I'm a bit behind on my blog so I shall combine a few days.
On Thursday, Bruce and I went up to Ottawa to see my two cousins, Deb & Scott, on my mom's side. They are the children of my late Uncle Bobby. We spent a few hours and Deb & Jim's house. It's a beautiful house with Chinese furniture overlooking the river. We were outside enjoying the view for awhile but then it started raining, but it was a short but powerful rainstorm.
The rainstorm reminds me of something. It's funny the things you realize you don't have in your neck of the woods until you're someplace that has them. The rainstorm was one of them. It was a thundercloud type rain and we listened to the booming thunder clappers. In So Cal it's very rare to hear thunder. We get torrential rain but hardly ever any thunder. The other thing I realized we didn't have was the bushy-tailed tree squirrels. The real fat ones that chatter at you from the trees. We have scrawny ground squirrels with really thin tails.
So later, we went with the Pinard family to this restaurant and met up with Scott's family. It was the first time that I had met them. His oldest Donny was missing so I only met one son. Deb's family had come down to San Diego a few years ago so I had already met them.
The restaurant had a western-style theme and all the girls were in cowboy hats and Daisy Duke shorts. Our waiter actually looked like he could be a country & western singer. They had this way of cooking steaks that was a little odd. They bring it out on a stone so that it cooks at your table. The stone was 700 degrees, to which we all asked the waiter, Celsius or Fahrenheit? He didn't know. None of us except Deb's son was brave enough to have one. We couldn't quite figure out how large it was, would it burn though the table, and how often would we accidentally touch it. Turns out it was encased in a tray and wasn't that large. He said the steak was wonderful. I had a beautiful salmon.
Afterward, they were going back to Scott's but we figured we'd hit the road. Scott wanted us to spend the night but I had something to do the next day and didn't bring a change of clothes. Plus I was a bit tired. I had a wonderful time and was glad that I had a chance to see all my relatives on that side of the family while I was here.
While we were outside the restaurant I saw this huge store across the street called Hockey Life, or something like that. I asked Jim what it was and he said they sold hockey equipment and clothing. Wow, a store that large dedicated to hockey. I'm lucky if they have a rack of shirts in our store and if they do it's all the Ducks and Sharks. When we parted with everyone I looked over the stored looked like it was still open so Bruce and I headed over there. It was only open for 15 more minutes. Enough time for me! I walked in and it was a sea of Sens gear....figures. But I did manage to find a Leaf's long-sleeved shirt, a Red Wings mug, a Canada Hockey hat and a Olympics gold medal t-shirt. The mug was the only Wings gear I found there, they must either have a lot of Wings fans there or they are hated in Ottawa. I had to have the Olympic t-shirt, think I'll wear that on the plane LOL. It has Team Canada on it and GOLD in big letters. In 15 minutes I managed to spend about $100 LOL. Now that's a power shopper!
The next day I was supposed to meet Margaret Ann at Tate's Bakery for lunch. We were going to meet at 11:30 since she had to go to work. I waited until 12:30 and started to think that maybe I was at the wrong Tate's since they now had one uptown. That was the moment that I realized I can't live without my cell anymore since I couldn't use it up here (silly me, before I got it I thought that it was a luxury that I really didn't need). I went to find a payphone but they are few and far between these days. The one I did find was broken. So I thought, I'll just go to Aunt Verta's and use their phone. Good thing I did go because Louise & Ronnie were there and I hadn't seen them yet. Boy, is Ronnie looking like his dad Uncle Eddie (Verta's late husband) these days. So I called the house and Catherine said that Margaret Ann had called to say she was running late. Basically, she arrived right when I left. So I called Tate's to see if she was there. This is the conversation: "Hi, can you ask if there is a Margaret Ann there, I'm supposed to meet her." "What does she look like?" "Short and petite with short hair." "Does her hair have light streaks in it?" "Yes and she should be in a nurse's uniform or something like that." "Yes, there's someone here in a sort of scrubs uniform." "Yes, that's probably her." "Okay, I'll tell her." So then I'm thinking, she never verified that it was Margaret Ann but then Louise said, how many people would be in Tate's with scrubs on, short streaked hair, and petite. I forgot I was in a small town.
So I rushed down there and sure enough it was her. We had a nice little chat about growing up here. We didn't realize it until we were adults but Brockville was about the best place to grow up. It's the Mayberry of Canada. I'll talk about that later, this blog is getting a little long.
After she left for work I drove around and took photos of all the wonderful houses here. I went down to Blockhouse Island hoping that a ship would go by so I could take a photo but none did. It amazed me how many people are down there just sitting in their cars or hanging out at the park watching the boats go by.
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