Wordless Wednesday - Come on in!

Here is our entryway...



There's a welcome committee to greet you...



And the toilet is bright and cheery!

Operation H.B. - Stage One

While we were still moving in to the new place but before we had moved everything there were a number of nights when we stayed at the new place but had no fridge or any real kitchen supplies. In the evening we'd climb into the car and head out - pick a direction and drive a round until we found somewhere interesting... or at least that was the idea. Most of the time U would keep driving, turning down restaurant after restaurant for some imagined flaw. I'd get hungrier and hungrier and more and more annoyed, finally snapping at him to stop somewhere ANYWHERE! SOON! GRRRRR!!

One such night, after not finding anything that was up to U's standards, he pulled into the parking lot of a three-story Itoyokado shopping mall (attached to a similar three-story Aeon across the street). Dinner, he announced, would be eaten in the food court. I wasn't terribly impressed that we had driven past loads of restaurants to end up at the food court, but by that point I just wanted dinner. We walked into the mall and the first thing we saw was a Chinese restaurant - with a display case of bowls of plastic ramen and... MAPO TOFU! I walked into the restaurant without looking back at U to see if he was following me.

After ordering I finally looked about the restaurant and noticed that out of the 8 tables occupied five had couples or families, and all but one (us included, of course) were racially mixed couples. I pointed this fact out to U, and smooth character that he is, he immediately craned his neck to look around and stare at all the other customers... Nice...

We ordered hoikoro (my Japanese dictionary is telling me it is "twice cooked pork (Szechuan dish) (chi: hui guo rou)) and mapo tofu. For food that was only a step up from fast food, it was surprisingly good. Although the hoikoro was rather oily, the mapo was flavourful and spicy.

The menu is rather limited, however, so although it offers a good quick hit of mapo, the restaurant is far from becoming our favourite Chinese eatery... Our search would have to continue...

Sm-matcha!

Throughout the fall my father regaled me with stories of the weekend farmers markets he went to with my aunt. He'd tell me about the cheeses, about the apples, about the jams, and about the baking. Needless to say I was more than a little jealous. It was his derisatory recounting of the gourmet smores, however, that prompted me to action. I might not be able to whip up an apple pie or goat milk gouda cheese or buy a tart green granny smith, but smores I could do. I bought a bag of green tea marshmallows and a bar of green tea chocolate - and U and I made our very own gourmet smores. I sure couldn't have sold them for 7 bucks a pop, but they were yummy!

iPhingers

Throughout the winter I was confronted with a dilemma when waiting for the train - do I risk freezing my fingers or do I leave my phone in my pocket? Being rather addicted to my iPhone the end result was inevitably cold fingers. I'm rather embarrassed to admit just how long it took me to realize a solution... then how many times I had to rip out and re-knit... then having to cut off the cute little flowered (and totally useless) buttons and attach larger toggles... but, finally, as the weather started warming up, I had myself a pair of mitts with finger flaps.

Sister

When we spent the weekend at U's parents' place the other weekend we briefly saw his youngest sister - in between her coming home late on Saturday night and heading off around lunchtime on Sunday... minutes after she finally dragged herself out of bed. It was just enough time to finally give her a gift I've had sitting around for a while...

Wedding wings

For three summers during undergrad I worked in heaven (or, as it was more commonly called, Maligne Lake). It is one of the most beautiful places on earth and I loved spending my summers there. I discovered a love of kayaking and re-discovered my love of camping. I dated a couple of coworkers (not at the same time, honest!) and spent many a Monday night drinking huge half-price margaritas with friends. When the margaritas weren't half-price we would make our own drinks - mixing milk and ice or ice cream with chocolate syrup and other flavourings - topping it all off with a liberal dash of Baileys or Kahlua or Creme de cacao or Frangelico or... well, you get the picture! I used to tease one particular friends that she liked me for my blender since she would often knock on my door to invite me and my blender for a drink.

Whatever her reasoning for befriending me, however, that particular friend became a very special person to me. She is amazingly friendly and kind, and VERY outgoing. An example was her regular bar wear - a revealing shirt and short skirt over BRIGHT red full body long underwear (we were, afterall in the mountains and evenings, even in mid-summer, could be co-old!) My favourite outfit of hers, however, was her butterfly wings - purple and turquoise and just as bright and sparkly as my friend. She would wear them while running errands around town, just because! And the sight of her in those wings always made me smile.

We stayed in touch through 3 summers in Jasper (especially the summer she worked at the chocolate store with a good staff discount... mmm!!) and through all the moves of the subsequent decade (yay for Facebook!). She even spent the night on the bus to show up at my dad's for Thanksgiving one year - invited but TOTALLY unexpected! When she announced her engagement I knew I wouldn't make it back for the wedding but wanted to do something. I remembered an afternoon we had spent in a fabric store looking at wedding dress patterns. Both of us were single at the time but that didn't stop us from picking out a pattern for my wedding dress, she had promised to make me my wedding dress afterall! Nowhere near the seamstress she is, I turned to what I know I can do, bought a half dozen balls of a gorgeous white yarn and began searching for the perfect shawl pattern. I got a couple dozen rows (top down!) into one before deciding it wasn't quite right and ripping out weeks worth of work. I did eventually find the perfect pattern but realized as soon as I read it that it wasn't a straightforward pattern. I blessed the wise friend who had steered me away from the laceweight mohair I had originally contemplated and cast on. Now that I'm long done I can easily say this particular shawl was the most difficult and most annoying thing I have ever knit. Luckily, however, the end product was gorgeous, although not anywhere near as gorgeous as my friend in her wedding dress.




(photographs shamelessly pilfered from the flicker stream of a talented photographer at my friend's wedding)

Looking through the wedding photos posted on Flicker I was thrilled to see her wearing the shawl in a few of them. Not being there on her big day was hard, but at least part of me was close at hand. I wish her much love and happiness in her marriage and, when things get rough all she needs to remember is that she knows how to make mayonaise from scratch! (the totally unrelated words of wisdom she once gave me after I had poured out all my troubles to her)