Old Office Building

We headed into town this morning for a dentist appointment for me and a visit with his mom for Carm. My dentist is in my old office building so it was a bit like a step back in time – yuck – if I  never had to see the building again I’d be happy!

It is funny to visit it though as they are renovating the 3 commercial levels, which they have been doing for a few years... I don’t know what they are thinking, but it’s weird. The new entrance is just strange – a big glass atriumish area that abuts onto a big wall of nothing. You have to weave through these narrow hallways to get anywhere. I should have taken a few photos but I was dumbstruck!

The good thing though is I met Jo Ellen for lunch. As always it is great to catch up with her, and even hear a bit of gossip from the office. I do miss some of the people. But as we parted company I turned around to leave the building with a big smile on my face…

One lady from work stopped to say hi. We talked a bit about retirement and how great it is. She was saying that she doesn’t understand her mother-in-law still doing her grocery shopping on a Saturday. Jo Ellen mentioned that the parking lots are still full during the week to which I added – and they are all really slow moving retired people – no rush to get anywhere so they dawdle along. (no offence meant to anyone of course). I had to laugh later when we shopped at Costco. Sure enough, a fullish parking lot and lots of slow people in the store. We are still zoomers – especially Carm who gets frustrated and has to pass with his cart. Maybe we will slow down someday, but we aren’t there yet!

Here’s a few pleasures for the last few days:

Basking in the sun in October ; eating breakfast outside in October ; reading on the swing in October ; biting into a perfectly ripe banana, even better when paired with partially defrosted blueberries. It’s hard to beat a breakfast that good (okay, pancakes win for sure, but if you are trying to be good…) ;

watching Kabira go crazy and run and run and run ; watching Spike try his hardest to keep up to Kabira even though he has no chance at all but my oh my he tries his little heart out ;

 

while we are on the dog topic though – not so much pleasure was had bathing Spike who rolled in something smelly (something skunk) ; buying a learn to Sketch book – I can’t wait to start learning, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow so it might be a good time to start ; eating crispy turkey skin ; the smell of turkey cooking in the oven ;

hot bath ; getting caught up on all the blogs that I read – a week away from my computer is a long time! ; coming home after a long camp – I love to be away and can hardly wait for the next camp, but every time I step into our great room after a time away I am reminded how much I love our house ; seeing all the trees changing colour on our drive into town ; here’s one of Carm’s pleasures – cutting the grass for the last time in 2011 (although slightly bittersweet – it does mean winter is coming…) ;

I guess I could go on and on – LIFE IS GOOD! What are your pleasures? Do you enjoy every minute or do you live on autopilot (which I tend to do)?

If It Be Your Will

It was just a bit cool out, with a stiff breeze tossing the branches of the trees around. I packed up the table and chairs on the deck but decided that it was nice enough to enjoy a few hours out on the swing. I started out listening to music – Leonard Cohen – but got too depressed. Some find it strange but I don’t usually find Leonard’s stuff dirge like – it usually makes me want to dance – not today though. So I changed the music to something up beat for a while and then picked up my book, “The Edible Woman” by Margaret Atwood.

 

After listening to “Waiting for the Miracle” I had to look up “If it Be Your Will” sung by Antony. This version was on the documentary “I’m Your Man” that we saw a few years ago. It really touched me – he really added a pleading, haunting sound to it. Check it out on YouTube  http://youtu.be/1MDlMdu2gjw

I read “The Edible Woman” over 25 years ago and thought that it would be time for another read. Well, I’m past the 80th page and haven’t remembered a thing! My memory seems to have given up on me for these types of things. The good news is that I can re-read books from my own library as if they were brand new… scary eh!

Grace even got outside for an hour or two this morning but then the wind picked up (I could see it ruffling her feathers) so I took her in before she froze – I haven’t figured out how to convince her that a sweater would be a good idea ;-)

Tonight we will finally have our Thanksgiving supper – Turkey breast with all the fixings, although there will be a big cheat with “Stove Top Stuffing”. I tried it a few years back when making turkey dinner on the camper – I simply did not have the space to make real stuffing so I tried the boxed kind. It’s actually not too bad, although nothing like the real thing…

I saved the rest of the turkey (uncooked) for the dogs. Turkey is a great deal for raw feeding when we can get it for $0.99 lb. – I save the breast for us making the rest of the turkey almost free – good cheap dog food!

Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.
Emily Carr

Indian Summer

I’ll be honest – I shed a few tears today as we packed up from our last camping trip of the season. Sure, we just MIGHT get out one more time, but our regular campground is closed for the season leaving just one open in the area. IF the weather is great we may make it out, but I’m not counting on it.

The last week has been amazing – an Indian Summer to remember. Yesterday was a record high of 27C, that’s about 84F in October! Unbelievable! Normal temps are around 13C (about 56F). It’s been so warm that most trees aren’t even changing their colours – the leaves are just falling off without their blush of red and orange.

There ain't nothing better in this world you know, than laying in the sun with the radio – sunny days, oh sunny sunny days…

 

 

We still had one free pass into Upper Canada Village so yesterday, after a lovely walk with the dogs, and pancakes, bacon & eggs outside on the picnic table we headed over to UCV. Despite the rather large number of people there we were able to walk around and view the exhibits at our leisure. The day was just stunning (have I said that yet?). Of course we picked up a loaf of their wonderful bread and enjoyed probably our last tomato salad of the season with thick slices of wood oven baked bread. Then time for a sit down in the sun till it was time to fire up the bbq for some great steaks. All in all a perfect last full day of camping.

Crank alert on – what is it with people and their dogs? They are either on flexi-leads at full length twisting around peoples legs (at UCV), or they are loose (at the campground). We had two loose dogs come up to us this weekend when we were out for our walks. It was no big deal, but luckily my dogs (except Spike) aren’t too violent about interlopers. And the barking... lets just say that some people seem to be deaf to their own dogs. It really rots my socks as surely someday dogs will be disallowed because of these jerks  people who have no control of their dogs. Argggh! 

Oh yeah – the rearrange of the furniture, and removal of the black chair really made the interior functional even with Grace’s huge cage. Since we only used that chair once this summer it may be permanently exiled! This is the nice thing about having some of the rv furniture reconfigurable – we can really set things up to fit our specific requirements. All that to say – I LOVE OUR CAMPER! take that bigger campers that sometimes try to seduce…