More thrifting... and food, food, food -- Montreal adventures

I got to spend last week with Hebe in Montreal. We had plans to go thrifting and I asked her what her favourite thrift store was.  

Churches was her answer. I agreed with her, but that destination would have to be for another trip.

I had to be more specific with my question....  what is your favourite thrift store in Montreal?  Value Village on Jean Talon was our destination,.

Among other things, Hebe found this super cute sweatshirt that fit her perfectly.

When I went to look at the tag for the price, I noticed it was  Kate Spade shirt.  Hebe is infamous for her eye for designer clothes. "Hebe, I exclaimed, did you know this was a Kate Spade shirt?"  She just gave me a sly grin.

I left with 3 new cookbooks, which I will blog about on the Larch Kitchen Blog.

My first evening in Montreal, we did some meal planning and went to buy groceries. Hebe was interested in making zucchini sticks (thank you air fryer), so that was on the menu for our first evening together as a side for our BBQed burgers.

The day after we went to Value Village, I realized my debit card with missing.  A call over to the store confirmed that I have left it there.  So back for more shopping and more great thrift finds by Hebe.  

In the same little strip mall there is a big Asian grocery store -- one of Hebe's favourite. She wanted to show it to me. We had a great time shopping there.  The produce section was just beautiful. Everything so fresh -- and soooo many kind of beautiful mushrooms. I told her that her aunt Rebecca would be in love with all these mushrooms, to which Hebe replied (with her signature sly grin) -- but how do you know they aren't poisonous?  But her absolute favourite part of the store is a back room behind the meat section where they have all their live fish, and entire fish that are on ice.  We had so much fun checking them all out.  Hebe told me she loves the smell of fish. We deided to get two big salmon steaks cut off a fish right in front of our eyes.  And the next day we BBQed it.  Sooooo delicious.  Hebe said she wants to get the red snapper next time, Eric's favourite.  I told her I wasn't sure I was ready to go for the live fish yet.  I prefer to have someone else harvest and gut it for me.

Duncan and Fireworks in Japan (photos!)

Duncan is coming to the end of a year in Japan?!  He keeps saying he is going to blog his photos, but it just hasn't happened yet.  :-).   But he did send these photos last night (thanks Whatsap), and said they could go to the blog.  He reports:

 

"We just went to a fireworks festival in Tokyo.  Behind us, there was an orange ligntnin storm which I was far more interested in so I recorded about 30 minutes of video with maybe 10is oightning flashses that were amazing"

Here are the photos he sent (for those who love fireworks), and we will see if he follows up on his promise of video footage (for those who love lightning storms!)

camping out during the day to get good photos for nighttime?

 

Visiting Barcelona with Arta

Eric, Rebecca Rose and I are currently in Barcelona. Eric is attending a medical conferences and Rebecca and I are exploring the town. Who knew that during my 2024 trip to Barcelona, I'd be visiting places with Arta.

I sent a message to Bonnie for a list of things not to miss in Barcelona, and she sent me back the links to all of Arta's blog posts from her trip to Spain in 2010. How did I miss those??? I think I was too busy to read them back in 2010. In fact I'm sure I was too busy. It was Christmas time and I had 3 X ten-year olds at home.

So here I am nearly 15 years later going back to Arta's blog posts, seeing Barcelona through her eyes, and comparing notes. Don't miss reading Arta's Blog post about the dog outside the Picasso museum as it is priceless. I enjoyed reading about her experience and although we didn't get to see doggydoodoo soccer, we did get to see the Picasso reinterpretation of the Valazquez painting, Las Maninas. Here are a few of my favourite paintings from the collection.

This is the final Picasso black and white version Arta references in her blogpost. In the Picasso Museum in Barcelona you can also see the colorful, playful versions of several characters.

And of course, this version with a piano player, with his foot on the famous dog. Wonder if the dog in this painting resembled the one Arta and Bonne saw on the streets of Barcelona?

It's been so much fun visiting Barcelona with Arta.

Caravan Theatre (The Bear and the Proposal)

A summer at the lake is just not complete without a trip to Caravan Farm Theatre.  For years, I have been wrangling up the kids to see the outdoor show.  It does involve a small road trip to get there (4886 Salmon River Rd, Armstrong, BC V0E 1B4), but it is always worth it.  There is not really anything that quite compares to open air theatre, and there is generally a horse or two that shows up on the stage at some point!  :-)

Janet pressed me to join her on the night that she and her work colleagues were attending.  Always fun to go with others.   So, Bonnie and I grabbed Alice Johnson to join us (since she has just started doing Storybook Theatre this year).

the.playbill!

The play this year was "The Bear and the Proposal: An Okanagan Wedding Party".  According to the website, it was to be an adaptation of two "hilarious" plays by Anton Chekhov.  I don't know about the rest of you, but the words Chekhov and hilarious didn't really go together in my imagination (I have seen Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard, and while both were amazing, the word "hilarious" did not come to mind).

Musicians at work in front of the stage, minutes before it started

As always, we try to read up in advance.  Bonnie, Alice and I headed out to DQ in advance to share a meal before driving, and to find out everying that google could tell us about this adaptation of the two stories.   

And, big surprise?  We leared that Chekhov did in fact write stories that were along the vaudville line.  Go figure?!  

Further, we learned that the adapation of two of his stories ("The Bear
" and "The Proposal") would also be set in the Okanagan in the 1860s-1900s, and would feature musicial numbers.  In short, it was a bit like Baz Lurhman's Moulin Rouge, with contemporary songs being drawn into a new context (ie by Alannis Morrisette, Limp Bizkit, Bryan Adams, Willie Dunn...). 

the lights on the bleachers at the end of the night

At the beginning, we (the audience) got to hang out in the pavillion, while the actors/singers (all in costume) wandered around chatting with the audience.  We also go to listen to Randy Williams (Splatsín) drum and sing songs for us.  I really loved hearing him sing.  It was a particular treat since he is also one of the community participants who was interviewed in the first Secwepemc Lands and Resources project with ILRU!

Bonnie, me, Janet and Alice in a 'nighttime shadow selfie'

The plays themselves were well  set up (great intro by Jani Lauzon), in ways that invited us to think not only of 'marriage' but of all the ways we can think about making kinship with others in the world, and of better ways to build relationships across difference.  And then it set the Chekhov stories in a way that did so much teaching of local history, without feeling in the least like a lecture.  I was in awe!  And laughed my guts out.  And felt a bit weepy at points (in a good way).  

Moon above the trees as we walked to the car

It was a perfect evening, enjoying the amazing actors, musicians, props, horses and chickens (no chickens were injured in the play! lol).  As the night went on, and sunset arrived, the artificial lights came on.  Couldn't have been better.

To close, some shots of the moon hanging in the sky as we returned to our car, for the ride home (which included Alice sharing her favourite songs from the show with us, so we could do a 'sing-a-long' together).

a moon caught in the trees?

a full close up (80X zoom)

I am a bit sad to be writing up this post after the fact rather than before, since if the show were still running, I would absolutely go again!   

Early morning cirrus clouds (from Janet)

Janet was up early (July 24), and caught these amazing cirrus clouds spread out across the morning sky.

A big 'wow' to that moon, still floating in the morning sky above the trees.

Having a view like this would make it almost a pleasure to hang out the laundry, eh?   Clothes drying against that fluffy backdrop?  Would it make the clothes carry a 'cloud scent'?

sunset on a smoky day

Sunday night we did a get a rather glorious sunset.  Yes, the wildfire smoke contributed to the beauty, but there you go.  Here are the photos I caught.

the sun on the water was liquid gold

For fun, here is 9 seconds of the water in video form:

The colour of the sun on the water was amazing.   I kept yelling at the kids to swim over to the left so i could get a photo of them in the gold.  When i was yelling "It's gold!", Alice kept yelling back, "No, its not too cold!" (but then didn't swim over towards me so i could catch a photo of them in it.  :-).  But both Jaimie and Tim humoured me.

Tim and Jaimie in the water!

Still Tim and Jaimie, but with the full background

My hope was to get some good closeups of the sun going down.

trying to fit the full sun in the frame

a bit more distance to capture scale

With the closeups, you could see more clearly some of the clouds wafting between me and the object of my desire (the sun.... admittedly quite a ways away!)

Here are a couple of video clips to round out the experience.