Jellybean

I wish I'd taken "before" pictures of the jellybean  because it really was in bad shape.  It's been sitting outside in the weather for a few years now so it had lots of rust, and the red paint was so oxidized it looked pink.  But sadly, I didn't think to snap a picture.  So here's the Miata in the body shop.  The rust has disappeared and the primer has been applied.  By next week it'll be all shiny and new again

I wanted to paint it orange, but changing colour would've been a lot more work and therefore a lot more expensive, so we're sticking with red.  That's okay.  It'll be shiny!!   Next step is a new soft top for it, then it'll be ready for the road again.

And because the body shop is close to Edo, we stopped for lunch.  Mmm...mmm... good!

Spent the rest of the day tossing a tennis ball into the canal for Taz and swatting mosquitos.  Got a squillion bites - man they're vicious!  Note to self:  Don't leave these in the van!

And, just because she's pretty, here's Taz.

Oh my, look how white our little girl's muzzle is getting.

Bye bye letter "B"

RIP letter "B"

I consulted 3 professional opinions and they all concurred that this is a fatal injury.  That I should give them a decent burial and move on.  Of course all of them are in the business of selling glasses, so their opinions are no doubt biased, but it was probably time to upgrade anyway.  I went out first thing Saturday morning to shop for new glasses.  Yikes!  Talk about sticker shock!  $581.05 for new glasses - and that was with 50% off on the lenses!  But, what high-tech glasses.  HD progressive transitional lenses with superior vision and anti-glare coating.  What??  HD because the frame is narrow so the progressive focal points have to be condensed, transitional means they turn to sunglasses outside and regular glasses indoors (they called that photogray in the 70's, but they assure me that the technology has improved since then).  Superior vision means that instead of a tiny rounded area for reading, the reading portion is the entire length of the lens therefore increasing my peripheral vision and anti-glare so that my glasses don't blind people when they look at me.  That plus 5 dollars worth of metal and plastic is what you get for almost 600 bucks!  Sheeesh!

A Summer Day

It started with a nice walk on TC Hill with Shirley and Gracie this morning. 

This afternoon we went to a "Show & Shine" at Stanley Park.  Hundreds of classic and vintage sports cars and motorcycles on display. 
This is Bill & Vi's  '63 ('62?) Triumph TR4

There were some very cool cars, like this Morgan.

I loved this one with the wicker picnic basket on the back.  Makes you want to wrap a scarf around your head, Grace Kelly style, and hit the road doesn't it?

This one is for Lorne, (Hi Lorne!) because he used to own one just like it.

I liked the Ferraris.  There were actually 2 of them with child seats in them.  How weird is that?

And of course, my favourite of all! (Because I used to have a Mini)

Stanley Park was the scene of much of my mis-spent youth so it was fun to wander around again.   I don't think I've ever been there in the daytime before.  Lots of families having barbecues and playing games and the pool was full of splashing kids.  Huh!  Who knew?

It was a great day for a float on the river.

And yes Cheryl, I checked.  Our names are no longer written under the bleachers.  In fact there was no graffiti at all.  What's wrong with kids today?

After the Show & Shine we went to Bill & Vi's to drink wine in their beautiful garden.

Look!  A little bridge over the running stream - how cool is that?!  (I'm jealous. I want one.)

Couple of good-lookin' dudes in the back yard

And Vi.  Looks like she's telling a story and her arm is being restrained to protect the wine glasses.

That bottle on the table was not our first...  so the pictures stop here.  I was no longer able to operate the camera at this point.  But the fun continued.  We headed to Original Joe's for dinner and just as we sat down on the patio, Bill & Vi's neighbours and friends,  Harold & Linda, walked by with their dog so they joined us too.  All in all - a pretty good summer's day!

Cheryl x 2

We've been friends for over 40 years!

Inseparable as teenagers, our lives took radically divergent paths.  Cheryl has 9 children and I have, well, a dog.  And no, that wasn't a typo.  Nine children!!  She lives in Colorado now, so we don't get to see each other very often, but after all these years, we're still sisters of the heart. 

...and she's still a bad influence on me!  I'm sure the chips & gravy were her idea!

  The other side of our triangle is currently living in Cañete, Peru.  Hey, Debbie - did you notice the empty spot where you were supposed to be?

Home repairs

Problem #1  The kitchen sink has been clogged for about a week.  I've tried Drano twice with no luck.  (And sadly, that is the extent of my plumbing skills.)

Problem #2  The dishwasher was making a racket this afternoon.  I mean it usually sounds like a freight train running through the kitchen, but this was even worse.

Dan has been working on both problems for about 5 hours now.  When he started he just needed a new plug for the trap because the old one was rusted and corroded.  Of course he ended up replacing the whole unit because the thingamajig connected to the whatchamacallit broke.  Then in the process of replacing them, the thingymabob on the whatsit cracked...
First a trip to Rona and then a trip to Home Depot because the guy at Rona sold him the wrong part...Home Depot, of course, didn't have what he needed.  Looks like we won't have a sink until Rona opens again tomorrow.  Poor Dan.  As if that's not bad enough, he has to deal with the paparazzi too.

I can't believe he's still smiling.

New Toys

Well, the technological neanderthals made a leap into the new millenium this week with the purchase of not one, but two new toys.  Yeeha!!! 

The iPod Touch is a handy-dandy little gadget that fits into my wallet or Dan's shirt pocket and gives us internet access pretty much anytime, anywhere.  It stores music, photos, games and most importantly  - books. (Even library books!)  Our cutting-edge friend Kaycee (Hi, Kaycee!) was over last weekend and showed us what this little puppy can do.  We went out the next day and bought one.  Now we need Kaycee back here to show us how to work the damn thing.  I played with it most of the afternoon today, and I managed to load a couple of photos and a sample of a book on to it.  I later  discovered that I should have been more discerning about which photos I uploaded because there's no "delete" button.  It is possible to delete, it's just not push-button easy.  Near as I can figure you need an advanced degree to be able to get a library book onto the iPod Touch.  First I had to download a program which would allow me to choose a library book and download it to the PC.  Did that, then discovered that the book I'd chosen was in PDF format and would now need to be converted to EPUB before it could be transferred to iTunes before it could be synced to the iPod Touch...Yikes!  That's a lot for a technologically challenged bumpkin to fathom.   My brain hurts!  Maybe I'll try again later...

And, the long-awaited Kindle finally arrived.  After talking to Kaycee on the week-end about the pros and cons of the various e-readers, I had decided to either return or sell the Kindle as soon as it arrived and go with the Sony  instead.  I wasn't even going to open the box.  Yeah, right.  Who am I kidding?  I've been waiting for this for 2 weeks, there's no way I'm not opening it up and playing with it.  So, I've decided now to keep it and love it.  If any of the cons become a problem, I'll switch to the Sony later.

And on a totally un-related note.  We went to China Rose for dinner tonight because I've been craving ginger-fried squid for a couple of weeks now.  Look what was in my fortune cookie!

Gotta go pack...

Empty House

Cindy & Karel's flying visit is over already.  They arrived on Thursday afternoon and left early this morning in order to make it to Hinton in time for the birthday celebration.  So it was short and sweet. 

On Thursday evening we went downtown to watch the Canada Day fireworks (along with several thousand other people!)  Great night for it; warm and wind free.  We had a nice stroll along the 8th avenue mall and saw some interesting buildings along the way.

And who knew we had such cool old doors in Calgary?

Waiting for the fireworks.

Oooh!!! Ahhh!!!

The fireworks were great, but my photos are rubbish.  I've never tried to take pictures of fireworks before and obviously, there's more to it than just pointing the camera skyward.  The good news is that the Calgary Stampede starts next week, so I'll have 10 nights to practice.  I'd better do some reading before then and see if I can learn the secrets.

The Calgary Tower had the flame lit to celebrate Canada Day.  Can't really see it from this angle, you'll just have to take my word for it.

A walk on Tom Campbell's hill on Friday morning.

After our walk we went to the River Cafe on Prince's Island for lunch. 

I meant to take pictures of the food, but between the wine and the chit chat, I didn't remember until there was nothing but empty plates in front of us.  It was delicious though!

Last night, the planets and the stars must've been aligned in our favour because 2 very busy mutual friends just happened to have a free night at the same time, so we had a little impromptu party. Sure we see Trudy every day, but we don't often get to do more than exchange quick greetings as we're coming & going and the only time we see Kaycee is when Cindy is in town. It was nice to have a chance to catch up again.

So now Cindy & Karel are gone and our house feels pretty empty. (Sigh!)

On the bright side, the bouquet of flowers from Shirley is shrinking, but still beautiful!