suziebeezieland

a weekend in cambria

We're spending the weekend up in beautiful Cambria with my parents. Here are a few snapshots. :) (The sleeping elephant seals are north of Cambria, up the coast a few minutes, just past San Simeon.)

meeting michelle d.

Something fun happened this past week! I got to meet our Michelle D. from Up North, with whom I have been corresponding for about six years.

Up North! And I got to meet her! 

{Trivia fact: Michelle D. came up with the name "suziebeezieland" when I was trying to think of a name for this blog, several years ago.}

She and her husband and boys have been down in our neck of the woods (there are no woods, but "neck of the beach" sounds weird) this month, and so Claire and I drove down to see them one afternoon.

Michelle and I spent a very nice time visiting while the kids played in the pool, and then we all had a delicious dinner, cooked by Mr. Michelle. :) It was so nice. 

I love her and I want her to stay here, but she stubbornly insists on returning to Canada, as if Canada is all that.

Then last night, our Susie S. and our Jenny L. and their kids all came to our house, and then Michelle and Mr. Michelle and their kids came up, and Susie and Jenny got to also meet Michelle. (Susie and Jenny already know each other.) (And they already know me.) (It's complicated.)

But now we all know each other, and the kids all know each other, and it's lovely.

We all had dinner and visited. It was so good to see Susie and Jenny again (it has been a long time), and we had so much fun.

There were nine kids and six adults. I was kind of bowled over by how well-behaved and sweet all the kids were. It was a really good group. We do not have a big house, but they all played so well, and were really cute.

The adults behaved really well, too, mostly. :D

{photo by Mr. Michelle + Susie S.}

life is short. make it count.

Keith Green died 29 years ago today (when he was 28), which is hard for me to believe, because I remember that plane crash very well. It was the summer before my senior year of high school.

Here is one of my favorites of his. I like it as much now as I did back then.

a tree + some birds + some butterflies

We moved Claire's furniture around, as we are wont to do a couple times a year, but this time we did an arrangement we haven't tried before. We used to have to leave a lot of space on the floor for playing (which meant pushing the bed up against the wall or sticking it on the shorter wall), but that's not so important anymore, because she doesn't play on the floor too much anymore. Sniff. 

This new arrangement allows for a nightstand to go next to her bed, which is nice. But when I moved the bookcase off the wall, there was a big blank space, and I didn't want to move her chalkboard to center it, because there are holes in the wall behind it. :D 

So we went to Pottery Barn kids, and I found this big bird-and-tree vinyl decor thingy. It's great, because you put up the branches and birds and leaves however you want them. It took, seriously, about eight minutes to put up. It was easy and fast and fun. It also came with two owls, but we thought they were kind of scary (we don't think owls are scary ... just these owls, whose eyes were a bit too psychedelic) so we put some butterflies up, instead.

the hobbit

We had summer book club at my house tonight, and between the eight of us, we had a nice selection of Hobbit covers. :)

cheerful

I'm so happy about the new sheets. :)

I know I said that I wouldn't be shopping at The Company Store anymore, but I believe that I will give them another try some time. After I had two unfriendly and unhelpful customer service reps in a row, I had four really good ones. 

I guess there is a chance that some of those reps were the same person. And I know the fact that I had to speak with them six times is not very good.

But I am very happy with the sheets, and the last Company Store rep called my local post office yesterday, tied me into the call so I could hear them speak, and made sure they held onto them until I could go pick them up. (The label had been damaged so the USPS didn't know where they should be delivered. Why they didn't just immediately return them to the sender is anyone's guess.)

I think they work with my favorite Catherine Thursby and Cath Kidston pillows.

Our bedroom is immediately to the right when you come in the front door, and you can see it when you're sitting in the living room. So I always need to keep our bedroom tidy (not that I do), and I see it a lot during the day, so it makes me so happy when it feels fresh and clean. :)

I like cheerful things, and I like the word "cheerful" a lot, too: full of good spirits, ungrudging, and likely to dispel gloom or worry. :)

the daisies are in the safehouse.i repeat: the daisies are in the safehouse.

Agent Suzanne: The life of a hard target and her sidekick is stressful yet exhilarating.

Agent Claire: This is obviously a devised facility. I wonder what's really going down here.

Agent Suzanne: Sheet diverting. We've suspected it, but never actually caught them in action. The M.O. is pretty straightforward. 

Agent Claire (shuddering): I think I can guess. The bedsheets are bounced back and forth between sorting facilities across the country to avoid detection.

Agent Suzanne: If it feels wrong, it is wrong.

Agent Claire: Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.

Agent Suzanne: The brush pass would take place somewhere around here. My partner and I proceeded with extreme caution.

Agent Claire: Why are you using the subjunctive mood and narrating our actions loudly and publicly? Everyone is potentially under oppositional control. Go with the flow; blend in.

Agent Suzanne: Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.

Agent Claire: Lull them with a sense of complacency.

Agent Suzanne: Keep your options open.

Agent Claire: It looks like rain. The candy sticks to the counter on Tuesdays. The caterpillar walks at dusk.

Clerk: Ah! 631. I have the package. (Note: The Clerk actually said that.)

Agent Suzanne: Oh, yippy! (Note: I actually said that.)

Agent Claire: How clever of you to sanitize the tracking number to ensure plausible denial, Agent Suzanne. You make me smile.

Agent Suzanne: Why yes. Yes, I do.

Agent Suzanne: Don't look back; you are never completely alone.

Agent Claire: Pick the time and place for action.

Agent Suzanne: Let's get this back to the lab. 

Agent Claire: It looks like the address was encoded, then encrypted, then deleted, then burned. Then smudged. And then somebody spilled a cup of coffee.

Agent Claire: The daisies are in the safehouse. I repeat: The daisies are in the safehouse.

Agent Suzanne: Yippee!

the new bhg website

Have you ladies checked out the new, improved Better Homes & Gardens website? 

I had a subscription to the magazine about sixteen years ago, when we were first married. I loved it. Then, something happened (I think a new editor or something) and I started hating it. Blech. So I dropped my subscription. The whole magazine had become bland and cold, and the DIY projects and decor stuff were awful to me.

But in the past few years, it has gotten cute again. Lots of warmth and color, and fresh style. (I know taste is subjective. It's cute to me.) Lots of cottage-y stuff, but clean (not too froo-froo), and of course the recipes are always good. So I've gotten a subscription for the past few years when Claire's school has its magazine drive. Very fresh, and many ideas I can actually use. Love it. 

(I'm not sure why I'm not writing in complete sentences.)

Now they've redone their website, with BIG photos (yay) and I'm so happy about that.

Here are two links I liked today. 

14 veggie-rich, kid-friendly recipes

small kitchen remodel for under 800 dollars

ps I love this citron-y backsplash tile, from a different article. :)

{image from bhg.com}

my wandering sheets

Well look at that. My sheets are in Bell Gardens again. 

Since June 29, they have traveled 6,040 miles, according to my calculations.

I bet they are exhausted. I bet they will be happy to go to bed. :)

warby parker

Do you wear glasses? Do you know about Warby Parker? Our friend told us about them tonight. They sell really cute, vintage-inspired styles (with spiffy names) online for $95 (Rx lenses included) with free shipping and returns.

And, they'll send you five pair at a time to try at home to see if you like them before you buy.

And, they have a little Virtual Try-On, too, so you can see online which frames will probably look best on you, before you order five for the Home Try-On.

AND, for every pair they sell, they donate one pair to someone who needs glasses through non-profits such as RestoringVision.org.

So I just sat here for about 45 minutes virtually trying on glasses. One style and a few colors I wanted to try were currently sold out or not available for Home Try-On, so I stuck my name on the email list to be notified when they're in stock, but I still found five pair and ordered them to try. 

(I'm hoping they come straight to me here in California, and do not end up in Memphis or similar.)

(I still have to go get an eye exam this coming week some time.)

Thanks, Tash, for telling us about this!

ps They also offer a monocle ... "the perfect accessory for budding robber barons, post-colonial tyrants and super villains." :)

the luggage room

Tonight we had dinner at The Luggage Room. It's the pizzeria portion of a cafe we like called Le Grande Orange. Both places are housed in a restored 1925 Santa Fe train station. There are still train tracks next to it, but now it's the Del Mar Station for the Metro Gold Line that runs into Los Angeles.

The Luggage Room is called The Luggage Room because it used to be the luggage room. :)

Instead of giving the kids crayons and coloring pages, they give them Wikki Stix, which is kind of fun. :)

Tonight we had the best appetizer: cantelope and honeydew slices (cut thin with a mandoline), drizzled with almond oil, topped with paper-thin shavings of prosciutto, and sprinkled with fresh ground pepper, sea salt, and chopped basil. That sweet melon with that salt, and then the almond oil and basil flavors ... wowzers. Bob and I devoured it in no time flat. I'm going to try it at home some time. I will report back if all goes well. If all does not go well, you may not hear from me. :)

Claire ordered the kid's cheese pizza. She does not like any food even a light brown color on top (when I make toast for her, I put it on the "half" setting and it comes out looking like when it went in), so she was not enamored with the charred edges. Who would be? Not I. But she ate out the middle. :)

Bob and I shared a margherita pizza and an avocado pizza. I haven't tried anything else there because I always want these. :) They are soooooooooo good.

But a lady at a table near us ordered the chopped salad, and that looked pretty good, too.

We had already polished off half of each before I remembered to take any pictures of them. :D

 

my sheets are in memphis, tennessee. what?

sniff

still no sheets

Well, my sheets still didn't come in today's mail. I called The Company Store again, and my BFFs in customer service let me know that a Company Store order is not considered missing until one month has gone by and it still has not been delivered. So if I don't receive it by the 29th, they will reship.

I guess they are coming by wagon train, and I should be patient while Ma and Pa and Mary and Laura and Carrie stop for the night and make dinner on the cast-iron spider and Pa plays the fiddle and the wolves howl and Jack the Brindle Bulldog runs alongside. 

My sheets were on clearance, and I am guessing there will not be any left to reship by the 29th. They were so cute, too. This is what they looked like before they got lost. (They're the green ones with the blue flowers.)

They probably have tread marks on them now, from some semis on the freeway or something.

I wonder where they are. I wonder if they are on someone else's bed right now.

According to the USPS tracking site, they are "in transit" from Bell Gardens, and have been since Monday night. Bell Gardens is 13 miles away. They must be driving less than one mile per hour. :) I could have walked there and come back again faster than the post office is taking.

(Okay, I couldn't have actually walked there and back, which would be almost exactly one marathon. I could perhaps have walked one-thirteenth of the way there, and then caught a cab. But THEORETICALLY, I could have walked there and back in less time than the USPS is taking. I have in-shape friends who could have walked there and back, and maybe even run part of the way, if they stopped for water and whatnot.)

It's not the sheets. It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing. And the PRINCIPLE is ... sheets should get to you faster than one month, and customer service should know where they are, or at least be vaguely interested in finding out what has happened to them, or at least pretend they are interested, even if they aren't.

spies

irritated

I ordered some new sheets from The Company Store on June 26th. They still haven't arrived.

I have been following their journey via the USPS tracking center. They were really close to me last Friday, but now they're not.

I wonder what that "mis-shipped" was all about. I called The Company Store on Friday to ask, but the customer service representative did not know. She did, however, remind me that I had used free shipping, and so should be happy about that.

Then I called yesterday to ask again, thinking that if my sheets were in Pasadena early Friday morning (about ten minutes away from me), I should have received them in Saturday or Monday's mail. N'est-ce pas? But they did not arrive in yesterday's mail, and the (different) customer service rep at The Company Store was irritated with me for enquiring. 

Which is a shame, because I used to be a big fan of The Company Store. Not so much now, really. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I will never not ever order anything from them again. "Mis-shipped," I can overlook. Two separate unfriendly customer service reps, I am going to choose not to overlook.  I have choices, and I will shop where there is nice customer service.  Yay, Garnet Hill.

So my sheets were in Pasadena, but now they are in Bell Gardens. Hopefully, they are proceeding closer to San Gabriel (their final destination) even as I type.

vancouver, british columbia 2011:stanley park, the vancouver aquarium, + granville island

On Sunday, June 19, we got up and headed to Stanley Park. It was a wonderful refuge after the hustle and bustle of Vancouver's West End.

It's named after Lord Stanley (the Earl of Derby), who was the Governor General of Canada in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The Stanley Cup is also named after him. (He was probably rolling over in his grave this year. Alas.)

Stanley Park makes the city, methinks. It's 1,000 acres on the shore, right next to downtown. 

The Vancouver Aquarium is in Stanley Park. It's my favorite aquarium, I believe. I liked it better than any other I have been to. 

The Aquarium buys $20,000 worth of clams, fish, and crabs for each sea otter annually. They eat a lot ... 25 to 30 percent of their body weight each day. 

Otters always seem so ready to engage in meaningful conversation. They are always my favorites.

The Aquarium has four beluga whales. Their names are Kavna, Aurora, Qila and Tiqa.

Belugas naturally live in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, where they spend most of the winter in total darkness. As a result, they have pretty amazing echo-location capabilities. Nobody actually knows how they're able to locate tiny bits of open water within a dense icepack, but it's probably something fancy to do with this echo-location.

You might notice that they don't have a dorsel fin. This allows them to come up close under the ice, where there are air pockets and they can breathe. They do have a dorsel ridge, though.

I am also entranced by sea jellies, which look like the ghosts of flowers.

What a strange and alarming world, under the sea.

Some sea creatures look as if Jim Henson designed them.

After a wonderful time at the Aquarium, we went and took a horse-drawn carriage ride around Stanley Park. It was a very nice way to see things.

I probably should have told Bob and Claire that I was focusing my camera on the horses. They were percherons. I love that sound of hooves on roadway.

The horses pull the carriage slower than you can walk, so if you're in a hurry, you may wish to hoof it yourself. :) But we weren't in a hurry.

There is the city, yonder, and the HMCS Discovery, which is a Canadian Naval Reserve division based in Deadman's Island, just south of the park, in Coal Harbour. 

In the 1880s, when small pox ravaged Vancouver, they quarantined the sick on Deadman's Island. One poor sailor wrote to his mom with a return address of "The Pest House, Deadman's Island, Vancouver, British Columbia."

I bet she nearly fainted when she saw that, poor dear.

This is The Girl in the Wetsuit. The city wanted to replicate Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, but couldn't get permission to do so. Instead, they went with this modern version in the early seventies. :)

Here's the Lions Gate Bridge. (The "lions" are some mountains north of Vancouver.) The bridge was built by the Guinness family, producers of the dry stout of which my husband is a great fan. :)  

After Stanley Park, we headed to Granville Island. Save all your spending money for Granville Island. :) It's where the lovely artists are hiding.

If you go, make sure not to miss the Paper-Ya store, all you crafty gals. :)

We had sweaters and hoodies on because it was overcast and a little chilly, but this woman and her glass-making partners inside were glistening from the heat of the fire.

I asked a woman if I could take a photo of her cool-looking dog, and she said "Sure!"

His name is Timber. :)

This was our last full day in Vancouver, and it was a really good one. I must admit that I much preferred it to downtown Vancouver.

the cone of shame

Violet got spayed this week, and in a few short days has perfected the art of looking completely pathetic.

She's actually feeling frisky and well, but pauses in her play several times each day to make her eyes as wide and round as possible, and to remind us with slow, disappointed, long-suffering blinks of the grievous nature of our transgressions against her.

i get knocked down, but i get up again(you're never gonna keep me down)

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba

This is so fun ... They Might Be Giants covering Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" for the A.V. Club.

I heard someone disparaging this song just last week, but I choose to believe they didn't really mean it. People miss out on cool things when they worry about being cool. :)

Look at how happy the A.V. Club staffers are to join in on the chorus. That's because it's a great song.

vancouver, british columbia 2011:the float plane + a bit of downtown

On Saturday morning, June 18, we took a float plane (a DeHavilland DHC-III Turbine Otter, to be precise) from Victoria to Vancouver.

The weather was a bit iffy, and the pilot flew extra low, to stay below the chop. It was one of the neatest things I've done in a long time. I mean, really super duper fun.

We flew over the Gulf Islands, which are gorgeous, and which I am now very attached to. I am planning our retirement. :)

Bob was across the aisle (about three inches away) from Claire and me, and he and the woman in front of him saw an orca jumping in the water while we flew.

Here is a wee short video I took for you. It's not good, but you will get the general idea. :) 

When we landed, some luggage was unloaded from the back of the plane, and our luggage wasn't there. Where was it? Surprise!

It was in plastic bags inside one of the floats. I had no idea. So clever.

Goodbye, float plane. I loved you.

We took a cab the short distance into the city, left our luggage with the nice concierge at the Sutton Place Hotel (it wasn't quite time to check in), and went and got lunch at Moxie's Classic Grill on Bute Street. Yum.

After lunch, we took a little tour around part of the city on a Big Bus. We were staying in the West End, which is one of the most densely populated areas in all of North America. It's an area less than one square mile (about .788), and contains 45.5 thousand people. That is 56.5 thousand people per square mile. Yikes!

Needless to say, there were lots of highrises. 

The windows of The Bay (as in "Hudson's Bay Company") downtown had gotten smashed in three days earlier during the hockey rioting. They were covered with plywood, and the plywood was covered with notes from Vancouverites discussing their disgust, anger, disappointment, and sorrow about the riots, as well as their pride in their city and their love for the Canucks. They were pretty supportive of the police, too, which was nice to see.

See that big word "We" down there? The pieces of plywood that came after it said "find you all." As in, "we will find you all, rioters". Which they probably will. People took photos and videos, and sent them to the police during the riots. Since June 15th, 24 people have turned themselves in to the police. An Integrated Riot Investigation Team is in the process of sorting through 4,000 emails and have flagged 1700 which identify potential suspects involved in 120 separate incidents.

The Vancouver Police were worried (and continue to be concerned) that social media will be used to mete out vigilante justice. I hope this doesn't happen, because that would kind of be in the same spirit as the rioters themselves. We live in such interesting times. You can't just flip a car over, set it on fire, beat someone up, and skip off on your merry way. You'll end up on Facebook with a trazillion people seeing you within an hour.

Many Vancouverites got up the next morning, grabbed their brooms and dustpans, and hit the streets to help clean up the mess. It made me get tears in my eyes to see the news footage.

The city library is below. If you look closely, can you see some trees sticking out of the arches on the right? It has a living (green) roof. So do many of the roofs in Vancouver. The Vancouver Convention Center (which I didn't get an aerial shot of) has the most famous one ... six acres of wild grasses on top!

Green roofs filter pollutants out of the air, filter rainwater, and help insulate buildings, which reduces their heating and cooling costs and their noise levels. I was fascinated because I'd never seen so many before. They were everywhere, once I started looking up.

Something else we saw that I liked that first day on our hop-on, hop-off bus was the steam clock. It was built in 1977 as a tourist attraction in renovated Gastown. And tourists are, indeed, attracted to it! :) Gastown is a national historic site. It was Vancouver's first downtown area, and was founded by Gassy Jack Deighton. Yep. Gassy Jack. Gassy Jack was a seaman, steamboat captain, and barkeep. He showed up to open the area's first saloon in 1867. Good ol' Gassy Jack.

We also zoomed by Canada Place. Did I mention it was raining? This was the first day of the trip that we had rain.  All the cruise ships berth at Canada Place, and the 2010 Winter Olympics flame holder thingy is there, too.

We were pretty tired, and went back to our hotel when we could check in. I was surprised to see that it was a suite! Yay. Claire was so excited to have her own room that she didn't want to leave the hotel again. :D

I have to admit, though, that the West End was kind of depressing to me. People are just so squashed into those highrises, and I watched a lady hanging her laundry out, and I kept wondering, is she alone, does she have somebody, what does she do? I probably wouldn't do too well living there in that particular part of the city, with the weather and the population density. I felt pretty claustrophobic.

Although there was, I kid you not, coffee for every single block. More coffee than anywhere I've ever been. That part was great. And Tim Hortons. :)

And. We had the best (BEST) waiters we have ever had at the restaurants we went to. I kid you not. I don't know if they were just bending over backwards to show us that Vancouver is actually a neat city, despite the riots, or if they are just naturally down-to-earth and friendly, but our service there was completely outstanding. We had dinner that first night at The Keg, and it was one of the best meals we've ever had on vacation, anywhere.

The next couple days were great, because we got out of the squashy part of the city and went out to enjoy nature, which there is a ton of around Vancouver. :) I like being outside best. I'll tell you about that next time.