To Sum Up: Transatlantic Moves and Hangovers Make Poor Bedfellows

Image credit: author

This will be short. 

We move in less than a week, packing up five entire lives into bags and boxes, to travel by air and sea, not sure when we will be in our home or with our belongings again. 

We've also been partying hard. As London opens, all the events that have been cancelled or postponed have hit with a suddenness that has tasked my wardrobe, endurance, and liver function. The last few weeks (aside from the week-long holiday in the Lake District and Edinburgh) have been a whirwind of social engagements — some official — and many, many goodbyes.

We are sad, tired, stressed, excited, overwhelmed... and feel so grateful for the good friends and lovely communities that have embraced us in our London adventure. We hope we have told them, enough, how much they mean to us, how full are hearts are as we leave.

Four years ago this week, we were doing this exact thing in Ottawa. My phone flashes up photos and videos daily, of  'on this date' of our kids (four years smaller) running around our old street, the one we're returning to in... 5 days? 14? 19? We don't know yet.

But, we're going home.

Early Morning Tails

One of these mice is a total jerk. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

As the elevator door opened, the man was waiting for us. Lin attacked first, a flurry of well-aimed kicks and punches, but the man was faster. And he had a gun.

The shot rang out, and she slumped to the ground.  I paused for only a second, then leapt over her to take my turn. He caught my ankle on the second kick, but I had a crowbar at the ready. Done. Shaken, I stumbled over his body and made my way to the sofa, on which I sank, trembling. The elevator was still open, Lin's motionless back to me, her dark hair spilled out in a pool onto the tile. My assailant wasn't moving either, but I wasn't going to trust that he was dead; not yet. 

A sudden movement outside the window revealed that help had arrived; a uniformed person on a rope ladder swung from a ladder and slid open the balcony door, and I--

What's that?

It sounds like chewing. 

It's not chewing. Go back to sleep. Get back to that cool dream. 

No, it's chewing, definitely. 

But we fought so hard! We were about to be rescued! 

A squeak. 

In the darkness, Chris's head pops up, too. 

"Mice."

Simply Having a Wonderful Houghmastime

The moon is right, the spirits up

As Christmas 2019 starts to fade into the rearview mirror, we want to capture some of the more memorable moments.

Vaughn's submission to the Marylebone Christmas card competition.
He didn't win, but we liked it the best.

As always, December was mild, if rainy, and a busy, busy time, full of receptions (Chris and I), so many birthday parties (kids), and far too much merrymaking (Wine. So much wine). These are some of the fun-and-weird highlights of the holidays this year:

The choir of children sing their song

We're pretty sure Vaughn was on the stage, too. We think.

The season kicked off with the older two singing at the Marylebone Christmas Lights concert, where fake snow and street food made everyone merry. All three sang in their school concert as well, and even Tamsin's Grade 2 class' version of Ding Dong Merrily on High was not only recognizable, but rather good: a Christmas miracle, as it were.

Ailsa's first violin concert. She rocked.

And Ailsa performed at her first violin concert! She's only been playing since September, but is already getting a lovely sound out of a potentially horrifying instrument.

The party's on

This is the real DeLorean from Back to the Future. The kids were sort of impressed.

Amidst the flurry of parties and outings (and too much wine almost every night!), our good friends invited us to an amazing night out at a luxury car showroom, surrounded by food, wine and entertainment, where we and the kids mingled with London's elite. They also sat in the actual, real live car from Back to the Future, which we told them all about, and they thought was cool...until the next day when we let them watch the movie and their fuzzy little minds were blown. 

(No Beatles were injured) 

Christmas Eve in London. It's a hardship.

Speaking of the elite, a highlight, for sure, was on Christmas Eve, when we took advantage of a beautiful day to rollerskate and scooter to the park. The kids rolled on ahead down the sidewalk, out of reach/possibly out of control, while Chris and I followed behind with Ziggy. Half a block away, we saw a couple leaving their gate, with our kids bearing down on them like three, "Christmas hoodlums".

Or, at least, that's what Paul McCartney called them when Tamsin narrowly missed running him over. I apologized profusely, wished him and his wife a merry Christmas, and then skipped away. That's right. My takeaway is twofold: 1) I finally talked to Sir Paul, 2) without any inappropriate touching. Woot woot!

(Next time, I'll try to get a photo of him surviving a run-in with my children.)

A visit from St. Nick.

There will be a follow-up post in a few days for Christmas itself, but let me assure you that all were spoiled. Here's hoping that your holidays were as special and magical as ours were, and that you, too, had a simply wonderful Christmastime.

Huffling Adventures in Scandinavia!

Let us immediately lower our expectations.  By "Scandinavia", I mean "just Denmark".  By "Denmark", I mean "just Billund". 

And by "Billund", I mean, literally, "just Legoland".

Hufflings on safari spot the elusive Elephant-Made-Entirely-of-Lego

Astute readers (the subset who know about both Legoland and geography) might point out that there is, in fact, a Legoland in Windsor.  I knew this, but didn't really know where Windsor was, and assumed a four-hour drive or something. 

I just looked it up, and Google maps just showed me that it's 50 minutes away by car. 

And now I feel shame.

Because we woke up at 4am on Saturday, took a car hire to Stansted Airport, which is an hour and 12 minutes away by car.  That's right, we paid someone to drive us 22 minutes further away than the local, less-than-an-hour-away Legoland at an ungodly hour of the morning to go to an airport where we would board a plane that sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes, to fly for an hour and a half to an entirely different country, take a taxi to the hotel, and to start walking around Danish Legoland by about 11 am.* 

We did that.

Six Canadians get into a barrel...

Having never been to the Windsor Legoland, I can only assume that they are similar parks, but the one we went to was a great deal more Danish.  The weather was fairly miserable, cold and misty-then-rainy, but we were with another family, good friends whose kids are close in age and energy level (sorry, Denmark!) to ours.  For two great days, we went on rides, marvelled at giant, intricate Lego builds, and had a wonderful time.

The Legoland hotel was incredible - bins of Lego everywhere (so the kids were always building (guns) and happy), and our room had a Lego kingdom theme - very cool.  The restaurants and buffets were tasty but extremely expensive (for perspective, this assessment is from someone who flew to Denmark instead of driving 50 minutes, so imagine), but we consoled ourselves by surreptitiously putting snacks-for-later into the baggies I carried in my purse.  Classy.

Dinner with friends in their super cool Ninjago cabin.

Words I learned in Danish:  tak (meaning thank you), and toiletter (meaning toilet).  They don't seem to have a "please" -- which makes me very uncomfortable -- and I kept forgetting how to say sorry/excuse me (undskyld) while I was there.  (But now that it's too late, my mnemonic is that unskilled me can't remember how to say undskyld.)  (Clever, but too late.)  I also learned that the Lego you buy at Legoland is even more expensive than if you were to buy it at the airport Lego store, which seems very wrong and against the natural order of things, somehow.

Speaking of wrong... Honestly, Legoland, you are better than this.  For shame.

We were home again by 2:30 on Monday afternoon.  All in all, it was quite the experience, and reminded us again that everything here is just so ... close ... that "foreign" countries (not that foreign, really - I hear that there's a similar place less than an hour from here... kaff) are within our reach, and that we're very lucky to be able to hop on a plane for a weekend in Denmark, even if this trip (and necessary souvenirs) mean that less of our children will be going to university now!

Next adventure:  Ziggy goes to Normandy!  Stay tuned.

* In my defence, I didn't know any of this geography until just now, so I can only blame Fis, because even I would say that it was a ridiculous thing to do, had I known, and he is quite proud of both his knowledge of geography and of his inherent cheapskatery.  True, as a responsible adult, I probably should have looked into this sooner to see what, exactly, we had agreed to do, because looking back, it was a shockingly irresponsible use of our savings.  

But, did we enjoy it?

You bet.

Too Old to Snowboard/Too Cool to Care

It's February, which means... wait, what?  The kids have two weeks off?  Again?

Jeez.

...regroup...

...deep breath...

...game face on...

Nothing says, "I am excited to spend two weeks with my children" like kicking off the two weeks in question with a 13-hour drive to Austria!  Away!

Ziggy went to stay with his Uncle Paul for a week of pampering and delight to the extent that he probably considers it animal cruelty to come back to our place, but we were happy, he was happy, and Paul said he was happy, so... we go. 

The drive was quite nice, considering.   We took the Tunnel Shuttle (drive on to an industrial transport-y traincar, sit there for 45 minutes while you are zoomed through a tunnel under the English Channel, drive off in France), then drove through France on large toll highways.  We slept in Nancy, then drove off through Switzerland, and finally to Austria.  We saw lots of snow (mostly flakes, as it was almost blizzarding), mountains, some old ruins set high up in the hills, and discovered the very European joy of driving through tunnels that run through mountains.  We ate at exotic places like -- and forgive me if I spell this wrong -- McDonald's.  And that was Friday and Saturday.

Goggles make for happy (yet goofy) kinderHuffs.

Sunday was spent exploring the tiny-yet-extremely-steep town of Pettneu.  We took the skibus to St. Jakob to sign the kids up for skischule, organized our rentals, then went swimming at the wellness centre at the end of our street.  A good day of planning and exercise was had by all!

We carried our gear up the street to the skibus (so we were already exhausted by the time we got to the skibus).  The kids did skischule from Monday to Wednesday:  two hours in the morning, one hour lunch break, then two more hours in the afternoon.  After the first day, when I raced frantically down the mountain to pick up Tamsin in time for lunch (and then shared her 13-euro noodles with sauce and a glass of milk), and Chris raced frantically up the mountain to pick up the older kinderHuffs in time for lunch (crowded lodge, had to eat sitting on the floor), we decided that for an extra few euros a day, we could enjoy ourselves more by abandoning our children to eat lunch with their friends while we, well, enjoyed ourselves.  

Tamsin (ein kleine kinderHuff) and I, all ready to shush down the hills!

And away we went!

On the way up the hill in the gondola, a woman had asked me how long I'd been snowboarding.  "Ten years," I replied, not knowing how else to reply.  Ten years ago, I took six weeks of lessons!  And the seventh week, I went snowboarding with Chris and Knowlton!  And I haven't done it since!

The view from Gampen.  This was either slightly before or just after the sobbing.

So... yeah.  Ouch.  And whimper.  And pow, splat, and snif.  Every muscle (go ahead, test me on my musculo-skeletal anatomy - IT WAS LITERALLY EVERY MUSCLE) was sore by the time we got off the hill the first night.  The second night was even worse.  Worse than that, though, were the overwhelming emotions of being not very good at something while being terrified of hurting myself and/or dying and the kinderHuffs having to grow up without a mother, while feeling extremely guilty that Chris wasn't getting to enjoy his snowboard vacation because he was sitting in the snow for 4 minutes every 20 feet, waiting for me to get back up.  Add, as well, the panic of not getting down the mountain in time to pick up Tamsin for lunch...  and the embarrassment of all this on Hoppelweg, the bunny hill.  Classes of tiny European children snowplowed by me, over and over.  

Freakin' Hoppel.  

Snowplow:  check.  The kinderHuffs can SKI.

The girls prepare to show me what they've learned.

We (the elders) took Wednesday "off", taking the kids on the skibus, then having second breakfast, reading for a while, then going for a lovely-in-theory Valentine's Day Anniversary Run in the snow!  Apparently, a 4000-foot elevation change affects how hard you work.  But anyway, it was nice.

Happy Huffs, at Gampen (midpoint of mountain).

Thursday and Friday, I swapped the Snowboard of Death for Skis of Relative Competence, and acted as Tamsin's personal assistant/ski instructor.  By the Thursday afternoon, she could use the button lift by herself, and while Chris took the big kids up to the summit one at a time, we happily stuck to the beginner routes.  On Friday, it was warm and wet, and we made it to lunchtime before calling it a week.  

One last apres-ski, one last feast with Sue and Liam (who joined us on the Wednesday), and that was it.  We packed up the car, and drove the two days to come home. 

Lessons learned: 

• although snowboarding is super hard and maybe I should stick with skiing, or at least take another lesson or two, I am apparently unbeatable at Ticket to Ride
• long road trips with kids aren't as bad as you're afraid they will be
• books on tape save lives
• unlike in Canada, here you can see (drive through?) three countries in a day
• sometimes it's worth extra euros to drive on toll roads, especially when the weather is terrible
• sometimes it's worth extra time to drive over the mountains and through beautiful valleys
• nussschnecke is even more amazing as a food than it is as a word

Apres-ski in St. Anton, with Sue and Liam.  Bier, gluhwein, Heiße Schokolade...danke schoen!

Adventure Day in Adventure Playground with Intrepid Adventurers

Sunday was a cold, rainy, wet-snowy day.  Chris had left earlier in the day on a flight to Canada, and I thought that the kids, dog and I should get out for fresh air and exercise early in the day so that we could have a nice, cozy, relaxing afternoon in fuzzy clothes, not having to go outside at all because we don't have a dog that sometimes has to leave the flat to pee, even when it's cold and rainy and snowy.  (sigh)

Unrelated, I'm starting to (perhaps rightfully) worry that, a few years from now, when all three children are in therapy, someone will utter the word "adventure" and they will all twitch involuntarily.  I digress.

A few weeks ago, I walked through Holland Park and was startled by a random peacock.  Then another.  Turns out, the place is lousy with peacocks.  We drove past it on Saturday, and I mentioned it to Tamsin.  She told me that she'd never seen a peacock before.  "Not even a picture?" I asked.  

I seem to have failed the third child.

So, out we went in the very wet cold.  There was a bit of grumbling on the way, and once we got into the park, we had to slog through very muddy paths, but then we saw it...the Adventure Playground.  Due to the sleet, mud and cold, we were the only idiots people in there, so I broke some rules and brought Ziggy into the no-dog zone and let him offleash.  He and the kids ran around, exploring the amazingness.  

And then we saw it.  

THERE WAS A ZIPLINE!!!  (Did the all-caps give it enough gravitas?)  

The kids actually took turns and helped Tamsin bring it back and get on it.

Ziplines actually foster teamwork!  Who knew?

Zipline Law is very clear about the mandatory screaming of "Cowabunga!"

Ziggy enjoyed himself with a feather.  A large feather.  A large, brightly-coloured....waitaminute...

Tamsin saw her peacock, well, two peacocks, a peahen, and a fox.  And a suspiciously large pile of peacock-esque feathers.  We saw the fox several times (or possibly three different foxen), but bold as anything in the daylight.  He probably had a full belly and no fear.

The fun went on for about an hour, but the cold, wet, and mud added up to increasing crankiness from me (I wasn't on the zipline)... and then in some of the troops as well.

Shivering, muddy adventurer.  "Can I take off my socks?  They're wet."

The walk back to the tube station was considerably less exciting than the walk from, but the kids were highly motivated by the thought of Starbucks hot chocolate, which was conveniently available right beside said tube station.  So, yay!  Also, we wrapped Tamsin's wet feet in Ziggy's towel, which was very classy.

Wet, muddy, adventurers with hot chocolate.  (Well, not the dog, of course!  That would be crazy!)  (The dog has a puppuccino, which is seriously a thing.)  (England is so weird.)

We made it home eventually, despite one of the adventurers getting off the tube at Baker Street, unnoticed by me.  Luckily, Ailsa's outside voice alerted me (and most of Greater London) that Tamsin had escaped.  We got her back before the doors slid shut, but it was terrifying.*

When we got home, the kids were inside the flat, wet clothes in the washing machine, and into fuzzy jammies before I could even get my muddy shoes off.  Popcorn and peanuts, big glasses of water, and a movie later, and we all agreed it was a good outing...but I think we'll wait a little while for our next one.

Post-adventure, warm and dry in fuzzy clothes, settled in for a movie.

* All of the kids have been repeatedly drilled in what to do should they get off the tube alone or not make it onto the tube with the rest of the family.  So far, only one has been put to the actual test, and he failed miserably.  Luckily, it was a family outing, so Chris stayed with the girls and I flung myself back onto the tube like a movie star** after Vaughn, who had dropped his gloves.  We got to the next station, and I quizzed him (pop quiz!) about what he should do next (the correct answer is "get off at the next station and Stay There"), and he tried to cross the platform to get on a train that was on a different line altogether.  In short, should I have not been with him, I would still not be with him now.     

** Chris says that I did not look like a movie star, but he was probably just jealous that he didn't get to act like Keanu.***

*** Ha ha... ha.... "act" like Keanu.  I made myself laugh there.

Pond-hopping Huffs

Well, it’s out there in the public consciousness now, with special thanks to Chris (not Fis-Chris, but Fitness Chris) who announced it with a microphone at the gym a few weeks ago, when I wasn’t there (who does that?), and then I knew I had to tell work: 


We are moving to London.

 

Naturally, “London, Ontario?” is the first question that anyone asks.

 

Ummm…London, Ontario… I mean, you’re a nice city and all, but… no.  I was there for the Ontario Provincial Fitness Championships, way back in ’01 and ‘03 (winning in ‘03, thank-you-very-much-please-see-photo-of-when-I-was-awesome) (I had A VEIN ON MY ABS), and it seemed…nice.  I was there at some other time to visit Sean for his birthday (maybe in ’02?).  Great city, sure.

 

Photo of when I was awesome, circa 2003.  Sigh.

But no, we’re not going anywhere that convenient, close (everything is relative), or safe.

 

By “safe”, I mean, “what I’m used to” or “a place that I am employable in my comfort zone”.  Like – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – Medicine Hat.

 

The second question that everyone asks is, “But isn’t this the year that ‘nothing was going to happen’?” 

Yes, yes it was.

 

Last year, just in the span of four months, we bought a house, Tamsin started school, we got a dog, and I had somebody’s baby.  The years up to that involved scrambling with three babies/toddlers/preschoolers/kids, taking on more responsibility (and prestige!) at work, Chris being away for days/weeks/months at a time, recovering from basement flooding and renovations, having umbilical hernia surgery, and travelling to see family in Las Vegas and Halifax, while playing ball hockey, teaching fitness classes, and trying to remember not only what my husband looked like, but why I was married to him in the first place.  This was supposed to be the year that we just LIVE without having any kind of major change. 

 

Speaking of segues, the key -- if I may give out unsolicited advice -- is to be very careful and judicious when writing your wedding vows.  These are capital-V Vows, made out loud in front of a whole crowd of people that you know well enough to call you on it later, even if you don’t remember what you said, didn’t mean it, or wish you hadn’t said it.  On top of the ominous echo of “the rest of your life” that looms over every wedding day (can’t you hear it???), I made the grievous mistake bold move of publicly promising to not only love, honour and humour Fis (see?  I was thinking for that part, although I honestly didn’t realize how hard it would be to even humour him, sometimes*), but also to “follow him wherever his ambition takes us”.  Since that one sentence landed me in Medicine Hat, eight months after the wedding, you’d think that I would have asked for a re-do.   

 

But, 10 years later, here we go. 

 

The kids are all keen – for the few months before it became official, we talked up Quality Street, Cadbury, and Harry Potter.  We looked at Google Maps and wondered out loud how much we could travel, if only we lived over in Europe (aside:  does England still count as Europe?  Did you know that England is an island?  And do people still call it “England”?), and they were sold.  They even jumped up and down with joy when we told them.  They are already enrolled in a nice little school, and it sounds amazing.

 

Chris has a great job that is taking us there, and I have… the opportunity to do something new, “whatever I want”.  I will be cleaning my own (damn) house and walking my own (damn) dog.  I will continue to try to turn Ziggy into a well-behaved little mutt (or one of us will die trying).  Who knows, maybe I’ll even style my hair on a regular basis.**  I have certifications in fitness that are, I think, useless in the UK.  I have mad managerial and paralegal skills that are appreciated here in the Federal Government, but possibly/probably don’t translate into the work available at the Embassy… or maybe I don’t want to do that kind of work for a while.  I could write (for whom?  About what?).  Sightseeing, hosting visitors,*** dog-training, and Domestic-Goddessing the crap out of my household might hold me over for a while, but I can’t see me lasting for long without my own thing. 

 

If only I knew what that was.

 

So, what would you DO (not just “do”, but “DO”) if you were me?  I am open to any and all suggestions - email me or call me with them, and I'll seriously consider every one.**** 

 

 

 

* Also, he points out that this blog doesn't exactly "honour" him.  Piff.

** Well, probably not, but I could.

*** Guest room/pull-out sofa in living room.  Nuff said, come visit.

**** Submissions so far include "French training" in England, a Master's degree, and "Finishing School".  Humph.

Hey! A Meatball!

The Ongoing Adventures of a Boy Named Vaughn

Before leaving the Hat, V checks out the empty cupboards.

So, the V-man is growing and changing before our eyes. On the first morning in the hotel (leaving the Hat, October 15th-ish?), Vaughn said his first sentence. Chris had gotten up to get some fruit from the breakfast buffet, and Vaughn said, "Daddy take oranges Vaughn". Hey, there's a subject, and object, a verb... since then, he hasn't stopped.



It blows our minds to listen to the changes in just a month, but now he differentiates between wanting something ("Vaughn see dumptruck?" "Vaughn have more broccoli please."* "Vaughn ask Daddy for chips.") and actually doing it ("Vaughn holding Ailsa's hand." "Mommy eating chocolate with wine."). The kid is using verb tenses, often correctly! And possessives! And prepositions! He has a bunch of favourite words that are somewhat oddly pronounced, but I love listening to him say them... speakers on!

The downside, of course, is that he can now tattle on you really well.




The Meatball Incident



Since we didn't have Thanksgiving before the move, Mom and Dad offered to host it at their place, for everyone, on the Saturday night after we arrived. The whole fam damily was there: Tracey and Jason, Logan and Jodie, Uncle Ryan... and things went well till just after the delicious dinner (including pumpkin pie and birthday cake** for Grandpa), when Uncle Ryan said, "I think he's stinky."


Well, I am ashamed to admit that I didn't act on this information as quickly as I should have; I think I was distracted, or feeding Ailsa, or something. But about five minutes later, Logan shouted, "What is that?" And Chris thought, "Hey! A meatball!"


So, now we can look back and remember, fondly, The Thanksgiving that Vaughn Pooped on the Floor.

Nobody move! We seem to be missing a six...

Son of Halloweenie


Halloween was a hit again. He woke up that morning covered in vomit (boooo), and was a bit mopey all day, not wanting to wear his costume (skunk costume number two! Thanks, cousin Logan!).


Until the first kid, a little girl dressed as a witch, knocked on our door.

"Caaaandyyyyy!" she yelled, holding out her bag. Her dad, at the foot of the steps hung his head and said, "It's trick or treat."


"Oh, yeah," she said. "Trick or treat". (She was about 3.)


Well, Vaughn took one look at this, put two and two together, and dragged me over to the costume. "Vaughn skunk on."


So, out we went, and at the very first house, I told him, "Say 'Trick or Treat'", he said, "Tricker treat!" and got a handful of tricker treats (naturally), after which, I told him what to say: he bowed his little skunk head and said, "Sankoooo."*** The next house, he needed no coaching. At the third house, the woman gave him the tricker treats and then said, "Bye-bye, Skunkie!"


Well. Skunkie giggled his way to the fourth and final house, repeating "bye-bye Skunkie" the whole way. Daddy was a bit miffed to see us back so soon (hoping for a bigger haul, no doubt), but it was cold out, and I had a spider-girl stuck to me. Etcetera. Besides, too many tricker treats in the house just lead to demands and tantrums.










Grocery Shopping with Mr. Personality


Vaughn and I have this thing: we go grocery shopping every Sunday. Daddy stays home and does laundry, and Vaughn and I (and usually Ailsa, unless she's napping) go and have a good time. We browse the aisles, we talk about food, we put five apples up on top and V charms the pants off the sample ladies so that he gets things like ice cream and cookies while I'm looking at a label of bread crumbs or something.


But I digress.


We were walking through our local Loblaws, and went up to a sample lady who had cheese and crackers. She walked around her stand and told me that another sample lady had told her that I had the most beautiful baby she had ever seen, so she had to see her for herself. (Of COURSE I have the most beautiful baby! Biased, moi?) Ailsa apparently fluttered her lashes and flashed her a million-watt grin, and was appropriately cooed over. Vaughn, meanwhile, was munching away on his snack, happily ignored.


So the sample lady then realizes that she's leaving him out, turns to him and says, "Oh, and you're very handsome too." Vaughn looked at her very seriously, and said in a bored, of-course-I-am voice, "Sankooo. Bye-bye."





* Seriously. The kids loves him some broccolis.


** Vaughn, of course, loves birthdays. Or "Happy Jesus"-es, as he calls them, thanks to The Story of Christmas book that he has, because at the end, you say, "Happy Birthday Jesus!" or whatever you can pronounce at 22 months old, which is "Happy Jesus". The kid cracks me up.


***He's been using the sign-language "thank you" for about a year now, but only recently has even attempted to say the words. But, thanks to Let's Dance, Little Pookie, he now bows and says, "Sankoooo" like a pro. And he's very good at using it, much to my delight: "Sankooo, Mommy." Awww....

Urge for Going

I get the urge for going/
When the meadow grass is turning brown/
Summertime is falling down and winter's closing in.

Ah, Joni.

This is the last post, Hat-side. The packers come tomorrow, and the movers the day after that.

It's not as easy as it would have been last year, or even six months ago; with each day that passes, our roots grow deeper, and we create more memories with the friends we have made, and the eagerness to rejoin "civilization" -- as we've been calling it for the last three years, almost entirely due to the selection of restaurants -- is tempered with sadness: it's bittersweet.

We left Ottawa as newlyweds, which is different from best friends. We packed up and Went West, like you are supposed to do, on our Grand Adventure. We're coming back now, as best friends, and with two very permanent souvenirs, very much changed from the people we were.

We've learned that starting over is hard, but not impossible.

We've learned that great people are everywhere, and you can build friendships and bonds over the smallest things.

We've learned that cable is actually a good thing.

We've learned that we can survive on a whole lot less sleep than we thought possible.

We've learned that a baby can physically spit up more than 6 times what went in.

We learned that one good friend can get you through.

We've learned that a house becomes a home very quickly when you bring a baby home from the hospital.

We've learned that life went on, without us (gasp!), and that the Ottawa we're returning to isn't the one we left.*

But we've also learned that it's where we want to be.

So cheers to all who participated and shared in our Grand Adventure, making it so Grand. We look forward to this next one.



*For example, Vanier is now an "up-and-coming" neighbourhood. (see also, Dowisetrepla)

Adventures in Cooking: (Rat-a-too-ee) by Numbers

Becoming a DG (Domestic Goddess): the Quest continues

Last night's challenge was inspired by a totally fantastic Disney movie of the same name. The main difference between me and the chef from Ratatouille is that he's a clumsy redhead who has a Very Talented Rat on his head, controlling his cooking abilities, whereas I am just a clumsy redhead who WISHES she had a rat on her head... but I digress.

A little background on preparation, etc.

As I had a gym date with Meaghan after work yesterday, I knew I'd need to make a quick meal when I got home, since I also knew that SOMEONE would be cranky and hungry. We'll call this imaginary person "Fis".

I decided to start on Tuesday night, chopping and sorting all of my ingredients. Therefore, when Chris or I got home on Wednesday, we would just have to add the numbered baggies to the giant pot, and cook away! Also, it gave me something else to report to Chris on what I did all night, besides "my nails."

I peeled and chopped a medium eggplant and 2 unpeeled zucchinis into "1-inch cubes" (actually 2-inch rhomboids - my chopping needs work). They went into my "Ratatouille-by-Numbers Container #1". Three-quarters of a medium onion was chopped and put into baggie #2. After that, 2 red bell peppers were cut into (sorta) 1-inch (kinda) squares, as was one of those previously-mentioned one-clove garlics. They went into baggie #3. Everything went into the fridge, along with a baggie with two chicken breasts*. The big pot was put on the stove, with the salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaves, olive oil, and a can of diced tomatoes beside; everything was ready to go.

The creation of a culinary masterpiece

I got home at about 7:20 (Meg and I not only did shoulders and chest, but she also saved me from Creepy Gym Guy twice...then we needed a salad to wind down afterwards), and preheated our giant Mario Batali Italian Essentials 6 qt. Pot (thanks, Sean!) with a bit less than 1/4 cup olive oil, on high. In went the first baggie. For about 10 minutes, I stirred and flipped, until the zukes and eggplant were sort of golden. They were then removed, and the heat was reduced to medium-high.

Next, the onion baggie was emptied into the pot, with 2 more Tbs of oil (note that I didn't use the term "low fat" to describe this dish), and sautéed until it was translucent. Meanwhile, I chopped the chicken into wee bits, and added that, too. When the chicken was browned, I emptied baggie #3 in, and stirred the peppers and garlic around till they were soft.

In went the tomatoes (drained), with a few extra cherry tomatoes from Meg's garden, some thyme, a bay leaf, not enough salt** and pepper. Covered, the heat reduced to low, it simmered for 5 minutes. I added the eggplant and zucchini back in, stirred it up, and let the flavours meld for 20 minutes, then added the final touches: about 3 Tbs. finely chopped black olives and 1/4 cup of fresh basil from my garden. I ladled it into bowls, and served it...

The verdict

Very good! Chris would "ask for it again"! It's a beautiful dish with vibrant complementary colours, a great smell, and good texture, but would need more protein next time to boost the nutritional value. Also, I was so focused on the main dish that I neglected to add any carbs for the resident marathoner... next time, I'll make tea biscuits too.

This is an actual, unretouched photo of my ratatouille.

*Ratatouille is generally a vegetarian dish, a chunky, hearty, savoury vegetable stew, but hey, our household needs protein to maintain its MBQ (manly biceps quotient), so chicken had to be added, too.

**I consistently under-salt, which I contend is better than over-salting, but I hope to get to a happy medium at some point.