On the eve of virtually every long weekend, I promise myself that I will spend one of the days lounging around in my pyjamas, going nowhere. I think I’ve done it once, outside of times when I’ve been sick. Possibly because I live by the spirit of Betty White’s motto: You can’t hit a moving target.Â
I kicked things off Friday by delivering a bunch of Lisa’s Pieces purchases around the city, including a stop at Free-FM where I got caught up with some of the wonderful people who work there. And then Friday afternoon, Derek and I went to St. Joseph’s Hospital for the first of three, one-hour diabetes classes. If it sounds excruciating, in some ways it was, but they pack a lot of information into the session. It’s designed for people who don’t know the nutritional difference between a bran muffin from Tim Hortons and a serving of grilled salmon. One couple in their sixties admitted that they never eat vegetables. Ever. The dietitian asked them to please find three that they can stand, and rotate them. My gut feeling is that they’re going to lie about it in future classes and continue to consider potato chips a vegetable.
Derek has learned a lot about health and nutrition since he was diagnosed diabetic. He has lost 19 lbs and has a steely determination to regain as much of his health as possible. His sugar levels have improved tremendously. When he started, they were up around “candy store” and now they’re steady at “occasional bunch of grapes”. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to have a spouse who ignored warning signs and continued on as they were, knowing the damage they were doing to their health. My husband wants to stick around so we can go for long old-people walks and complain about the kids on our lawn, and I’m grateful for it.
We had a noodle day on Saturday. He noodles in the garage and I noodle in the house. His noodling produced – among other things – this lovely plant holder for the kitchen.
The slight shine is from a thin coat of beeswax to protect it from kitchen stuff. Because I had the time, I made cauliflower pizza crust. It was wonderful and held together just like dough, but it’s so labour intensive that it won’t be a regular menu item around here. Monday was a get-out-of-dodge day. A restaurant owner in Grand Bend is enduring what we believe is an unfair policy. He paid $48,000 to the town in lieu of parking. This is supposed to give him street parking for patrons. Now, the town has installed metered parking with terrible signage and people are returning to their cars to find $35 tickets when they thought they could park for free. So Brad Oke is standing outside his eatery, taking people’s tickets so he can pay them for them. He’s rightly worried that a bad experience will deter visitors from coming back to Smackwater Jack’s and Grand Bend altogether. We wanted to show him some support by visiting him for lunch. It was excellent and we will return. The town’s Mayor says business owners wanted the paid parking to prevent the spots from being used all day by people on the beach. I hope he reconsiders the “in lieu” charges to businesses. It just doesn’t seem fair.