Little House, Big Dreams

Ain't nothin like a Blue Buck on a sunny day.

It's officially spring here in Kaslo, with purple crocuses and white snowdrops cropping up all over the place, sunny days perfect for doing endless yardwork, and that general feeling that summer is just around the corner. There's still the odd pile of snow hanging around that didn't get the 'it's spring' memo. I feel sorry for those old, ridiculously dirty piles of snow. It was just a couple months ago that kids were running up and down them with their snowpants on, flailing around and having a ball of a time. Now those old snowpiles are looking pretty pathetic. Let's see, what else has spring brought...well, there's a campfire ban, an almost daily parade of cars, trucks and service vehicles honking as they head past the hospital to thank front-line worker, and, of course, people complaining about the fire ban. Yep, it's spring all right!

*Note: while I wrote this first paragraph, the old dirty snowpiles must have been listening, because they have since gotten the memo and left town.

Splash of coffee, splash of sunshine.

Random thoughts from this week:

1. If you're not religious and you don't have kids, you can really be in danger of Easter coming and going without even noticing. But not for me, because Jordie requested Easter candy in like the end of January. Hey, remember being a kid and your parents would do an Easter egg hunt in the house and then like three months later you'd find another Mini Egg? Me too.

2. If you live in a town with only 1,000 people, one of the things you get accustomed to is the particular sound of a particular rattly old vehicle. When I'm out in my yard clearing up this or that, or walking up the hill, and I hear that noisy chugalug, I always know which car it is. Yes, old white crappy Jetta that drives up and down the hill four times a day, I'm talking about you. No disrespect to any old crappy Jettas reading this.

3. Have you ever had a sunny-side-up quail egg? They're too cute for words!

4. Jordie and I watched 'The Biggest Little Farm' on Netflix this week. It was a pretty good movie, although I wasn't a big fan of how the farmers kept blaming the coyote for coming in and killing like 30 chickens every night. I kept yelling at the newbie farmers on the screen. GET A BETTER FENCE!!! It's not the coyote's fault you have a bogus fence! Also, they kept calling the gophers 'pests,' but I bet if you asked the gophers, they'd have a different perspective on who the 'destructive' ones were. There was also a chicken in the movie whose name was 'Greasy.' What a great name for a chicken! I loved the piglets, too. They looked like they'd be up for a nice Sunday afternoon snuggle, maybe in a hammock or something.

5. If anyone out there has any tips on how to avoid getting Carpel Tunnel Syndrome from too much crocheting, I'm all ears. I keep having to tell myself I'm only allowed crocheting for fifteen minutes a day. I don't know if this anecdote is really that interesting now that I'm writing it down, but you know what? It's lockdown time, and this is what you're GETTIN.

6. In chess, the queen does pretty much whatever she damn well pleases, and the king can only make these lame little moves, one square at a time. The king can barely do anything, and yet he's the most important piece in the game. That guy better start pulling his weight around here, or the queen's probably gonna pack her bags and split.

7. I was doing yoga on a rock at the river this morning when suddenly it hit me: I'm officially a Kootenay girl. I wasn't even embarrassed when some people saw me. Jordie and I were chatting once about people's profiles on Tinder, which is how we met (I know, not bad for a gal with a flip phone, eh?) I told him guys often have photos of themselves doing some kind of extreme sport from 200 feet away, and he said women's go-to seemed to be doing yoga on the top of a hill at sunset. We had a good laugh about it. Oh, also, guys take selfies in front of that 'Dude Chillin Park' sign in East Van.

8. All I really want in life is for myself and my loved ones to be healthy, happy, grateful and good to others. I also really, really want an old Volkswagen bug, and the mechanical aptitude to fix it when it inevitably breaks down.

9. The t-shirt store in town has a few classic samples hung in the windows: 'Welcome to Shitsville' and 'Science doesn't care whether you believe in it or not' are a couple of favourites. This week, they put a virus sign on the door that says something along the lines of 'Closed for the foreseeable future due to the current global situation.' I found this ironic, since that store has not been open once since we moved here in September. Too bad, too, because I kind of want one of those Shitsville t-shirts.

10. We've been watching the documentary series 'The Last Dance' on Netflix, which is about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls reign in the 90's. I learned that Scottie Pippen is ADORABLE, and that Michael Jordan could jump 46 inches. I'm 5'1" on a good day, so this statistic makes me feel really, really, really short.

11. Has anyone else noticed this new trend in online recipes where the person posting the recipe first gives you the history of coffee cake, or whatever, before actually getting to the damn instructions?! EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS! Sorry. Deep breath. Just get to the recipe, that's all I wanted to say. Nobody cares about how you and your emo boyfriend became homesteaders in New Hampshire.

12. I've learned that when Sheree drops off lemony-cream-cheese-icing slathered buns to have with my coffee, or homemade cinnamon buns, I have absolutely no self control. Sure, for the first minute or two I say to myself that I'm going to 'freeze the rest,' but...who are we really trying to fool here?

Little lace houses from the curtain reflected on my wall. Dreamy.

What I've learned about my groceries this week:

Olive oil makes a really great moisturizer for your hands and face. Just don't use too much. Use the smallest amount you can manage to pour out of the bottle, as a matter of fact. Otherwise you'll end up looking really, really greasy, like Greasy the chicken from that movie I was telling you about.

I've been limiting our household to one bag of chips every two weeks-mostly because they take up too much space in my shopping cart. We usually eat them the first night after I go grocery shopping. When I was at the store the other day doing my bi-weekly stockup, some guy stopped next to me and said, 'Stockin' up eh?' Yes, Captain Obvious.

If you mix some chicken stock in with your white rice as it's steaming, and then leave the rice overnight in the fridge, the next day you can make the best fried rice ever. With a fried egg on it? Divine. A fried quail egg? Gah!!

Despite a lot of Google searching, I have found out that there really isn't a worthwhile dessert you can make with balsamic vinegar.

Let's add this pet peeve to the list: overhearing a really unnecessarily loud and obnoxious conversation about politics when you're in your backyard for the 18th day in a row, minding your own business, peacefully enjoying a bag of Mini Eggs.

Monday: Jordie rolls out his back with one of those foam rollers, unaware that I was taking his photo.

Tuesday: River therapy at the Trailblazer Bridge.

Wednesday: Leah wonders what the fish are thinking about.

Thursday: Leah receives this photo of Uncle Norm with a bag of bagels, looks up a bagel recipe, notices it has 14 steps, and then decides to have a piece of toast.

Friday: Leah and Jordie go for a walk at Kaslo's airport. None of the big commercial jet airliners are making their regular international flights out of Kaslo, so we basically had the airport all to ourselves.

Saturday: Leah has a feeling that it would be really nice to hug a tree, and is dead right.

Sunday: the sun burns a hole in Jordie's left retina while he drinks his morning coffee at the lake.

This week in wildlife news:

Garfield, the cat who lives next door, came over to shag some other cat that lives nearby. They must be teenagers who don't have their own apartment to go to, because they keep doing it under our house. Plus, when I walk outside and accidentally interrupt them, Garfield always gives me this look like I'm cramping his style.

There was a roach, or a cockroach (are they the same thing?), or some other antenna-bearing cousin in our bathroom. Jordie startled me when he walked into the kitchen and said, "There's a little guy in our bathroom."

There was a crow on the road today that seemed to be trying to hack up an avocado pit or something. He was really coughing. I wanted to help him, but what the hell do I know about giving a bird the Heimlich. He eventually got it up by himself though, thank god. Hey, did you know it's not technically called the Heimlich anymore? It's called 'abdominal thrusts' now, which really isn't as catchy.

Now that Jordie and I have finished raking approximately 4.6 billion leaves, the birds seem very happy. I think they have better access to those fat little caterpillars and grubs that seem to be all over the yard all of a sudden. Jordie was pleased to see that the placement of the suet cake, hanging in the apple tree, is now such that the bigger birds can't really access it easily. He says it gives the little birds 'a better chance,' and this is a perfect example of why I love Jordie.

Jordie was complaining about the two flies buzzing around in our bedroom, and the little spider on the chair. I told him to ignore them and go to sleep. He said the buzzing was keeping him awake, and that he didn't want the spider crawling on him. 'Don't worry,' I said, rolling over. 'I told the spider he was welcome on my side, not yours. You're not killing him.' Jordie got annoyed and said I'm too defensive of bugs. I am anti bug-killing, it's true. Except silverfish, obviously. Those things are wack.

Just from a signpainter's daughter's perspective, bright orange paint on a wood background is not exactly what I would call 'readable.'

The gods were playing a game of pickup sticks in the forest and clearly never learned to clean up after themselves. Come on!

I think this whole virus thing is bringing out certain feelings in everyone. For me, one of the main things has been gratitude. I've been feeling so thankful that Jordie and I have a house, a yard to spend time in, each other, our friends and families, our health, and money for rent and groceries. We can chat with family and friends on the phone to stay connected, and we're lucky that he is still able to work. I've been feeling glad that we decided to extend our stay here in our Kaslo house until the end of May, instead of leaving at the end of March as we were supposed to. Kaslo has been a good place to be during the lockdown times. Also, the weather has been so beautiful, and that has really been something to be thankful for. And thank you, Celebrity Mean Tweets, because you are hilarious. For anyone who, like me, is usually ten years behind pop culture stuff, Mean Tweets is a segment on Jimmy Kimmel where celebrities read out mean tweets someone wrote about them. I have laughed out loud, by myself, a LOT at these over the past few weeks. And you know how when you watch something funny by yourself, it always takes something REALLY funny to actually make you LOL? Yeah.

*It's not all gratitude at 109 7th Street, however. There is also a good deal of angst, a healthy dose of loneliness and a dash of 'I'm going to strangle someone.'

Two peas in one claustrophobic pod. Just kidding, Jordie. Just wait until we're back in our 300 square foot apartment in Vancouver!

If you don't look like this, you've been leaving your house too much.

Little white house with a big tree and a yard full of crocuses. Maybe a baby perched on my hip. Ahhh, a girl can dream.

Thanks for reading, everyone. You know, I think after all this is over, the first thing I'm going to want to do is go to a party where there's great music, and then just get absolutely plastered. Anybody else? Yeah, that's what I thought.