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This week in disjointed thoughts:

1. I need a new can opener. And by 'new,' I mean one that hasn't been invented yet.

2. When was the last time you used Internet Explorer? I'm here to report that it is still very much in existence, and its sluggishness (understatement of the year) reminds me of using dial-up internet. Remember that noise on the phone when you picked it up and someone in the house was already using the internet? Eeeeeee-AAAAAHHHHH!!! Also, someone needs to tell 'Bing' that there's this new thing called 'Google.'

3. My niece asked what the difference is between an email and a text message, and I realized as I fumbled to answer that it was a really, really good question.

4. There was a truck at the gas station yesterday selling apples and Hutterite chickens. I'm not really sure exactly what a Hutterite chicken is, but it does sound like it would be a superior chicken choice.

5. I had this dream last night that I was with my parents in the family room, and two strangers unlocked the door and came in. They were trying to sell this bottle of cleaner.

Guy: Do you want to buy this bottle of cleaner?

Me: How much is it?

Guy: Fifteen dollars.

Me: But it's only like five dollars at the store.

Guy: Fine. Thirteen dollars, then.

Me: Nah.

I'm just glad my brain is hard at work processing such important things while I sleep. I guess something about this dream really bothered my subconscious, because I lay awake for about 4 hours last night.

6. I've been making a lot of sourdough buns (again, thank you Jenny for the amazing recipe!), and the smell of sourdough buns is just...wow. I also recently made Jenny's custard-filled Paczki (Polish doughnuts) and they were too much to handle.

7. It'll be hard going to the gym after this stint in Kaslo, because every time I walk into MAD Fitness, I'm the only one there. I've been dancing, singing at the top of my lungs ('Total Eclipse of the Heart' came on the radio) and just plain givin' er in a way I don't think I would in a crowded gym. I do sort of love those people, though-the ones who grunt and groan in the gym like there's nobody else there. I love those people, but only right now as I'm thinking about them in an abstract way. When I'm actually beside a grunter/groaner at the gym, I kind of hate them.

This week in wildlife news:

1. Jordie and I were sitting in the ER a few days ago (he had this weird thing with his arm) and as I was waiting in the waiting room, I noticed a deer walk by the window. Only in a small BC town does this feel normal. If this happened while I was sitting at St. Paul's in Vancouver, I wouldn't shut up about it for weeks.

2. I got a book from the library called 'Unlikely Friendships,' which must have been written specifically for me. Forty-seven stories of strange animal bonds: a Golden Retriever and a koi fish, a hippo and a pygmy goat, a snake and a mouse. I can NOT get enough.

3. It all started when Jordie and I walked out the front door, on our way to feed Neko (our doggie friend). On the top stairs, we found these little cat tracks. Maybe they were from that cat who once wandered into our house and had some milk.

On the next step, we found these little numbers. Looks like the cat was making friends with Bambi! Evidence of an unlikely animal friendship right outside our front door!

Next on our walk, we found all these weird little dots all over the sidewalk. I thought maybe it was a cat on a tiny pogo stick or something, but Jordie said it was mouse tracks. Mouse tracks! Am I the only one that has never seen a mouse walking down the street? Apparently, mice go into holes in snow banks and hide out in there. There were so many mouse tracks, I couldn't help but wonder if this was a brigade of mice wandering the streets of Upper Kaslo in the night, or just one little guy on a journey to find himself.

When we arrived at Jeremy and Sheree's house, we saw these bird tracks. Not big enough to be turkeys, but almost. I noticed that the two sets of tracks appeared out of nowhere. Just a couple of bird friends out for their morning flight. About ten feet further, both sets of tracks disappeared. I figure the scene played out something like this:

Bird 1: Hey, let's land over there.

Bird 2: Yeah, OK.

Bird 1: K, I'm good. Wanna get out of here?

Bird 2: Yup.

The delightful magic and whimsy of nature!

There were also these chunky footprints, but I don't know what they were...coulda been anything.

Instead of taking some of these homemade perogies over to Jeremy and Sheree's house, Jordie and I sat on the couch and ate all of them. What was I even thinking-in order to share these, I would have had to make at least triple. Jenny Jones, thank you for another wonderful Polish recipe!

Me with my Oma's tea set. I also have one of my other grandmother's teacups, and I think of her every time I drink from that cup. It's so nice to have things that remind you of a certain person, especially if those things are functional. Just the other day I was repairing a few little holes in my mom's cowichan sweater that my dad gave to her in 1970 or so. I wear it all the time. Those things are made to last!

Mama's cowichan sweater. And Jordie and Dad.

This was my Oma-my dad's mom. I guess this photo must have been taken in the early 1980s, because my parents bought our house in 1980 but it looks like Dad and Uncle Martin hadn't built the big shop yet. This is one of my favourite photos of anyone. Oma looks so mischievous here. She passed away when I was about 2, and I don't have any concrete memories of her. But in my family, we still talk about her all the time. When we were kids (and even sometimes now), my brothers and I used to say 'Promise to Oma?' if we really wanted to know the truth about something, because you COULDN'T lie. Oma lives on in stories of her incredible baking skills (Dad usually talks about this spiced Bundt cake that had thick caramel-coloured icing on top, or pineapple upside-down cake). She also lives on in the Dutch expressions my dad sometimes says, or the little songs like the one about Sinter Klaus. And that photo of her in the striped dress, carving the Thanksgiving turkey? Sometimes my mom brings it out and sets it on the table when we're having a holiday dinner. I always love it when I see that Oma is invited to dinner. Just look at her. Doesn't she look like she gives the best hugs? Her name was Hillegonde Helena Bernadina Breurkens, but people called her 'Gonnie' (from Hillegonde), or 'Connie.' Right, Dad? Oma was a kindergarten teacher in Vancouver after she came to Canada from Holland. She met Grandpa in Amsterdam. Grandpa, I've been told, was on a bridge in Amsterdam taking photos, wearing his Canadian military uniform. Oma's brother invited Grandpa to their home for dinner, seeing that he was a Canadian soldier, and the rest is history. Oma went to UBC to get her teaching degree. My dad and I both went to UBC and studied in the Education department as well. I wonder if UBC was already famous for its Ponderosa Cake when Oma was studying there...

My other grandmother, Anne Rankin-my mom's mom. Grandma passed away in 2012, so I knew her very well. She lived in Chilliwack just down the street a few minutes from my parents' place. Grandma and I used to have the nicest little coffee dates at her house. She always had those powdery tins of instant coffee, and she always asked me the same question as I sat down on her pink couch: 'French Vanilla, or Irish Cream?' She would boil water in this little machine she had (I still don't know how it boiled water so fast-it took like 25 seconds!) Grandma was an amazingly creative person, always crocheting or doing something with beads and a glue gun. When she died, I inherited her Welsh griddle. This thing is a 22 pound round slab of iron that my great-grandmother brought with her on the ship when they came from Wales around 1922 (Grandma was the only one of the 6 or 7 kids born in Canada). The griddle has uneven edges, which always reminds me that a local blacksmith would have made it. Grandma used it to make Welsh cakes, which are WAY harder to make than they look. She would always move the cakes around the griddle as they cooked, paying close attention so they wouldn't get burned. When she was in the hospital, a few days before she died, I told her I was going to have her griddle. She called me in closer so she could whisper something in my ear. "Make sure you add extra raisins to your Welsh cakes," she said, "for your dad."

This week, the Ladies Auxiliary had their annual Chinese dinner (they always do this sometime around Chinese New Year). I went in the morning to help with food prep-my job was making a few litres of sauce for the glazed chicken. You really can't go wrong with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil and soy sauce as a marinade. It was a pretty chill morning with the Ladies as we all scuttled around the kitchen in our aprons, dicing this, chopping that. Talking about where everyone buys their eggs from and who is raising chickens. The president looking at me sideways every time I said my feet hurt or it was hot in there. "No, I'm not pregnant," I said. We both laughed. A couple days later, the Oilers beat the Flames 8-3. At least one of the Ladies is from Edmonton. She LOVED that the Oilers beat the Flames 8-3, and it reminded me that I really like watching hockey.

On Friday, Jordie and I decided to go out on the town. We arrived at the bistro to have a dessert and a boozy coffee, but they were just closing. The owner kindly let us in anyways and we had their famous carrot cake (I ate the leftovers the next day for breakfast). We headed over to the arena to see if people were curling (there are games on Thursday and Friday nights, usually). We sat upstairs in the bar/viewing room and waved hello to a couple of friends from our seats above their game. I really wanted a drink to sip while I watched, but like many other things in this town, they are cash only. I made Jordie go ask if they were definitely cash only. Some guy standing by the bar kept asking Jordie what I wanted to drink, and then put my drink on his tab. Thank you random Kaslo man! The curling game was much more enjoyable with a delicious, crisp, cold apple cider. A couple of ladies we didn't know were curious about how we ended up in Kaslo, and encouraged us to stay and join the curling league.

Not a bad seat in the house. I'm not totally sure, but I don't think Vancouver even has a curling rink this great!

Saturday evening, we went to the Taqueria. I have to say, for a town of 1,000 people, Kaslo has a GREAT taqueria. It's hip. It seems like it would fit right in on Commercial Drive (this is the street in East Vancouver where Jordie and I live, for my international readers). Their cocktails are ridiculously tasty. I had one called 'Whoa Mama' that totally blew my mind. It was mezcal, and some other tasty shit. I don't know what was in it. A bunch of the Stellar Heliskiing customers were there for dinner, too. Loads of tourists come from Europe and other wild places to go heliskiing in and around Kaslo. You can spot them from a mile away. Not in a bad way or anything. But you can spot them from a mile away. I saw one international skiier wandering down Front Street to Kooterra Pottery. He looked confused when he got there. I knew he wasn't from around here, because anyone who knows Kaslo knows that Kooterra Pottery is only open for like three days a year. Seriously, is that place a front for something, or what? Open your doors and sell me a mug!

Kooterra Pottery. Oh, so cute. Never, ever open.

Don't touch my Whoa Mama. Don't even think about it.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

Jordie also had two delicious cocktails, but I forget what they were. I was too distracted with my Whoa Mama.

What else, what else. Oh, right-on Sunday, me and Jordie went for the iciest cross-country ski session ever. It was so icy. We actually turned around and went home after about twenty minutes. I couldn't even hear Jordie over the sound of my skis against the ice. So yeah, it was really icy.

Also on Sunday, it was the Superbowl. But the only time I care about the Superbowl is when I go to a Superbowl party and even then, it's really just for the snacks and friends. If someone had a gun to my head and asked me to explain the rules of football, I'd be like..."Well, there's a bunch of...downs...and somebody goes HUT! and some things are worth one point but some are worth seven. Oh, and Tom Brady is really old." Anyways, I guess I'm not really that into football.

After the Superbowl, we had a little dinner party at our house with Jer and Sher's family and our friends and their sweetie pie who was born five weeks ago. We made three lasagnas, a batch of Jenny's buns, homemade Caesar salad, and chocolate pudding trifle for dessert. Not to toot my own horn, but the dessert was really good. I made homemade chocolate pudding and cookies and then layered them in a glass with whipping cream. YUM.

On Monday, I sold a painting from my art show at the Bluebelle to a 10-month-old baby who really liked it. The baby, I'm told, pointed to the painting (which was of bananas, apples and an avocado) and said, "Apple!" Then, the baby's uncle bought it. My proudest sale! I mean, if I can trick a baby into buying one of my paintings, I feel like I can do anything! Seriously, though. I loved it when I heard this story.

Just in case there are any babies out there looking to spruce up their kitchens or anything ;)

On Monday, Jordie and I watched that movie 'Julie and Julia,' suggested to me by a friend who said I'd like it because I've been doing a lot of cooking and blogging. She was right. I cried a few times (it doesn't take much). Anyone remember Dan Aykroyd's Julia Child impersonation? Hahaha...

Last night, we went over to Jer and Sher's house to watch the Canucks game on the projector with some friends. It was fun! We ate a lot of nachos, and Jeremy cooked like ten dozen chicken wings, and I brought a pumpkin pie/cake thingy I made with whipping cream. It's been a whipping cream kind of week. I snuggled with our new baby friend and me and Jer laughed about how we recently ate bowls of whipping cream as dessert, and then promptly got stomach aches.

That's all for now, folks! I'm off to hang out with the kindergarten class!

P.S: Crap. I forgot to do weekly green tips.