pamwheatfree

Aug. 6th, 2009

A fun time was had by all

mood:

giddy

Book: Skeleton Crew by Beverly Conner

This last weekend, John and I drove to New York in order to go crystal mining. Does that sound like hard work? It was hard work. The first day was Saturday and we spent most of the day breaking rocks with sledge hammers and chisels. We were hot and tired by the end of the day. Our biggest find was in the first half hour. John found a large crystal in a rock that he had broken. There was a decent number of crystals found by us for us to want to go back the next day. We camped overnight at a KOA campground kabin. It comes with a large bed, two bunk beds and a chair inside. There is also electrical outlets but we didn't know before we went so it only got used to charge the cell phone. On the outside there was a picnic bench and a fire ring and a grill. We had brought a camp stove borrowed from our neighbors and cooked all our meals on it. We also used the fire ring to make a fire and roast marshmallows on Sunday night.

Our Sunday mining was at a different mine and we didn't break quite so many rocks. It was raining, sometimes quite heavily and we had phenomenal good luck just finding the crystals laying on the ground or between the rocks. The second mine had lots of rock piles that we trucked in from town where they were doing construction I think. Anyway, this proved much easier than breaking rocks although we still broke some rocks to remove the crystals from them.

On Monday, we were supposed to go to Syracuse and see a friend of mine who lives there. The cell phone didn't work at the campground but it did work if we drove into town. We drove in on Monday morning to see if my friend had gotten in touch with me. He hadn't so we made a decision to mine for an extra half day. I missed his message by about 10 minutes. It didn't matter since his message was to skip it, he had a horrible sunburn from his fishing trip and had to sleep before working that night. So we mined for crystals one more day. It was not as good as the previous rainy day but we were doing okay. Then I had a bright idea that the reason we did so well in the rain was that most of the crystals were just buried in the dirt and they showed up because the rain washed the dirt off them. So I started just digging around in the dirt and found the best large crystal of the trip. It is about the size of a prune and clear with good points on it. I will be going back and doing this again every chance I get. It was so much fun and of course there were random rewards all the time.

Tags: crystal mining, herkimer diamonds, new york

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Jun. 25th, 2009

I can 't really be this busy. Can I?

Yesterday was soooo busy! How busy was it? It was so busy that neither John nor I were able to eat lunch. I was going to go to bed at 8pm but John woke me up after I had been asleep for half an hour. I don't know why he woke me up. I was sleeping diagonally across the entire bed and I think he wanted to use the bed, too, some time during the night. I couldn't even finish an half hour of exercise. I even had to go see a notary. Luckily, today is a little more sedate. I have already been to 4 embassies but nothing really unexpected has happened today. Oops, I spoke too soon. I have to run off to an embassy right now.

No wonder I don't write anymore. Maybe tomorrow.

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Jun. 9th, 2009

Friends Come and Gone

D and R and the little A and C have come and gone. They arrived on Sunday afternoon and we had a great time taking them around our neighborhood. They got to see the dog park - one block over from their hotel, and our place - one block over and two blocks down. We went to the basement Chinese place that has no MSG. It has good Singapore noodles. The other stuff was good too. It is easy to feed A & C if you know what they will eat. We never had to pick a second restaurant because they will eat everybody's idea of kid food. I think the kids got to pet more dogs in two days than they petted in the last year. We know most of the dogs in our neighborhood and even some of the owners. On Monday, John went with the family to the war museum in the morning. I joined everyone for lunch and then John went back to work and I went with everyone to the Museum of Civilization. Wow, you can spend a lot of time in that museum. The traveling exhibit was "Mythic Creatures". We saw that and almost everything else at the museum. The Children's museum inside the MofC is really fun. There are different cultures to learn about and you can dress up. The volunteers there were demonstrating drumming and origami. There are more volunteers on the weekends but we only had a chance to go on a Monday. It is nice to have a museum to yourself. You can get good pictures and you can take your timuee reading the signs.

Alas, the friends have moved on to the east and more stuff to see in Quebec and Nova Scotia.

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Jun. 1st, 2009

Not Dead Just Busy

This weekend we decided to ride our bikes in the Go Green, Go Dutch, Go Bike day. The day dawned bright and sunny so we rode our bikes to the local farmer's market. I was pleasantly surprised this year by gluten free quiches and brownies as well as chocolate chip cookies. We found Paris style macaroons in six flavors - chocolate, coconut, cardemom, rhubarb, coffee, vanilla. We liked the chocolate and rhubarb the best. The coconut was too sweet and the cardemom was too flowery. I bought fresh sirloin steak and at another booth we got some jibneh cheese. The place was full of designer dogs. I saw mastiff, golden doodle, french bulldog, pugs, longhaired basset hound, and greyhound. Many golden retrievers were also present as well as some huskies. We bought our goodies and went home.

Around 1:30pm we left to join the bike day activities. By this time it was raining and sleeting a bit and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Everyone's lips were turning blue. The Netherlands ambassador came out for the unveiling of a mushroom shaped traffic sign. It is more visible to bikers and matches the ones used in the Netherlands. We then continued our bike ride to the statue of the man with two hats. About 10 minutes after we arrived, the sun came out once again and stayed around until evening. John bought some waffle cookies and I got an ice cream before we biked home. We saw 5 goslings and 1 duckling over the weekend. I think the goslings were not all from the same parents but we know from experience in Boston that geese use nannies.

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May. 22nd, 2009

Cool but not conducive to sleep

Book: Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs

I had trouble sleeping last night. John had trouble as well. My theory is that we slept with the window open for the first time this year. Every time I woke up I listened for something out of the ordinary but I could hear nothing. However, a sound from outside could wake me up then not be repeated. I am finally getting a decent amount of exercise with my Dance Dance Revolution game. I try to go for 70 minutes a day while John does around 60 minutes. We even went for a walk last night so we should have been extra tired. I woke at 3am and slept fitfully after that. There will probably only be one or two weeks of sleeping with the window open before we switch to the window unit air conditioner. It will work just fine for the whole summer. Only the bedroom needs to be cool for sleeping. We took a picture of the ac set up before we took it down so we can put it back the same way this year. Digital cameras have their uses.

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May. 19th, 2009

Flowers

There is now a wonderful perfume in the air around here. At the beginning of spring all you can smell is manure and other fertilizers being used on gardens and landscape areas. Now you can smell the apple blossoms from all the crab apple trees in town. Soon the smell will be lilacs. White and purple lilacs are also all over town. You don't have to go over to the trees to smell the blossoms they are very fragrant and you can get a whiff of them from 30 or 40 feet away. Later, when more trees are in bloom it will be really hard to tell exactly which blossoms are the smell that you like. This also results in a phenomenon that I love later in the year. The sidewalks will be strewn with flower petals. I just love that effect.

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May. 17th, 2009

People Who are High

People who smoke marijuana should not call our house at 6:30am with their conspiracy theories. I know that it is very important to them because it was actually 5:30 in their time zone. We have figured out that they never went to sleep on Saturday night but instead stayed up all night getting drunk and smoking dope. Anyway, you don't know them because it is a friend of a friend of John's who was in Winnipeg when they called. He needed to know if this was true. "President Kennedy was so angry over the botched Bay of Pigs invasion that he threatened to disband the CIA. Which caused the CIA to steal 60 kilograms of plutonium from the US atomic program and give it to the Israelis. When Kennedy found out two years later he wanted the plutonium returned so the Israelis had him killed." So was a large quantity of plutonium stolen in the early 60's.

Someone really called to find out this morning. Luckily for us 6:30 is our normal time to wake up so we were kind of awake anyway. It wasn't all bad, apparently the man was extremely impaired and therefore humorous. So John told me all of this when he got off of the phone this morning. At first I thought that a television station had called to do an early morning interview. I was amazed that a serious sounding conspiracy theory was really coming from a stoned person. I then explained to John why I would never put forth any conspiracy theories of my own. When John explained that the caller was a fan of the Kennedy's I asked when they were playing. My knowledge of history isn't good enough for me to bandy about with theories. It could never be considered my field, maybe my broom closet but not my field. Whenever I look at a memory of history too many things fall out of the closet at one time. For instance when John said President Kennedy what fell out was : Marilyn Monroe died from an accident while she was in a car with Kennedy. This was in fact three different things according to John. 1. President John F. Kennedy used to have sex with Marilyn Monroe. 2. Ted Kennedy had a car accident that killed a woman and her unborn child. 3. Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose possibly self inflicted.

Never ask me a serious history question.

Tags: history

May. 15th, 2009

Bar-B-Que

Hooray for barbeque. Tonight we are going to drive to Steph's house - the grilling gourmet. He is the best that I have found around here. We ordered 5 pork racks last week and we will pick them up tonight. Monday is Victoria day so we have a long weekend with barbeque and mashed or baked potatoes and corn on the cob. Yum. I can hardly wait. It is going to be great. I wish I could invite some friends. Wait I can invite friends. All my Texas friends should hop on a plane and come eat barbeque with me. Please tell me if you are coming so I can push together the couches to make a bed. Travelocity.com has travel specials for weekend travel and you can get a last minute package. Austin to Ottawa on Saturday going back on Monday is $517 including a car rental and the price includes tax. Dallas to Ottawa is $572. Houston to Ottawa is $537. So what are you waiting for: this IS an invitation. I know it is short notice. But I am ever hopeful that someone will come.

Tags: bbq

May. 13th, 2009

Wildlife Sighting

book: Made to be Broken by Kelley Armstrong

I saw a mink yesterday. I had gone to the Vietnamese embassy for a rush visa and they told me that it would be 2 hours before it would be done. So I walked about two blocks to the river bike path with my book to read. I found a nicely shaded spot on the stone retaining wall next to the river. I had a good view of the river and ducks. I watched two ducks swim upstream and when they got closer I noticed that the long grass sticking out of the water was moving near them as well. It seems they had 8 ducklings swimming along with them almost completely hidden by the grass. But the most interesting thing was the mink. I heard a rustling sound and looked down toward the shore and saw the mink on the rocks coming toward me. I got a good look at him from above. Then he got a ways down the shore and saw some people who were also on the stone wall. So he headed back my way and passed me but he felt the need to go and investigate the other people again. The next time he passed me he noticed me and looked up directly at me so I got a really good view of his face. At this point I could tell that he wasn't a muskrat or a nutria and he was too small to be an otter. He looked a lot like a high class ferret. I told the other people who guessed that he was a weasel or marmot that I thought he was a mink. I was right. When I got back to work I looked up mink on google images and it looked like someone had taken a picture of him. It's always nice to know that you have some idea what you are talking about.

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May. 6th, 2009

Circus School

book: The Ugly Duckling by Iris Johansen

On the weekend one of the venues for the Tulip Festival had circus school. For a mere $4 your child could go into the fenced off area and learn something new. They were teaching kids how to walk on a tight rope - one foot above the ground, how to walk on stilts, balance on a board that was on a cylinder. They could learn to juggle or do devil sticks or learn to spin a Chinese yoyo. There was even a spot to learn how to ride a unicycle. Before you say, what good would that be, I will tell you that most of the local bike shops sell unicycles and at least once a year I see someone in the park or on the bike path with one. The only really unfortunate part was that circus school was only for children. I was too tall to ride that ride. They only let children and their parents into the fence. Why don't they have circus school for adults or even adult gymnastics. I am not too old to learn a new trick and I love tricks. I think it would be fun.

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May. 4th, 2009

Tulips Everywhere

mood:

hungry

book: A Rumor of Bones by Beverly Connor

The tulip festival began on Thursday and the tulips are in bloom all over the city. I have seen orange, pink, purple, coral, white, yellow, and red ones. I have also seen some that are two colored ones. John and I went to two tulip festival events yesterday. We found the international pavilion to be best. There were many countries represented including but certainly not limited to Thailand, Korea, Russia, Kuwait, Netherlands, Brazil, China, and Turkey. I enjoyed the smells of the international food and only tasted one. I had fried dough from the Philippines. It was sweet rice flour dough that was deep fried and had hard caramel drizzled on top. We also picked up a card for a Russian restaurant in town and talked extensively to the people at the Korea booth. We got a lovely poster of the bay of Bengal as well. Many of the booths had costumes of the country for people to try on and get their pictures taken. I told the Koreans that I just am not standard Korean size and their clothing wasn't going to fit me. Really, it barely fit the Korean-Canadian at the booth. She kept fiddling with it and I don't think she knew she was doing it. This is what happens when your mother volunteers you for something.

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Apr. 30th, 2009

I do not have swine flu

I have had random headaches and sneezing since I got back from Texas almost two weeks ago. I get back to Ottawa and swine flu is all over the news, don't worry it says because all the Canada cases have just come back from Mexico or California or Texas. It doesn't feel like flu, but hey, I am a worrier so do I have it or don't I have it. Well, I just came back from an embassy and I am positive now that I don't have the flu, or even a cold. I hopped out of the car right next to a huge pile of cedar mulch. Instantly, my eyes started to burn and my nose started twitching. I am severely allergic to cedar. I usually only notice the cedar pollen in the fall but I have also had bad reactions to the wood. I got a cedar splinter once and I thought I had been bitten by a spider but closer examination showed a sliver of wood sticking out of my arm. I guess that it is mulching season. A lot of the mulch is made out of cedar. I don't notice it because it is mulch and generally not as fresh as the stuff next to the embassy. Wow, instant headaches explained in seconds. Now, I can look for the culprits. When I lived in central Texas and the cedar pollen season started I actually wore nose plugs a few times. I fashioned them out of cut sponges. I was truly desperate and I didn't want to scare people by wearing the paint booth filter mask that I had for work. I can still remember the burning sensation of breathing. No wonder I don't feel so good right now.

Apr. 26th, 2009

Nice Afternoon

book: Call After Midnight by Tess Gerritsen

Yesterday a thunderstorm was predicted but the day was fairly nice with clouds but no real rain until evening. We went shopping then came home and made small pizzas that we took to the airport. We sat in the car at the end of the runway. There is a road just outside of the airport that a lot of people go to for this. We enjoyed the planes flying in over our heads while the pot smoke drifted over from the motorcyclist on our left. At first we were worried that he was going to smoke a cigarette like the people on our right but he didn't so we were okay with it. Then we went to Dairy Queen for a banana split and a dipped cone and John saw a guy he knew so we had a nice conversation until the ice cream was all gone. Then we went home. We immediately decided to go across the street and borrow some videos. We got invited in for pie and ice cream, I only had the ice cream, John had both. So we chatted with the neighbors then came home and watched the movie Collateral with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It was a pretty good movie and an excellent performance by Foxx.

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Apr. 24th, 2009

More Owwwww

Here is how it happened. I was biking home from the grocery store. I tend to do that because biking is the fastest way home when you don't take the car. Anyway, I got some dust or something in my eye because the wind was blowing and I had forgotten to wear my glasses for the bike ride home. I normally wear them when it is starting to get dark but it is now close enough to summer that I don't really need them until about 6:30. I saw two friends on the corner that I hadn't seen in a few months and I was thinking about turning around and going to talk to them. There were cars parked on the right hand side of the street and there was a car coming from the other direction but it was not in my lane. Then WHAM. The vehicle I thought was empty on my right still had people in it. The driver's door flung open right in front of me and I must have thrown up my right arm to deflect the blow - this will explain the contusion on my right arm. I went flying toward the road and had a hard scrape on my left arm near the elbow - caused by the road, thank goodness I was wearing a jacket, it kept me from having to scrub pavement out of the wound. And I am fairly certain that I hit the center of the bike with both legs - this explains bruises on the inside of my knees and shins. And lastly, I believe I hit the right gear shift with my upper right thigh - explaining both the bruise on my leg and the slightly bent condition of the gear shift. I did go to the doctor this morning and she told me that my first aid practices are sound and I have done all the right things. The problem is that it still hurts and that makes it hard to sleep at night. So, a little vodka in my cranberry juice and sleeping is a breeze.

I am very happy that Canadians all around came to offer help with the bike and my person. I was offered a ride to the hospital or an ambulance call, help getting home or even a drink, whatever I needed. I was shook up but checked to make sure all my parts seemed to be working and they were so I just biked home. Well, first I fixed the chain on my bike as it had come off the gear when I fell, but it wasn't broken so no real problem there.

Tags: bike accident

Apr. 23rd, 2009

Lovely Music

Yesterday I noticed that my grocery store had live music. Not a big band or anything. It just has a piano in the seating area for the deli section. There was someone playing it. The section of the store is near the produce. I like live piano music with my produce shopping. Anyone can come in and use the piano as long as they are really playing it, not just pounding the keys like a child. I was thinking that more grocery stores should put in a piano, it adds to the shopping experience.

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Apr. 22nd, 2009

New Stuff

I did something fun while I was in Texas. I think I want to do it at home as well. My nieces have a dance dance revolution game. They finally convinced me to try it. I played beginner level while they played at the light level. It was fun and more exercise than I have had in ages. It even has a workout mode. I hope to have one by next winter. I think it will keep me from gaining weight over the winter when biking and roller blading are definitely not in season. I even asked John about it and I think he might play with me. Now all I have to do is find out how much the total cost will be with the game system and all the other stuff it requires. I was even able to play against my sister and my friend Shelly Lynn who claims not to know how to dance. My sister can dance. Shelly Lynn doesn't.

Tags: dance dance revolution

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Apr. 20th, 2009

I'm Back

The memorial service is over. I will miss my grandmother but she has been telling us that she was ready to die for the last six months. I would say rest in peace but she wasn't that kind of person. Instead I will say have fun wherever you are.

Apr. 16th, 2009

Busy Night

I went home last night thinking I would pack my bags for my Friday flight. That didn't happen. Instead I listened to my phone messages and found out that John and I were invited to Rideau Hall, the Governor General's residence for a reception honoring the friendship between Canada and Ukraine and Canada and Norway. We thought this was a great opportunity to meet diplomats so we went. There were a few performances. We got to see two Ukrainian ballet dancers and one Ukrainian pianist. We also saw three different songs by a Norwegian saxophonist. Then there was a reception with food. Most of the food was fish based. There was Ukrainian caviar on buckwheat blinis, Norwegian smoked herring on blue potatoes, and Canadian smoked salmon. I tried the smoked herring and I don't like it. I have never liked smoked salmon but it may be because I am allergic to cedar and cedar is what they use to smoke the salmon. There was also a whole table full of wheat based desserts. I had something to eat when I got home. For some unknown reason, John and I were in the first row, silly since John is so tall. However, that was the closest I have ever been to professional ballet dancers who were dancing. I could see them sweating, I could feel them sweating. No wonder they are in such good shape.

The highlight of the evening was meeting Luba Goy. She is a very sweet person and she wanted to meet the Governor General but was shy about coming forward so we got the GG's secretary to introduce them and get a photo. I like watching her on " Royal Canadian Air Farce". We left around 9:15 so we got home at a decent hour but no packing got done. Instead, today I was going to leave work early to pack but I have to make an emergency run to the Brazilian embassy instead. It doesn't take that long to pack for Texas anyway. The weather will be warmer than here so at least the clothes will all fit in a carry on bag.

Tags: luba goy

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Apr. 14th, 2009

Trip to Texas

I will be flying in to Houston on April 17 around noon and I will be leaving on Monday April 20 really early. It turned out to be cheapest to get a last minute deal from travelocity that has a car rental with it. Strangely, the price without the car is almost double the price that I got with the car. I could have gotten a hotel instead of a car but I wouldn't have used a hotel room. I will have a cell phone that only works while I am in the US. If you want the number so you can call this weekend then send me an email. My grandmother's memorial will be in Bryan, Texas at the Senior Citizens Center from 2pm to 8 pm.

Tags: memorial service

Apr. 13th, 2009

Good Venezuelan Food

Yes, good Venezuelan food was had by all. And by all I mean me and John. We ate at La Casa de Pedro three times on the trip. We ate there on Friday and Saturday night and also for brunch on Sunday. Everything was really tasty, that is why we went of course. On Saturday we drove to Alewife in Fresh Pond and got one day passes for the train, subway and bus. That was good for travel almost anywhere in Boston. They cost $9 and we used the subway to go into Boston then we walked around, went to Chinatown, went to Revere Beach, eventually went back to Alewife to get the car and then over to Watertown to Pedro's for dinner. We had a few minutes to kill so we went to the mall and John bought a rug for the apartment and I took a survey about potato chips. I was paid three dollars for taking the survey. We used to take surveys for them all the time when we lived in the area. I brought home some empenadas for lunch today and we snacked on two of them in the car yesterday on the ride home.

I was looking for moose when we went through Vermont. The warning signs were everywhere. You would think we would see a moose since they kept announcing them. There was even a bear warning sign. We didn't see any moose or bear, however, just at twilight we saw a fox and a ground hog, then a whole bunch of wild turkeys. Later we also saw four deer in one field and three deer in another field. I still want to see a moose. I was impressed with the wild turkeys, I haven't seen any of them in years. There were probably 50 of them in the field where they were flocking. The fox was also very healthy looking. His tail was so bushy that you could never mistake him for anything but a fox.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but my grandmother has died and I will be in Texas attending her memorial service next weekend. The service will be held in College Station/ Bryan and I will most likely be flying in to Houston on Friday and leaving on Monday.

Posted at 11:27 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

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