Weekend hullabaloo

Hello fellow pirates,

This weekend has been a weird juxtaposition of draggy feelings associated with dull rain and cold and happy activities.

I'm sure you don't need me to describe the weather (although, it was a dark and stormy night...) so I'll move into the activities. Lat night we went out to dinnet at a friend's place with my sister and her fiancé and it was such a fabulous reason for a bunch of reasons. The food was gourmet, we had eggplant croquettes, fresh green beans smothered in fresh garlic, stuffed portobello mushroom caps, bean salad and homemade spinach and tofu buckwheat canneloni.

For desser it was a chocolate and ceetroot cake with layered rasperry preserves and warm chocolate sauce to pour over it. We had win and G&T and every lick of t was homemade and it was spectacular.

we also watched a wonderful video, kind of like the ones you may have seen in school, from the 80's about R. Buckminster Fuller (Bucky) (he invented the geodesic dome) who was mega ahead of his time about designing and thinking about sustainable housing and transportation. The video talked to people who have made progress in these fields and it was really really interesting. And inspiring. We talked about that stuff all night and I was never tired of it. It felt good to hear people's opinions and have a chance to really think about these things, and what part we can all play in making progress. Yum night, all 'round.

Remember the Christmas snowboarding debacle? Well, since we got all our money back we decided to go to the Urban Pear here in the Glebe to officially get the most out of the Chrismas money. We went for brunch and it was absolutely fabulous. We got the antipasto for two (brie, olives, pickled eggplant, preserved field musrooms, pear slices (natch), a complete roasted garlic and fresh hot bread. It was perfect (pear-fect, as R likes to say) for the four of us. Then we ordered our main, 2 x the walnut apricot pancakes with fresh cream and caramel, and 2 x the french toast with brie, figs, preserved pear and red wine sauce.

Oh. My. Gosh.

It was just totally divine. The french toast was two thick slices of french loaf, the brie was cramy and fabulous, the figs were sweet and tasty, and the red wine sauce was tastefuly displayed in a Chinese spoon for drizzling or dipping. And there was a big glob of cream. Oh man it was so nice. I had a tall glass of pear juice and it tasted wonderful. For the four of us to have everything we wanted, including a slightly generous tip, the price fell just under our budget for Chrismas, meaning it was clearly meant to be.

You know, it's another strike in favour of saving up, buying less, but buying quality. I was shopping with my friend Sylvia (nice shoes!) and we went o the string of wonderful shops on Dalhousie Street (Amour, Milk, The Workshop etc) which is one of the few areas of Ottawa to find unique, interesting, Canadian made clothing and house accents. The Workshop especially is a collective of mostly Ottawan women in small design like jewellry, aprons (Martini Mama!) clothing, spoons, whatever. All kinds of great stuff. Definitely go check it out. Anyway, it got me to thinking how I so much prefer the idea of having so much less, but being so much more intentional about things I do have with me.

Things should be useful, supporting someone or something I believe in, good quality, and interesting to me. As I'm preparing to move (to Waterloo, not Halifax, did I ever mention that? Stuff happened like TA-sips and stuff and it's gonna be cool). I'm thinking even more about this stuff. What is it I wat? No, really. It's interesting. Could you pack a car and drive away forever? Or would you need a truck? A few trucks? Are you okay with that?

But I digress.

After the Urban Pear deliciousness, we walked to The Museum of Civilization and tool in the Imax of Kilimanjaro. Oh, man. If ever I needed yet another fantasy trip, there you go. Tanzania, keep an eye out for me.

As we walked home we stopped in on Grace's INternational supermarket on bank and they have 10kg bage of beans for around $13.

I'M GOING TO SAY THAT AGAIN IN ALL CAPS. GRACE'S HAS 10 KG BAGS OF BEANS FOR AROUND $13.

I wanted to buy one of each (100kg of beans! Pinto and navy and red kidney and white kidney and three kinds of lima and romano and garbanzo and all the peas and lentils. Oh man, I nearly kvetched. So. Cool. I was so excited about my 2kg bag of kidneys I just bought and now I scoff in the supermarket. "Pintos? Yeah I like pintos. Oh, I see you measure your bags in grams. I'm sorry, we're done here".

Anyway, short story: I had a lovely weekend. You?

ALSO: R is getting more and more excited about a possible career as a luthier. Hooray for excitedness! Sounds perfect, no? We have no idea how to get there yet i.e. specific methods/accreditation. There's apprecticeship for sure, but he's in the research phase. It seems like it's worth checking out since as I type this he's hammering out the fretboard of a baritone ukulele.

There. Now you know there's such thing as a baritone ukulele. What did you get up to this weekend? If it had anything to do with staing in bed and sipping tea with some jazz on the stereo, you basically have it made. Take care!

the Cap'n