Life's a Stitch

Living in our new-to-us soon-to-be partially torn down and rebuilt house has been an adventure in waiting, but it looks as though demolition will happen in May. It's a good thing.

Fiction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fact: Here, it's time for a new roof, siding, insulation, drywall…. During the recent snow melt the neighbour told us that he could see our roof sheathing flapping in the wind, hence the indoor water feature, clocked at 45 litres per hour:

C & B couldn't wait until May to reduce the master bedroom suite to this:

Anybody want a bidet?

The shocking part, besides the fact that we are currently living in said house on a temporary basis, is that the date on the drywall and fixtures confirm that it was built in 1995. If you've ever wondered how long it takes for an neglected houseful of problems to rot away to the point of no return, you have your answer: 22 years. Don't ignore the issues, call the repair person right now.

There are saving graces in this story. We don't have to replace the foundation or the drain tiles and when we come back it will be covered by a new home warranty. And the deck view continues to reinforce that we've chosen to do the right thing:

Packing disasters, the more you travel, chances are you've had your turn with a suitcase spill or some other packing mishap. A burst bottle of non-aerosol hairspray? A broken zipper spilling your dirty laundry onto the carousel for all to see? I've had a few myself:

I packed a hostess gift for my friend,  two bottles of British Columbia wine, something she wouldn't find in Florida. You know how, when waiting at the baggage claim, and you see a telltale trail of red liquid and you think, I'm glad that's not my piece of luggage leaking red wine. Wrong. This time it was mine. And why does it happen when you are breaking in a new suitcase? Her sweet husband, not a wine drinker, mind you, spent an hour the next day pressure washing my bag. It would have been a lot easier if the bottle of white was the one to break. 

It kills me to waste good food. Upon leaving our winter's visit to California one year, I had some spare weight available in my luggage. What should I pack? A five pound bag of fancy brown rice or the jug of pure maple syrup? For some reason I chose to bring the maple syrup home to its country of origin. That should have been reason enough to leave it behind, but I opted to bring coals to Newcastle, sticky liquid coals. Again, it was a new piece of luggage. No wonder I go though suitcases so quickly. I still have issues with the interior compartment zippers caked with dried maple syrup.

Then there was the time I hand carried ten bags of Canadian-only catsup flavoured potato chips on a flight from Toronto to New Hampshire, a request from my niece and nephew.  The flights were booked on points and included this last hop on a propeller plane where the pilot was younger than the aircraft. He nicely offered me space in a storage area behind the cockpit. During the flight we heard a number of ominous loud bangs, but we made it safely to our destination. On our arrival the pilot informed me that I could expect some potato chip casualties due to the non-pressurized cabin. And right he was.

 This year:

What possessed me to pack breadcrumbs? We have breadcrumbs in Canada and they are as cheap as in the US. I knew they wouldn't last through the summer's heat and I didn't want to take up precious freezer space, so they came along. At least           they vacuumed up easily. Those that didn't adhere to the syrup clogged zippers.

Here's a link to other packing disasters. I especially liked the one about the dead ducks. I know, though, that in my case I couldn't bring them over the border without attracting the attention of the airport canine unit.

My baby blue bike was a gift from my daughter and husband a few years back.

Totally unexpected, it brought back exciting memories of my first two wheeler Schwinn in the same colour. Complete with plaid seat, basket and rubber bulb horn, what a wonderful surprise. They thought it would be a good means of transportation from our place to the community pool, a ten minute walk away. That worked for awhile.

I'm like a caged creature in this gated community. This year we began the expansion of our cycling horizons. By no means hard core cyclists, two days prior to leaving the desert, we did a 20 mile loop to my favourite Lake Cahuilla and back through the polo fields. I was transported to fifth grade me, on my second bicycle, a 26" Raleigh. Happy memories of my bike, book in basket and breeze in my hair. Not really, today the breeze was through the 18 vents of my turquoise helmet, something not required way back then, but appreciated now.

Fifty (!) years later you can add three more b's to the alliterative experience: boyfriend, beer and bathroom. To be more accurate I'd have to say husband (still my boyfriend), two light beers and an appreciation for the lake area's bathrooms rather than portapotties. I admit to being a sacrilegious Pacific Northwesterner who doesn't appreciate the flavour of micro brews and drinks decaf coffee, and as a woman of advancing age, my fondness for flush toilets.

Three hours flew by, picnic lunch and time to read in the sunshine, punctuated by a couple of trips to the aforementioned facilities.

The final B's were encountered as we rode through the El Dorado Polo grounds and saw a BIG Brown Bear.

This is the first year in seven that I have seen significant rain in the desert. Truthfully, we have experienced rain here once or twice, for part of a day, but this year we've had six rainy days. Not in a row, but often enough to interrupt with the usual sunshiny routine. Without the walking, hiking and geocaching we've had to plan for occasional indoor activities. 

Last week though, on a beautiful afternoon, we accompanied B on a fishing trip to little, but beautiful, nearby Lake Cahuilla. We saw plenty of fish jumping, and the swimming storks seemed full and happy, but the boys were skunked.

The rain does encourage painting. Palm trees were the subject of the week. I finished one that I started with artist, Diane Morgan:

 

The second one was a quick palm tree study painted on top of a sky exercise I kept from the past. I like the way the palms here sparkle in the sunlight.

Hoping for sunnier weather as I'll have plenty of time for indoor activity when we get back to the soggy Pacific NW. Ironically, today it's dry back home.

While cooking together over the holidays we shared mixed messages from our grandmothers. When you're baking:

1. To save eggs (no doubt from the days of rationing) use one fewer egg and you won't notice the difference.
2. And probably a form of post war overcompensation, my grandmother's rule: always add an extra egg for a richer cake. 

It looks like our eggs made the decision for us. Jumbo eggs were only .10 a dozen higher in price than their extra large sized siblings. Jumbo is definitely an American thing, having never seen them north of the border. Even extra large eggs in Canada seem smaller than their American counterparts. Yesterday's eggs:

They big ones surprised us with double yolks.

A boiled one revealed two yolks nestled together, crowded as identical twins sharing a sac. 

As Lene left for her return flight to Denmark we said our "until next times" and "see you soons"avoiding the finality that is conjured by saying goodbye. She soon discovered that her flight to SFO, originating in Chicago, was iced in with no hope of its arriving in time for her connection to Copenhagen. We treated it as an opportunity for a fun bonus day together, allowing us to get in one more watercolour tutorial, dinner out and another family game of Play Nine. B, who shares his mother's lack of enthusiasm for card games (not including this one, which is quite fun), even enjoyed himself.

Rocks were the subject of the day, starting with pebbles like you would find on a beach. Not quite done yet, but what a fun exercise. You wet a piece of paper, drop in four colours randomly on the page and let it dry. Next you use dark paint to outline the splotches of colour and turn each into a stone. Very relaxing, not unlike the meditative feeling we had using the colouring books M made for us for Christmas.

Next was a jumbo rock – a desert rock face, appropriate for our location. I added a teensy tree and a huge time lapse milky way.

Good thing these are indoor projects. We're getting frustrated with the high rainfall/low temperature patterns that have been happening over the past month here in the desert. The past six month's precipitation is almost what is seen in an average year!

 

The weather in the desert has been unseasonably cool and grey. We've even had several occasions of rain, one for twelve hours straight.

Better than the frigid and grey back home that has kept a solid sheet of ice on sidewalks and roads for weeks. There was a video on Vancouver's news of two guys skating down their street, something unheard of in Vancouver's typically mild climate. When we moved to Vancouver, more than half a lifetime ago, people couldn't believe we were leaving Nebraska for even colder Canada. They were unaware of our mild climate similar to Portland, OR or Seattle.

In lieu of pool time we've spent lots of time painting. Both cousin Lene and daughter M are avid painters, acrylics being their preference. Since the watercolour class of the last post, we completed an online course in botanical illustration featuring a wild rose. 

The third rose was a different version of one I recently sold. Here it is, awaiting the last touch ups:

Time to move on to another subject. A dog maybe? Landscape? Stay tuned.

 

This photo sums it up, we call it our Christmas still life:

KC, L and I went geocaching and added in some pomelo, tangelo and orange picking. The hand squeezed citrus was combined with prosecco for Christmas morning brekkie.

Pictured above are our drinks of choice: Laphroig for M, C and KC, B and L, beer and Budlite Limearita for the younger folk's pooltime, and you all know mine: red wine double fisted with diet coke. All in moderation, of course. We can't say that for the food. Especially the potato chips. I can live without chocolate, anything sweet for that matter, but open a costco sized bag of Kettle Chips and I'm sunk. 

Cousin L, M and I took a watercolour course with Diane Morgan. I look forward to her courses each Christmas we're in the desert. A rose was the subject of the day. I finished my painting today:

 

Our California Christmas benefitted from L's Danish influence. Our little tree, done in Danish style except for the real candles:

To the left you can see our mini nativity that includes teensy sheep and camels that C secretly picked up for me on the trip home from Spain.

L's family in Denmark sent a photo of their special Christmas cookies, entitled MorMor's Christmas in Palm Springs:

 Merry Christmas to all, more of ours to come.

BC, our home, is in a deep freeze. Having lived there more than half my life, I don't think I've seen many stretches where it gets under -7C (19.4F). "Oh muffin!" you East and Midwest family and followers are crying. I can hear you. I can hear you from sunny California. Heh heh (evil laughter).

Yesterday, we were the only family at the pool. I'm sure the locals were labeling us silly Canadian geese for hanging out there in the path of a dust storm. When, as a child, we visited my grandparents in Puerto Rico, the neighbours thought the same when we went to the beach in January, Puerto Rican winter.

We're enjoying our fourth Christmas in the desert, which starts with a visit to Cardenas, the local Hispanic supermarket. Shopping there, the beat of Latin background music had customers and staff dancing down the aisles. I didn't want to leave, experiencing one of those strong "I want my (now deceased) Mommy" moments. She would have been in heaven, so to speak, shopping at Cardenas. Much of the produce is two pounds for $1 and filet mignon was $4.99/lb. I bought ten pounds of pork shoulder to cook Pernil for $1.47/lb. The grocery samples were flan and horchata. There is a fresh chicharron bar and a giant tortilla machine, turning our hundreds per minute, not of my Puerto Rican background, but yummy just the same.

My pernil version marinated for four days and is currently in the oven for four of its seven hours. The beans have been cooking since this morning and the house smells divine. The tree was decorated yesterday, without rushing the season (the basis of my major incident of childhood trauma, when I accidentally set the house afire), and we're ready for company.

Daughter M and husband KC, are here from Calgary, and B, although working this weekend, has joined us. Tonight's Puerto Rican feast will be for KC's local family and tomorrow cousin Lene arrives from Denmark. Let the good times continue…

 

 

Do you know your home's walk score? This number weighed heavily in our search for a place to live. Plug in your address on the Walkscore website. The higher the score, the more walkable your neighbourhood. Our previous house had a score of 25 out of 100. This one is a 92, can't do much better than that, and the bonus is that our street is quite quiet for being located in town. Our vehicle's gas bills have been reduced by 75%, partly due to the walkability, the rest is because living on the border we can duck down to the US for more reasonable fuel prices.

Made our first trek to the library, not a trek at all as it's two blocks down our street. I always feel a move is official upon the granting of a new library card. We've spent lots of time there on the free wifi as we aren't hooking up to to cable until after our construction phase is complete. Bonus: there's even a weekly knitting group. Here's my project, the New Wave Throw, one I started maybe two years ago:

I haven't lived in a house with a full flight of stairs between the main living and bedroom level since my childhood. In our previous home you could go from the master bedroom to the kitchen, dining or living room in six to ten steps. In this house, which seems quite tunnular, my word for a ling, skinny house similar to a double shotgun house of the southern US, it's 6o steps from the kitchen to the bedroom, with a full flight of stairs in the middle. Maybe I should have walk scored the inside of the house. A gold plated problem for sure, I'm not complaining. We'll eventually have a second master bedroom on the ground floor in case we need it in the future. A former coworker of mine, also recently retired, has moved into a three story house, figuring she'll probably lose her memory before the ability to climb stairs. 

An appointment downtown Vancouver was my first foray into the peninsula's public transit. You board a cushy coach, as opposed to a city bus, for the 4o minute ride to Vancouver's Canada Line, followed by a 20 minute train ride, which puts you within a block of Vancouver City Hall. In traffic it would have taken the same amount of time plus the pricey parking.

The only down side, in this year of La Nina, is that sunny "White Rock" seems to have as many rainy days as the rain forest we left. But, as a friend pointed out, it's raining harder in Vancouver. According to statistics we can expect to have at least 25 percent more sun than YVR. C is looking forward to heading south, though, to find some sun to fully recover from his bout with pneumonia.