Our Grizzly and other things that happened today

Our wedding anniversary — which I wrote about yesterday — was an interesting day.

I was left speechless by the bouquet; My Mother's Bloomers, with a bouquet called An English Garden, outdid themselves:

Dan also gave me a selection of coffee mugs, to see if one of them will suit me. I got in the habit of enjoying my coffee in one of the Christmas mugs and I've been using it ever since. Maybe there's an ancient belief that bad luck will befall the household if the Christmas mugs are used until well after Easter. Dan apparently wants to help me break my Christmas-mug habit so I'll try my best. The first one I tried was quite a tall designer mug from William Morris. It was nice. We'll see.

This, meanwhile, is Grizzly.

Grizzly has been feeling fine, eating, playing, having adventures etc. but has recently been having a problem with weight loss and hair loss. He's 14.

We put off taking him to his vet because it's such a nightmare to get him there. I had considered trying to get the vet to do a phone consultation. I thought about remortgaging the house to have a vet pay a house call but, in the end, Dan just phoned and made a straightforward appointment. We decided the day had come and today was the day.

I sat with my back to him and practically covered my ears while Dan and William imprisoned him in the carrier but, I'm happy to report, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been or as it was last time. I could tell as soon as he was in the carrier because his voice changes and he makes a true sound of distress. We loaded the carrier into the car and off we went and the distress calls never stopped. The vet is only a few blocks away, thank goodness.

Grizzly got a lot of attention as we walked across the parking lot, into the lobby, up to the second floor. There was tremendous reverberation in there and Grizzly must have impressed himself.

To make a long story short, he's been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and he'll start medication tomorrow morning. It's a liquid medication which led me to ask, why can't kitty liquid medication taste like tuna juice?

He behaved well at the vet and his doctor was very nice to him. She assured us that hyperthyroidism is not uncommon in older cats and she's hopeful that the treatment will be effective.

He's back to his old self by now and has probably already forgotten that he went to the vet!

After we got Grizzly home and settled in, we went out for dinner.

Ristorante a Mano has very good food and it's fun too. It's right at the waterfront and the patios were open back and front but it was breezy and not hot so we opted to sit inside. We had a table for two right beside one of the windows you can see in the picture.

I had some freshly baked flatbread with a dip made from roasted garlic, red pepper and eggplant. It was delicious. Then I had:

Pollo alla Parmigiana

Crostini crumb-crusted chicken scaloppine topped with tomato, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella

(not exactly as illustrated)

The ristorante is well-known for its homemade gelato and sorbet and I had the most amazing refreshing tart lemon sorbet. The perfect dessert.

(photo borrowed from the Internet)

And then we came home to the flowers. Here are some flower details:

Flowers, cake, good quotes: a happy birthday for me

I've had my birthday so I'm a little bit older today than I was yesterday. I suppose that's the case every day; it just seems more obvious on one's birthday.

I love my birthday. I feel I can do as I please — or not — and I can say, "Well, it's okay I did that because it's my birthday." I let myself get away with so much. The day after the birthday is such a let-down. Back to best behaviour, as much as I can manage.

I looked at my daily horoscope in The Globe and Mail:

IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY

A Venus-Pluto link on your birthday means no one will be immune to your charms. Both in your personal affairs and in your work you will find it easy to persuade others to hand over what it is you desire.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with my hairdresser this week. I can't even remember the context but during our chat — and there were others around in the salon — she said, "Sharon, I can't imagine anyone not liking you." I told her she might be surprised. There are people who probably don't like me, I said. "But why?" she asked.

"I'm a bit if a know-it-all," I said.

"But we learn so much from you, "she said. "Who wouldn't like that?"

"Other know-it-alls," I said.

It was my best line of the day.

William worked the night shift last night and brought the beautiful tulips home with him. They were awaiting me when I came down and I thought they were spectacular.

They've been opening as the day progressed.

The book is new poetry by my old friend and former co-worker, Sue MacLeod. She's a wonderful poet and I look forward to reading her new work.

I had lovely/funny cards from friends and family. The one in the photo is from Dan who manages to out-do himself every time. Look how sweet it it, with the little bows. This wasn't a milestone birthday for me but he checked around, looking for something special to relate to my special day. He found this quote from Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the genius theoretical physicist from The Big Bang Theory.

“The best number is 73…. 73 is the twenty-first prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the twelfth and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying (hang on to your hats) 7 and 3…. In binary, 73 is a palindrome: 1-0-0-1-0-0-1, which backwards is 1-0-0-1-0-0-1.”

It was the perfect quote for my birthday — and I sometimes identify with Sheldon too. Not with the genius, more with the compulsive control freak.

Dan had printed out the quote and placed it over the quote that came with the card. He made it so I could lift the Sheldon quote to see what was underneath. And underneath, there was:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Picasso

Dan thought that after I'd just written two blog-posts about misogynists — here and here — I might not want to be confronted with Picasso at the very beginning of my birthday. The quote is good though and I did acknowledge that, in spite of everything, Picasso made some fine art so it all worked out.

Cousin Dale joined us for dinner. We went to Eliot & Vine, a newish restaurant in Halifax, right in our own neighbourhood. We had a lovely evening and some tasty, photogenic food.

Dale and I both had the scallops as a first course — with leeks, prosciutto and bacon dust(!), with a fried quail's egg.

For Dan, it was the salad with fried haloumi, apple, pine nuts, micro-greens, with a lemon-thyme vinaigrette. He loved it.

William went with the carpaccio with horseradish aioli, pickled radish, arugula. It was supposed to come with nasturtiums but I notice William didn't complain at their absence.

The main courses in a restaurant are like the second and third born children in a family — there are never as many photos of them. By that time, there are too many dishes on the table and the novelty of photographing the food has worn off. Suffice it to say, we had more food and we enjoyed our evening a lot.

We came home for dessert because, along with the flowers, William had brought home a cake — a luscious Black Forest cake. I was serenaded and then invited to blow out the candles.

And did I make a wish?

You bet I did.

Celebrating the special days

We never need to be persuaded to celebrate special days at our house. Our mantle always has a display of beautiful greeting cards, OpenTable emails us regularly warning us that if we don't make a reservation immediately, we'll be out of luck, and we often have a lovely show of flowers on our kitchen table.

Valentine's Day is no exception.

(From 2013.)

I don't have a photo of us from today but here's one from last Valentine's Day. I was wearing a different top today but the very same jewellery. How often can you wear your pretty heart-shaped jewellery?

(From 2015.)

William took the photo. We were obviously heading out for dinner. I remember that we had tried very early on to get a reservation at Da Maurizio, one of my favourites, but they had been fully booked by mid-January and we're not that organized. We went to a restaurant called Fiasco which was lovely and where we'd been many times — and, sadly, it no longer exists. Its chef has moved to a newly-opened restaurant so that's something to look forward to.

We had, in fact, gone to Da Maurizio the year before, 2014. The photos weren't very good — it was romantically (dimly)-lit and Dan was using his phone — but you may infer from my expression in this one that the dessert took me by surprise.

This year, when I came downstairs, there was a bouquet of truly magnificent red roses — as only red roses can be, when they're good ones. I was delighted because they were from my son who had worked the overnight shift and brought them home with him at 7:00 a.m.

From my husband, lovely little earrings from the artist Michael Vincent Michaud who works in glass.

My new earrings are made of flowers like these but mine are put together in a cluster, not a dangling line. They're very sweet.

(My contribution, every year, is a handmade card. I take pride in my card which I usually make in the middle of the night, after everyone else is in bed. I save pretty things during the year; this year, from somewhere, I had a lovely piece of golden heavy paper — almost a light box-board. I also cut pictures out of magazines, trim pictures of flowers off little address labels, and usually manage to use a lacy paper doily. I sometimes get carried away.)

In the afternoon, we went to see Daniel MacIvor's acclaimed play, Marion Bridge. The Chronicle-Herald said of it:

“The production is honest in every sense, the comedy never forced, the frequent bickering and reconciliation natural, and the torment never deliberately melodramatic... don’t miss this delightful slice of Cape Breton Life.”

That seems accurate to me.

Because we went to the matinee and got out at 4:00 p.m., we had decided to have dinner at home. As usual (because we're secret Spaniards, apparently), we sat down to eat around 9:30 p.m. We had gorgeous steaks (medium rare) with potato salad and creamy cole slaw. I made biscuits and served them with small bowls of molasses, just the way Chef Craig Flinn does at Chives. William was with us for dinner and then left to see his girlfriend.

It's very cold out and the cats both snuggled here by the fire, near where Dan is working on a jigsaw puzzle and I'm at my computer.

So that was today. I hope you've had a good day too.

Tales from my kitchen

What do you think?

It's hard to find an illustration for the point I want to make. Everything is relative and unless you see this fork next to my hand, it probably doesn't make much of an impression.

Here's my complaint: I've noticed, over the last few years, that cutlery in restaurants is getting bigger and bigger. And heavier. I find it not only ugly but difficult to handle and not at all pleasant to eat with. I really dislike those gigantic forks. Who likes those? The one in the photo looks too wide but it doesn't look thick enough or heavy enough to be as annoying as they are in real life.

Last year, I had some major dental work done. My dentist told me (other dentists have also told me) I have a very small mouth. Maybe that has something to do with my cutlery choices.

Or maybe I'm just being fussy.

At home, there are no worries about cutlery. Dan usually sets the table and sometimes, if William's around, Dan will say, as he's putting plates on, something like, "Grab the cutlery on your way by." Neither one of them even has to think about it now: Mama's fork and knife choices are very specific and they're happy to oblige. If, by chance I sit down and see that my lovely small fork has mistakenly been placed in someone else's place setting, I do a dramatic and very audible gasp. It's such a recognizable gasp that the error is quickly corrected. They're both very easy-going and they don't seem to mind.

Spoons are a whole other story. I use three different spoons for ice cream, fruit salad and soft-boiled eggs. To me, the choice of these spoons makes a lot of sense but I suspect to others, it seems beyond quirky and verging on neurotic.

I do have minor control issues but so far, I think my cutlery preoccupation is under control. I haven't yet started to take my own fork in my purse when I go out for dinner. It might be a good way to make a point though.

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Still in the kitchen – our dishwasher is broken. We're awaiting a part and in the meantime, we're washing dishes by hand.

It's not a big deal except for this: the dishpan we're using is the very same dishpan my mother used in our house on Princess St. in Chatham, NB when I was a teenager. That's a few years ago now.

There are two amazing things about this dishpan. The first is that I even have it, after many moves over the years. Somehow, it has stuck with me. The second is that it even still exists, almost as good as new. Imagine something that would normally be considered temporary turning out to be almost permanent.

It looks like this:

Rubbermaid, I believe.

The more things change, the more they change

London has changed a lot in the many years since I was there last.

There are many more people visiting now than then – in some places, you have to fight your way through crowds on the sidewalks and looking at the attractions.

(above) The front door of Buckingham Palace

(above) The British Museum on a rainy day

In 2015, the air is better and the Thames is cleaner.

It may be that there are still old hotels where the sheets feel damp and cool all night long but there are plenty of up-to-date hotels with nice dry bedding and even with small fridges and coffee-makers in the rooms.

When I was there the first time, it was still necessary in my hotel to put a shilling in the metre to get some hot water. (The tub was located between two floors and guests came up from one floor and down from the other to bathe.) You got enough luke-warm water with your shilling to cover the bottom of the tub but that was enough because as soon as you got in, you could sense people on the landing, awaiting their turn.

Today, you can take a beautiful bath or shower in a non-stick tub with grab-bars and fragrant soap and finish off with big fluffy towels.

Of all the changes, it may be the food that is most different. Food in England used to be a bad joke, a stereotype that was, unfortunately, all too real.

In the hotel in the bad old days, breakfast was offered, to be delivered to one’s room, up until 9:00 a.m. No matter what time you ordered it for – 8:00 or 8:30 or 8:45 a.m. – it was plunked down outside your door at 6:30 a.m.

No matter that you had ordered a soft-boiled egg, bacon and coffee, what you got was a cooled-off hard-boiled egg, hard cold toast, greasy sausage and tea.

I clearly remember the first restaurant we went into for lunch. The gravy on the mashed potatoes was cold with congealed fat on top. The peas were canned. After that, we did most of our eating in pubs where the food was hearty and usually pretty good.

And now? Now, I expect London has become one of the great culinary centres of the world. It abounds in restaurants, large and small, fancy joints and neighbourhood diners, brasseries, wine bars and yes, still the pubs.

We had wonderful food from pastries and croissants and breakfast sandwiches from bakeries in the morning to superior bangers (sausages) and mash at the café at Churchill’s Museum. We had several mouth-watering courses at Jamie Oliver’s Italian in Piccadilly Circus. We also had a more casual pre-theatre encounter with Jamie’s cuisine at one of his pop-up diners. Great food and lots of fun.

(all three above) At Jamie's Pop-up Diner

Many restaurants offer a nostalgic Sunday roast on their menus but we’re assured it’s not the grey tough overdone beef of a generation ago. As most menus insist, the food is free-range, organic, humanely raised. I had a traditional English breakfast with sunny-side up eggs. The yolks were so golden as to be almost orange. Best eggs ever.

The food is superbly cooked, sublimely served, and altogether delightful to share and eat. Bon appétit!