As it was hot and sunny for our entire trip to the Big Island, there’s not a lot a person can report but what is very memorable for me are the hilarious people from the trip.  The very first person to provide entertainment was the front desk ‘clerk’ at the Kona Islander Hotel.  I say clerk guardedly as she explained to anyone in earshot she didn’t work for the hotel so she certainly couldn’t help any of us.

Turns out the Kona Islander is all privately-owned condos so if your owner is negligent, too bad for you.  This happened to us, as we’d asked for two beds but had to bunk in one, though it was a king so it was fine, and was worse for another group from Oregon who arrived to a pillow smeared in blood, get outta here if you think you’re getting another one.

But the hotel had a lovely pool and beautiful grounds, plus it was just one night, and then we had a really nice condo for the next nine nights.  Once settled in we headed for a national park where we’d heard we could see turtles, so went into the ranger-staffed little office and said to the disinterested employee, “Are there turtles here?”

He very helpfully replied “No, not here.  Ya have ta go down to the bay to see ‘em.”  We thanked him and left and then spent quite a bit of time rehearsing funny replies such as “Really?  We thought they’d be right here on this desk.”

Several days later we ran into a clerk at the Outlet store who couldn’t understand that Marie had bought and paid for three items, and that I was trying to pay for one single item.  She kept trying to extract $20.97 from me and I kept pointing to the tag saying I refuse to pay more than the $10.00 this tag is indicating.

She remained stymied until Marie brilliantly suggested “Why don’t you just void that and start over?”  She did, and after that it worked, but a customer behind us who witnessed the whole thing gathered up her purchases and moved to a different till. I guess she didn’t want that kind of a battle with a cashier.

We were as stupid as some of the people we met, as on the second day I said let’s go to Hilo, and we proceeded to head south instead of north.  Several hours later we did manage to find our way there and had a nice serenade from a guitar-playing couple on the street who gave away CD’s of their music.

The last ridiculous person was as we were getting onto the plane. A woman in first class said to Marie “You can’t bring that onto the plane.”  Marie then calmly explained the lower suitcase went into the overhead bin and the smaller bag fit under the seat in front of her.  I said to Marie how good of you to explain to her how carry-on works.  The woman must be exhausted at the end of each day with so many strangers doing so much wrong all the time.

Prior to this incident I’d almost been denied boarding as the government’s ArriveCan app wouldn’t formulate a barcode for me, so despite being vaccinated and having a negative PCR test, I nearly had to book a later flight home.  Fortunately my hysteria moved a Westjet employee who had a good amount of common sense as she said just get on the plane.  Thank God for people with a heart plus a brain.

Last fall the government told us we could travel ourselves silly, so my friend Marie and I booked a trip to Hawaii.  Two months later all non-essential travel was being discouraged, however our trip is non-refundable, so we decided we’re damn well going to Hawaii.  It’s currently 30 degrees C there, and about that in Fahrenheit here.

The whole thing could come to a screeching halt on Thursday morning when we go for the Covid tests which are required within 24 hours of leaving for Hawaii.  Then the WestJet website advises one needs to be at the airport at least two hours prior to a domestic flight, so we’re planning to be at the airport at 11:00 AM, with carry-on and boarding passes, for a flight to Vancouver which leaves at 1:00.

Covid certainly makes for a long day of travel.  However I’m not complaining and am just praying and hoping we do actually get onto the plane.  I won’t believe it until we land in Kona, and then the fun really begins as we’re due to arrive at 10:30 PM. Our hotel has no staff after midnight and the woman Marie spoke to said the lock box is “very complicated.”  Doesn’t that instill confidence?

There’s a really nice video of the hotel’s grounds on their website at http://www.konaislanderinnhotel.com, and when Marie saw it she said if we end up sleeping by the pool it’s fine and she’s right.  Check it out as it’s a really great location in Kona, though we’re just there for one night, and then off to Waikoloa Village for nine nights at a condo.

My friend Donna had given me a gift certificate for a pedicure at a local aesthetics salon for my birthday and so I finally got to use it the other day.  She’d emailed me “don’t forget to take your thongs” and I replied they’re now referred to as flip flops.

The kids had disabused me of using the word ‘thong’ to describe flip flops long ago, when they were in their teens.  As we were heading outside one day I said I needed to find my thongs, to which they both heartily replied “ewwww.”  In those days we would all delight in screaming “ewww” at Denis when we caught a glimpse of him naked or lightly clothed, to which he’d always reply “ew yourself.”

The Crones and I had an interesting experience at the new Hyatt Place on Enterprise as we decided to go for Happy Hour.  We arrived at 3:00 and then had to wait a bit for the bartender to show up, and then the drinking began.  The cocktails were fine and after an hour or so we ordered food.  I ordered a burger and fries, as did Sharon and Petra had ordered sweet chili chicken wings. 

When I bit into my burger, I noted it was raw in the middle, so sent it back and Petra said the wings were buffalo, IE hot, and so the wrong ones, and so sent those back.  As a result I had two free cocktails, and I think Petra had one free, so we left feeling pretty good about it all. My second burger, and her sweet chili wings, were all good the second time.

Things have settled down in Osoyoos as mom now has her house back and Luke and Jan are in theirs, so at least I can go on my trip not worried sick about the fighting down there, and instead can worry myself sick about the world of travel during Covid.

Pandemic Year Two is so boring, isn’t it?  Things in the world as well as the home front remain pretty much the same.  I have the same five pounds on my stomach, I have a dog on my lap as I’m typing with a cat on a chair two feet away, the ubiquitous dog snout smears are on the living room window, and I just got home from another “gramma’s had a stroke” phone call from Luke.

Mom’s about to turn 97 next month, and most people are quite disabled after these small strokes, but I have to say in mom’s case they seem to strengthen her.  It’s true that what doesn’t kill her appears to make her stronger.  When I arrived on Saturday she was in bed, and yesterday when I left she was in the kitchen, drinking coffee, eating a muffin and handing out criticisms with the zeal of a born-again preacher.

I just finished reading a book called Escape from Camp 14 which is the account of a young man’s escape from a North Korean labour camp.  There, people are punished for three generations and so he was born in the camp, and slated to die there.  Far be it for me to equate caring for mom at her house to being in a prison camp, but there were some similarities.

A few years ago when mom hurt her back and was in bed she got a bell so that she could ring it and get someone to come.  Imagine the joy of walking into the kitchen and starting to peel a vegetable, then ring ring, Yes?  Um can you please get my blanket?  Back to the kitchen. Ding a ling a ling.  Can you bring me my favourite mix of yogurt and ice cream?

Then of course there were the surprise attacks.  Sunday morning at 5:30 my bedroom door burst open and mom came in with her walker saying are you awake?  I said I am now.  Mom started toward my bed and then proceeded to get into it, so I said I think the dogs and I will just get up.

The other part of the prison-like experience is one must walk by mom to get to the back bedroom and this is an opportunity to remind her she needs to tell a story.  She’ll say did I ever tell you about the time when, and start the story and I reply actually you did, and try to fill in parts of the story but it never works.  I must hear the story again.

Then there’s the slow torture of CNN and MSNBC which are on from morning until night.  Sitting with mom means watching these channels by the hour, and often by the time I’ve been told the same story a third time my mind starts to go on me and I long for freedom.  I imagine myself running through a meadow, free as a butterfly, but then Don Lemon’ll bring me back to Earth with a thud.

I don’t imagine myself living as long as mom, but if I do, I wouldn’t mind a small percentage of her pluck.  I’m already about a hundred times weaker than she is.

I didn’t bother with any New Year’s resolutions, and plan to just try and remain sane and that’s probably the best I can do.  In keeping with the nothing-new this year, I’m off to the Coast Capri this afternoon for Happy Hour with the Crones, then walking with Marie on the weekend.  And I’m quite sure the sameness will be punctuated by a call to Osoyoos, followed by endless ding a ling a linging.

I met my future sister-in-law Wendy, nicknamed Twiggy by my brother, when I was 13.  She was tiny, with big blue eyes fringed in black lashes, very short, straight red hair and she wore mini skirts.  The kind I wasn’t allowed to wear so I found her very cool.  Twig was 20 then, and a year later she and Freddie got married at Vancouver City Hall with two friends as witnesses.

Freddie then phoned home and in his usual, hilarious way said to my mom, guess what we did today, and mom said, what, to which he replied we got married!!  Boy was my mom ever perplexed by that call, but at 21 and 22 no one could’ve stopped them anyway.

They were hippies and I was enthralled by their apartment in Burnaby where one sat on mattresses on the floor.  Beaded curtains, incense and tie dye completed the ambiance.  I was basically besotted by them and their lifestyle, me the kid whose mom still laid out her clothes and pinned on a broach before I left for school.

At around age 15 I was excited to learn they were going to rent a house in Oliver.  This suited me beautifully as by 16 we attended high school there, and I could sneak over there with boys and they wouldn’t rat me out.  My life wouldn’t have been worth a Carnival Cruise if mom had found out about any of that.

And then imagine my good luck to have Twig as my babysitter.  They’d returned to the Coast after just a few years in Oliver, moving to the Pitt River in Coquitlam, and after teaching in Prince George I met Denis, got married and we moved to Burnaby where Luke was born.

When he was one I returned to my job as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, but only part time and so Twig came to our house two and a half days a week to hang around with Luke.  She was a kindergarten teacher for many years so she had a great nature with the kid, and can you imagine the relaxed way I could work, knowing my own sister-in-law was taking care of my child?

And now in her latter years she was a fabulous grandmother to four kids, and was enjoying retirement.  However as you know Freddie died last year in May, and she really never recuperated from that and often said she was just so damned sad.  And so it’s with sadness I report she died on December 23^rd, however perhaps it’s better for those two little love birds to hang together, wherever they may be.

You know how I love to search for spiritual meaning in things, and on the day she died I was outside with the dogs and seven white geese came overhead, honking away, with one strong bird in the lead.  They honked and honked, circled and flew off.  I’ve never seen white geese before, so I just thought wow those two have a bunch of friends with them already.  They were magnetic in life.

I just heard Betty White died, also this year three of the ya ya’s mothers packed it in, as well one of my old boyfriends, Don Lesmeister.  So I guess as long as we’re breathing we should just shut the hell up, laugh, enjoy and realize life is pretty damned short.  And on that note, Happy New Year and all the best in 2022!

According to Adriene Mischler of Yoga with Adriene, a downward dog a day keeps the doctor away, and so far, so good as I’ve been doing yoga daily for two years now, minus the two months my left knee felt like a knife was being stabbed into it.  It hasn’t done a thing for my weight but it’s a good exercise for the body, mind and soul.

Besides yoga, I’ve managed to bake five different kinds of cookies which I’ve given away as gifts and plan to re-bake tomorrow.  A lot of inspiration comes from the marvelous Great British Baking Show which I just adore, though their orange cardamom cookies weren’t as wonderful as I thought they’d be.  Maybe it was just my methods.

I made one of my favourite German cookies, called Zimmtsterne which means cinnamon stars.  They’re meringue mixed with ground almonds and flavoured with cinnamon.  When they come out of the oven they’re warm, thick and juicy, and so the other night I just gave in entirely and ate as many of them as I could before I felt sick.  I must’ve gotten at least eight of them down.

There’s joy in Osoyoos as the modular home was delivered on Friday.  It’s basically two mobile homes that they’ll join in the middle, so it’s not much of a house, but it looks cute already with its nice large front porch.  Once landscaped and when the stairs are attached it’ll look like a proper house.

You may already know this, but now at thrift you no longer have to buy used items as the places are stacked with items still in their boxes.  We’re now at the point we’re giving brand new items to thrift, so if you need a small appliance, check them out first.  I found a nice toaster in the box for $8.00 at Value Village, and to my annoyance, a woman in front of me in line had a Breville juicer in the box, and I imagine it would’ve gone for around $20.00.

A nice customer told me he bought a standing mixer there for around $20 which he sold for over $200 as they’re $600 at the store.  You’d have to be nuts to buy everything at retail, and even if you’re flush with dough and sneer at thrift, you might give a thought to all the stuff already made that nobody wants.  Why must we make more?

But if you insist, here’s an excellent way to get rid of an awful big chunk of money very quickly, go to Costco.  After Elsa and I had browsed thrift for a couple of hours and found a few treasures, she suggested we stop at Costco on our way home because I needed pecans.

I think we may have been in that place for about 20 minutes in total, and the bill was close to $500.  I haven’t been to Costco in a couple of years as I wisely gave up my membership, so I was doing the “Look, Hellmans mayo for $6.99” gag and loading up the Volkswagen-sized shopping cart with random items.

The good news is, I did get my pecans, but I also got chocolate, almonds, beef jerky, cheese, mayonnaise and dish towels.  Elsa bought some Christmas gifts for the kids, and so we marveled at the amounts due for each: mine was $178 for twenty minutes.

A downward dog a day is needed when one does stupid stuff like that.  Ooooohhhhmm.

For the first time in 31 years, I have an artificial Christmas tree which I bought at thrift.  It was so easy to do I wonder why I struggled with the live trees for so long, and once decorated it doesn’t look too bad.  No one’s going to be here to see it given the kids are in Osoyoos and Grand Forks so won’t be coming to Kelowna.  I also have about a quarter of the usual froufrou out, didn’t even open some of the Tupperware containers labelled Christmas Decorations, and feel fab about it all.

I now see the amount of rejected ornaments in thrift as a sign of things to come as I don’t want most of the stuff I’ve accumulated over the decades.  I have more ceramic Santas than any normal person needs and why the dozens of pieces of the little Christmas Village that seemed so cute at the time?

Besides simplifying Christmas, another idea I stumbled upon was to use my mom’s cemetery plot, already paid for in Osoyoos, and which she doesn’t want.  I’ll then be buried (or interred I should say) beside my dad, and near my grandparents, and also old time Osoyans with whom I think I would like to spend eternity.  I mentioned it to the reunion women and Penny said she had a slightly used urn and I said I’ll take it as how dirty can it be, plus as a thrifty person, why waste that?

This weekend as I go to Osoyoos I have two interesting desserts planned.  Remember that old pineapple and whipping cream in a Graham cracker shell dessert from the 70’s?  I’m making that, plus an egg nog tres leches cake which sounds kind of interesting.  I’m adding to the plight of the oceans by buying two bags of probably the last wild shrimp in the Pacific, but I can’t eat the farmed as I’ve seen too many documentaries on it.

You may recall Denis put up the Christmas lights on this house every year for the past 31, but since he moved to Midway, he’s balking and so Calvin the tenant and I are going to try and figure it out ourselves.  I’m fine when it comes to downsizing the decorations inside, but I really insist on outdoor lights for the month of December.

Another new and interesting Christmas development is my group of friends I like to refer to as The Crones have decided not to exchange gifts anymore.  It’s always such a struggle to try and buy stuff for people who just go out and buy whatever they want.  And we’re all so peculiar at this age we only like certain things so it’s really impossible, and this was a welcome idea to all.

You know how I love free things so one thing I never miss is the local Global news as I get that channel with just my rabbit ears so it’s free.  I’d kind of forgotten about it as I mostly watch You Tube or Netflix when one day Justin was playing with the remote and that channel came on.  I said to Nick I forgot I used to get free TV!

Alzheimer’s?  Maybe but more likely the usual eccentricity of the aged.  When I watch the weatherman I notice his jacket pulls when he buttons it, so I sent him a very nice message on Facebook saying I think just one size larger would look so much better.  Then I posted it on Facebook and strangely, few people gave a rat’s ass about it.

As we get wiser we realize we can do with so much less, and perhaps that’s the message of the too tight sports jacket, saving on fabric is the future of fashion.

We were very fortunate in this area as I recall our thrift stores were only closed for a few weeks last spring, so I’ve always shopped and didn’t notice too much of the pandemic.  Imagine my surprise to find I’ve now discovered on-line shopping, am doing it, and now enjoy looking out and seeing yet another naughty Amazon box on my doorstep.  Hence someone who was part of shopping for only recycled stuff has now begun to order from God Knows Where.

Two defences come to mind: lack of supply and laziness.  All we hear is how container ships can’t get unloaded, and no one can get anything they want, so I keep testing this theory and nope, not the case with old Mr. Bezos as anything I’ve ordered so far comes within a couple of days.  No supply issues here.

Imagine slogging into Wal Mart or Toys R Us and trying to find that one particular toy, then getting home, oops wrong toy, returning there and asking for the one you want, which they’ll tell you they don’t have.  You see how one falls into Amazon’s deadly trap?

And then the laziness excuse is because if I want a certain item, as today when I wanted a pair of binoculars, I know I won’t find them in short order at thrift.  So instead of going a dozen times over a few weeks I cave and hit Send Order feeling slightly guilty. The punishment is always that for the next several visits, whatever I’ve purchased will be there by the dozen.

Margaret and I went to Grand Forks last weekend and it was a sunny fall day so the drive was really lovely.  It’s two and a half hours on winding highway so not really something I can see myself doing once the bad weather sets in.  I’d made lasagne and a banana cream pie, so upon arrival I saw a good bit of the pie had decided to shift over almost in danger of leaving the pan entirely.

Two days prior I was in Osoyoos and had made chicken Marbella which is always received with cries of joy from Luke and Jan, and followed that with Lulu Hulton’s apple cake.  It’s actually a loaf, and made with two cups of unpeeled, grated apples so quite moist.  However as usual, mom didn’t find it to her liking because only Apfel Kuchen is apple cake, and that wasn’t it.

I made salted caramel sauce to put onto the warm cake and then we had maple walnut ice cream on top of that so that was quite a luscious sugar hit.  Jan doesn’t eat desserts however the three of us ate it, and I thought it was good as did Luke.  But then what do we know?

I seem to have gained eight pounds since starting to watch both The Great Chocolate Showdown as well as the Great Canadian Baking Show.  And God knows I haven’t been making any of those desserts however it stokes the appetite for any chocolate or carbohydrate in the house.

I’m off to Hawaii in February so cannot go with this excess fat, so back to keto.  In any case I can’t face Christmas with this carcass.  Meanwhile I noticed my reef shoes are a mess so may browse on-line for a new pair.  Sure, I could toss the dice at thrift, or even at a sporting goods store, but instead choose to wantonly order.  Tsk!

Elsa and I had planned to go to Grand Forks to visit the kids this weekend, so I thought I’d better get the winter tires on as it was raining, and Nick said they were almost bare and not great even on wet surfaces, never mind snow.  Because it’s been mild weather winter tires were the last thing on my mind, so I hadn’t made an appointment at a tire place but recalled Pennzoil on Harvey Avenue, now The Great Canadian Oil Change, advertised tire changeovers.

I had Calvin load the tires into my car and waited at the shop until it was my turn.  One stays in the vehicle and so I was quite amazed and shocked at the very loud blows the car was getting to all four wheels.  The car shook as the sledgehammers crashed into it, and I thought wow, I’ve never seen Nick struggle like this with my tires, so I wonder what’s going on.

A kid opened my door and said the winter tires didn’t fit.  I said well that’s odd as my son’s put them on in the past, but they insisted, no they didn’t so put my summers back on and loaded the winters into my car.  I drove off confused as in the past when Nick’s done my tires there’s been little difficulty.

Going the short distance to Superstore was okay however coming down Benvoulin where one can go 80 KPH I heard a terrible sound in the back of my car.  It scared me so I headed straight home and told Calvin to test drive the car to see what he thought.  He came in afterward and said “your car is f.ed.”  However he didn’t use just the letter f.

I phoned The Great Canadian Oil Change and spoke to Gavin the manager, who said the hub caps were so badly rusted on any shop would’ve had to sledgehammer the car like that.  I said look.  There’s damage to my car, I’m taking it into a mechanic, and I want you to pay for it.  He said not to drive the car, however also asked if I could return with it for them to look at, and then go to a mechanic, and I said okay.

I’m certainly not returning there for them to ever touch anything on my car again, however want to follow all the steps in case we end up in Small Claims Court.  I’m now at home, no trip to Grand Forks, and no ability to drive anywhere at all thanks to these people.  Who sledgehammers a car’s wheels so hard the whole vehicle shakes?

Then I stupidly thought the awful knee pain was largely behind me and started to do yoga again which caused a flare-up so the past few nights I’ve been awake with the stabbing pains on the inside of my knee.  I guess I should read the signs, and just stay on the couch, eating as much as I can while I watch my new favourite show on Netflix, The Great Canadian Baking Show.

My second favourite occurs on Sunday late afternoon on Global called the Chocolate Showdown.  Between the two of them you’re compelled to eat as much sweetened food as you can possibly get down your gullet.  It’s part of the experience, though whatever you’re eating is dreck compared to what the people on both shows make.

So here I am, marooned, and had e mailed Elsa saying she’ll have to drive me to the store on Monday, to which she replied she’s hit a curb and blew a tire so is also incapacitated.  I tell ya, the signs are clear as glass: do nothing.

Yesterday I had three friends over for Sharon’s birthday dinner and it was all very nice.  I made a salad, followed by a chicken dish, rice, mashed sweet potatoes, carrots and a sweet and sour cucumber salad.  Dessert was a pumpkin pie, which stunk as I put too much spice in it, plus it was kinda mucky so could’ve used more time in the oven.

Despite that the evening was enjoyed by all and we had the pleasure of discussing the types of things crones like to analyze which include recalcitrant children, ex-husbands, knee pain, and the strangeness of Covid rules.  We wondered why we must be vaccinated to enter a restaurant, yet those who work there don’t have to be.  The mysteries of a pandemic.

And I have news to announce. I now have a boarder in the basement suite.  Luke met Calvin during their two-year computer diploma program at the college, and I’d met Calvin a few times at the house.  As he seemed to be a decent person, I suggested to Luke he might be the kind of renter I could stand.

So far so good in that he’s very clean, tidy and quiet, plus loves dogs and cats, so that’s all excellent.  Last night once we’d eaten I took a plate of food down for Calvin because he’s just 23 and I presume, very hungry.  I took down the rest of the soggy pie covered in whip so I hope he ate that, too.

My entrance hall now holds four gigantic containers of dirt, each with a single bamboo stick in them.  Why?  Because mom wouldn’t allow Jan to bring her plants in from the deck so they would’ve frozen outside.  Mom said they were far too ugly, so Jan had resigned herself to the fact they’d soon be dead.

When I heard that I said oh no you don’t, and told her to wrap them in plastic bags and put them on the back of Luke’s pickup and bring them to Kelowna.  They had to come yesterday for her braces’ adjustment at the orthodontist, so they brought the four behemoths in, and I went wow, those really are large.

Jan explained bamboo is good luck to Thais, and so how could I let them all die like that, especially when she’d cut down her lovely bamboo tree to make these four?  The reason for that was mom said the plant was just so ugly, and wouldn’t stop going on about it, and so Jan said fine and cut it down.  You can see why I just couldn’t let those four pieces go.

I’m fortunate I don’t have to say more than three or four words to friends, and they’re not at all disturbed about it.  I told Petra my entrance looks bad due to these huge pots and she replied well it’s not supposed to be a show home ya know, so with friends like that I can roll with the punches.  Once their modular home finally arrives the plants will be returned to Osoyoos.

This morning my first task was the dishes from the crones, and even though I don’t use my dishwasher it took no more than an hour for the house to look like nothing had even occurred the night before.  The most challenging part of it has been trying to get the white couch’s cover back on as it’s one of those puzzles for which one needs a physics degree.

I don’t like to swim in cold water at the best of times, but will do it if I know I’m going to be snorkeling and seeing amazing tropical fish.  To suddenly be in Osoyoos Lake on the Labour Day weekend was an unexpected last dip for the season.  And if I may be totally honest with you, the only dip of the season as swimming in the lake holds zero appeal.

Luke bought himself a really adorable older motor boat, and he’s very proud of it and wanted to show it off.  Our friends Jim and Fede were in Osoyoos visiting mom over the weekend, so when I showed up Luke talked the three of us into taking a boat ride with him.  I fought it long and hard saying it wasn’t a hot day, the lake wasn’t calm enough, but in the end he forced his hand.

We hauled the boat to a launch area down near the Inkaneep Lodge Motel, and Fede and I got into the boat on the shore, and Luke pushed it out and hopped in.  Jim then drove the truck and trailer back to mom’s property and walked down to the lake where Luke said we’d pick him up.

Luke could only get within several metres of shore so Jim had to wade out and he’s one of these hilarious people whose feet are obviously made of paper as the rocks were killing him every step of the way.  Finally he was about waist deep and able to clamber into the boat and we took off across the lake at a high rate of speed.

Because of the waves the boat did that womp womp womp thing but nonetheless it wasn’t cold so we enjoyed looking around at the scenery.  We arrived at a sandy beach across the lake which was pretty busy with tourists and their very fancy expensive boats and a lot of gals with long blonde hair, tans, and thong bathing suits.

Once tired of it all we returned to mom’s lakeshore lot and Luke said okay mom you have to hop out.  I said hop out?  Into the lake?  I was wearing a bra, underpants, capri shorts, a blouse and sandals.  This was the place where Jim had waded out to, so I knew it would be around waist deep for me.

I said oh crap, and took off my blouse and shorts, and then handed my sandals to Jim who was already in the lake.  I said “sorry about this underwear I would’ve worn a really good pair had I known” and hopped into the lake, and sure enough it was waist deep.  I waded to shore and ran to mom’s with my waded up clothing in my hands, shoes in the other.

Way more fun ensued as we all went to the French restaurant Convivia in Osoyoos.  It was one of those crazy nights whereby everyone was in high spirits, so a lot of drinks were ordered.  Cosmopolitans, White Russians, Caesars, Margaritas, a bottle of wine, more rounds of the same cocktails.

It was super busy so we ordered two platters of calamari and then Jim said let’s get escargot too, so we said hell why not.  Then came our food, and mine was steak frites, the fries cooked in duck fat.  Everyone reported their food as good.

Naturally Spanish Coffees were needed all around afterward and then mom handed me her purse and credit card and I looked at the bill but kept a neutral look on my face: $450.  Tip at 20% and you’ve got yourself one helluva nice restaurant bill.