much abundance

thanksgiving weekend has been brim full of goodness.  a few tidbits to gnaw on:

we had our thanksgiving meal on saturday.  on the one hand this is just plain weird.  but on the other hand it's a 3 day weekend full of turkey leftovers, so...shrug. my job was roasted roots as usual, and mashed potatoes.  i volunteered for potatoes after mom mentioned potato pearls.  i sat at the table with my foot up on a chair, cutting board, peeler and knife in front of me and a bag for food scraps on the side.  a pot with water in it for the potatoes was on the floor beside me.  i reached that meditative state that i sometimes reach while doing food prep.  my hands know what to do.  i also watched some downton abbey while i worked.  time passed very pleasantly.  it was raining hard outside.  the roots were done just about the same time that i finished mashing the potatoes.  i used herby cream cheese and a squirt of dijon for tang. i kind of forget sometimes how satisfying it is too cook.

i was half an hour late for our 4pm dinner time but hadn't heard a peep from downstairs. i got my two dishes down the stairs but walking backwards down the stairs and moving the dishes from step to step as i went until i got to a level i could reach from the ground level.  then i walked around and grabbed them from the step each in its turn and brought them in.

uncle duncle was there and mom, true to her nature, had him busy with some task on her list.  i think it had to do with placing one of the myriad of extension cords. the sister missionaries were also coming but were running behind because of a busing miscalculation.  they soon arrived all wet from the downpour and flustered.  

we ate.

it was all good.  mom and uncle duncle gave me high praises for the roasted roots.  uncle duncle closed his eyes in savouring delight like he had never eaten anything so marvelous. before they left the sisters shared a message with us about gratitude and then had us say something we were grateful for about the person to our left which brought a warmth into the room.  dad had mom to his left and he said "she is my companion and best friend so i have to be careful what i say." uncle duncle shared how impactful dad was in his life right from when he was a little boy. mom gave me high praise, some of which was that i'm fun and spiritual.  i said i've always loved uncle duncle and his silly names and the way he gets us together every year for chirstmas carrying on grampa's tradition.

after the sisters left we attempted to play telephone pictionary.  uncle duncle by his facial expressions thought it was kind of weird, but did participate, and dad did his best but some of his drawings, which i got, were unintelligible--which gave the game some interesting turns, haha.  we switched to password which i only ever remember playing with the suttons as a teenager.  i was duncan's partner and mom and dad were partners.  me and duncan did pretty good until the end when dad gave a pretty clever clue to mom that stumped duncan and they went on to win.  the word was 'cabinet' and dad's clue to mom was 'taxi'.  she said 'cab' and he said to lengthen the word and she said 'cabin'.  my clue to duncan then, was 'china'.  duncan mused for quite a while but could not get past the taxi clue and remember that 'cab' was in the answer and guessed 'rickshaw', which was not a bad guess.  but then mom knew it and guessed cabinet.  and that's the way the cookie crumbles.

duncan brought pumpkin pie and ice cream.  while he was at the store he texted me 3 choices of ice cream and i chose peanut butter ripple.  it turned out to be dairy free ice cream too, which was very silky and delicious and we all enjoyed it.

on sunday we were late for church but less late than before so we are improving.  we returned the church wheelchair by putting dad in it and then leaving it at the church when we left.  when we got home dad and i gobbled down some turkey buns and mom had her kefir and then we went our separate ways until later that evening where we met up for more turkey.  i'm not sure if we went for a walk before or after dinner but we did venture out into the park, mom and i on foot and dad via scoot.  mom has this long sweater that she looked super stylish in.  both bethany and sarah commented on it when i posted a video of her on instagram.  we walked around the park, stopping to rest on various benches along the way and dad did his rounds.

that night we played super big boggle and i don't want to brag or anything but mom and dad couldn't catch me.  we played a lot of rounds.  we decided if the next day was nice we would go on an adventure to the west dike.

well the next day was the most gorgeous perfect sunny fall day that ever was.  we got ready to go in the late afternoon. and ate some turkey buns before we left.  dad set out on his scooter before us.  all he had to do was get onto francis and head straight like a shot.  it ends at the dike.  he said he would be on the sidewalk.  mom told him to turn left onto francis but he turned right.  that's not too bad because you can't go very far if you go right--you hit a blueberry farm. meanwhile back at home mom was looking for her keys.  she couldn't find them so i, waiting for the oldies on the stairs for quite some time, hefted myself back up the stairs and got my keys (later mom found them in her back pocket haha).  by the time we got onto francis dad had turned himself around and was heading in the right direction.  but he was on the road.  we slowed down when we passed him and i tooted the horn a little and mom rolled down her window and yelled at him to get on the sidewalk.  then we pulled up to the light.  a lady who was in a ruck behind us pulled up beside us at the light and wound her head right back at us and was glaring hard.  and i realized that from her perspective we were harassing a senior citizen.  this made mom and i laugh for quite some time.  it still hits my funny bone.

we figured we were so far ahead of dad we had time to stop and a veggie stand and mom got some produce including a bag of big green grapes for us to munch at the dike.  and then we headed to the dike and found the perfect parking spot.  dad had not arrived yet.  but it wasn't too long before he zoomed up to us at our bench.

from our bench there was a feast for our eyes in every direction.  the sky was so blue and the sunshine coast mountains faded off into the north west.  a hawk was swooping and red wing black birds perched on the reeds.  a grouchy great blue heron squawked.  families on bikes and people with dogs passed back and forth and the light was golden.  after a while we decided to walk to the next bench which  was barely visible from where we were.  it was kind of ambitious for me and i didn't know if i would go the whole way but in the end i distracted myself by talking about each of the houses we passed and all their features...something mom and i have long liked to do...i remember having similar conversations with her as i we walked when i was 12 or 13.  but i was glad to get to the bench.  foot was feeling it by that time.

dad left before us.  he said he wanted to head back because it would take him longer than us to get home.  so we said good bye to him and rested a while longer before heading back.  but on our drive home we did not pass him.  he wasn't at home when we got there so we called him and he was in steveston.  he didn't get off the dike at francis.  he took it to the end.  i was trying to ask him if he knew his way home from there but he dropped his glove, and in the hullaballoo of getting it back shoved the phone in his pocket and forgot about us on the line.  i could hear  *swish swish "thank you." (someone gave him back his glove.) swish swish*.   i hung up and tried calling him back a couple of times but he didn't answer.  apparently every time he got his glove off, the phone would stop ringing.

anyway we decided to go out and intercept him.  and we found him trundling along steveston highway on the sidewalk.  i turned around and went a ways ahead of him and pulled into a side road.  mom got out and sat on a bus stop waiting for him to pass her.  "what are you doing here?" asked dad when he got up to her.  mom gave him directions but he already knew in general where he was going.  so we went home and he got home a while later.  it was dark by this time, and he didn't know where his lights were and he ran over a child's bike.  lol.  adventure complete.