what happened:

1. hot chocolate festival 2016--so basically there's this wonderful little thing called the hot chocolate festival that runs for about a month in vancouver.  pretty neat-o in a neat-O way. basically hordes of vancouverites dressed in white puffy snow suits, dunk themselves in olympic pools of steaming hot chocolate.  like.  we're the marshmallows, you know.  ...haha, now i wish that's what it really was.  in actuality the festival is about some different restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops trying to get peeps in the door in the slow months.  also, and most importantly it's about gourmet chocolate that you drink.  let's keep that in mind.  so these different crafty and sneaky shops around the raincity offer delectable and creative hot chocolates, usually paired with a little sweet yumyum on the side.  so lindsay and i decided that this year we are going to indulge in the festival.  so, and i know that like to say so, and so it is for you to like saying so as well...last thursday said lindsay (cute little half-japanese foodie kid with penchant for huge scarves) and i looked at all the information.  considered each offering, weighed our choice very carefully, consulted our steaming beverage lawyers, just to be sure all t's were crossed and all i's dotted...and MADE OUR CHOICE.  we chose to go to bella gelateria in yale town.  we had our greedy little piggy eyes on 3 hot chocolates there.  sure, we shrugged, yeah, mhmmm, we nodded, we can each have a hot chocolate and share a third.  no probs.  thumbs up.  fist bumps errupting into chest bumps descending into knee knocks crashing into floor thumps, ending in whimpering writhing giggles and gut splitting.  if you actually think about it, gut splitting is gross....steaming intestines,...don't split my gut please.  also please note that the adjective 'steaming' is inviting when applied to hot chocolate and dizgusting when applied to intestines splitting from your gut.  I DIGRESS.   upon entering bella gelateria, our respective eyes widened in wonder and delight.  what kind of fantastic place was this??  everywhere one looked one was assaulted with yummies.  oh that rose shaped cake, and oh that mouth watering pastry, and oh that tempting gelato flavour and oh that pizza that i would like to inhale this very minute.  we sheepishly and shyly told the hostess with the mostest that we would like some hot chocolate, please, peeping demurely up through (in my case) freakish single bent extra long lower lash. sarah knows what i am saying.  she gave us a table.  and we were a little bit confused.  BUT we don't want a table!! we stuttered.  WE WANT HOT CHOCOLATE, we wailed, the desperation for hot chocolate welling up out of us and flooding the whole restaurant with our desire.  sigh.  what is wrong with me today?  so anywho, she left us with the menu and we slobbered over it.  we decided to share a napoli pizza too, because well we were there, and it was there and we were hungry and it looked too good, my friend, too good.  so we told the waitress that we wanted 3 hot chocolates and some pizza.  she was all skeptical cautious look, hem haw, polite hesitation, maybe you should just get 2 to start and then get the 3rd for dessert.  ok, we nodded happily.  we chose this pizza that was folded over.  at the loopy fold there was a loop.  and in the loop was spicy salami and ricotta.  on top of the folded over pizza was a margarita style toppins with some arugula to put on top and some spicy olive oil if one wanted and one did indeed want.  too good my friend, too good. lindsay got a hot chocolate which sounded very good except for the addition of  some grand marnier, which besides being difficult and tricky for me to say, it seems, is a liquor and therefore persona non grata if you know what i mean.  if you don't know, i don't blame you.  and i got one called smokin sweet.  it was dark chocolate, and caramel and preserved lemon zest with lemon lime marshmallows melting into it.  it was divine.  and after a couple of sips of our respective hot chocolates we both knew what our waitress knew already.  there would be no 3rd hot chocolate.  silly silly girls.  silly hot chocolate festival newbies.  adorable innocents.  to think you could!  hahahaha.  nose pat and cheek squish.

2. reunion with syster walker!--of course she isn't syster walker anymore.  she's a sadiesadiemarriedlady.  i just call her chelsa.  so to catch you up, chelsa was one of my bestest companions on the mish.  we were in östersund together in the winter of 1996.  she came to visit me in nanaimo sometime after the mish.  but i don't really remember that because i'm an old middle aged lady now with back spasms and tendonitis in my elbo.  speaking of which...i went to physio on friday and angela my physio therapist stuck some pins in the muscle and it spasamed and released.  it was weiwd but i felt a diff right away.  i go back this week.  back to chelsa reunion 2016.  what i'm trying to say is that it was approximately 19 years since we met, and 20 years since the time i actually remember.  chelsa's parents are taking care of a church campsite in arlington and her mom had an operation and chelsa came up to help her and she asked me to come down and chill with her, before she went home, and i was like, yeah!  so i drove down friday after work and i was 50 minutes late due to my own friday slothfulness and border sluggishness (despite being short lines, they were sluggish lines yo.) but chelsa and her mom just shopped at kohl's so that was ok.  we met in the food court.  i was on my phone sitting outside of forever 21 and someone tapped my shoulder and there she was.  her mom left us to go recoop at the hotel they had for the night and chelsa and i wandered bellis fair looking for presents for her to bring home to her hubby and kids.  this one store we went into had all these boots for 30.00.  wide calf ones.  black above the knee ones.   i resisted the urge to spend.  add 30% back on i told myself.  why is our dollar so sucky right now?  but then we went into this store called earthbound and we were drawn like flies to fly paper to this rack containing skirts made from beautiful recycled sarees.  wrap skirts.  employees were quick to tell us that the skirts could be configured into many different shapes for tops, dresses etc.  what's wrong with a skirt being a skirt i ask you??  i had a hard time choosing which skirt, but i knew one thing.  i was in fact getting a skirt--low canadian dollar be beaver dammed!  i finally regretfully put back a mustard goldy hippyish looking skirt and stuck with the pretty, flirty purple and turquoise and dove grey.  poip and toiq i called it.  the cash lady who takes cash but doesn't give it, which is pretty rude and selfish, nevertheless told us very kindly of this downtown bellingham area which i was not aware of.  it's called fairhaven.  so we decided to go there.  first we ate at red robins.  here it is important to note that each table had these nifty self paying things right one them!  wowee!  fairhaven turned out to be very cutesy old town-ish.  reminded me of that old town section of nanaimo shops, but maybe even cuter.  lots of  delicious aromas were wafting from the open restaurants but all the shops were closed.... we were near to abandoning fairhaven for the fairhaven grocery store when we spied a building that was actually open.  it was a HUGE book store not like any other.  3 stories and each floor had interesting little things and on the second floor a very cute and packed full shop.  chelsa found her things here and those things were seattle chocolate bars that said juan de fuca on them (her hubby is juan!) and of course a big foot lunch box because no trip to the northwest is complete without a big foot lunch box, we agreed on that.  as we shopped we talked and reminisced and shared about our near pasts and our present times.  we saw a swedish cook book and i sat down on a near by comfy victorian looking chair to look at it and then chelsa (she's a librarian by the way) sat on a low stool and we chatted like that for a long time.  until it was almost 9 and we knew they would be closing, so chelsa made her purchases and i drove her to the holiday inn express (what exactly does express mean in this case??) and i drove myself home.  it was a very lovely visit.

3. in which i witness a rumble--so saturday i had all intentions of cleaning my home.  all intentions.  but i didn't really.  no i didn't.  what i did do, was be lazy lolly gagger in my bed for a couple of hours.  and i did talk to people.  and i did look at things.... and i did have a shower and do my hairs.  and suddenly it was time to meet yelena at jamjar on commercial for our dinner and a movie date, and i was woefully lacking in day's accomplishments.  oh well.  shrug it off sister and get in the game.  yelena was running a bit late so when i parked on 6th by jj bean where two guys were having a earnest discussion on the patio about something, i had time to wander down to jamjar, or so i thought.  i saw a lady selling some jewlery on a table and i stopped to chat with her.  she made some cool leather earrings in feather shape.  i liked em.  but then yelena was worried that there would be no room at jamjar so i went there to get us a table.  it turned out that i had my choice between two tiny tables. jamjar is a folk lebanese restaurant that i learned about from eryn.  in fact eryn and i were going to go but then i was in the midst of the diet and we decided to wait.  it was cute and cozy and a little quirky inside.  when yelena came we ordered a hummus trio and the lemon cauliflower with pomegranate molasses to share.  i got lamb sausages and she got falafel.  so one o the hummuses had pomegranate in it  and that was my fave.  it is weird that they only give you 2 thin breads (scented with cinnamon tho which is yep and yah) for all that hummus.  like what to do with only 2 breads?  the cauliflower was so delish.  flavour packed.  and just yum.  lemony yum.  next time i might order a few more things because it wasn't a lot.  but it was all yummy.  then we drove to tinsel town to watch brooklyn, a movie i've been lusting after for some time.   after we parked yelena wanted to get some gum from the seven 11 because we had potent garlic breath....WELL, listen up folks, because usually you can get into the sev from the mall but the metal gate was closed.  but we thought we saw people shopping inside, so we decided to go around and check if it was open from outside of the mall.  so there we were innocently walking arouind talking our talk telling our tells, when a guy right in front of us is suddenly pulling a knife out of a collapsed sign board on the side walk and two other guys are like hey drop it buddy, and a security guard is like knife fight on the street, into his shoulder walkie talkie, and the guy charges and swipes at the other guys who may have been swiping themselves, and it is slowly dawning on yelena and i  that we have walked upon a knife fight.  we were kind of frozen in a shocked stupor until the rumble started charging in our very near direction.  then we snapped out of it right quick and were like, let's get out of here!  before going up to the top floor for our movie we stopped and peeped at the cat cafe.  couldn't see much but a ginger tabby sitting on a counter.  heather we should go there.  but we might want to adopt all the cats.  brooklyn was good.  romantic and touching and i just really loved the sweet boy who loved her.  the way her looked at her and cherished her...melts my heart.  there was a surprise non-showing but nontheless icky sex scene though.  boo.  

4. mia maids crazy singing fools--what more needs to be said really.  i drove olivia and rachel to the tri-stake fireside in langley, and it was very cool to see all my teenage nieces and nephews from the lowermainland there, which i didn't really think about before going.  caleb asked a super good question to the walkers during question period.  that's my nephew i whispered to olivia.  sister umbach and the tswassen contingent sat in front of us.  melissa is so funny.  she don't stand for no guff during meetins.  i saw her pass a note that said "turn off your phones and be reverent and respectful" to some girls 2 rows ahead of here. and then she later had to give them a little snappity snap snap shhhh later on, after which they shhhhhhed fo sho.  during the closing song which was carry on, i was suddenly tired.  like my voice was strained and tired.  so i without thinking just switched to an octive lower, which in parts was quite low but which i could carry off  quite well.  this sent olivia into fits of laughter and "did you hear sister clarke??"  haha.  i'm such a good example.  on the way home we played name that tune but only church songs.  when someone would guess it we would all sing it loudly and freely.  by the time we got to westminster and no 3 in richmond things had deteriorated to waving frantically to taxi drivers and singing spice girls, despite my attempts to quelch the latter.  :)  fun times.

5. carrot salad with harissa and feta--i made it today.  it's on our new menu.  i made my own harissa.  WHAT?  hello.  delicious.  the best thing you ever had.  in your life.   make it.  eat it.