed it all for me (who had a wonderfully literary name) was pleasant and seemed to enjoy listening to the stories we had as answers to her questions. And the next morning I was able to take my paperwork to the government office in Powell River and have a social insurance number issued to me. Now the only thing I can't do in Canada is vote. (Citizenship is another couple years down the road. And no, I don't have to renounce my US citizenship to become a Canadian citizen.)

The next big news: We're buying a house! We had the building inspection done, and even though there were a lot of strange, quirky things, everything was good and sound. Yay! No more paying rent and renting storage space! Our new yard borders on our friend's yard, too, which will be wonderfull handy for all involved, I think. (Especially, since, at the beginning, we may have to borrow his lawnmower.)

These pictures are from the realty site. We're going to remove the pool and use the space for a garden; the walls will help deter the deer, and there's another garden I plan to put in the patch that was, evidently, used as a garden sometime in the last couple years.

We'll be taking possession on July 2, I think, so we'll be able to use the long weekend to move in. (It's Canada Day weekend here, for those of you wondering why Canada would celebrate July 4.)

And the last of the news: we're getting a kitten! That friend with whom we'll be neighbors has a fantastic, friendly cat who just had kittens, and he said I can have the girl (a calico). I went in to look last week--they had just opened their eyes.

No, I don't expect Kitty* will like the kitten very much, but I hope she'll appreciate having another living thing in the house when we're out, and I hope the kitten teaches her to play--right now, she just stares at strings, and she's not good at jumping (we're not sure if it's a hip problem or her thyroid meds), but she is horribly fond of licking to death the catnip toy Iams sent me last year when I wrote to tell them how much Kitty likes their food. (Thanks, Iams!) But when a friend got a puppy, his older dog seemed years younger--and I'd like it if having the kitten around rejuvenates Kitty.

So, that's the news here. And these are especially for you, Mom:

*When we got the cat from Roger's mom, the cat had been called Purr-Purr by a couple of families who'd had her. And both of us hated that name--even though it's apt; all you have to do is look in her direction and she starts purring. Since she also seemed to answer to "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," calls, we've just been calling her Kitty. We did try to come up with a new name for her, but that seemed too weird. (Sometimes we still call her Purr-Purr when no one else is around to hear.) We promise to come up with a better name for the new kitten.

2009-05-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Took this picture over Willingdon Beach two weeks ago on a sunset walk.

2009-03-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

(picture borrowed from the Slashfood review)

A little celebration of something that's making me ever so happy right now:

Cadbury Mini Eggs

Yes, even though I'm not feeling especially well right now, I love that they put out holiday candy so early (all year around) because of that means I can get my hands on this once-a-year treat sometime in February. Well, okay, in Canada they get red, green & white Mini Eggs at Christmas too (though I'm not sure why), but I don't buy them then because I'm busy making my own goodies in December. Come March and April, though, nothing tastes better than these Cadbury chocolate treats. I'm not sure what about them sets them apart from other chocolate Easter candy--I can only say that the chocolate is different. If I had a better palette, I might be able to pinpoint it. Whatever they do, I love it.

And as you will see if you Google it, I'm not the only one enamored of these little candies.

2009-03-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

So Roger & I finally got hit with a bug or two last week. People we knew had been sick weeks before, and we thought that maybe we were just fortunate enough to escape (yay, immune systems!), but then last Monday Roger came home early and by dinner time, he was feverish and restlessly sleeping. He got up for a couple hours on Tuesday, just for a change of scenery (sleeping on the couch instead of in bed) and got dressed around noon on Wednesday and puttered around the apartment with me. (Yes, I know I haven't posted apartment pics yet. I'm bad.)

On Wednesday, however, I woke up with a sore throat. I hoped that I had just been sleeping with my mouth open, and I went to the gym (even though I don't normally go on Wednesdays), but after the hour cardio workout, my coughing told me I'd caught something too. Yippee. I wiped down everything I touched at the gym really well.

Mostly, I seem to just have an obnoxiously draining chest cold. Lots of coughing, which leads to a sore throat. I've been drinking lots of green tea and lots of water.

Roger & I are both feeling much better; Roger went back to work on Thursday, and though I'm still not going to the gym (coughing and cardio don't work together), I'll be able to in a couple days, I think.

Currently reading: A Perfect Mess.
Maybe I'll go ahead and take apartment pictures after all.

2008-12-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm looking out at our balcony right now, where earlier there was snow, then water, and now ice puddles. The yards beyond are all white. I find this remarkable, as Roger likes to boast of Christmases spent in short sleeves walking on the beach. People around here are all shaking their heads, insisting that winter just isn't like this here. (That's why so many retirees retire to Powell River--because winters are mild, if a bit rainy.)

Today, my 31st birthday, started with a trip to the gym (a gift to myself). My sister surprised me with a call from North Carolina this afternoon. Her family was supposed to be on their way to Mom & Dad's, but the icky weather in West Virginia made them decide to put their travel plans on hold for a day. (At least she got to make cookies.) We hope to be able to connect via webcam on Christmas day.

A few weeks ago, Mom & Dad surprised me by shipping my KitchenAid stand mixer to me, along with a box of some of my (more durable) Christmas ornaments and my elves. Roger spent a couple hours today taking apart the mixer because grease had leaked out while it was in transit and he wanted to clean it up and make sure it was done leaking before I use it. I tried not to be nervous (and I mostly wasn't) while he dismantled this machine I've been so missing for the last eleven months.

For our anniversary, a friend gave us a live Christmas tree. It's really small, so my plan was to decorate it with my smaller earrings, already attached to hooks. Turns out, it's too tiny for even that, so while I went through my box of ornaments, explaining to my husband why I'm so attached to each of them, he found some lightweight ones that he managed to hang on our tree. The star is a snowflake pin I got a few years ago. Attaching the pin to the top of the tree on its own made it droop like Charlie Brown's tree, so Roger bolstered it with a pencil.

Roger was impressed with the Christmas countdown my grandparents made all their grandkids when we were little. He proclaimed it our second tree.

So between the snow, the ornaments from home and the two trees with presents underneath (apparently, I forgot to mention to Mom that gifts aren't supposed to be wrapped when they go over borders), it's feeling an awful lot like Christmas here. In spite of not having unpacked the boxes in the living room yet.

So merry Christmas, everyone. To all my family and friends back in Ohio (and elsewhere)--I love and miss you. I hope we'll be able to be back in Ohio for the holidays next year.

These two elves have been guarding my wine for the past few weeks.

2008-12-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

So I'd been craving the french dip roast beef my mom made, and finally, I checked the family cookbook she made us--and it wasn't there! So I e-mailed her, and she dug out the recipe and sent it to me, and I was able to make it last week. Roger's been putting the leftover beef in ramen (beef) soup for lunch.

And it's just so good (and simple), I have to share it. (Unfortunately, I don't remember which of her friends she got this from.)

Slow Cooker French Dip Roast Beef

3 lb beef chuck pot roast
1/3 c vinegar (I've used both--white & cider)
1 lg onion, cut up
3 bay leaves
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t garlic powder

Combine the ingredients & pour over meat (stab the roast a bit). Marinate overnight. Place all into crock pot in the morning. Cook on low for 10-12 hrs. Use French rolls or croissants (we used croissants at my mom's, but I made French rolls), split & line them w/spinach or lettuce leaves. (We skipped the greens.) Discard the bay leaves. Skim the fat off the top of the liquid and ladle au jus into dipping dishes. Shred the beef onto the sandwiches (careful--it's hot!). Enjoy!

2008-12-13T16:37:00.001-08:00

Today is Roger's & my first anniversary. A year ago, we were at the end of an exhausting 30-hour race from Boise, Idaho to our wedding in my parents' living room in Pemberville, Ohio. Looking back, we're amazed that we made it--winter storms, blown-out engine, rush-hour just outside Chicago, almost no sleep in 48 hours.

It's only right, then, that we spent today sleeping in. (Last night was the Three Leaf Construction holiday party, so we were out kinda late.) I made cinnamon rolls, but managed to bake them under the broiler instead of in bake mode. (I don't think that would've happened if it hadn't been for the fact that the oven doesn't actually have the words "bake" & "broil"--just symbols.) Still, it only resulted in a hard caramelized top (and a few instances of burned sugar). They're, otherwise, delicious. (And they were really easy!)

Tonight's plans are simple: a choral festival called Carols by Candlelight. (If my poor, congested husband is up to it.)

Amazingly, it's been snowing all day. Or maybe it's not so amazing--the forecasts said we'd be getting our dose of winter weather this weekend. It probably won't be sticking around, but I'll settle for a little bit of snow before Christmas.

(Reception dinner at Mancy's Italian in Toledo, Ohio.)

2008-10-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Today is a rainy day. The third day in a row of rain and gray. It gets grayer here than it did in Ohio because the ocean reflects the sky--so when it's blue and sunny, everything's happy. When it's like today, everyone's sluggish and chilled and tries their best to stay indoors with books and movies.

We're in-between moves, which means that we've moved from the place with the view of Myrtle Rocks, but we haven't moved into the new place (a two bedroom apartment), so we're biding our time for a week or two at the old cottage with the fun walls we painted while the current tenant of the apartment moves into his new house.

It would be nice to be able to actually afford a house that wasn't just what Roger calls bulldozer bait. . . .

Anyway, it's been a while since I posted here. (But I have been posting my reading--though I probably won't do much reading here; we don't really have much lighting. We really need to get a lamp or two.)

2008-08-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair(s) in July has been one of my favorite summer events since I started going with my mom when I was in college. Sometimes it was just Mom & me and one or both of my sisters, sometimes friends came along. A few years ago, we got a little turned around about which exit (from US 23) led to the Briarwood Mall, where we parked and took the shuttle. (We finally wrote step-by-step directions and kept them in the glove box.)

This year, thousands of miles away, I could feel in my skin, without looking at the calendar, when it was the art fairs weekend. I was itching for an art show. Ohio seems to have a lot of them, way more than I've found here. We'd got to two or three in the summer (including Ann Arbor), but in remote little Powell River, there's Art in the Park, which is part of the Blackberry Festival, and that's usually tiny and considerably poorly attended (because it's always the same weekend as a ton of other events in the area). Besides, they don't get a lot of outside vendors, so most of the artists' works are familiar.

So just when I was feeling art show withdrawal, I got an e-mail from Powell River artist Skye Morrison, letting me (as one of her many fans) know that she was going to be part of the Filberg Festival, a juried arts & crafts show in Comox. I brought the festival up with my workout buddy Velma and she said she'd love to go--especially if it meant she could check out her competition. (She's a soapmaker.)

She arranged for some of her friends to come along; the more people who came, the more ways the ferry fare would be divided (and the ferry fares just keep going up). Plus, there's that whole "the more, the merrier" idea.

As the festival weekend neared, the weather forecasts grew less promising. People in our group decided not to go, and by Thursday, our group was back to just Velma & me. We decided to go to Comox as walk-ons ('cause taking a vehicle was going to be about $100 more) and catch one of the shuttles to the festival. Dressed in layers and carrying umbrellas and extra socks in our bags, we met the morning of August 1 and after purchasing our ferry tickets, we ran (in the rain) to Rocky Mountain Pizza to get some breakfast and tea.

Fortunately, that was the last rain we saw that day. Though directly overhead was gray for a lot of the day and you could always see gray clouds somewhere in the distance, we didn't have further need for our umbrellas. Yay!

As we were now a party of two, Velma's fellow soapmaker and friend Natalie agreed to pick us up at the ferry (no need for a shuttle!) and took in the festival with us.

What first struck me was how strange it felt to not be allowed in to the festival until 11. I've never been to an art fair where people couldn't walk around and get glimpses of artists setting up. Plus, since we got there at 9:30, we had an hour and a half to kill. (More tea. Biscotti.)

When we were allowed in, I realized this was a park. I'd been told it was, but I apparently didn't take the fact in until I wasn't walking around on pavement and sidewalks. Very relaxing, low key. And compared to the Ann Arbor I was craving, it was tiny.

There were fantastic flowers everywhere, and I thought I took more pictures of them, but apparently not.

Vendors at Filberg include every kind of vendor you'd find at larger shows--just with less selection. These vendors were selling spice mixes to be used as marinade/rubs, created to effect the results of marinating without taking the time to marinate.

This is Skye's booth; I know I'm biased, but she was on of my favorite artists here. She had new paintings, lots of prints, and of all the stalls, hers was one of the busiest I saw.

I was just about to get a picture of her in her tent, but then someone asked her a question and she turned around.

In the end, my purchases included a birthday present, some earrings, and a hair stick (now that my hair is long enough to be held up with one). And we determined that we didn't like any of the three soapmakers' products there as much as we like Velma's and Natalie's soaps. Well, I have to take Velma's word about Natalie's; I haven't tried it yet, but I figure I can trust Velma's judgment on the matter.

2008-08-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm sharing a few photos:

Some critter (an otter, maybe) got into the burn barrel a few months ago.
(And back out. And then back in again.)

Roger thought this was a baby dragonfly, newly hatched and drying out. Can baby dragonflies be this big?

Kitty asleep on Roger's computer cords.

Sunset from last week.

Sunset from a few weeks ago.

A cruise ship that passed by our place last weekend.
(My camera doesn't like night pictures.)

Me, holding a very licky 11-week-old chihuahua last weekend.

2008-08-15T14:32:00.001-07:00

This is a long overdue post. Sorry, Mom.

View Larger Map

Roger and I have been busy. A few weekends ago, we went to a wood boat show in Madeira Park. A few weeks before that, we were on Texada for Van Anda Days. I'll stick with Van Anda Days for now. On the map above, Powell River is just north of the northern tip of the island.

Texada is a large island, generally known for its limestone and grow ops. And, according to Wikipedia, Jennifer Tilley was raised there, too. (Who knew?). The whole population of Texada is about that of Pemberville, Ohio, where I grew up--and Texada takes up considerably more space. Van Anda is one of its biggest towns, and they got some of the money being given for the celebration of BC's 150th anniversary to use to celebrate the founding of the town.

The first day's spectacles included the local bagpipers, kids' activities, the opening of the local history museum, and a performance that wasn't really a play in which a few people played many voices in the history of Van Anda. Roger brought his camera and caught a lot of the events on video. And there was a costume prize.

The guy in the above picture is Elder. He and his dad built these amazing wood cars, and they brought them into town to entertain the kids.

After the first of the Van Anda Days wrapped up, Roger's friend Gary and his wife Phyllis invited us to spend the afternoon on their sailboat in the harbor, and later, Gary took us out for a "sail" (there wasn't rally any wind, so we just motored close to Powell River and back).

Gary even let Roger drive.

And we headed back to Texada just in time for the sunset.

Though you can't see it well, this is Powell River at dusk. (If you click on it to open it in its own tab or window, you can see the stacks from the paper mill.)

The second day of Van Anda Days was at the airport, starting with a fly-in pancake breakfast. I volunteered, wormed my into one of three flipping positions, and didn't get any photos of what was going on. Roger was otherwise occupied--he got to go up in a plane with his video camera--and didn't get any pictures of me behind the griddle, spatula in hand. The rest of the day was spent watching planes coming in, leaving, talking to pilots. I think they said they had over 90 planes in. The Fraser Blues--which were supposed to be part of the first day's festivities as well, but one of the planes had mechanical issues--flew formations for us as the culmination of the weekend.

Of course, the guy on the ground is my love with his video camera.

And the last memorable bit of my first visit to Texada: There was a pretty long line-up for the ferry (it was the end of Diversity Festival weekend, too, which is also held on Texada). People got out of their cars and socialized. Suddenly, in this little turnaround area, there was a deer. I was stunned--there were way too many people around for this deer to be out there in broad daylight. We were a little far away to be getting good, detailed pictures, but we did try:

Next posts (not necessarily in this order):

Wood Boat Festival
Filberg Art Festival
Sandcastle Days
My garden
At the shooting range
Meeting Joni Mitchell (yes, the Joni Mitchell)

2008-06-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

We just returned from our trip to Vancouver to see Cirque du Soleil's Corteo. Amazing.

What I knew about Cirque du Soleil prior to being offered the tickets was that I'd seen a few acts on PBS, my aunt went to see the Beatles show in Vegas, and our friend Pat went to see a show in Vancouver a few years ago. I knew it was, basically, a circus without animals, so it would be a lot of tumbling and contortion and acrobatics. And very cool costumes.

When we arrived at the place, funky yellow and blue striped tents loomed large before us. I hadn't expected tents. Performers were everywhere, playing instruments, performing magic, greeting guests. At intermission, we watched a guy (who looked a bit like he'd wandered out of a jungle) playing drums, and a mime we were following turned around and presented me with a double-headed red daisy.

Our seats were three rows from the stage, so we got to see the mechanics of the show, as well as the performance. I suppose some people would find the show less enchanting to see the skirts of the angels dangling above the stage, waiting to become part so the scene again, out of sight of rows farther back, or to see performers being unhooked from their harnesses just off stage, flirting mildly with the crew member helping them out. Roger and I, however, enjoyed seeing the extensive rigging that made the show appear surprisingly simple. (After the show, we were talking to the head usher who told us that Corteo actually required the biggest crew because everything offstage was so complex.)

Corteo's premise is that a clown is dreaming his own funeral, and though it sounds like a dreary plot, it was very funny and had plenty of jaw-dropping moments. The clown's circus is based on a nineteenth-century European circus, so the costumes are all based on that period as well--and Roger read later that the costumes were all made of natural fabrics. (You probably won't understand why that's so impressive unless you see the show--which I encourage you to do if it's ever in your area. The head usher said they'd just come from Columbus, Ohio...)

Some of our favorite acts were: the lovers--four women who do acrobatics from chandeliers, the tiny woman harnessed to huge helium balloons (she bounces on the clown's hand), the acrobatics after the intermission which involved platforms and men flinging the women from platform to platform (and people doing flips on the trampolines below), the people in the silver rings, the tightrope walker (who walked up a rope on a 45 degree angle!), the jugglers, and of course, the finale (horizontal bars in a square, with another bar to the right and and another to the left of the square, and the performers' routine included up to six at a time using the square--what timing!). We weren't, of course, allowed to take pictures during the performance, so pics posted here are from other sites, and there are more pics when you follow the links in the text.

Our other adventures in Vancouver included getting a ScoopFree automatic kitty litter box, which may seem an extravagance for our single cat, but she is the pickiest cat about having a clean litterbox that I have ever seen. So we decided to get an automatic scooper. We can only hope that she appreciates what this will mean for her. Plus, it has a privacy hood which should mean (yes!) no more "missing" the box and this means that next time we leave for a long weekend, we won't have to put her in the kennel just to make sure she gets a clean litterbox. So far, she seems to like it.

We also visited Pacific Center for two reasons: The Apple Store and The Body Shop. The first because we needed a new battery for our laptop. It was a rather stark store--everything white and grey, in keeping with Apple's signature colors, except the staff who wore bright tee shirts. Roger was disappointed; he felt bugged by the staff, who in our estimation were too numerous and who clearly worked on commission. (He spent more time in the store than I did.) The one staff member who tried to help me while Roger was talking to the first staffer we'd engaged, was shrugged off by my pointing to Roger at the end of the counter and saying, "I'm with them." I never took my eyes off the iPod Touch I was playing with. (Those things are neat.)

We stopped at The Body Shop not because I needed anything, but because I have a Love Your Body membership which has a $15 gift sitting on it, waiting for me to claim it.

But, of course, I got the membership in Ohio, and although I asked when I signed up for the program whether I would have problems once I moved to Canada, the people who signed me up clearly had no idea what they were talking about, because while the Canadian stores will give me the 10% discount the membership allows me, they will not let me take what I wanted for the gift I'd earned by spending so much at The Body Shop last Christmas. I am not pleased. Even if I ordered from The Body Shop Online, they won't ship to Canada because The Body Shop Canada has its own online presence. It's the bleeping Vonage situation all over again. (But I'm not spending hours on the phone with customer service this time.)

But we did stay at a nifty little hotel downtown called the Burrard Inn. We were able to walk to the performance (maybe a dozen blocks or so) and there were plenty of restaurants around, and a coffeeshop right downstairs. Our room was white with an orange accent wall--and a very pink bathroom. And we really appreciated the rooftop garden (on the roof of the parking area).

2008-06-07T15:37:00.001-07:00

Roger and I drove to Lund this morning so that he could drop off some work he did for Terracentric Adventures, and then (finally!) we went to lunch at Nancy's Bakery.

I've been hearing about Nancy's since I first came here in 2005--mostly I heard about Nancy's cinnamon rolls. Then, sometime since my first visit, Nancy's moved into a new, much bigger location to accommodate their growing number of patrons.

But Roger and I don't usually have reason to drive to Lund, so before today, I'd never been treated to Nancy's.

Heaven. Quite possibly the best food in the area.

Because we were right at the end of the breakfast/beginning of the lunch time, I had eggs benny with smoked salmon & Roger had a breakfast burrito (it was huge!), but I was very tempted by the butternut pizza (sold by the slice) that was displayed on the counter. If it's on the menu next time, I know what I'm getting. Dessert was a decadent piece of triple chocolate espresso cheesecake that easily rivaled the best cheesecakes I've experienced. And we got breakfast for tomorrow morning--those famous cinnamon rolls I've heard so much about. Maybe we can go back next weekend...

2008-05-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

This is the view from our porch during low tide.

On Sunday Roger & I went for a walk to Myrtle Rocks at low tide (around 5:30 PM). What an (educational) adventure! (If you click on the pictures, they should open so you can see the big version.)

What, in the picture, looks like sand is mostly rocks and some sand heavily littered with mussel, clam & oyster shells that the seagulls have dropped on the rocks to break them open. There are also lots of huge unopened oysters covered with barnacles. We found an oyster fused with a clam shell; from what we could tell, the oyster was still inside. I think I found two oysters fused together, both open, long ago eaten--is there such a thing as conjoined oysters? Unfortunately, according to a sign warning against collecting the oysters at Myrtle Rocks, if we try to collect and eat the oysters, we risk paralytic shellfish poisoning. I guess if Roger and I want oysters, we'll have to go collect them from one of the many oyster leases around here. After all, I've learned how to shuck oysters (and didn't damage myself in the process), but that's another story entirely.

**Correction: Silly me--the only people who can gather oysters from oyster leases are the people who hold the leases. We'd have to get licenses to gather oysters from public beaches.

In the first tidal pools we stopped to observe, we saw plenty of movement--seaweed, debris in the current, and little animals moving around. Mostly the little animals were crabs. The largest one we saw was about the size of a tooney. Can you find the crab in this picture?

And how many can you find in this picture?

I imagine the big crabs we get served in restaurants would be a little frightening to encounter (pinch, pinch), but these tiny guys were cute and fun.

Our next encounter was the aforementioned variety of huge oysters, apparently still cozy in their mollusky homes. And then there were the sand dollars, all bleached white or yellow-turning-white. (I've always wanted to find sand dollars on a beach, ever since I saw one at school when I was about ten.) At first I was afraid that if I took some, I'd be taking something alive, but then we realized that the white ones weren't alive, so we collected a few of them, took them home, washed them off with the hose before we even rinsed our shoes, and left them outside to finish bleaching.

And here's how we came to understand that the white and yellow sand dollars weren't alive:

See the purple one? That's what a live sand dollar looks like. And once we saw one, we saw them everywhere. If you touch them, their shells are rough going in one direction and smooth (almost velvety) going the other direction. And they shimmer as their cilia move, which my camera still pictures didn't capture very well.

This is how they live, in huge masses burrowed in the sand.

I also learned that clams spurt spouts of water up from where they hide in the sand. My attempts to catch that in action didn't turn out so well, but it was fun watching the vast landscape of barnacled rocks, sand and shells spitting up playful little geysers.

And the last of the pictures are also of a purple sea beast: starfish. Many of them were hiding under rocks, but a couple brave ones were out basking in the sun.

Oh, and about those crab pictures:

2008-05-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to a brain injury conference in Naramata, BC, and of course I learned quite a bit. But one of the best parts of the trips was the location: Naramata is on the shores of Lake Okanagan. The Okanagan valley is known for its summer produce (they grow the best plums ever) and its wineries. Roger and I went to Penticton (also on the lake) in 2006, but here are some more pictures, taken from the Kettle Valley Railroad trail over Naramata.

The lake, looking west (I think).

If the first was really looking west, then this is the lake looking east.

The rows are an orchard of some kind and the gray is actually the lake. This is looking down from the west(?) side of this tunnel:

And this tunnel is where we saw this creature (which we suspect Hagrid would love):

Yeah, he really was as big as you think. Roughly, I'd say he was the size of my hand. I didn't get out of the Jeep to take this picture, that's for sure!

2008-04-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

I tried three different recipes. The first was spongy, like angel food cake. It was just okay. We threw most of it out. The second was better, but still not destined to become a favorite. For the third attempt I chose a recipe from a website that had only mixed reviews, but since it called for whole eggs (not separated like recipe #1 and recipe #2 called for none at all), I thought I'd try it.

I had insisted on making our friend Pat a birthday cake--even though we were moving three weeks ago, when his birthday was. He waited patiently and I began my hunt for a maple cake with walnuts recipe for him for him.

I have issues with making cakes from scratch, muffins and quickbreads--I always seem to manage to end up with really dark edges to everything I try. This third trial of Pat's cake was no exception; the edges were toasty dark, if not burnt in places. I scraped off the worst of it, frosted it with maple buttercream frosting and took it to a potluck lunch, where it got great reviews. Catherine suggested that if I tried putting a waterbath underneath while the cakes were baking, I wouldn't have to worry about the cakes drying out and it would help keep the heat even in the oven. So I did, and Pat's birthday cake turned out just about as perfect as it could get.

Go ahead. Tell me you're not salivating.

And clearly I've found my cord to transfer pics from my camera to my computer, but now I need to find my battery charger. While you wait for my next post, you can enjoy these two videos I took comparing the view of our old place to our new one...

Unfortunately, the video I took as a tour of our old place refused to upload, so I can't share that. (Sorry, Mom!) If you want an indication of the mess that it was, just take a look at this picture, especially around the edges--the whole place was like this.

And Roger did finally upload our wedding for anyone who hasn't seen it (or who wants to see it again--it's pretty short as ceremonies go).

2008-04-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight I saw the edge of night sliding over the cedar treetops. A beautiful medium tone, slightly bluish grey (the color of wise eyes) graciously giving way to the dark.

And speaking of moments I'd like to share, can you believe that I haven't found my cord for my camera yet? I'd show you pictures of our unpacking progress (there's been much in the last week), but I couldn't post them...

2008-03-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Don't think about it, just start scrubbing.

Good advice to a daughter who's been coddled her whole life and hasn't had to deal with a whole lot of cobwebs, mold and the general dust leftover from other people's lives. I think Mom may have advised me to turn up the music, too. Or maybe I just picked that up from her example. (She always woke us up to Saturday cleaning with the stereo turned way up--Abba or Aerosmith or some soundtrack or cast recording with upbeat music.)

But here's the scoop--Roger and I have moved. As of a couple days ago, our stuff is now in boxes in our new residence, except our silverware which is still at the old place, but which we'll grab tonight when we're giving it its final cleaning. The new place is not a normal rental situation, because we're renting from one of Roger's friends who's out of town for a while, so the place is his, though I'm taking his invitation to move in and make ourselves comfortable quite literally--starting with the kitchen. He took over this house from his uncle and didn't really cull his uncle's stuff; he just moved in on top of it. (He didn't need the space it was taking up.) So I'm cleaning who-knows-how-old spices out of the cupboards and dishes that probably haven't been used in a decade or more. There was this tin of old lemonade mix... How old? you ask. Old enough that it had been opened with a can opener (the last time I remember opening lemonade mix with a can opener, I was being babysat by my grandma) and the contents are all brown and one big lemon-smelling mass. (At least it smelled like lemon.) And I'm boxing up all of his (and his uncle's) stuff up and replacing it with mine--in part because I like my kitchen stuff and in part because if I do something stupid to ruin a pan or or something, I'd rather it was my pan instead of his.

So right this very minute I'm admiring our new view and putting on the Chicago soundtrack to belt out along with as I return to scrubbing out the cupboards. (Thinking about lyrics trumps thinking about the dirt, after all.) And you know I'll be posting pictures just as soon as I unpack the cord that links camera to computer.

2008-02-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day, Roger took me out to Alchemist, a restaurant neither of us had been to. Their Heart Day dinner was warm camembert crostini with onion marmalade, pan seared veal loin and local prawns with prawn bisque and potato gnocchi, and profiteroles filled with vanilla bean ice cream with warm chocolate sauce and toasted almonds. (I kept the menu.) Roger ordered the french onion soup and the lamb duo (rack of lamb provincale and braised lamb cheeks with caramelized yam) from the regular menu and the sorbet for dessert.

We had fun dressing up and going out for a special occasion, though as we walked to the restaurant, we realized we'd both forgotten to put our wedding rings after our showers. The lights in the dining room were low, the table candlelit. A variety of small gatherings were there--a couple with one of their mothers, several tables hosted pairs of couples, and the last group of the night was a party of eight.

What we liked best was being able to sit across the table from each other. Realizing that we are in the same space (the same time zone!) is one of our recurring delights.

And then, as though it weren't enough that Roger and I got to actually, finally be face-to-face on Valentine's Day, we got a phone call this morning from Overwaitea, our grocery store, telling Roger that he'd won the Valentine's Day gift basket from the deli counter. Woohoo!

I would've taken a picture of it, but before we'd gotten home, we had is dismantled. Bits and pieces had already been shared between us and a friend we stopped to see.

In the basket:

Crackers
Grueyere and brie
Shortbread cookies
A jar of chile pepper jelly
Ferraro Rocher chocolate hazelnut balls
Lindt truffles
De-alcoholized champagne
Gift certificate for a pedicure

Guess who gets the pedicure. :)

The basket came with a big tacky Valentine's Day balloon, which we thought might make a fun cat distractor. (She was unfazed, for the most part.)

2008-02-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Days 5 & 6 (December 12 & 13)
Wedding: December 13, 5:30

We are fortunate that all the nasty weather preceded us on our route. Ice storms rolled across the Midwest just as we were leaving Boise, so the roads were mostly cleaned up by the time we needed them.

I forget where I took this picture; it was at one of the rest stops in... Iowa, maybe? Snow and ice covered everything in the Midwest--except the roads, lucky for us. Radio reports said lots of people in the towns we drove through were still without power.

Our drive across Wyoming was done mostly at night because, even though we were really tired, every time we tried to pull over to sleep, huddling in our bucket seats under whatever makeshift covers we had. But, as you can imagine, it got cold awfully fast, so we only stopped for an hour or so every time we pulled over.

Every five miles or so there were gates and potentially blinking lights announcing roads ahead were closed. Fortunately, we were almost to Laramie, Wyoming before we actually encountered a closed road, and we found out that it wasn't due to weather conditions, but that there had been an accident that made a mess out of the whole road. Now, I hope the damage was all to the vehicle and that the person(s) in the car were okay, but we had more than 1200 miles to drive in under 30 hours with questionable road conditions ahead. We decided not to gamble that the accident would be cleared in less time than it would take us to detour through the corner of Colorado, so we took a U.S. highway to I-76 just fifty miles east of Denver. Snow was blowing across the road in snaky theater-fog fashion the whole detour (but the scenery was very pretty--rocky hills and evergreens covered in snow).

Aside from pulling over every now and then to sleep or to get fuel, food or coffee, the race from Boise to Pemberville was uninterrupted by further delays, but we were still going to be cutting it close. When I called my family Wednesday night with a progress report, we were only just getting to Des Moines. They were all skeptical that we'd make it, and I was having doubts of my own (I didn't need theirs, too). But Roger just kept driving. His fatigue didn't really start to show till we were just outside of Chicago, around 6:30 AM. It was not a good time to encounter rush hour traffic full of people who didn't care to use their signals.

But we pushed through, and then just a little while (and a few confusing traffic signs) later we were in (oh rejoice!) Indiana! Less than four hours to Ohio and it was only 7:30! Ah, but wait... there was a time line somewhere in there. So it was 8:30.

Roger convinced me not to cancel my hair appointment, though we clearly weren't going to make the time. (I hadn't showered in two days and I was certainly going to shower before my hair was done.) After I'd called Mom to let her know where we were and what kind of time we were making, Roger arranged for my hair to be done as soon as we got to the salon and then he called Jim, our officiating pastor, and I forget who else he called, but I felt better when he was done and reassuring me that everything would be fine and be at least close to being on time.

I'd said, "Let's just get out of this state!" so many times by now, but do you know the longest stretch of road was actually the hour from the Indiana/Ohio border to Pemberville?

And then, oh my goodness, there was the Lemoyne exit and there was Pemberville Road and there was Pemberville's water tower and oh, my parents' street! We'd made it! 1:00 and hours to go! (Wedding: 5:30.)

Mom & Katie paused their Christmas decorating to help Roger get our stuff inside and I took a shower, and I was barely dried off before I was being hastened into that car again (which I was really quite sick of after over 30 hours or driving, sleeping & eating in it) to go get my hair done, get the marriage license, pick some things up on the way to Jim's house By the time we got to Jim's house, it was 4:30 and when we left his house, it was 5:00, and Roger still hadn't showered.

This is a picture Roger took at the salon after he finished taking the OPI Ink polish off my toes. Amber, my stylist in Bowling Green, was so wonderful--she was waiting for me when I walked in the door.

Next in the sequence: The Wedding
(but you'll have to wait till I get the picture from my mom, who got the proofs first)
or you can go to here, though we probably won't be there for long--we're near the end of the list now. password: 121307)

2008-02-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

Day 2 (December 9)
You know what I liked about driving across Oregon? There were trains everywhere. Across the river from our rest stop, there were train tracks. Just about all our driving the night before had been next to tracks. Mountains were lit up by the trains' lights and it took me forever to realize it was a train, not amazingly bright lights from the truck(s) in front of us.

This was the morning of December 9, 2007, at the rest stop, somewhere near Hood River on I-84. You can't really see it, but there's a train there, really there is. You can see it over the patch of weeds.

So we packed up and headed out and got all of about half a mile before our V-belt broke. We called AAA and the wonderful guy who towed us to The Dalles (everyone pronounced this differently) took us to a parts place to get a new belt and then to a car wash his buddy managed and arranged for us to use a dry bay so Roger could change the belt out of the wind. A few hours later we were on the road again. We stopped by a place called Cousins to eat lunch--they made wonderful french toast out of their huge cinnamon rolls--and then we were on our way again. The rest of the day was uneventful as far as the van went; she worked like she was supposed to. (Well done, Roger.)

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Day 3 (December 10)
An uneventful morning, until about two hours on the road. We got up and were just entering Nampa, Idaho, when we came to some stopped traffic. And the van died as Roger slowed down. Great.

He managed to cold-start it by turning around in one of those emergency vehicle turn-arounds we'd stopped by (which sloped down to the oncoming lanes), and we went back to the last gas station we'd passed--and just as we were pulling into a parking space, it stopped again.

Roger's theory was that it'd been cold enough the night before to make our diesel sludgy, so all we needed was a place to warm it up. We called AAA again and were towed to a VW dealer in Boise. When we were pulled into the service bay, the writers all gathered around and asked, "Umm... what's this?"

None of the employees had seen an old VW van before. And ours, being from Germany (not as an import), was especially strange because the information was in different places. None of their computers could tell them anything about anything on our van. The VIN #
brought up nothing. The engine #, nada. Whatever other various ID #s they tried to use didn't help. They agreed to let us use the bay to warm up the van and see if we could start the van after the diesel had a chance to de-sludge.

It didn't work. They offered several places we could have the van towed to, since no one there had any experience with vans that weren't Eurovans. The first guy Roger called couldn't get anyone else in till the middle of January and the second guy, Phil, said he was pretty busy and probably wouldn't be able to get to it right away, but when Roger told him that we were supposed to be in Ohio on Thursday to get married, he said to have it brought in and he'd take a look at it. So we had it towed to Phil's Wagon Works.

I don't remember everything that was tested, but we took a room in Boise that night, the Ameri-Tel right next to the only major shopping mall in Boise. We walked over and got Roger's hair trimmed (which wasn't necessarily a great idea since we couldn't explain how it usually gets cut) at one of the department stores and got really turned around. The mall there is two stories and has these computerized directories that revert to the basic screen before you can get your bearings. Argh. We finally asked a mall employee how to get to the Olive Garden, which we knew was right outside one of the exits. Yummy dinner (but I miss the old breadsticks).

We looked up flights from Boise to Toledo, Ohio that night. And to Detroit. And to Columbus. And to Las Vegas (because we thought that we might be able to get cheaper flights if we detoured that way). No matter how we routed it, we couldn't fly at the last minute in December for less than $3000 round trip for the two of us, and the better flights for our schedule would've run at least $4000.

We hoped Phil would have good news for us the next day.

Day 4 (December 11, Tuesday)
We weren't going to hear from Phil till noon, so we went over to the mall to check out wedding rings for Roger. I'd gotten mine in June or something, when I found a ring I really liked (and I wanted to have the ring when we were finally able to be reunited). So we went to a few different stores, but only one had a ring that Roger liked (tungsten), that fit him, and that we could buy and take with us that day. (Everyone else had to special order or size the rings and it would've taken weeks for them to get a ring for him.)

So we got his ring while we were waiting for the prognosis for our van, and then we decided to stop waiting for the call--we had to check out of the hotel anyway, so we called a cab and decided to wait in the office for news.

It wasn't good.

They couldn't get the compression up. We might need a new engine. But they definitely weren't going to have the van for us that day. Phil asked if we'd looked into flights, but was appalled at the prices, so he called a couple of rental car places for us. One place wouldn't let their cars be driven more than one state away, and the other place couldn't have a car for us till Wednesday afternoon. Phil hung up from that phone call and handed us the keys to his own car (an '89 Audi--a fabulous executive car in its own time). I suppose he figured it was a good risk because he had our van, a vehicle not easy to find anywhere in North America. He made it very clear that he wouldn't normally be inclined to do it, but he had a very good feeling about us.

At three that afternoon, we were as packed as we could be into Phil's car. (Amazingly spacious, that car.) We had to be in Bowling Green, Ohio by noon on Thursday for me to make my hair appointment. And Roger had to do all the driving because I can't drive stick shift.

2008-02-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

I guess I'll have to take this a little bit at a time, or it's going to become one of those things that gets so big you don't even know where to start. (It's a similar feeling to a kid being required to thoroughly clean her very messy room--where do you start?)

As my last post said, Roger and I are back in Powell River, which is surprisingly cold this winter. I've seen very little sun, as I expected--Powell River has precipitous winters--but the sky keeps spitting snow. (one hour it's rain, the next it's snow. If it snows at night, it's been cold enough that the snow actually stays on the ground for hours the next morning.) Long-time residents are shaking their heads, confused and not a little disappointed. People settle here, after all, because they like the temperate, almost snow-free climate.

They've had even more weather similar to the weather we left in, an unusual snow storm in November 2006. These are pictures of our van and the surrounding scenery after our first night of our 2006 trip. We'd gotten stuck in a gas station parking lot the night before (the gas station had been closed due to a power outage). See how you can't even see the cool aerodynamic front piece of our Westy's top? We hope that these winters are just weather anomalies.

Our new road trip plans for 2007 started shortly before American Thanksgiving when Roger called to tell me he'd talked to a lawyer (finally) who would help us at an affordable rate. We went through several drafts of plans, but finally decided that on December 7, I would fly to meet Roger in Seattle. I would accompany Roger on the drive to Ohio, where we would get married on December 13 in my parents' living room.

We stayed in Seattle the first day, just getting used to being around each other again, so I can't count that as the first day of our road trip. I think that day of not being on the road with each other was necessary--we really needed to get to know each other again, and we needed to do it without being encapsulated in our beloved Westy. So we started on December 8 to wend our way to Ohio. We'd decided on roughly this route: southeast through Washington, through the northeast corner of Oregon, the southwest corner of Idaho, pick up I-80 in Utah and take it all the way across that little upper northeast corner of Utah, all the way across southern Wyoming, across Nebraska, Iowa, northern Illinois and Indiana, and (finally) into Ohio.
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(I wanted to go through Yakima, Washington to visit a bookstore I'd read about.)

Day One of our trip, however, proved slightly vexatious. We were halfway to Yakima from I-5 when we realized that the Crystal Mountain Pass was closed, and that we needed to go through the Crystal Mountain Pass to get to Yakima. We had to go all the way back to I-5 to make a detour through Oregon. On this detour we encountered the charming little town of Enumclaw, Washington, and had lunch at a little place called The Kettle. The parking lot was packed, so we figured it was a good place to stop and grab a bite. The service was very friendly, we were the only strangers in the place, and the food was heaped onto the plates.

The other perk of having to turn around is that the new route took us through Vancouver, Washington, where we finally found tire chains (all chain, no cable) for our Go Westy! tires (Michelin HydroEdges).

We got as far as just over the Oregon border, and decided to call it a day.

2008-01-29T23:01:00.000-08:00

Home! After months of waiting and several weeks of roadtrip honeymooning (which involved a lot of work on our beloved Westy), Roger and I arrived in Victoria on Friday, January 25. We took the ferry from Port Angeles, Washington. I think that will become our crossing of choice.

The border crossing was amazingly painless, thanks mostly to the letter from our lawyer reassuring anyone who was concerned that our paperwork was all in order and my residency application had been submitted to Canadian Immigration.

So now I'm sitting in the living room of our cottage, next to my husband, watching A Daily Show make fun of the State of the Union speech. It's nice to be back, in spite of the crazy weather. It may be snowy here (very unusual), but I hear it's windy and far colder back in Ohio!

Stay tuned for details about our wedding, Christmas and the roadtrip honeymoon!

2007-08-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

To stay positive during this involuntary estrangement from my fiancé, I've been enjoying all the things about home that I missed while I was away. I got to go to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs in July, and in another month, there's the Black Swamp Art Festival. And this month, there's the fair.

This is the week of the Pemberville Free Fair--one of the last free fairs in Ohio. The fair is starts with the Kiddie Parade on Wednesday night at 6:30. Kids from all over NW Ohio ride through the parade, and the winners will kick off the Grand Parade on Saturday at 1:00. Nothing about this has changed since I was a kid, and very little has probably changed since my dad was a kid. Even the prize money for the Kiddie Parade winners hasn't changed. (It probably should soon--$10 or even $20 split between four or five kids doesn't go very far.) Oh, wait, it's not true that nothing has changed. When I was a kid, we didn't throw candy at the Kiddie Parade; in fact, I think it was in the rules that you weren't supposed to. Now kids get almost twice the candy--the Grand Parade on Saturday has been a sugar giveaway since I can remember.

The best part of the Kiddie Parade, when you're a kid, is getting to dress up and have people admire you (and your mom's skill, since she's the one who made the costumes to begin with). This is a picture of my cousins, my sister Sarah and me from when we were participants; I think we were on the front page of the newspaper the next day (even though we only got 3rd place). We remember being absolutely miserable in these costumes--I was itchy, Kim was hot, Brandi was hot and could barely move, and Sarah's shoes were too small. But we've all agreed since that this picture was worth the discomfort. One year saw us on a bed/float as Peter Pan (me), Wendy (Brandi), John (Kim), Michael (Sarah) and Tinkerbell (Katie) and several years later as Jem & the Holograms.

But it's fun to watch, too. This year's participants were especially creative and elaborate. Some of our favorites included a police chase, chocolate chip cookies, an old-fashioned ice cream cart, and Portage River pirates:

2007-07-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

My family--Dad, Mom, my sister Katie & I--ride in an MS 150 ride called Bike to the Bay in Northwest Ohio. Our team, which includes friends as well, is called The Team ON YOUR RIGHT, so named because we are one of the slowest (perhaps the slowest) team on the ride, and polite riders will call, "On your left!" to let us know that we're about to be passed. (Our average speed: 12 mph.)

The Team ON YOUR RIGHT at the end on Saturday: Eileen, John, Bobby, Katie (behind), Cindy, Carl (behind), Jena (me), Peggy.

I'm a little biased, I know, but our team is fantastic. We laugh a lot. We sing a little. And we motivate each other--to go faster, or to just keep going. (Before the last rest stop on Sunday, this is really important, because that's where the hills are--real hills, not just overpasses. This year we were lucky enough to have a cop in the intersection who waved us through the red lights, which was wonderful because when you're going uphill, you don't want to lose any momentum because of a traffic light.) And we seem to be developing a trend where the team adds people on the ride. Peggy unofficially joined the team halfway through the ride last year, and officially joined it this year. We met Dick this year, who has ridden every year since the Northwest Ohio MS 150's started. He usually rides with his daughter, but she wasn't able to this year, so he was going it alone. (Alone on a ride through generally flat NW Ohio landscape isn't especially fun.) So he finished the first day with us this year, and met us at breakfast the next morning to ride back with us. We hope he (and he daughter) join the team next year.

Peggy & Dick & Bobby were interviewed by a Port Clinton reporter at the end of the first ride, and we found our team mentioned in the Port Clinton News Herald on Monday.

The women stretch out in Gibsonburg. (This is the stop with the popsicles--and when it's a hot day, they've been known to have a sprinkler running for riders to go through. We
re grateful that the weather was just about perfect this year--not too much wind comfortable mid-70's temps.)

Shoulder rub chain at the second to last rest stop on Saturday.

This is at the pancake breakfast on Sunday morning at Port Clinton High School. We love this--you stand back and catch your breakfast. It's not unusual to have a few pancakes on the floor (but people this year were really good about picking up what they missed and throwing them away). This year, she actually scolded you if you tried to walk up and have her put the pancakes on your plate.

The Team ON YOUR RIGHT (minus Peggy) enjoying barbecue chicken at the end of the ride on Sunday.

Our first (and at this moment only) team shirts were ordered a few years ago. Apparently John was left in charge of ordering the shirts, and when we received them, some of us were appalled to find ourselves holding safety green team shirts. But there was definitely no losing each other in a crowd... Until last year when the Bike to the Bay shirts were all safety green. We saw a couple of other team shirts that were also "our" color, so now we're trendsetters.

In order to do this, we each raise at least $200 for Multiple Sclerosis research and support (though we aim for more like $500). And then we ride, usually about 80 miles the first day and 75 the second (according to our odometers). The route begins the first day at the Maumee Rec Center and ends at Port Clinton High School. Many riders pitch a tent and camp on the campus for the night, but this year some friends of Mom and Dad's housed us for the night. In my first five rides, we stayed in a hotel suite, where we could park the bikes in the kitchen. (I've been unable to ride the last two years, because last year I was in Canada with Roger and the year prior, my sister's and cousin's weddings were the weekend before and the weekend of. I suppose they must miss a few riders every year because of June weddings.)

Of course, this isn't something one can normally do without training. In the past (this was Mom & Dad's 10th ride, and Katie's & my 6th) we've trained mostly on weekends, riding no fewer than 25 miles round trip per ride, and in the couple weekends before, riding more like 50-60. Our preferred route is riding from Pemberville to Bowling Green, then hopping on the Slippery Elm Trail and riding to North Baltimore, where we stop for a snack before making the trip back to Pemberville. That's about a 56 mile ride by the time we're back in the driveway.

The training is almost harder than Bike to the Bay itself, because we don't stop much along the way. On Bike to the Bay, we have rest stops every 10 miles or so. This year, they were exceptionally well stocked with fresh fruit, granola bars, power bars, ice-cold Gatorade, cookies and a myriad of other healthy--or not--snacks. Traditionally, the last rest stop before we reach Port Clinton offers brownies. One year they weren't there and it seemed to be one of the hot topics of discussion for all the people waiting in line for the Olive Garden spaghetti dinner or a massage. I think lots of people must have commented on their feedback forms (we certainly did), because the next year, the brownies were back--and more boxes of them than we remembered. And this year, the brownies made a surprise appearance at the second rest stop in Tontogany. We've joked about putting "We ride for the brownies!" on our team T-shirts.

And you never know what you're going to see when you're training. Two weeks before Bike to the Bay, while training, we rode past a tree with a baby/juvenile bald eagle sitting on top. (I love how Mom always seems to have her camera.) That day, we also saw a red fox running across the field and we watched a motorcyclist refuse to be pulled over. The cop told us that people had been complaining about this large group of motorcycles that recklessly zipped past their homes. The rider that he had been following was just one of many--the rest of the group had turned onto another road.

The next weekend, we rode past a rather elaborate traffic stop--there were probably half a dozen motorcycles pulled over, and the cops had blocked the road. I wonder how fast they were going...

2007-06-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

All right. I've decided that you're all going to have to wait to hear about our cross country road trip, because our notes are scattered--half in BC and half here with me, and even though it's going to be a while yet before we start telling those stories, I can at least let you know what I'm up to while waiting for Canadian officials and/or border guards to come to their senses. Our lawyer has informed us that even though it seems to make sense to ask the CIC about immigration and to run situations like ours by them--the trip home to introduce fiancé to the family, border crossing questions, etc.--it was really our first mistake. She says we received some really, really bad advice. Even though receiving the same advice from three or four different offices would seem to be an affirmation that we were doing everything appropriately, the people answering CIC phones have no idea about the border guard regulations because the two have become separate entities.

Look for details here--every now and then--about my life back in Ohio. (Sometimes I swear I'm turning back into a 16 year old.) Soon, pics and stories about: seeing Chris Crutcher, one of my favorite young adult book authors; attending Claire's Day, a day that celebrates readers, authors and the memory of a little girl; our Bike to the Bay ride; and the Ault family Fourth of July (which this year is planned for July 1). I just have to get some pictures from the camera into the computer...

Oh, and I bought my wedding ring, even though we don't know yet when or where the wedding will be. I finally found a ring I like, and so as least that detail is taken care of. For those who for some reason didn't know this--and I thought I was practically shouting it from the rooftops, but many people have been surprised--yes, Roger and I are getting married. Despite what the border guards at the Peace Arch crossing think or said. (I will try not to sound horribly bitter in future posts. After all, I have only had a bad experience with one particular border crossing, and have found other border guards/crossings to be at least polite, and once or twice even close to friendly.)

It will not be a big wedding. I doubt very much that I will be in anything that anyone would consider anything close to a traditional wedding dress. In fact, I expect that there will be little truly traditional about it. I don't even expect to have a guest list or a party, really. But we'll see how it all comes together.

Right now, all I want more than anything else in the world is to be in the same space as Roger. We haven't seen each other since January, in large part because it would be cruel to come together for a week or two just to have to be separated again, and in small part because it's at least a $2,000 trip for just one person, and we have an immigration lawyer to pay now...

In case you're wondering what I'm filling my days with, I'm mostly reading and doing a few freelance editing jobs. In my head I keep hearing the sneering border guard telling me to go back to the states and get an apartment and a job, and it grates on my nerves because it doesn't make sense to do that. First, no one around here wants to hire someone who will only be here for a few months, and second, though there are plenty of short term projects I would probably qualify for, I'm not willing to relocate. (How much sense would it be to move into my own place for a mere few months with all of my independent living supplies in Seattle? It would cost as much as I would make to set up house again.) Besides, while I'm not allowed to be with my fiancé, I want to get in as much family time as I can. I miss them when I'm in BC.

Clearly, I'm on the verge of ranting. I'll be back in a few days with pictures and anecdotes.

2007-03-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since Roger and I went back to Ohio for Christmas so that he could meet my whole family and all of its fun chaos. We drove from BC, and we took pictures and had lots of adventures, so updates are coming, I swear. (You won't want to miss this.)

But, sadly, we've run into a huge bump in my moving to BC, because despite all that we did to ensure we were following a proper order for our return, Canadian border guards decided that I was not allowed to go back with my love. That is a long, crazy and infuriating story in and of itself (which I may or may not tell you), but suffice to say that I am currently back home in Ohio at my mom and dad's. (They've been so very wonderful about the whole thing.)

I just thought that I should post a note to let you know that I have not abandoned this blog, and I will be posting pictures and stories in a few days. Check back soon!

2006-11-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

My previously traditional day after Thanksgiving involves the whole Black Friday day of early morning shopping. This tradition started when my sister Sarah said that it sounded like fun, and we should try it so that we wouldn't blindly be calling people ridiculous for getting up and rushing department store doors for early bird sales.

Maybe we should've known we'd be hooked. We found a lot of great deals that first year--free gifts and samples and amazing sales. We got up at 5 or 5:30 and drove to Franklin Park Mall, a 40 minute drive from Pemberville (where we lived). We hadn't had our morning coffee, and so after hitting Kohl's (spending 20-25 minutes in line), we found ourselves in front of Barnes & Noble, because the mall wasn't opening till later, but Barnes & Noble was open, and so was the cafe. That coffee may have been the only reason we survived the morning.

And we only did stay out till 11 or so. We had another family Thanksgiving--with Mom's side of the family this time--waiting for us that afternoon, and we were beat.

In the coming years, we would get up earlier (and earlier). Barnes & Noble wouldn't be open in those still-dark hours, but the mall would, and though there wasn't coffee till the kiosks and the one coffeeshop opened, there were three department stores to rush through while we waited for the rest of the mall catch up with the early risers. I think the customer service actually got worse (not that you can expect great customer service on Black Friday). My cousin Brandi started coming out with us in the wee hours. Sarah moved to another state, where she continued the tradition of early morning shopping.

For the first Black Friday without Sarah, I called her on her cell (she'd informed us that she'd be hitting the mall soon). She was in Kohl's in Chapel Hill, and we'd just left Kohl's in Toledo. But it was too busy to keep trying to talk on the phone, a fact that disappointed me a little. (This was before walking around with headsets glued to the side of your head was trendy.)

In Canada, there is no Black Friday. Thanksgiving is before Halloween. I had to phone my family on Thanksgiving, like Sarah had been for years, to say hello and that I missed them. I didn't get to partake of the annual feast because neither Roger nor I had the energy (nor the patience) for that kind of kitchen intensity. Brandi said she wasn't going shopping in the morning without me because it wouldn't be the same.

And today, I felt all out of sorts because I knew I was missing the Black Friday shopping and two Thanksgiving feasts with family I dearly love. I suppose it had to happen sometime--everything has changed in the last couple years. This year, half of my cousins on my mom's side of the family weren't going to be joining the extended family feast because they either had to work, or, like me, they were just too far away, and we only get to pick one holiday to be there for. At least we all pick the same holiday and I can look forward to seeing everyone at Christmas, eh?

2006-11-12T16:57:00.000-08:00

Road Trip, Part 1

The following two entries are full of pictures from the road trip Roger and I took to Edmonton, Alberta, in July. There are no pictures, unfortunately, of the afternoon we spent in Edmonton, having lunch at a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant, spending time at a stationery store (pens and paper and cards, oh my!), talking to the new owner of a 1986 VW Westfalia, picking out fabulous truffles from a store Roger was determined to take me to.

On the first day of our trip, we were stuck in a traffic kerfuffle for four hours (in the hot, hot sun) that was mostly caused by drivers rubbernecking an accident that was nearly cleaned up by the time we passed it. We had a supply of bottled water with us, and because traffic was often at a near-standstill, we decided to start passing water to people in the next lane if they looked hot and/or aggravated. Most people turned us down, but three or four people gratefully accepted a bottle. One guy called, "Are you serious?" when I gestured that we'd pass him a water, and when our windows aligned again a few minutes after he'd taken the water, he told me that I was the nicest person in the world.

We stopped to eat one night at Theos, a Greek restaurant Roger had been to once and had told me about more than once. The oysters melted in our mouths. Actually, after the whole meal was over, we rather thought that if we could go back and do it again, we would've had another order of the oysters and each made it a meal, and picked a different appetizer.

And those are just a few of the stories.

I can't forget to mention that we did the whole road trip in Roger's convertible. Imagine that--my first trip through the Rockies and no car roof to obstruct my view. (Roger says it's every man's dream to drive through the Rockies with his love in a convertible.)

This is a view from the ferry to Egmont on our first day off.

These are coast mountains and later, there will be the Rockies, both gorgeous.

I was surprised by the amount of snow on many of the mountains.

And I love the way the clouds cast shadows on the mountainsides.

This is the Summerhill Winery in Kelowna (in the Okanagan Valley). Lake Okanagan allegedly houses a sea monster called Ogopogo.

Roger used to work at Summerhill tending the irrigation, planting grapes, building arbors. While he was there he got to pick grapes for an ice wine crush in the middle of a freezing night.

The vineyards, the lake... (yes, it was that blue)

Roger and I, standing on the deck outside the Summerhill shop. (This picture was taken before Roger cut his hair.)

May I suggest that if you are wine lovers, touring the Okanagan wine region might be a vacation you'd like to take. Stunning scenery, lots of wineries. In the middle of summer, you couldn't go wrong.

This is Banff, a city in the oldest national park in Canada. Very touristy--lots of shops, lots of people all year round. Roger and I spent a short rainstorm browsing through a bookstore. Very pretty scenery.

This is Cows, a famous ice cream shop. This is the only Canadian Cows shop other than the original shop in Charlottetown. You will not find Cows in the states. (Roger thinks you may find one in Japan, though.)

Yummy, yummy ice cream.

Roger's friend Jon lives just outside Edmonton. Jon and Lisa invited us to stay a few nights with their family. This double rainbow showed up outside Jon and Lisa's place, shortly after we arrived to settle in for our stay. Their kids--the three of four who were home--were amazed when they spotted the second, lighter rainbow over the bold one.

2006-11-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

While we were visiting Jon's family, we took a walk to a "town" that has historically accurate displays in the buildings--a milliner's shop, a cobbler, a schoolhouse, a jail--and as you go through the town, the time period changes so that you end at a 1920's carnival with five or six games. This is Roger showing off. He got the little slider to the He-Man distinction, which was about 3/4 of the way up.

They had a neat old steam engine and genuine old passenger cars--how uncomfortable for a long trip!--with the bunks overhead that folded down. Jon's kids wanted to wave at the engineers as the train went by, so Jon hoisted his sons onto his shoulders (they're 2 and 4) and Roger gave Jon's second oldest daughter a lift. (She developed a one-day crush on Roger at this point.)

Look at the striations on this mountain--horizontal on one side and vertical on the other. What on earth caused that?

The lakes in Banff and Jasper were all amazing shades of blue-green.

Shadows on the mountains...

This is one of the bigger waterfalls we saw in the mountains.

We climbed down to the river half a mile or so down the road from where this was taken. It was an attempt at panning for gold. On the riverbank there were signs of a recent bear visit--broken and chewed branches of a berry bush.

These were the clouds that ushered us out of Jasper...

Some of the mountains are just covered in green...

and others are pretty bare...

See where all the snow drains when it melts?

More interesting striations... (This was taken from Jasper, another Canadian national park.)

While we were eating lunch at the only restaurant at Long Beach, there was this guy sitting out on the rock just below, either reading or witing. We think reading, because writing would have been very difficult with the breeze.

What he could see from that rock...

What remains after a forest fire as viewed from Highway 5.

Burned trees, closer....

2006-11-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

Good morning. My next story: the van.

Roger used to have a '68 camper van that he converted to a Westfalia pop-top himself. (He often says he wouldn't do that again.) He called it the Tin Can Tourist; that's a picture of his van to the right. He loved this thing; he enjoyed learning how to take it apart and fix it himself. Even the van's lack of heat is remembered fondly. This van somehow (I forget all the details) ended up broken down on a highway in the US because his ex-girlfriend hired someone to drive the van to Atlanta, and he never checked the oil, and ditched it on the side of the road. Roger was none too happy when he learned his beloved van had been lost so carelessly. And he's been dreaming about owning another one ever since.

I hadn't really considered VW vans prior to Roger's coming into my life. I don't even remember seeing them in movies, let alone on the road. I probably never saw/noticed them on the roads for two reasons: on roadtrips my nose was always in a book unless I was driving and old VW vans don't hold up as well in Midwest winters as they do in saltless winter areas. There are, however, a surprising number of old VW vans being auctioned on Ebay from Michigan.

We looked at the vans listed on Ebay for a very long time. Not the Eurovans. Roger thinks they look/are too scrunched to be as good as the old camper vans. There were a few he was very interested in. I, having had no experience with these vans, had no opinion other than that I didn't care to remodel one; I preferred to buy one that was already all there, or almost all there. (An amazing number of these vans have been gutted, mostly by people selling the parts to people who bought gutted vans.)

One magical day, there was a van being sold from Oregon. Diesel. Perfect condition. But we couldn't figure out how to pay for it and then import it, so we had to let it go.

And then, a month and a half later, Roger picked up a copy of Auto Trader and low and behold, there was a turbo diesel 1989 VW Westfalia in Victoria. Turns out, it was imported by a German family who had gone to Germany to visit family and learned that it was going to be cheaper for them to buy this vehicle used than to rent a vehicle for the six or eight weeks they were going to be there. The plan was to sell it again when they were ready to leave, but they loved the van so much that they decided to go through the hassles of importing it to Canada. (The picture shows the Westfalia cabinetry. Hidden is a sink, a fridge, and two propane burners.)

The German family turned out to be quite a piece of work. There were some horrible moments after we had bought the van. One of the bank drafts we had paid for the van with had been wrongly imprinted with $100 even though the handwritten portion said $1000. They tracked us down somehow in the city (or maybe they really did just happen to drive by us) while we were looking for a Sears, and made a big deal about not believing that any of the drafts were any good. Roger offered to exchange the wrongly imprinted draft with cash (we had stopped in a bank parking lot, and though the bank was closed because it was a holiday, there was an ATM).

The sale had already been completed--the registration and insurance was all in Roger's name. Anyone else might not have tried so hard to assuage their fears (really, we think it may have been more like seller's remorse--the only reason they were selling it was because the wife wanted an automatic). Yes, just about anyone else around here would have told them to go to hell. That's not what we did. What we did was agree to let the van sit on their lawn until the next morning when they cleared the bank drafts at the bank. We did make them drive us around, since we'd already spent far too much on cabs out to their suburb to look at the van.

This is a picture of the poptop. With the poptop up, we gain another bed, so the van can sleep, as Roger says, four people who are getting along, or two people who are fighting.

Long and short, the van is ours now, no questions. We try to laugh about the inconveniences the sellers brought about. We had intended to leave the city first thing in the morning, but because we had to wait for the bank to open, we didn't leave until that afternoon, and we just barely made the last ferry back to Powell River--we were literally the last vehicle on. We hope that their bad karma didn't rub off on the van--VW vans are, after all, the sort of vehicle that picks up on karmic waves.

This would have been a nice van to have for the road trip to Edmonton. (I haven't blogged that yet--it'll be mostly pictures.) Roger had brought along a tent, but it got cold at night and I'm a wimp who hasn't been camping since Girl Scouts. Fortunately, this camper van has a thermostat that you can set at night to keep the inside cozy. Keeping it warm all night will take less than a liter of diesel. (And yes, she gets great mileage.)

Gee, this is going to be fun.

2006-11-11T23:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? I have four or five blog drafts that I just never published because I never got the pictures attached. I'm here tonight to remedy (at least in part) that issue.

Let's start with the most recent story: Little Red Riding Hood/Brenda/Princess, the esacpe artist Shetland Sheepdog.

Roger and I were getting into our van (that's a story I'll tell later--remember, I'm going backwards here) after dinner out, and we noticed this little dog moving at a pretty good clip across the parking lot. We decided to follow her, to see if we could find a collar or other indication that she had a home. I got out of the van when she stopped by the sports bar. I started talking to her--you know how you do with animals you don't know and think might be inclined to react violently to your approach. At first, I thought she was going to come to me--she took a few steps in my direction. Then she decided not to, and turned in the other direction: up the steps to the sport bar deck.

She must know the territory pretty well; she knew there was a gate at the other end of the deck. Unfortunately, she didn't know that they'd closed it for the night. She lay down and started trembling, awaiting her fate at our hands. By this time, Roger was with me, reaching down to check for that identification. He found a tattoo in her ear.

We took her home with us, where we set her up in the kitchen in the big box the grill came in. We gave her a small dish of rice and a bowl of water and turned on the radio for her, then we called a few animal tattoo registration places and left the tattoo info and our phone number. At the urging of the answering service for a local vet's office, I called the local animal rescue group (which Roger wasn't thrilled with because the group actually has a reputation for being more of a pain in the ass than helpful). As we made these phone calls, we would wander into the kitchen to look at the dog and croon to her about what a stinky dog she was and how good she was being (she hadn't made a sound or had a fit or an escape attempt yet) and how she was making our little cottage stinky, too, and how for such a little, albeit fluffy, critter, she was a pretty potent presence. I don't know what she rolled in, or what animal it came from, but I imagine that her smell helped her stay alive. I began telling her she smelled like a bear.

Roger called some Sheltie breeders in the province to see if they could help us track down the breeder, and hence the owner. Our first return call was Judy. She told us that she'd be happy to look up the breeder's number in her register of breeders, but that the tattoo number in the ear wasn't the breeder number, so we had to look on the insides of her legs. Smart dog that she was, she knew that since she was outnumbered and stuck in the box her best option was to behave, so she let us roll her over. We saw that she was indeed a she, and a spayed she at that. We clipped away the matted fur from the tattoo Roger found on her belly, and tried to read the six numbers/letters there. One of them had been tattooed over her nipple, it looked like, so we weren't sure whether it was a 1, 7, or 9.

When the animal rescue group woman called fifteen minutes later, she was confused and astounded when Roger told her we were already well on our way to tracking down the breeder and owner. (I think she thought he was lying just so that he wouldn't have to deal with her--she must know her reputation.)

We took the dog for a walk before we went to bed, thinking that she would probably like to relieve herself now that she'd settled down. (We were both impressed that she hadn't done so while we were carrying her.) It was a crisp night, clear and starry. Not that the dog noticed that. What she noticed were the cars and people that went by (she hid by crouching down) and the big, loud dog that lives a few houses down the street. We got all the way to the end of the street, to the parking lot just before the park and campground, before she tried to escape. We heard the rushing of one of the streams that empties into the ocean. We think that's what set her off. She turned into the parking lot, toward the sound of the water, and when she realized she was still on the harness Roger had fashioned for her out of strips of an old tee shirt, so she turned around and attacked the leash. Roger, being used to much bigger dogs, simply took hold of her behind the neck and pinned her down, eventually forcing her to relinquish her hold on the harness (she had, in a few short seconds, managed to bite through part of the leash). We re-secured the harness and took her home again.

Roger and I both thought it likely that the dog was actually the pet of people who had vacationed on the beach during the summer, and who had probably had to leave without her. We envisioned being able to reunite this dog with her family, who had probably given her up for dead. We have a number of cougars and black bears here, after all. Our theory of the dog belonging to a visiting family was supported by the identification of both the breeder and the ear tattooist (identified by a local vet's office as a Victoria animal hospital). Judy called us back to tell us that she didn't want to tell the dog's breeder that she had located one of her dogs, because the breeder of the dog was known to be an irresponsible one. Eventually, though, she called the dog's breeder and found out that the dog's name had been Little Red Riding Hood, but the owner had lost the receipt of sale and couldn't recall the buyer. Roger immediately took to calling the dog Red. Stinky Red.

Roger went out to run some errands, including picking up some shampoo for the dog. While he was out, the animal rescue lady called again. She felt remiss about having taken so long to return my phone call the night before, and in Roger's insistance that we were well on our way to finding the owner, she hadn't mentioned that a local realtor had reported a Sheltie missing in June of 2005. There had been reports of people seeing the dog ever since, and once someone had caught her, but she was a quick and determined dog. The animal rescue lady was amazed that we'd kept a hold of her. And still, she was confused as to how Roger could figure out how to find the breeder information and try to track down the dog that way.

The realtor (we'll call him Sam) was equally, if not more so, stunned that we'd caught and kept his lost Sheltie. We met him in front of his office to let him identify her--he brought a picture from his fliers, so that we could verify that this was his dog. We hadn't taken her out of the box so that she wouldn't have this one last chance to flee before being returned. Sam, as it turned out, hadn't had the dog for long before she found her chance to escape (she'd gotten her harness caught on the lawnmower and backed out of the restrictive contraption). He'd been putting food out for her ever since--17 months.

We gave Sam the shampoo we'd bought (I'll say it again--she was one smelly, smelly dog), plus the harness and leash and dog treats and food that Roger had picked up, before we knew about Sam. Roger and I like to think it was a good bonding experience, Sam giving Princess a bath--probably two shampoos.

This picture isn't of Little Red Riding Hood/Brenda/Princess, but it's about what she'd look like if she were a happy dog. Less white on the chest. And she won't be this fluffy for a while--she's probably had a lot of matted fur cut away. (Brenda is one of the names that was given to the dog before Sam got her; she didn't respond to it, so he renamed her Princess.)

2006-10-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Cottage

I promised people (particularly my mom) pictures of the walls that were housing me, and finally, here they are. And just in case you weren't aware of this already, we call the kitchen our Neopolitan kitchen because we painted it "Raspberry Swirl," left the trim and cupboards off-white, and, well, the floor is old brown linoleum.

This is the main entrance/breakfast nook. The table, of course, is a catchall place. You can see the corner of the microwave cart (a garage sale find), although we don't have a microwave. Instead, our bread maker (another garage sale find, one which regularly produces yummy loaves of buttermilk honey wheat bread) sits on it, and it provides a higher work surface than the rest of the kitchen counters, which were either installed by people who were really short or who didn't know anything about working in a kitchen.

Roger put a shelf over the stove for me so that we'd have a handy place to keep things; nothing's on it yet because we haven't applied the veneer edging to it and the edges are rough. The stove has three little burners, instead of two little ones and two big ones. It makes cooking food evenly a little difficult sometimes. I did, however, make fantastic Mexican Corn Chowder last week (in a borrowed pot). The white patches are from filling some holes; the stud wasn't where Roger thought it was--apparently the last people didn't believe in finding the studs when they hung stuff.

This is the writing desk in the living room. It's been organized since (if you can believe it) and though it's far from tidy, we know where everything is. Except the two blue and one purple Sharpies. The little loveseat in the corner actually works like two recliners, except that it doesn't rock. ($5 at a garage sale--the kid who had been perched on the arm, probably the whole morning, followed us to Roger's car and watched Roger tie it onto the back of his convertible; I almost expected the kid to start crying.)

This is the work area, also in the living room. Roger's tried to divide the room with a little entertainment shelf system (yet another garage sale deal), but the room is too small for that to work. Unfortuantely, at the moment, there's nowhere else to really put it, so it's still in the middle of the room. Still, the work corner is a fairly productive space, when we're not tripping over each other.

The bookshelf looks surprisingly empty, doesn't it? It's mostly garage sale books. Roger has a box or two of books in the basement to find and unpack. I, of course, have plenty back in Ohio. Still, I feel weird about so much empty space where there should be books. And that little window actually provides a fantastic view. We're disappointed that whoever built this place didn't put a big window right there.

There are no bedroom pictures, even though the walls are a really great color, because there's really no bedroom furniture. We have, however, bought a painting from a local artist--I'll post a picture of that next time, and you'll see the color of the bedroom wall then.