Is My CARP Card in the Mail?

Yesterday I was cruising through a collection of high flavour, low fat recipes where I came upon this recipe for mushroom and wild rice stew...nothing sounded more like a fall flavour to me than an entire stew made of mushrooms and wild rice - yum yum yum.

Even though I promised Buzz I'd stay out of the grocery stores this week and "make do" with what we have in the pantry (a fun little game, if ever there was one because it really challenges you to be creative with what's on hand) I decided that I neeeeeeded to make this recipe even though I had no wild rice on hand. So...on my way home from town I stopped at our local Bulk Barn to get some. An aside here, if you've never shopped in one of these places - OMG it is the best thing since sliced bread because they have everything - except sliced bread actually - in neat, tidy, CLEAN, containers and you only have to buy the amount that you actually need. If you're a baker this is pure joy because they have all sorts of things that go into baking that you can't find at the local grocery store. Last May when we were in Nashville I stocked up on 6 boxes of Kikkoman Panko crumbs because our local grocery stores don't carry Panko. Imagine my delight when I saw that the Bulk Barn carries it! Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, so I decide to make this recipe and stopped by the Bulk Barn to pick up the 1 cup of wild rice called for. I got my rice and stood in line behind the ONLY cashier open (okay I said I liked their products, but not necessarily their customer service) who must have been new to the job because she asked her customer the contents of every bag she was ringing through. At this particular Bulk Barn you don't have to label your bags (except for spices) because apparently it's part of the training that cashiers can identify the contents of each bag on sight. Yesterday this was not so much the case and because of this, the check-out process was painfully long. Finally, at long last and after walking by the line-up that is now 10-people deep at least four times the 2nd cashier opened her register and called "the next person in line" over.

I happened to be "the next person in line" but some spry old lady behind me jumped the que ahead of me. Well, you know I can seldom contain my thoughts and there they were written all over my face...something along the lines of: "are you freakin' kidding me? I have ONE freaking item and you, YOU who has been BEHIND me for the last 10 minutes jumps right over to the newly opened cashier?". I don't care if she was an old lady or not, what made her time more important than mine?

Well, as I said, it's written all over my face and for once, the newly opened cashier realized what happened and actually told the old broad to wait one moment while she rings in the customer who was next in line...who happened to be me!

So, big bonus points for customer service, right?

Sort of.

Things were going swimmingly, she i.d.'d my rice, weighed it, rang it in and then looked at me and asked "Do you qualify for our Senior's Discount?"

W.T.F.?

Perhaps the Oil of Olay isn't doing what it's supposed to, or perhaps it was because I was coming from the gym where I had done 30 straight minutes of uphill climbing on the eliptical, followed by 20 minutes of race-walking on the treadmill followed by 30 minutes of swimming laps so yeah, maybe I wasn't looking my best. But Senior's Discount? Really? There once was a time when I was 15 I was thrilled to be mistaken for someone old enough (18) to get into a bar, but now? Now that I'm on the downward slope of my 40s? Not so much.

I'm guessing that in the future I will only stop by the Bulk Barn when I am fully coiffed and made-up. Either that, or I'm going to have to forge a CARP card and get that freaking discount!

Here's the recipe for the Wild Rice & Mushroom Stew:

Ingredients:

1-1/2 tsp olive oil

2 cups leeks, finely chopped (about 2 large leeks) - white parts only

2 cups shiitake mushrooms (I used regular they were just fine), sliced

1 cup carrots, diced

3 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp salt

1 cup uncooked wild rice

Those are the basic ingredients, I also added a bit more salt, a whole lot of freshly ground pepper and about a tsp of ground sage...perfect, but you can season to your own taste.

Method:

Heat oil in large skillet, add leeks and mushrooms and sautee until tender, about 5 minutes.

Spoon leeks and mushrooms into a 4 or 5 quart slow cooker. Add carrots, broth, salt & rice. Cover and cook on low 6 to 7 hours.

Yields about 1.5 cups per serving.

Then "Poof" it was Gone!

As I was laying in bed last night thinking about what to write today I came up with a brilliant idea. I lay there looking at the full moon outside our window and wrote the whole blog in my head. Then I rolled over and fell asleep.

I guess I should have gotten my lazy ass up out of bed and written something down, because now that it's the light of day again, I have no idea what I was going to write about. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Instead, I'll tell you with a couple of tales from the Big City...of Charlottetown.

Yesterday I was driving to town down University Ave., and while I idled at a stop light I looked over to see a middle-aged lady bent over putting something into the trunk of her car. She was wearing powder pink track pants and Mickey Mouse underwear. How do I know this you might ask? Well, her powder pink track pants were so thread bare that when she bent over and stressed the very fabric that covered her abundant derriere, well, enough daylight got in that I could see the outline of the head Mousekateer emblazoned on her rump.

Don't judge, but it gave me a good chuckle.

Last week I was leaving town, heading north on Queen Street, which for those of you that have been here, may recall that it is the main thoroughfare in downtown Charlottetown. This time of year is still crazy busy in the city with tourists mixing with businessmen mixing with students arriving back on the island for college. So lots of traffic both on wheels and on foot.

Now, Charlottetown is known for its shitty drivers - I kid you not - at a four way stop when four vehicles approach the stop-sign at the same time no one ever knows who is supposed to go first (hello...."right" of way mean anything to anyone?? I think not!) Anyway, with the city being so crowded, I take extra caution when driving through because you know, it would really wreck someone's vacation if I hit them with the Cranberry Cruiser.

So anyway, there I was, sitting at the stoplight at Queen & Kent Streets (the busiest of the busy intersections) just minding my business, waiting for my light to turn green when I scanned the crowd of pedestrians waiting for a crossing signal. As I said, there were all sorts of people, tourists, locals, businessmen, students. And then there was the lady with the crocodile.

Yep.

She was standing at the light waiting for a crossing signal with a crocodile (it might have been an alligator, I wasn't really close enough to discern) tucked under her arm. It wasn't a plush toy croc. It was a very real and I'm pretty sure used to be live crocodile.

Anyway, the sight of her crossing the street in front of me with this reptile tucked under her arm has not left me for over a week. I wonder where she was going? I wonder why she felt she needed to bring her croc. with her? It falls under the things that makes me go "hmmmm."

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

No, Buzz and I are not headed to D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Court. In fact today, when I got home from the gym and found that he had emptied the dishwasher on his own accord, without being asked even, I fell in love with him all over again. No the break-up I'm talking about is with my hairdresser. The time has come for me to make like the split-ends on my head and find another stylist who can better deliver the hair cut I want. You realize of course, that this is almost as bad as breaking up with a boyfriend? Except you can't use the old line "it's not you, it's me" because it most definitely "is you and not me"...as in, the haircut you keep giving me is more "you" than "me."

It's not the first time I've changed hairdressers. Hell, living in 6 places in the last 10 years, I'm used to making that change every few years or so. The best hairdresser I ever had was in Atlanta - she could do my lid like no one else before or since. When I moved to Maui and went for a haircut, I asked the guy to "texturize" my hair. My hair is VERY fine. VERY straight. VERY thick. And as such, in order for it to not look like seaweed on a rock, it must be thinned out every time it's cut. This guy, in his effort to texturize my hair took pinking sheers to it and had his way with my head. The result was that it didn't look like seaweed on a rock. No, instead it looked like a giant ball of fuzz poking out of my modified Bob. Then there was the $200 highlights at a salon in Vancouver, where, when I had first moved to the city, I asked for a recommendation and was told this salon and that stylist was "the guy" in the city to handle my hair. Unfortunately, his definition of highlights and mine were not in the same dictionary, let alone on the same page. I exited his salon with a head of platinum blonde hair and for those of you who read this know...blonde has never grown naturally from this head and so, I looked like a washed out old has-been, with over processed hair. I went back the next day and made him re-do it for free, but still, the whole episode was fraught with trauma.

So you can understand my hesitation in deciding to change hairdressers. When we moved to the island I asked an acquaintance for a recommendation and she gladly gave me the name and number of her stylist. And while she had a rainbow of colours in her hair, I thought her cut was rather au courant, and so I booked my first appointment. At the time, I was growing my hair out so that I could have an Up-Do for our wedding. My hairdresser listened closely to my objectives and really didn't do anything objectionable with that cut or subsequent visits for colour either and so I kept on going.

When it came time for the all important Up-Do for our wedding, I ended up with a stylized production that was more PEI Prom Hair than middle-age sophisticated Up-Do, but...by then, what was I to do? I was walking down the aisle (or the beach actually) in less than 2 hours and so, as a first time bride at the tender age of 46, I now have wedding pictures with hair straight out of High School Musical, The Middle Ages.

We've been married over a year and still I have continued to go to the same hairdresser even though I haven't been particularly enthralled with my hair. I guess I had enough change in the last year what with quitting my job, moving cross country, setting up a house, looking for work, getting married, teaching, etc., etc., etc., I just kept putting off the decision to change hairdressers.

Last week I decided enough already! I need a new lid and clearly I'm not going to get the style I want with my current provider of hair care services. I mean, how many different ways do I need to say "I'd like a chin-length bob, blunt cut on the bottom with lots and lots and lots of layers (and texturizing) throughout the rest of the cut. I need lift at the back and above my right eyebrow" before I actually get that haircut? Is it too much to ask? Buzz often says that the place he gets his hair cut should change their name from "First Choice" to "Her Choice" because no matter what you ask for you get the cut the stylist wants to give.

I think he may have a point.

Anyway, here's hoping that with Tuesday's appointment with a new salon and a new stylist that we will see the last of this monstrosity:

End of the Week Roundup

Hey! It's Labour Day! And you know what that means? That's right...it's the end of summer. Oh I know summer doesn't officially end for a few weeks yet, but with the cool nights, crisp mornings and the school year starting next week, you know damn well it's time to put away those white shoes and start inventorying your turtlenecks.

She's been quite a week here on the island...with unexpected fireworks mid-week when Buzz's boss suddenly was no longer Buzz's boss. When he told me about the events that took place on Wednesday my one comment to the man whom I adore was simply "As the Controller your life is about to get wayyyyyyy busier than you can even imagine."

I guess I'm psychic because that has already proven to be the case and until they replace the GM I'm guessing my man will be living, breathing, eating and sleeping all things hotel.

In other news, local island muckety-muck and a guy that keeps our island politicians in check (or at least tries to) is now following me on Twitter! Little old me! This guy is a great island story, left school at a young age to take over his family gas station, eventually owns his own development company on the island with offices throughout the country and now is trying to drag our little island into the 20th century (you read that correctly) by say, changing some of the laws, perceptions and way they do things on the island. Sunday shopping anyone? Healthy competition on the island? Need a new mayor? I say: Go Tim Go!

I followed him first because, frankly, I like how he thinks, I like the change that he's trying to create here. Anyway, when I followed him, he reciprocated. Now I have 3 followers!

That last statement made me laugh. Aren't I the most popular girl?!

Oh, Hey, I'm Really Here!

I know my postings have been a tad...um...sketchy lately, mostly because I've been off my normal schedule. Buzz's car has been in the shop so I've been playing chauffeur to him...I've been hitting the gym for double workouts and this week I've been attending workshops at the local college in preparation of returning to teaching in a week or so. So yeah, very busy...that's me!

Yesterday's session "Orientation for New Employees" was a bit of a melange of topics - everything from benefits offered (only to full time employees - oops, not me) to results from the employee engagement survey (only full time employees get to take this survey, again, not me) to ISO Quality 9001: 2008. I nodded off through this session...it was something about ensuring the institution maintains their "quality" rating. Frankly, after being told earlier in the week that a student's "effort" was good enough to get a passing grade (but you know, no real requirement for ACTUALLY getting the work right) I really didn't think the college had a lot of credibility in the "quality" department.

So, I spent the day sort of half-listening to a bunch of topics that had little or nothing to do with my employment. And just when I thought the day had been a total waste of my time, the guy that heads up the Facilities department took the stage and began talking about "Lockdown." Holy shit..."Lockdown." Like Columbine lockdown. Like Virginia Tech lockdown. Like Montreal Polytechnique lockdown.

I had honestly never really thought that trying to teach first year college students how to write a business document could actually put me in a position where I could be in lockdown. With lots of statistic ("Don't think it can't happen here, because it happened here, and here, and here and here and here and don't think that the incidents are decreasing because you know in the last 10 years only 10 people have lost their lives to fire, but 62 have lost their lives to gunshots in North American schools") - was enough to keep my attention and of course to set my imagination into spin mode. I now know how to assess my line of sight in my classroom and should an incident occur I know where the safe zone is. I now know that I need to keep myself and my students low to the ground and silent...just like the room was unoccupied. I now know that if it can happen there, there and there...there is no reason it can't happen here.

Funny, those things seem so far away when they happen in Montreal, Virginia or Colorado. But after yesterday's presentation, those places don't seem so far away after all.

Random Immaterial List of Stuff

Because I have been racking my brain for the last 4 hours trying to come up with something blog-worthy, I have FINALLY decided to just jot down some random thoughts and um...stuff that has occurred to me lately:

• Autumn should not begin in August. Summer this year got here late (July 11th) and has evidently left early (August 23rd) - leaving us with daily high temps of 16-degrees.
• One of my dog's feet smell like Fritos. Odd that I know this. Odder still that they smell that way when they've never been near a bag of Fritos insomuch as I can tell.
• The summer story line of the Young and the Restless is getting on my last nerve. Sharon needs to pick a man - or better yet...DON'T. Victor needs acting lessons. Ashley cannot possibly be dumb enough to believe she's still pregnant? And those two fools Gloria & what's his name - enough already! Perhaps I need to take a break for a while and pick it up again next year. Not that much will have changed, but, clearly, I'm getting way too emotionally involved here.
• Number of tomato sandwiches I've eaten since returning from vacation 1.5 weeks ago: 14.
• Number of laps I can swim in a half hour: 50.
• Number of laps I thought I could swim: 15. So, clearly, I am better then I gave myself credit for.
• Did you know that you should NEVER put baking soda on wet carpet? Trust me on this one.
• School starts in less than 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure it will give me plenty of blog-fodder, which is a good thing considering "Buzz" has been decidedly short of material for me lately.

Buzz comes home early tonight. Perhaps he'll do something blog-worthy for tomorrow's entry!

Only on The Island

Oh there are LOTS of things I could write about with a headline like that...such as ONLY on The Island do you sell your vehicle from your front lawn instead of trading it in for a new one. ONLY on The Island is the busiest restaurant on a Sunday night your mother-in-law's kitchen table. ONLY on The Island is the healthcare for animals superior to that available for people.

But, it's Monday and that seems like such a negative way to start the week, so instead I'll tell you about what happened here yesterday.

Yesterday was a cloudy threatening-to-but-never-really-did-rain Sunday so Buzz decided to run to town to rent a carpet cleaner to steam clean our basement carpet which recently took a brutal beating as a direct result of too much 'shine and not enough common sense. Anyway...so I was sitting at my computer, face unwashed, hair all astray, stains from breakfast smeared across my white tee-shirt when the doorbell rang.

Now, I don't know what happens in your house when the doorbell rings, but here in the OBB a ringing doorbell results in the following dialogue from Snickers and Gidget:

THE DOORBELLLLLLLLL! THE DOORBELLLLLL! SOMEONE IS RINGING THE DOORBELLLLL! PEOPLE!!!! PEOPLE!!!! PAY ATTENTION!!!! INTRUDERS ON OUR PORCH!!!!! THEY ARE RINGING THE DOORBELL!!!!!! ANSWER THE DOOR!!!!! THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE!!!! HERE!!! RIGHT HERE!!!!! AT THE DOOR!!!! RINGING THE BELL!!!!!

All said at the top of their very barky lungs. You'd think they were killer watch dogs instead of two lazy ass pooches who spend their day rotating from one bed to the next.

Once I finally wrangled the beasts back into the kitchen I opened the door to a bright eyed and shiney faced young lady and her boyfriend. Now you know we've had people die in our house (you can read all about Frieda here), but this young gal...she was BORN in our house!

She and her boyfriend were vacationing from Nova Scotia and were driving past our house when she convinced him to pull in and knock on our door. She said to him "Hey, it's PEI, of COURSE if someone's home they'll let us in." And she was right. It didn't matter that I looked like the wreck of the Hesperas, of course I let her in.

She was so excited to tour the house, reliving flashbacks from her childhood - like the time her mom got locked out in the middle of the night so climbed the roof of our porch and knocked on her sister's bedroom window in order to be let in. Or, the time she smashed a porcelain baby-doll by accident and her grandmother sat her on our kitchen counter and comforted her with raw cookie dough. Or, the fact that what is my office used to be her bedroom and in our bedroom was where she and her two sisters would climb into their parents bed to watch the Care Bears.

She was surprised to see hardwood floors in our living room - when it was her living room it was covered in wall-to-wall carpet. When she was having a bad day she used to play hide-out in the crawl space under our staircase. She used to climb in our apple trees and the one tree that we thought was a pear tree is actually a hybrid of some sort with pears growing on one side and apples on the other...at least that's what she recollected.

It was nice to see someone so excited to visit their childhood home. It was her parents that bought our house and restored it after years of neglect and abandonment. They put in the basement, added the mud room, installed the wrap-around porch. They renovated every square inch of the place. They started before she was born and finished when she was about five...just before they sold it and moved away.

We will always have great memories of our time in this house - the first house we owned together, the first place we've knowingly lived with a ghost, the house where we were married. But it was nice to see the light in someone else's eye who lived her life here too. Only on PEI would a perfect stranger knock on your door like that.