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Big Trip Tomorrow

Apr15

I’m off to Germany tomorrow and am in the process of packing. I got those packing cubes, the plastic cases that you can zip up tight, and man, can you ever get a lot of clothes into one of those. I can’t believe my carry-on can hold so much, but those cubes compress the living daylights out of everything. It’ll be heavy, as I have jam and maple butter to bring to the relatives.

I wonder how successful I can possibly be given last summer my German relatives were dismayed to find bottles of wine and beer steins, carefully packed inside pounds of clothes, were smashed in transit. I put the jam and maple butter into baggies so that if they do get crushed, my clothes won’t be quite so heavily coated. I plan to check the bag, so fingers crossed.

In preparation for being away I’ve been working like an indentured servant on this property. It’s a lot more like farming than gardening as my weary body will attest. I finally decided working around a variegated ground cover that’s invaded every bed wasn’t workable, so have spent hours and hours shovelling and shaking out roots, then tossing the nasty plant. I know it’ll return, but at least I’ve given it a bit of a shock.

I was in Osoyoos for four long nights as Mom’s nighttime caregiver took some time off. It wasn’t too bad as there’s always so much to do there, either in the house or yard, so the time passed. Luke decided working isn’t really his thing, so quit his job, and has been spending time mowing, pruning and doing general yard maintenance which is good.

My friend Joan’s going to stay here with the dogs and cats. Calvin said the dogs howl at night when I’m away, so this’ll put a stop to that. I made a couple of dinners for her and froze them so she can start with that, and then she’ll have to get a few groceries for herself. Not much as the house always seems to have an awful lot of stuff in it.

I did a bit of volunteering for the Liberals on Saturday by handing out pamphlets at the Farmers Market. I was accompanied by a nice young woman who’d never done this type of thing before so after observing me accost a couple of innocent shoppers, she quickly got the hang of it. I said basically it’s like being a Jehovah’s Witness, you just have to suck it up and approach a person.

Most people were nice, and either said no thanks, or else they were going to vote Liberal and said so. But naturally there are always people who have to ensure you know they’re not only not going to vote Liberal, but that you’re the biggest pariah on Earth for stumping for them. To one agitated man after a long tirade, I replied, “well I guess we’ll just have to let the public decide.”

Mom’s just decided that she no longer wants to take her prescription meds, so I called the pharmacy and cancelled. She hasn’t had her high blood pressure meds since April 6 and is fine, so not sure what’s going to happen there. But at 100 one has to assume nothing good.

Even though I was just in Germany 18 months ago Doris insisted that I return, and now she’s been in hospital and is in a rehabilitation clinic, so I’ll be staying with her sister Hannelore instead. It’s quite annoying this happened, but she’s 94 and at that age anything is to be expected. But with our family’s genes I just assume everyone will continue.

My greatest hope is that I spend two weeks eating Schwabian food, that’s all. Nothing else matters.

New Eyebrows

Mar31

As we age a lot of ugly stuff happens, not the least of which is the loss of eyebrows. I realized I had maybe half of one left over each eye and was wondering what a person does about it. Then I heard about microblading, and intrigued, decided to go ahead and have it done. Turns out it’s actually a tattooing of brow “hairs” which look amazing and natural. Who knew?

Maintenance is time-consuming and expensive, but what can one do, just leave things as they are? No. Poor Calvin has witnessed many beauty treatments around here and so is used to seeing me resembling either a burnt mummy or a bruised car accident victim. End result: less visible aging, so pain be damned.

But of course the old carcass isn’t fooled as for the past few days I’ve been digging in the garden and my hands and haunches are killing me as a result. I’m digging out voracious grasses that have practically consumed entire perennials, shaking them out, and putting the plant back. Due to lazy neglect, I have hours more to do. Had I just weeded faithfully into the fall, but no.

Because I have to be in Osoyoos for four days early April, then I’m leaving for Germany mid-April, I’m not able to do the usual volunteering for the election. I certainly wouldn’t have booked the time away had I known, because you know how much I like politics. Because I’m leaving before the advance polls open, I have to go to my local Elections office to vote early.

And as it turns out I may be too late going to Germany because Mom’s cousin Doris, age 94 and who I always stay with, is in hospital and not doing great. So that’s a terrible surprise as I was looking forward to our coffee, bread and jam in the mornings. I’ll stay with her sister Hannelore, age 92, instead and it’ll be just as lovely, but different without Doris.

You know how cocky mom is and when she turned 100 she said “Now we’ll see who’s gonna die next.” Luke and I turned to each other and said “Ballsy!” But with that kind of omen I wonder if it isn’t poor Doris who might be the one. Mom has a way of casting spells that’s hard to explain.

My six lovely hens are all laying nicely and the one Aracuna is laying blue ones. Now my eggs all look very bespoke and ready for Pinterest. Some are dark brown with speckles, some almost mauve, the blue, and an almost white (from Kate the old Sussex hen). I like giving them to friends who are quite impressed.

Tomorrow the former gym women are coming for a coffee klatsch. I made a hopefully moist cherry, chocolate and pecan loaf and in keeping with the fruit theme, cookies made with dried strawberries and dark chocolate chips. It’s all for naught really, as they’ll have a couple of cups of black coffee and then leave. Gym women!

And then it’s pretty much a sprint until I leave due to being in Osoyoos for four nights to babysit mom. It’s wonderful having the camera as I can see her using the walker to go into the kitchen, pour a glass of wine and make her way back to her chair to eat some chocolate and watch TV. So she seems to be pretty good for her age, but it’s too dangerous to leave her alone at night, hence the babysitting.

I can get Luke, Jan and mom’s feedback on the new eyebrows, so that’s one good thing.

Edward Scissorhands

Mar18

Edward Scissorhands, the 1990 movie starring Johnny Depp, was about a humanoid who had scissor blades instead of hands. In the movie he uses his hands to cut hair and trim hedges, and all’s well until he accidentally cuts people. This reminds of my dear landscaper, Gilles, who I asked to “prune” my fruit trees. My fault, really, and it reminded me of saying something stupid like that to the hairdresser, i.e. “cut” my hair. When you mean trim, and say cut, look out, right?

My apricot had finally produced a lot of branches studded with buds, so I was looking forward to some fruit this summer. I decided to go down to the vegetable garden area to see how Gilles was doing. I was dumbstruck when I saw all those branches lying on the ground, and said “oh, um, I guess no apricots this summer?”

He replied cheerily he’d left a couple of smaller (12 inches in length) branches and they had buds so there’d be “some.” Then a few days later Elsa asked me if I knew of someone who could prune her apple tree. I said my landscape helper can do that. Why I said that I don’t know, as you’re probably already skipping ahead in your mind to what occurred.

Yesterday Elsa came over and we drove in my car to thrift. On the way I asked if Gilles had been to her place, and when I saw her face: white, mouth tight, I thought uh-oh, Elsa never gets mad. She said, “my poor tree.” Apparently he took down the majority of the branches so now just a stump and a few smaller limbs remain.

I felt terrible and said I’m so sorry! We should’ve said “trim” and not “prune”, given he’s done that for years in commercial orchards. He knows what needs to be done, but as it turns out, I don’t want those things. I just want fake cosmetic shaping, and a bit of stuff cut down, that’s all. But if I live a long time, I think some day I’ll have apricots again.

Here’s the height of laziness. I went for a teeth-cleaning and when the dentist looked at my teeth, he tsk tsked as I haven’t been wearing my Invisalign retainers. He thought it’d be cheap to get some new ones made, and advised they’d call and let me know. A few days later the office manager phoned and said unfortunately I’d have to start over at around $5,000.

I said I’d think about it, knowing that was a hard no. Then got out the old retainers and have been wearing those and all seems to be well. Why Invisalign thought I’d need to start over when the old retainers still fit (albeit no longer 100%) I don’t know but I have my suspicions, don’t you?

I had the Crones here for Petra’s birthday as I like to do every year. I’d found an adorable tile at thrift that said “It’s hard to be humble when you’re German” which of course I wanted to keep but gave to her as I knew she’d enjoy it. It really is hard to be self-effacing, but we try our best.

Here’s an annoying development. I found a wonderful woman to sleep at Mom’s, but it turns out she’s a normal human being who enjoys having time off now and again. I can’t blame her at all; however, it means I now have to spend two nights there instead of one. Early April I have to spend four nights and I’m wondering if there’s even enough vodka in the Osoyoos liquor store for that.

My plan is to do an Edward Scissorhands impression and slash around mom’s garden by day, then get mellow with vodka by night. I’m hoping for the best is all.

The World Is Too Much with Us

Mar4

Do you know that poem by Wordsworth, one of my favourite poets? It seems appropriate now to say the world IS too much with us given we’re all addicted to YouTube suddenly and any bits of news from the maniac south of us. As a result, I woke up at 3:45 and decided at 5:00 AM to just get up as it became obvious, I wouldn’t be doing anymore sleeping. I wonder if billions of us are feeling the disruption.

I look southwest from my dining room window, so I guess I’ll have an excellent view of any mushroom clouds. It’s awful to think of that but with a dangerous moron leading the country that’s trying to take us over, all kinds of dark things come to mind. Thankfully I’m able to distract myself with practicalities such as dying my hair, which I’m doing as I type.

Mom’s 100th birthday went well, and she enjoyed all of the attention. I made her favourite rum cake into which I was able to get the entire 26er of booze this time. Sometimes I simply cannot get the cake to drink the entire bottle but this time, working slowly, I was able to coax it in. We like to eat it with lashings of whipped cream.

I picked our pal Jim up at the airport and he immediately had two dachshunds plopped on his lap. As I say to people if you don’t like that, just sit in the back seat. But he was fine with it, and we then stayed at mom’s for three nights and had a lot of fun with Luke and Jan.

Jim was on and on about how he needs to lose weight, despite being the size of a stick, and I said to him I weigh the same as I did when I was 18 and actually am five pounds lighter than when I got married. He said wow. I said yeah, wow, nothing. The secret is being quite heavy at 18 and even heavier when you marry, and then if you lose weight, you can parrot that line and make people mad.

I’m now enjoying the hell of trying to vote for the new Liberal leader. I say enjoy as I imagine other Liberal Boomers with no tenant in their basement who have a bachelor’s degree in computer science. I had to call Calvin up here just to do the very first step, and even our friend Jim who’s very computer savvy was freaking out as he wasn’t able to do it but then figured it out. Can’t wait to see of the 400,000 Liberals, how many were able to crack the code and managed to vote.

I completed the draft of my memoir and sent the 49,700 word document to my beleaguered editor, Judith. It’s quite a lazy thing to do, which is to pay the poor woman to read this and then I’ll work on the edits she suggests. I could’ve done much more of that prior to sending it but trust me when I say one can only re-read a fruitcake memoir so many times, and no one is paying me to do that.

Bored? Watch the Honeymoon Crasher on Netflix, it’s very funny. Just 90 minutes and so easy to watch and doesn’t require a lot of thought. As you know I’m not normal when it comes to Love is Blind, so am now waiting for the wedding show which is on Friday. Who will say I do? Who will have their little heart broken?

And speaking of which, I guess instead of being heartsick over the world going to hell in a handbasket, one should probably try to find the silver lining in all of it. To whit: Canadians have never been more patriotic, and I certainly have no intentions of travelling south any time soon.

Mom’s Upcoming 100th Birthday

Feb17

Mom’s hell bent on turning 100, and this will occur next week on the 25th. Our good friend Jim’ll be coming from Vancouver for the occasion, so it’ll be a birthday dinner celebration with the five of us: Mom, me, Jim, Luke, Jan. That’s what mom wants so that’s what will happen. Her cousin Hannelore phoned from Germany and told me to get a decent bottle of champagne which I will do.

Imagine my annoyance yesterday morning to find a cat had emptied its bladder onto my bed. I immediately identified Calvin’s rascally cat Felix as the culprit, given he’d told me the cat had wet a floor mat of his the other day. I emailed Calvin who replied with shock that surely it wasn’t his flawless cat. I replied well usually one plus one equals two. His cat has a record of peeing, mine are 7.5 years old and have never done that, so…..

Calvin wasn’t having it and said it wasn’t possible given his cat had spent the entire day downstairs. I replied that wasn’t plausible because he’d been in at least twice prior to 9:00 AM and after that many times and had in fact eaten his usual two cans of expensive food that day. Finally Calvin had to accept his cat might sometimes do a bad thing. His admonishment to the cat? “Good thing you’re so cute.”

I discovered a new flavour of chips for cookies. The latest ones I tried are cream cheese chips. I made a batch of cookies with one cup of those, and one cup of dark chocolate chips and people liked them. I gave some to the Lynches when I went to visit them at Silver Star. Very conveniently I’d ordered chicken feet for Jan from the butcher in Vernon, so I picked those up on my way to the top of the mountain.

People ask, what does Jan do with (ugh) chicken feet? I reply I’m not sure as I’ve never eaten them, but she salivates when she talks about them. Apparently, they’re cooked for a very long time in some kind of a sauce. I wonder about the claws, though. Would those float to the top and you skim them off, or what?

I was in Osoyoos again last weekend and so Lorraine, the nice woman who now sleeps at mom’s, had a night off. I went there to attend my school friend Mary’s husband’s funeral. As I said to Phyllis when I got home afterward, funerals always make me feel like a piece of shit. She laughed nervously, but I said no, seriously it’s true.

Greg was lauded by his sobbing daughter as the greatest dad ever with many stories of what a selfless person he was. She told of a time she felt bad as a mom, and they spoke on the phone, and he said to her “those kids are so lucky to have you as their mom.” Brianna said he was always so supportive and encouraging. I sat there going, wow, I stunk as a mom.

Hopefully by the time I’m dead I’ll have done something tear-worthy for a small group of people. Certainly I think the people I’ve cooked and baked for will feel a pang of sorrow going, “but, who’s gonna bake chocolate chip cookies for me?”

But on a much happier note, imagine my joy to discover there’s a new season of Love is Blind on Netflix. Because I love it so much, I try to ration the number of episodes I watch per night so I can prolong the experience.  Kinda like mom hanging on for dear life until next week.

The Year of the Snake Starting out Badly

Feb3

The year of the snake means a time of rapid transformation. Just as a snake sheds its skin, it’s a time of new beginnings for us. Sounds good, but so far the changes haven’t been all that great given we might be heading into a recession thanks to the viper south of the border. Fine for us Boomers, but a mighty blow to any youth who’ll be laid off and unable to find work. Better grab a bottle of Smirnoff (made in Canada) on your way home and enjoy the last few weeks of employment.

Mom’s recent transformations haven’t been great, either. Last week she was taken to emergency on two separate occasions and each time sent back home. The last time the doctor phoned me and said Mom can’t be alone at night, so I’ve hired a nice woman to come in the evenings and sleep there. Then Mom will be totally safe, and no more fighting with Luke to go and stay with gramma.

Because of the new weakened state she’s in Mom’s no longer able to go down the two steps to the lower area of the house to access the TV and her bedroom. So we moved her into the old part of the house, dad’s old bedroom and bathroom, and then moved the TV into the kitchen for her. Now she’s all on one level, which is good, but moving the TV meant disconnecting the satellite, which turned out very bad.

Mom lives for TV, but we said don’t worry, that’ll be fixed and in the meantime you’ll have whatever’s on the smart TV, like YouTube and Netflix. In other words, a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, the smart TV remote has numbers, letters and arrows the size of pin heads, so mom can’t change the channel and so we had to do it for her. And guess what? Mom has the attention span of a gnat but the demands of the Queen of England.

I’d be vacuuming. “Mooooooni!” I’d come running, “Yes?” And then Mom would explain she didn’t like that movie, and I’d have to find a new one. Mom lives for CNN and MSNBC so to save my sanity I said “Hey, I can get clips of that for you on YouTube”, so was able to find half an hour here, three quarters of an hour there of her favourites. Sadly she didn’t like it.

Why didn’t Mom like seeing all her favourite people on YouTube? It just didn’t feel right without her ability to control it with her old large easy-to-use remote, so she was in a terrible snit. Besides asking when the other channels would be available, she’d grab the now useless remote and try to change channels, and each time I’d say, “Isn’t that cute, you’re trying to change channels with that remote.”

Then she’d say, “Well if that remote isn’t working sometimes this one will work”, and she’d pick up the mobile phone. I said “Nope. Actually, the white thing is for calling people in their homes, but the black thing is the remote for changing channels on the TV but right now it doesn’t work.” After about 27 rounds of this explanation and the whole satellite shemozzle, I just got drunk as fast as I could.

Because of the heinous stress of the weekend I spent with mom, Calvin and Visini decided to take my mind off things with a game of Scrabble. I haven’t played in over 35 years, and it was a fun thing to do. I made one good move which netted 34 points, then crashed and burned ever after and ended up last, but didn’t care. We learned bott is the plural of bot, and don’t know what to do with either of those. I did learn the most obscure dictionary in the world is the “official” Scrabble one.

Sticking it to Zuckerberg

Jan19

I read a post on Facebook that we should all ignore it for a week so I’m going to do that, just because. I don’t like Zuckerberg, Musk or Bezos, so here’s a very small, likely meaningless attempt by a peon to lodge my protest. Obviously, we shouldn’t be using Facebook at all, nor shopping at Amazon, which thank God I rarely do, and I will never buy a Tesla so I’m safe there.

We’re down to a very thin, free local newspaper called The Capital News which I’ve read since moving here nearly 35 years ago. They always have a section either by the SPCA or the Okanagan Humane Society whereby they showcase various animals needing homes. The other day there was a cat which was elderly and had been obese but was now normal size but suffered from ‘mega colon.’ I think it’d be better to say nothing and just let a new owner be surprised as that doesn’t sound like a selling point for the cat.

Marie was here for lunch last week and noticed the stink bug. Every winter there seems to be one or two that like to stay in the house, and I just ignore them. Marie said she’d just kill it if it was her place, but I said God no and told her about the two different golden orb spiders I had living with me for several months before they perished. One of old age and the other was murdered by one of the cats.

Remember how I said Calvin was good at things I’m bad at and vice versa? The other day, seeing how he seems to do this easily, I replied to a Facebook Marketplace ad for Barbie dolls. I drove over and bought one of them and then brought it home to find one leg was shorter than the other. It’s also not vintage in any way, and I was hosed for $25. I said to Calvin, why I try to buy stuff on Marketplace is a mystery because I’m so bad at it.

He continues to be ace at it as he’d pointed out my receiver was pooched, and I needed a new one. Browsing Marketplace day by day he landed on a nice Yamaha for $50, picked it up, brought it home, hooked it to my Bose speakers, handed me the remote and said, there you should be good to go. Genius, right?

He also cleverly placed the speakers to each side of the new smart TV he picked up for me, and so I had room in the glass-fronted cabinet where I had stored them. I decided what would look very adorable would be my old record albums stacked up in there, spines showing so you can read the titles. I can only play them on a special turntable I bought, but when I do, they bring incredible memories flooding back.

The collection starts with old Beatles LP’s and then moves to Elvis Costello My Aim is True, The Pointer Sisters Steppin’, Bruce Spring The River, Cyndi Lauper She’s so Unusual. If you were around in the 1960s to 1980’s, you’ll be crying because you probably made the mistake of ‘cleaning out’ your closets of stuff you no longer needed. Tsk!

Elsa’s back from several months in Mexico, and last week we returned to the thrift stores for some treasure hunting, so there’s no danger of me ever running out of items I may or may not need in the future. I still like the idea of turning the house into a store and putting price tags on everything and letting people browse to their heart’s content. That’d give all my buying a purpose.

Doesn’t Everyone Bake Ten Batches Of Cookies?

Dec23

Because I regard my Christmas preparations as the norm for everyone, I’m always a bit perplexed and surprised by replies such as this one from my friend Penny. “Whew! Your Christmas preparations are dizzying but most admirable.” It’s the Martha Stewart in me; I guess I can’t just be average, I have to be over the top with everything. However so far all cookie recipients have been quite pleased by their assortment.

Here’s an incredibly stupid thing I did. I assumed a courier company meant faster delivery than what we were told to expect due to back-ups of parcels after the Canada Post strike. I went into Purolator on Friday morning around 9:00 and thought this way the parcels should surely arrive by Monday at the latest. They were weighed and placed into the shipping queue, I paid and said, “When will they arrive?”

“Dunno.” I said, “You don’t know? How can you not know when they’ll arrive?” After a few moments, once I was able to think clearly again, I decided to invoke the Gods of Shipping. I said to the woman, “Ya know what? I’m just gonna think positive thoughts and imagine them arriving there on time.” She then gave me a wink and said, “I think you’re right.” I felt like punching initially, but thankfully left with a Merry Christmas. Must be the season, right?

I got one of those hilarious Fart Ninjas, have you seen them? They’re motion-activated and make a few different farting sounds. I just like having it around as sometimes I forget it’s on the table and a cat jumps up and suddenly I hear “fraaap” or “poot.” Please don’t judge me, I have a very strange sense of humour. When bored I Google ‘People Get Hurt Slipping on Ice’ and other hilarious topics like that. I’m laughing now thinking about it.

This is the last blog of 2024 and as usual I’m pretty much ga ga with excitement and anticipation for a New Year to begin. I’m not making any resolutions, per se, but I do have two goals that I wish to achieve. One is to hire a Gen Z who knows WordPress to help me with it (this means doing most of it) and secondly, I want to start selling some old stuff that someone who collects may value.

It was good to have mom’s 100-year celebration in summer because she’s to turn 100 on February 25 and at this age it’s nip and tuck. Most days she’s in her nightgown and housecoat so not sure how much steam is left in the old engine. I do hope she’ll be in the mood for our Christmas Eve tomorrow night, and again for Christmas Day. Hamiltons are coming for dinner as they usually do which is great. Fred will wear his Christmas vest, made by Julie and decorated with snowmen and other related things.

I’ve had some very decent Christmas events here in Kelowna. The Crones came for dinner one night, and Calvin and I held our very successful 4th annual Christmas party. Each year another bowl of punch is added, and I think this time he made either three or four bowls, and it still wasn’t enough. This crowd can go through the liquor, which I love to see in young folks.

Sylvie and I had dinner at the Gasthaus in Peachland last night and today I’m meeting Marie downtown for Happy Hour, so life is pretty pretty pretty good here. I’m grateful for all of it, food, friends and family. Merry Christmas!

Moulting Hen Scares Coop Mates

Dec10

I noticed an awful lot of white feathers in the run and then saw that Kate was missing feathers at the nape and also under her neck. I figured it must be moulting, but then I saw one of the fluffy-feet grey hens pecking at her, and she was just standing there taking it. I did some research and as the six new hens are young and have never moulted, seeing Kate featherless in some vulnerable areas likely caused bullying.

To reduce any chance of bullying within the coop I got a handy metal fence from Sylvie which she used to corral her little dogs. It can be made big or small so makes a nice little enclosure within the coop into which I can plop Kate for the night. That sounds easy, doesn’t it? All I can say is you go into a chicken coop and try to catch a hen and then tell me about it. I hope moulting ends soon.

It’s not just chickens and people that bully anyone who’s different, as I’ve seen it with cats. I remember when I had my apartment at the corner of 10th and Hemlock in Vancouver in the 70’s. It had a fireplace which I almost never used. But I did use it enough for it to be coated in soot, and one day one of my two white cats snuck behind the screen and came out looking like a panther.

I didn’t know what to do so grabbed the cat and took her into the bathroom, held her under the tap of the bathtub and tried to get the soot off, but wetting the cat seemed to make it worse as now she appeared dark grey all over. I dried her off and set her down and then her sister arched her back and was hissing at her as though she was an intruder! So funny.

My friends the Lynchs came for lunch yesterday and liked seeing all of the Christmas decorations. I said I always do it on December 1st now because the month flies by and then you don’t get to enjoy all the sparkly lights and other adorable things. Sadly, they brought me delicious pastries from a bakery called Sweet Caroline’s in Vernon and so last evening I ate two huge marzipan-coated sponge cakes that were filled with fresh whipped cream.

Calvin and I continue with our very successful tit for tatting. I described it in my book, Okay I’ll Bite (which you should order as a stocking stuffer), but basically, it’s doing the thing the other person can’t or hates to do. I’ll make a pot roast; Calvin will put up the Christmas lights. He changes my tires; I bake him a pie. It seems to work.

This Saturday is our 4th Annual Christmas Party, so I have to shop for food because I really hate buying frozen dreck like spring rolls as the homemade stuff just tastes so much better. I told Calvin we need a double batch of punch as last year we ran out and people were coming into the kitchen with empty glasses and leaving with sad faces.

As you may recall I’m working on a memoir of my ten years in the fruitcake business. It’s ten chapters and so far, I’ve sent seven for editing, so three more to go, and I often feel like I need to take primal scream therapy or at least ingest ayahuasca. As a memoir must have a theme, and as we must understand why this person is doing the things she does, my editor will ask questions like, “you want it, but do you feel guilty about those feelings?” Never mind, I plan on giving this my best shot, just like the hen must.

Trip to Leavenworth, Washington

Nov26

In the spring Marie suggested we should do something fun to celebrate turning 70, and said a cute destination is Leavenworth, Washington. I’ve never been but have heard a lot about it from friends who have, so said sure, let’s do it. We booked for two nights and drove down last week.

It was time for an early lunch when we hit Trino’s Mexican Restaurant in Oroville, then we proceeded straight to the Icicle Resort where we arrived around 3:00 PM. We were thrilled to see our huge two-bedroom condo where they’d basically thought of everything a person could need. Just outside the window we saw the pool and hot tub, both heated.

The person at the desk said it was about a fifteen-minute walk into town, and so we thought that’d be nice after our drive. However they’d had a huge dump of snow that morning so the sidewalks weren’t shovelled and in places we had to go out onto the highway to be able to make our way forward. By the time we arrived the cute little town’s trees and stores were all lit up and it looked magical.

We needed liquor so walked back to get our car and drove to the Safeway where it took forever to make up our minds given the vast assortment. I settled on a bottle of a pre-mixed margarita by a company called On the Rocks. We had a drink back at the condo, then drove to town and looked for a place for dinner.

Even though we were in a Bavarian town we decided to eat Italian food, and it was delicious. The place is called Visconti’s and is upstairs and felt all cozy. I ended my chicken and mushroom fettuccini meal with a delicious, strong Irish coffee.

On Thursday we started the day with an attempt at eating the breakfast, which was included, but it wasn’t good, so we just ate a bowl of raisin bran, then headed to Das Thrift Haus for a bit of shopping. I bought two tops for $4 each, and then we went into the cute town and looked at the price of chi chi items in the stores and laughed a bit.

We stopped in at a photographic gallery and admired the landscapes. The artist was there and so we chatted, and of course the topic of the election arose. We said yes what a strange result, and he explained no, not really as you know, Robert Kennedy has a lot of really good ideas. We said huh! He added Elon Musk is really going to clean up some of the bureaucracy, and we said you are probably right.

When we left, we said wow, we sure had that person pegged wrong. Of course we should’ve taken the hint never to speak about politics when we saw a huge, fat man in a T shirt decorated with the stars and stripes and Trump written across it. They are everywhere down there. I said to Marie never say “cream” just say “half and half” or we’ll be outed and shot. Ditto “sack” and not “bag” or “a fifth” versus “a mickey.”

After thoroughly browsing the town, we returned and decided to be brave and hop into the hot tub. We found two big white robes in the closet, donned our bathing suits and shoes, grabbed towels and ran out the back, tip toed through the snow, and unlocked the gate. We removed the bubble wrap cover and ahhhh! Lovely pulsing hot water and steam rising all around. We looked like those snow monkeys in Japan.

We ate German food at Andreas Keller that night and were thrilled to have an old German man playing accordion. He played the Chicken Dance, and we loved doing the clap clap clap clap at the appropriate places. It appeared he was happy with our participation. I’m sure some nights he gets nothing but duds sitting there.

The next morning, we checked out and made our way back, however in Wenatchee we missed a road sign, and then I randomly said “turn left” which Marie did. Later she asked why I said that, and I asked her why she listened when she knew I had no sense of direction. Suffice to say we were badly lost but found good Samaritans who drove ahead of us until we got to the right exit where they waved us on.

Thanks, Americans. We may not understand them, but as we see time and again, when someone needs help, good people step in.