canada day indian food feast and chat

what a cool and damp canada day.  it's rained off and on and i've seen nary a golden beam or burst of light all day.  i am pretty sure sahib told me it was 13 degrees today. wuut.  

i went to heather's for a hangout.  if it had been nicer we would have hung out at the beach as it was we hung out in her cute basement suite.  me lounging on the white couch and her across from me on her camping chair.  still keeping some distance but not being too weird about it.  

heather provided gingerales and blackberry ginger balsamic vinegar for some homemade shrubs.  i was supposed to bring some yummy flavours of kettle chips.  i told heather how i saw ranch and other yummy flavours there last week.  but when i got there it was like the kettle chips in particular had been totally cleaned out.  but i did see a hanging basket of fuchias all a'bloom and i just had to have it.  it was hanging high on a pole and i tried to lift it up and ease the hook from it's position but it wasn't happening for me.  so i went inside and asked a guy in a red iga t-shirt "do you work here?" he said yes at the same time i realized what a dumb question that was.  "yeah your shirt gave you away." heh heh, nervous laugh.  what is wrong with me.  i told him about the flower basket and he went straight out to get it for me.  he easily lifted it straight up and off.  "you made that look easy." i said still geeky but friendly.  he smiled and said it was and handed me the basket and i walked off in my monochromatic, pilly, navy t-shirt and navy jogging pant shorts and new fuschia flower basket. asking myself why i was acting semi-flirty in a very geeky way on this particular canada day to a red shirted iga man.  there's no answer.  maybe isolation has made me overcompensate and become awkwardly friendly to service people.

then again i did tell the customer service guy on the skip the dishes site that my delivery person was an idiot.  yep.  big words.  i have come to know that when i say 'idiot' that is the equivalent of another person maybe swearing.  like idiot from me, is like woah.  i remember long ago being very extrememly irritated and  calling cory, my then co-worker an idiot.  lisa didn't like it and she told me to reign in my aggression.  the skip the dishes customer service agent typed "next time have clear delivery instructions" which almost made me pop my top.  more clear that around the back and at the top of the stairs???  the injustice is quite minimal in the scheme of things.  but in the moment my beef with the delivery person and now this customer service person was very grrr and growl.  

i digress.  so i showed up at heather's with a fuchsia but no chips.  no matter.  we spent the next little while narrowing down our food choices and talking at the same time.  in the end we decided that on such a drear day we wanted some warm comforting food so we narrowed it down to indian and thai foods and in the end indian won.  then came the decisions on sauces which was not easy.  this time we went all vegetarian with aloo gobi, eggplant bharta, and malai paneer.  heather got 2 naan and i got 2 garlic naan.  heather heated up some rice she had in the freezer.  i had nary a rice grain.  we drove about 5 minutes from heather's house to pick it up and drove back home.  it made the car smell heavenly.  heather said it was like a warm hug as she carried it into the house.  the naan was too too good.  very fresh and soft and quite generously sized.  the sauces were too good too but better because of the naan vehicle.

we talked about many things.  cultural appropriation, work environments, what to do when people you are close to go off on conspiracy theories and what are to you, wacky beliefs, the oppression of women's clothing (back in the day), the idea that having a period makes you somehow unclean in some places, why we say vagina when we mean vulva, some beliefs of islam, the quran, Jesus, 'mormons and muslims', friendships, summer vacations, family dynamics, the psychology of bodies and much much more.  we are friend who talk and i'm glad for that.

some time after five heather sent me off with a bundle of goodies.  "this bag seems heavier than it should" i said to her, suspicion dawning.  she confessed to giving me 2 ginger-ales, along with the new bottle of balsamic, a baggie of cheesies and my portions of left over sauces.  that heather.

now i'm home, i've hung my fuchsia, had a shower and i might actually go to bed early.  i hope my fuchsia is happy. the cashier told me she likes shade and there isn't a lot of shade to be had on my porch.  i'm really getting into the flowers this summer and i like that.   

i'm the shadow and heather is that black and white and pink blip