Wabi Sabi Snobby

Recent Canadian activities have included...
1) high mountain logging in waist-high snow .... an extremely aerobic activity!

2) artistic endeavours around Allison -- like Tim's new decorating of his "King's Perch"....

3) Re-placement of various wabi-sabi artifacts around the property --- inspiration drawn from the book shown and some wacky-headed former students who actually created this crazy piece....

Tim says we have to be careful not to follow the book's "rules" too closely or we'll become.... wabi sabi snobby !!

Starts with a "C" and ends with an "A"

C aliforni A ..... C anad A ...
California Canada
Californiacanada


They both start with a "C" and end with an "A"... they're both known primarily for their weather but remembered for their people.... they're both home to my family (and parts of my heart).... but, otherwise, I can't think of too many similarities....

Oh lovely Palm Springs --- land of bright blue swimming pools and clear aquamarine skies. Land of hippie-shop-heaven and endless summers and easy breezy sneezy ....uh... cheesy Canadians who are just happy to be away from SNOW!!

Outdoor markets abound (sigh) in the land o' palms. After years of visiting this desert oasis, I'm still discovering things --- just recently discovered the outdoor market at the College of the Desert. . . . so full of artisans and mellow people that it even inspired little 6+ month old Sao Mai to whistle while she shopped!!

24 Hour Poetry People

Feeling inspired by my Daily Poem, while also searching for a possible antidote to my seriously queasy holiday angst, I hosted a "Poetry Party"!!

These fine humans (pictured throughout), came together (many even brought their own Thinking Caps!!).... and we cut and pasted and colored and created the craziest poems, some of which are shared herein.....

I sorta don't think we'll be submitting any of them to any poetry journals or anthologies, but... my living room suffered no more damage than it usually does after an evening of wackiness AND, in the end, I have a bunch of cool poems to get me through these awful holidays. Christmas has become so fully & completely yucky but.... poetry seems to be a qualifying medication for noel-induced nausea.... Maybe I'll send some of these along to Canada's new Parliamentary Poet....

The Dog Days of Winter

Inspired by our first big snow this year, Kiya sat on the bridge at the creek and made up a poem...

Nobody knows
how much it snows
on a Husky's nose
Until it's froze

Lotsa snow brings out the Huskier side of Kiya and she was leaping around at the creek and inspiring Baileys to become a sled dog, too!










Baileys, however, is a red dog --- known more for her pensiveness and dedication than ... well .... for her outdoor survival skills.

She sure poses nicely for a camera, tho!

Old People's Weekend

Spent the weekend at.... The Cove Lakeside !

No... not our unit yet (still isn't finished but, apparently it might be ready by Christmas).

It was Timmy's treat for my post-birthday weekend and it gave us a chance to pre-check a few things so that we know what to look for & ask about when it comes time to go through our suite.








Took nice autumn walks through the "nut farm" --- man, there's cool trees there...

And I got the collector's edition of the BBC series "Pride & Prejudice" plus collector's set of "Fight Club" --- probably two of the most opposingly different movies imaginable!

At the end of the weekend we went home & picked squash before the coming frost kills 'em all.

Our Mitchy Witchy Weekend

There should be a whole heckuva lot more photos on this post but --- our witchy ways musta blowed up my blogger because it just won't accept any more pix.... (blast!) Go HERE for more photos...

Even the photo at left is a fake (!)--- taken from an earlier Vic trip. But the right end of the human sandwich (pictured) was our purty-party-hostess for Thursday eve and we got to see her rad pad & drink wine & eat cheese with her at The Mint restaurant (not that I have any photos to prove this claim, but....)


Day Two of the Witchy Weekend was spent checking out the bunny-ful UVic campus.

Boys & Bunnies held our focus fully, but we also found time to buy some "athletic gear" (ha ha!) at the campus bookstore -- not to imply that there was any athleticism attached to the weekend's activities, aside from our sauntering between the hotel & restaurants & clothing stores & the fact that we wagged our tongues so much during marathon gossip sessions that we almost needed resuscitation!!


By Day Three, shopping fever struck.

Luckily, Dr. J was in the house and cured us (quickly) with a trip to Patch! (not that this *$&% blog will accept the killer pix I took there or anything....)

After negotiating some sweet deals in the clothing & jewelry departments, we mentally jogged out to lunch for our imagined health-food indulgence (Noodlebox had a line-up.... damn!).

The last eve (my birthday!) was spent in the presence of the lovely ladies below (not the one holding the massive water bottle, tho...). They graciously treated us to sups at this funky Italian restaurant called Zambri's --- where we accidentally (but happily) munched on fried octopus & spicy tapas - why couldn't our Sicilian companion translate the menu?

After a nearly fatal final night of female chatter, we awoke on the fourth day, looked around for a Noodlebox (.... noodlebox?)... packed up, jumped in the car and promptly got lost.

Octopus musta made us a bit smarter, tho, because we finally found our way to the ferry terminal and the long (mathematical) drive home.

The weekend count was: wine bars visited (3), restaurants pigged out in (4, maybe 5), clothes bought (lots), beans spilled (50), noodlebox eaten: (0). Warning Noodlebox: we shall return!

Ya Ya Wine Weekend

Ya-Ya SisterSpeak: "Which Way to the Wine Festival?"







I'm thinking that this weekend will go down in our family history books as one that required mucho recovery (ouch)!

Present for this wine-0-rama were... my mum's many zany sisters, plus Wunderfull Winnipeg cousins & kooky kid, plus Awesome Ottawa cousin, plus Ever-Lovely Edmonton friend, plus a few fun tagalongs here & there, as well! Phew. Needless to say, wine flowed all weekend, along with conversation and food and craziness (did they really dance to Bryan Adams on Saturday night??)....

On Saturday, the requisite day-o-touring was performed here in Kelowna -- with visits to Summerhill Winery, St.Hubertus and Cedar Snobby Creek (the last winery being too damned uptight to even bother tasting there.... seriously, a reality check for folks-working-at-local-wineries: it's Kelowna fer gawd's sakes...as in, l'il ol' Canada! not the snotty south of France! )

Then it was off to Carmelis Goat Cheese heavenly cheese shop for delectable samples of their extremely wine-friendly products (which we later consumed in mass quantities at home!). Then a quick trip up to Mission Hill Winery to see if we could make their wimpy wineshop staff cry (I won that competition in record time, too!!) and Quail's Gate for a last stop on the Kelowna arm of the tour.

By Sunday, we poured our remains into a few cars and drove down to Oliver, at the South end of our Okanagan grape growing region, for the annual Festival of the Grape and Grape Stomp competition (note, a few pictures up, that even the youngest generation was enticed to smush grapes between his toes!.... which, by the way, were not washed at all for the rest of the weekend...!)


Grape Stomp is a festival that's growing in popularity down here, due mostly to the fact that, well, it rocks. Killer music all day (see funny, "puffy" photo of The Nylons above), awesome & various food, lotsa hippie-inspired clothes & jewelry and, of course, wine wine & more wine to slosh into your glass & then gulp down yer gullet (as demonstrated by this hairy pair at left!)

And somehow, our livers and this little fella below survived the whole weekend. Which begs the question: will Grape Stomp become an annual event for the Ya Ya Familyhood? I know that if we buy just a few more cap-guns, that one little critter will already go out & buy his plane tickets tomorrow!!

Hum for the Holidays

Lesson One: "How to be Tourists in your Own Town"

First --- make sure that your hometown has a big lake, and is gorgeous and relaxing with a lovely climate.


So, last weekend, thanks to t-gold's ol' Famdamnly Bizness, we did a little boating around our local Okanagan Lake.

Lesson Two: Retain Friends in High Places

We happened to sail past a few new homes on the lake.... (did I miss a sweet stock investment or something....?) I'm pretty sure that every single NHL player with a new contract over $5 mil has bought and constructed a home on Okanagan Lake.

It certainly makes for a lotta examples of structures that we'd like to add to our house (next time we sign a longterm NHL contract, that is...)

We extended our holiday-around-home into the last few days & headed up to a quiet provincial park right on Okanagan Lake.

There, we parked Shaggy & then hiked the hills & lakeside trails and just generally hung out, eating cheese & chocolate and enjoying the late autumn sunshine Then it was back to ol' Allison place for some last minute, Sunday gardening in preparation for the week ahead....

Next weekend is the 1 millionth Okanagan Fall Wine Festival! (well... maybe it's only the 23rd festival or something, but it'll feel like the one millionth when WE'RE through!)!