Fernie road trip , missing sauasages

missing sausages ???

 

 The mountains and beautiful scenery of Fernie British Columbia were promising to make this road trip a fun adventure. I needed to finish up my business dealings with an Italian couple that resided there. They possessed the title to the property I was buying in Arizona... without that title you don’t own squat!

 

 Picking up my travel buddy girlfriend , Sharon, we set off to Calgary from Edmonton (Sharons stomping grounds). We ended up in Okotoks Alberta where Sharons son bought us supper at a trendy place called just ‘George’! This place was packed and maybe ‘wing night’ and the Stanley cup hockey series had something to do with that.  

 

 Now Okotoks is really a name that defies description, but it is  derived from the Blackfoot Native nation describing a big rock formation that was left as a landmark from  the worlds largest known erratic glacier ...bet ya didn’t know that! Something else that isn’t well known is that little ole Okotoks has north Americas first solar heated community built in 2007! These 52 houses have 800 solar panels on their roofs collecting energy to be used for heating.  2012 this community achieved a world record by managing a 97%  solar fraction....meaning they heated all their homes for a whole year (this is snow country remember) 97% by solar! Pretty good huh?

 

 Sharons son has a best friend that owns an old Victorian house  operating a bed and breakfast so we decided to spend the night there. Lots of antiques which I am really not a fan of but this is much better than a sterile hotel room. Diane the owner is a friend of Sharons as well and she makes us feel welcome and right at home . There are even real original chenille bedspreads on our beds. I guess I could describe the antiques but they hold no interest for me ...much more interesting is the solar community and the big ole rock formation 4 miles west of town.

 

  I was up early doing my emails in our own little cozy space at the top of the stairs that also serves as a eating area when Diane pops her head in to say she is bringing us breakfast. Sharon is now up and we are enjoying the coffee and fresh fruit Diane has delivered to us. Our lovely breakfast arrives in the form of scrambled eggs and little fat breakfast sausages along with wholewheat toast . I glance up when I hear a hissing sound.... wth? It is Sharon whispering to me from across the table (Sharon never whispers anything) “what?” I say?

 

 ”Do you like sausages?” she hisses again... “well uh...yes I guess”  I say. “I can’t eat these !!!” she hisses ... ‘why?’ I hiss back....! “Because when I was pregnant with Nick I got really sick after eating sausages and I can’t eat pork sausages to this day!”  “you can’t NOT eat them “ I hiss back. See , I think that would be so rude because Diane went to all this trouble to make us such a nice breakfast. BUT  now after eating one myself I realize she has put a little syrup glaze on em and I don’t want to eat them either...oh crap ! Now what are we gonna do ?

 

 Sharon hisses “lets flush em down the toilet!”  and right away I have visions of these little suckers floating and not going down....”no way!” I hiss back ....”I am not picking em outta the toilet if they don’t flush!”. I apologize to Diane when she comes to check on our progress and ask for ketchup. (see I think if we smear them with ketchup we can get em down.) She brings the ketchup and I manage to eat all but one and Sharon manages half of one before she starts to gag.

 

 We agree we need to get rid of them so we don’t hurt her feelings. Sharon goes into our bedroom and comes back with a little plastic baggie and we hurriedly shove the rest of the sausages into it. She disappears back into the bedroom and when she comes out I ask her what she did with them. “ I stuck them in my shoe” she hisses at me.....omg and wth? I snort coffee out my nose from laughing! Why would she stick em in her shoe...like really ? ....now we are both laughing so hard we have tears in our eyes..... Diane comes in and clears our clean plates and we rave about the breakfast and we contain ourselves as best we can.

 

 I wish I had a real cool ending for this story but I don’t. We are back on our way to Fernie when I ask her where the sausages got to ....she says “I ended up flushing them down the toilet...and they went down!” I glance down at her feet and say ...ya know your toes kinda look like.... “just shut up ” she hisses at me....lol 

 

 

 

Pacific coast pillows

Have you ever slept on a cloud?  Sears...... customer satisfaction guaranteed ?? maybe not!

 

 I hit the down pillow I was returning, with my hand, and feathers fly everywhere and onto the face of the assistant manager. A feather lodged on the side of his nose and he did not blink. His face was set into a ‘I am not budging from my position look’ and he looked to be no more than a teenager ..... I confess I was tempted to hit the pillow again ...ok... so I did! We now had feathers everywhere and baby faced assistant manager was starting to crack...good! He was trying  to gather up feathers but these expensive little white goose down feathers were so light and fluffy they defied capture! ...and I should know because I was still finding the odd feathers a week later in my bedroom. Time to call in the general manager of Sears... baby face punches numbers into phone and spits out under his breath , but I hear him “I need help ...NOW’.

 

 This all started the day I bought these down pillows ....ok I need to back up just a bit. I spent a fantastic week  in New Orleans last year made even better or maybe it was the best part, at La Pavillon hotel . This is the  oldest hotel in New Orleans and is  restored to its original glory complete with the glass chandeliers and ghosts on the fifth floor. They have a tradition of serving milk and peanut butter sandwiches every evening in the beautifully appointed lobby (who does that ) ? they have exquisitely dressed doormen and period furniture and ...and.... Everything about this hotel reeked history and opulence as well as good old-fashioned top notch service. I love that hotel which was, btw ,the hotel used in filming ‘The Butler’ ... I recognized it right away!

 

 So I am fussy about pillows and have on occasion taken my own on trips. I  need to have a really good downfilled pillow to get a good nights sleep. This fantastic hotel had the best pillows I have ever slept on. Towards the end of my stay I decided to investigate and ripped off the pillowcase to discover the brand name was Pacific Coast Pillows. So back home I happened to be shopping in Sears one  day when sales gal asks me what I am looking for, I say pillows and specifically Pacific Coast brand. Well... she says we have them and they are on sale right now! These are two hundred dollar pillows ...omg... insert choking noises here ! I would never pay that much for a pillow , but I am in luck... they are on for half price....omg.... I have never paid a hundred dollars for a pillow either! I bite the bullet and buy the pillow and guess what ...? THIS PILLOW HAS AN EIGHT YEAR GUARANTEE ! Has any of you ever seen a guarantee on pillows? .. me either.

 

 Ok back to my story , I am in love with this pillow and obsessed ...it goes everywhere with me. I have a cabin at the lake so I purchase a few more of these pillows (always on sale...lol) . They have shorter ones and different comfort levels for different types of sleepers ...oh ya... these are high tech pillows! All of them have the guarantee ...lifetime guarantee on the feathers (not sure what is involved there though). btw ...even if you are allergic ...this company claims that the down feathers are put through  a very strict  cleaning process which removes all the allergens and leaves you with this soft fluffly down.  Soooo anyway , I removed my pillowcase for cleaning last week and all these light fluffy feathers flew out with the pillow ... not thinking straight I turn pillow inside out and omg... it is snowing in my bedroom...dumb move. Turns out the seam has come apart... and so my journey begins on the  ’too good to be true’  guarantee.

 

 I guess this is maybe a lesson in customer service..... Sears LOGO is...’ CUSTOMER SATIFACTION GUARANTEED ‘  ....BUT...  they should have added for 30 days only or 3 months if you have a sears card! Baby face tells me I need to send the pillow back to the manufacturer .... I tell baby face that I bought the pillow at Sears and I am not shipping anything back anywhere ...I only do emails.  I expected a new pillow but I say I will settle for him shipping the pillow back and call me when it is fixed. Now I am looking straight at the big sign at the till that says customer satisfaction guaranteed and I point it out to him but he is not budging... except to gather feathers. oh...and he also gave me the rolly eye look.... BIG Mistake (ok so that was when I hit the pillow....again).

 

 General manager comes to his rescue , she basically recites same policy as him but she is older and wiser and probly realizes that I have taken a stance and am not backing down anytime soon . See... we are talking about a two hundred dollar pillow here (doesn’t matter that I got it on sale) with an 8 yr guarantee...what would you do? She finally agrees to ship the pillow back for me after once more explaining about the 30 day crap.... thank you!.... and that is all I really wanted.

 

 So boys and girls..... let this be a lesson in customer service.... Customer Service Guaranteed for 30 days only at Sears or three months if you have a sears card! read the fine print......

 

a little side note here.... I will not give up my Pacific Coast pillows !!! I am married to them ...I just need to take em in for maintenance maybe... lol

 

  

 

   

dear diary (good friday)

Dear Diary 

 

 Once upon a time back in the olden days , getting a diary for xmas or a birthday was such a thrill. We filled it with all our secret thoughts and petty grievance's and that cute boy we had a crush on. Then someone close to us would... find...read... and expose our secret life to the world! or our moms would demand to know the boys name ...how come you never heard of dads reading our diaries?

 

 Fast forward to today and we willingly expose everything on Face Book, no need to write in those diaries.... well maybe it was better in the ‘olden days’?  but no less boring I'm sure. My girlfriends diary was coded so everytime she washed her hair in her diary she had done something sinful with her boyfriend (we were catholic) ...she had the cleanest shiniest hair ...but also the  blackest soul full of sins...omg . As for myself, I got bored after the first couple weeks because I wouldn’t dare put down my real thoughts and desires ...I had six siblings and no privacy ...are you kidding me, besides I had all those sinful thoughts too ...just sayin.

 

 We used to skip mass which was a sin ...but we would pick up the missive ? ...essentially it was a newsletter about everything happening in the church. These were kept at the entrance so it was easy enough to get a copy without actually attending the service.. If we ran into someone that had been at mass that was a bonus because then we could quiz them on the sermon! See... you could get caught if the adults were suspicious enough they  would say “ok what did father Bob talk about in the sermon today?”

 

 All these sins needed to be confessed at some point so we could clear the slate and start over again. Now you think this would be the easy part but it was the toughest for me. The priest could be the same one you had last time so I needed to get increasingly creative without him suspecting me of making up the same ones over and over. I gotta tell ya I had the most boring sins and if I had it to do over again I could make his ears bleed...!  We had to recite prayers as penance and that was also torturous. I would sing my favorite songs along with a few ‘hail Marys’ under my breath and then make a clean get away as soon as I figured that  who ever was watching me would know I wasn’t cheating.

 

 Those days are long gone I quit going to church in high school and have never really been back, don’t get me wrong , in school (catholic school) I was top dog in religion class , so I knew I was gonna burn in hell... but nobody else suspected ! Organized religion has since ...held no power over me and I have since come to my own understanding of spirituality.

 

 

 This Good  Friday has me looking back and looking forward too.... without our experiences of all our life journeys how would we know what is right and what is wrong? I sure don’t believe in those stupid sins and confessions creative in confession....or maybe when I was on my knees supposedly saying the rosary as my penance , some of that spirituality seeped in when I wasn’t aware.... or maybe it was there all along ......

 

happy Easter everyone! and my only wish is for everyone to find their own spirituality....

The story of the apple phone

 

This is my story and little ‘rant’ about my apple Iphone 

 

and the lord said to Eve ...if you eat that apple I will make sure you suffer for ever more !  Eve was so sick and tired of men telling her what to do and what not to do and  she had no female friends to commiserate with. "Meat ...meat...meat... what does a girl have to do to get some fruit around here?" .... so ya just know this was a time bomb waiting to explode !

 

  when she spit the seed onto the ground from that apple, up popped a tree that grew  into a big corporate conglomeration with an apple as it's symbol...  this company sucked in men and women from all over the world to partake of its fruit . Once bitten you are committed to eating its fruit forever more. The pains suffered from trying to mix other fruits with this superior apple are legend and dare I say... soooo annoying!  The tentacles it sends out will bind you to it and will NEVER let you embrace any others.

 

 The offspring (called apps) from this lowly little apple 'turned conglomerate'  proliferated and this is where the story gets good . God foresaw that Eve was an adventurous girl and wanted to experience it all ! She would want to feed on lots of different fruits so he embedded in his precious apple the ability to spurn all others wanting a taste and a piece of the action. He wanted to keep Eve pure and sanctimonious ...but Eve being a little on the slutty side did not discriminate, she loved all kinds of fruit and wanted it all !

 

 So god said..... Dam you Eve ...I will make sure your life is a living hell should you decide to keep eating other fruits after eating my apple........ and the arrogance continues to this day!! The apples from this store refuse to be mixed or blended and will leave a terrible taste in your gut when you cough up all the extra cash you are gonna need to keep eating these apples. And if you think  all the fruits of your labours will live together happily ever after ....well....you also probly believe in the tooth fairy !!!!

 

end of my story ...nobody lived happily ever after  !

 

 

ps make sure to buy a protector! it is 150.00  for a new face and....you need an appointment !!!!!!

in memorium

I thought I would wait
until everything was perfect
To live my life
When I should have been perfecting it all along
and now
I fear I have left it too late


We are who we are
but we can be better
why wait to live our life tomorrow
we are here today...only
and then we are gone

unpacking a life ... or so it seems

Unpacking a life....or so it seems

 

Why is unpacking from a trip such a chore? Five days back home and I am trying to figure out what to write about so I can have a break from unpacking my stuff. The problem seems to be that I have too many clothes and not enough room to put everything away ...sooooo.... I need to clean out drawers and reorganize and...and...  it is truly pitiful. I can’t seem to be able to part with anything , seriously , I have a hoarding problem ... not like the reality tv ones,  but on a much smaller scale.

 

 That sweater is a little tight ...yes... but... I plan to lose this vacation fat as soon as it warms up...lol. And then there are those dresses I bought on sale that were a little too tight but I was gonna lose a few pounds before the vacation fat set in...omg...it is a vicious circle. The clothes that fit a smaller me are really nice and dam , I looked good in em...! NOT giving those away...ummmm ...this is not going well. So here I sit trying to figure out what to write ....too many decisions about what clothes to keep and what to toss.... but my mind is already wandering to food and I wonder what is in the fridge.

 

 My daughter in law is a an organizer and everything has a place ....she takes pictures at work and tapes them to the shelves so everyone knows what belongs on those shelves and where! When you hear the shrill...”who put this here?”  “this does not belong here !” “can’t you see the picture?”  , we all blame the person that is out on a job...ha ha.

 

  Anyway she says if you haven’t worn it for a year then out it goes.... but she is a size zero...need I say more? If you bring something in ...you should take something out...like really ? Who does that? She also organized all my spices ONCE... alphabetically ! I thought she was kidding ...but she wasn’t and I did feel bad relating the story to everyone but I thought it was so funny ...but I think I hurt her feelings.

 

 Soooo I let her organize my closet and believe me when I say she was excited! omg there are other people out there just like her and my niece is one of em...... Well my closet stayed good for about... I want to say a year cause she might read this ...but actually three to six months is closer to the truth. I have to admit I really liked it too, but it doesn’t stay that way. They are coming over on Sunday and I am thinking  to go buy a lock for my bedroom door ....right after I check out the fridge......