January 2nd 2017
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| Sunset on Cypress Mountain |
The first posting of the new year. I have been totally preoccupied with the eternal essence of being. Just being me. It's not like I have any trouble doing that. The lovely Lisa and I have been having a fantabulous holiday season. Dr Dan, Julia and Ryland Lostboy where down from Prince George for a few days. They went skiing/ snowboarding for a couple of days while I worked on the giant pile of laundry accumulated over the Christmas Season. The lovely Lisa insists on changing the table cloths for the smallest of stains. I prefer to wait until they're sticky then flip them over for a couple more meals.Different management styles I guess.
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| Ski |
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| Apres Ski |
They were almost back at Casa Lisa when they texted me to meet them at the Austin Diner around 7:00 to avoid dishes, cooking or any other type of effort. Bro Steve and I walked over to the Austin Diner for Chinese food. Is there a kid on the planet who doesn't like noodles? Julia had a grilled cheese and fries as an appy before she took a healthy run at a plate of chow mein. She actually lost interest in the fries once the noodle showed up so Auntie Lisa helped her out with the fries.
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| Dr Dan, Ryland Lostboy and Bro Steve |
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| Julia, Julia, Julia |
The Chinese food is what we used to call Chinese Western style. Every little town across the Prairies has a Chinese Western. Besides the not too exotic Chinese food, Chicken fried rice/chow mein and sweet and sour anything they also do liver and onions, home made burgers and an assortment of sandwiches. We ordered family style.We ordered too much, and subsequently ate too much. Bro Steve and I had walked the 100 yards from Casa Lisa to the Diner. The Snowbuddies parked at the restaurant Ryland the lost boy and the lovely Lisa were making for the car when Bro Steve and I berated them into walking back to Casa Lisa a whole 100 yards away. Early to bed and early to rise. Dr Dan, Julia, Ryland lostboy and the lovely Lisa went to spend some time with Mama Lee before they headed off to Kelowna for New Years. At this point I've done something that made my pictures disappear. Never mind found them.
That night at 1:00 am I picked up Jen, Christian and the Grandkids at the airport on their return from Christmas with Christians family in Puerta Vallarta. They had a great trip. Everyone is fine
Blah, Blah, Blah! They were exhausted I was tired all the Grandkids wanted to know was where the snow went? There wasn't any snow until we started coming up the hill in Coquitlam. The Grandkids were very disapointed. Next day it snowed for six hours. That was New Years Eve Day.We were planning on going to Bill Taylors New Years eve party. The last one before he moves out to a condo in Cloverdale, or South Surrey as they call it so they don't sound like such hicks!
It started snowing about 2:00 pm and never stopped at least not up on Blue Mountain. We had a couple of beautiful rib steaks that we planned on throwing on the BBQ before we went out to party. Didn't happen! The BBQ was under two feet of snow and it was still coming down like crazy. This is the part where being married to Chef Boy R Lisa works out really well. She is not only a tremendous Chef but she has the best kitchen stuff. All Clad pots and Henkell fry pans. Including a 16" grill pan that not only cooks evenly but puts those nice grill marks on your meat. I do most of the cooking in our regular lives. The lovely Lisa handles all the major events, Holiday dinners with family, Squatchapalisa and things like that. I made a Squatch Salad and grilled the steaks to perfect! 11/2 inch thick steak, four minutes each side turn it only once, let it rest five minutes and you have the perfectly cooked, medium rare piece of meat! I nuked the left over Chinese noodles for the lovely Lisa and I had steak and salad. I put on 15 pounds over the festive season and I'm scaring the crap out of 300 pounds! How festive is that! Stupid Shortbread! I think next year I'll bake a salad!
After dinner, with the snow still falling with enthusiasm, we sat there staring at each other with that WTF look on our disappointed faces! But wait! Grow some balls now and we'll include a second chance to go to Bill's party at no extra cost! I went on to the Highway 1 traffic cam and saw that it was raining once you got off the mountain. We loaded my gear, a giant cheese tray that the lovely Lisa had put together and the Ratdogs in their Christmas coats and pulled out onto the snow covered and largely empty streets of Blue Mountain. Weather is strange when you live on a mountain. We are around 1000 feet here and we often get snow when the rest of Vancouver gets rain. As we drove down the slick snow covered streets we were glad that the lovely Lisa bought and uses snow tires. By the time we were off the mountain the snow had turned to rain. The roads were clear and wet all the way to the street connected to Bill's street. There, it was snowmageddon! I believe Burnaby, where Bill lives, has a snow removal budget of about $13. They used that to pay a teenager to clear the Mayor's walkway! Lisa dropped me and my gear in front of Bill's house the sound of Rock n Roll filling the neighbourhood with energy. I couldn't wait to get playing. I took my gear inside and then went and checked on how the lovely Lisa was doing trying to park the car. There was a guy out front with a dog about the size of a pony. We started to chat and he said that was his SUV and as soon as Baby Huey of the canine set dropped a loaf he was leaving. I flagged the lovely Lisa down on her fifth or sixth drive by. Baby Huey finally dropped a turd bigger than the Ratdogs the guy cleaned it up wished us a Happy New Year and the lovely Lisa slipped into the vacated spot like a foot into a slipper! Which we had brought with us. Slippers that is. Not our first rodeo.
Bill Taylor has over the last few years become a good friend to the lovely Lisa and I and he knows how to throw a music party. Electric pandemonium upstairs and Acoustic pandemonium down stairs. So many talented energetic, fun people. The music, live of course never stopped. With a full drum kit and a bass amp, the joint was rocking. These guys are older than me. Some of them have been playing their instrument for fifty years! I was humbled by the talent in that room. I was also honoured that they let a three chord hack like me join in. I was too busy playing music to take pictures and the lovely Lisa forgot the camera, or probably I forgot the camera. It doesn't matter we didn't have the camera. My phone has a camera but it was in my pocket and the lovely Lisa forgot her phone and our combustibles on the kitchen counter. We did however bring a half open bottle of wine that Bill had brought to Christmas dinner. Hey. He made a point of telling us how good this wine was. It was. I had a glass at Christmas. So I brought it along with a few beers and some sodas and another bottle of red someone left at our house. The lovely Lisa says bringing a an opened bottle of wine is cheesy. I say it's better than letting it sit on top of the fridge until it goes bad or ends up in a gravy recipe! Speaking of cheese! It appears that cheese is the new Spinach Dip. It used to be you would go to a party and there would be half a dozen Spinach Dip Sourdough Bread Bowls on the table. Then it was meatballs of unlimited varieties all with one thing in common COSTCO! It was easy. That's the secret. Ease of preparation, ease of transportation. What's easier than throwing a hunk of cheese on a plate with a few crackers. You don't even have to bring your own plate!
We were all crowded into the living room for the countdown to midnight. Lot's of noise, guitars screaming, drums pounding and you would think that in the crowd of musically talented people we could have all sung Old Lang Syne in a key found on the diatonic scale! Lot's of hugs and kisses brought in the New Year. We stayed and played until the back of 2:00 said our goodbyes and with Lisa Andretti at the wheel we were home in twenty minutes. We drifted off to sleep about 4:00 the music still playing in my head.
Sunday was a day of recovery. Starting at 12:30 when I got out of bed. Just in time for the Seahawks game. The lovely Lisa's family have a tradition. On New Years day Mama Lee would make Roast Pork with Black Beans and Rice. They call it a Cuban Dinner. While the lovely Lisa prepared the pork I ran down to the Stupor store for the beans. They were sold out of Black Beans in the can. I bought the dried Black Turtle Beans even though it says soak overnight. I figured Chef Boy R Lisa can make it work. She boiled a pot of water dumped in the beans kept them on a high boil for ten minutes, drained them put them in a large skillet with diced onion and garlic and they may have been the best black beans I have ever eaten.
When the roast was done and rested we packed it all up and headed over to Mama Lee's care facility for dinner with her. It's gotten too difficult to bring her home these days so we try to do things there. Mama Lee was so happy to see us and to sit down and enjoy a meal together. There's not much conversation with mama Lee any more. Speaking is becoming more challenging for Mama Lee. We took her back to her room after dinner and said our goodbyes. I was home watching football by 8:00.
Monday broke colder than an ex wife's heart! Poor Dick was trying to get his beak into a feeder that was a solid block of ice. I kept thinking about that scene in A Christmas Story when the kid got his tongue stuck to the post. I put the feeders in the microwave for a minute and Dick was hovering ten feet away before I had them hanging up again. Chef Boy R Lisa is back to work tomorrow with a 1:00 am wakeup call so we went and did her work shop at the Stuporstore. I have never seen it so busy. They were lined up ten deep at every cash register and every cash register was open! I did my share of the shop. I do all the heavy lifting. Cases of soda, gallons of chocolate milk, kilo bricks of cream cheese and all the Yogurts. I was on my way to get the last of my items three gallons of Ice Cream and three packs of tart shells. When all of a sudden I saw an opening in one of the lines. Only five people in front of me and one of them had only a TV! Eureka! I was in that line faster than a teenager on his girlfriend at the Drive In! As people came behind me I told them this was only half my order my wife has the other half and she's caught in traffic by the bananas! Seems I was the only one who thought that was funny. I was just starting to unload my cart when the lovely Lisa made her entrance with a cart piled high with among other things more Christmas Crap. "It was on Sale. It's a great deal half off!" she stated with authority. "Was it Honey, If you don't need it, is it a deal?" I said inside my head deciding that I had already lost this one, why poke the Bear I reasoned. We got through the line and were twenty five dollars short of the free gift. This week five pounds of Bacon. We got to the car when I realised that in my excitement of getting a Mercedes spot in the checkout I had forgotten the Ice Cream and the Tart shells. So! Now not only does Chef Boy R Lisa not have two things she needs for tomorrow it would have put us over the $250 we needed for free bacon! I could have used that Bacon cause my ass was gonna get fried! I'm not a bacon guy anyway. Too much sodium for me. "I'll pick up the ice cream and the tart shells when I go out to the open mic tonight at the Heritage Grill" I said. It's not free Bacon but it's the best I can do. We had left over Black Beans and Rice this time I added Jamaican Pepper Sauce to the beans. Ya Mon! Then the lovely Lisa was off to bed and it wasn't even 6:00. I watched the Juniors play and left the house about 7:00 for New West with the Canucks on the radio. I was at the Heritage Grill about 7:30. There was a good sized turnout for Ukelele club all the friendly Ukelelians where there. I wasn't paying attention and Lucas the Bartender weaselled the sign up board out while I was deeply engrossed in nothing! I ended up fifth in line which is okay. I need to be up and playing and gone to get the ice cream and tart shells before 11:00 or I will have failed at the same task twice in one day...the shame of it!
My buddy Gerry Sax showed up fashionably late as usual. He's in a unique position as he is almost always the only Sax player and, he's a really good Sax player. His dance card is full as soon as he walks through the door. We worked a little bit on my song Paris last week so I was looking forward to hearing what he had done with the Sax line. He had already played with Sue the Ukelelian on a terrific version of Moondance. After his set with Sue we ran over Paris one more time and we were up next. A young guy named mike was doing an acoustic set and doing a real nice job. Great voice and range. Then it was me. My range is in the kitchen!
Any way we started the set just Gerry and I three big power chords and Gerry coming in to fill with the sound that only a Sax can make. It was sounding just like I imagined it would. There's not a lot of space in parts of the song but Gerry found his spots and the accents he dropped in were perfect. Half way through the song the volume and the tension in the lyrics builds to a crescendo and that's where we added a Sax solo, an angry sax solo, spewing the notes like a condemnation of the stupidity and hatred that leads people to these horrible acts in the name of a God who preaches hatred! Sorry, got carried away. Right after that Sax solo he was blowing sweet and low as I sang about teaching our kids to love. I was really happy. For our first time, I was impressed. I should have filmed it. Here's an earlier version. The words are the same but the Sax kills it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MenyPBUutMc
We did brought Mark up onto the drum kit, Maureen on the Cayon Rob on lead guitar and Greg on the bass We did Turn the Page and Then we packed the dance floor with an extended dance mix of Flip Flop and Fly, maybe 15 minutes worth. Hey they were dancing! You know how often you see that at an open mic?! Jerry was wailing and Rob was riffing the blues like he knew what he was doing. That's that forty years of playing thing again. Big fun for everyone. I trolled the audience for compliments for ten minutes and was in the parking lot at Stuporstore at 10:15. I was home with the ice cream and tart shells safely in the freezer before 11:00.
I started writing this blog at the Heritage Grill as I often do when I'm waiting to go on stage and poaching free WiFi. I wrote until Chef Boy R Lisa got up at 1:00 am and helped her load her car. I found myself standing in the snow at 1:00 am in my underwear and a T shirt holding a giant box of Bananas while Chef Boy R Lisa rearranges the load. How's that for a Visual?! I woke up this morning back of 9:00 and finished this with a minimal amount of interruptions. Christian stopped by and the Clinic called to tell me my Colonoscopy will be done at the end of the month. In Freakin Langley! Now I have to pay a $3 toll to have my nether regions violated! I live right in the middle between Eagle Ridge and Royal Columbian Hospitals. I wouldn't even have to go they could just run the hose over to my house from there! At least with out the toll it wouldn't feel so much like prostitution! "Here's three bucks and go heavy on the lube!"
Now as I near the end of this epic saga. I commend you on your sticktoitiveness. Without pictures it's a long read and thank you for taking the time to read my words, surely taking away valuable time from your important work Crushing Candies. And no I won't power you up or pop your bubbles or anything else so stop sending me that crap! Thank You
That's all I've got
Till next time
Peace out Y'all
©2017 Dave Squatch Ward
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