The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
Don’t ask me how the conversation got there, but at one point we all got laughing about the weasel from an old Looney Tunes cartoon – to the point where my dad had to hold his chest surgery scar because it was hurting too much to laugh. Then he tried made an impression of it.
Classic.
That table hasn’t had that many people around it in a long time.
Red tomato ketchup
25-30 ripe red tomatoes, blanched and chopped.
6 celery branches, diced
1 large green pepper, diced
6 white onions cut, finely chopped
1 cup of cauliflower
1/4 cup salt
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp fresh black pepper
White vinegar
White sugar
Blanch tomatoes in boiling water and remove skin. Chop.
Combine all vegetables and salt. Let stand for 2 hours and then drain.
Mix 1 cup white vinegar with 1 cup of white sugar. Stir to dissolve. Add
multiple rounds of vinegar/sugar mix to just enough to cover the dry mixture.
Add mustard seed and pepper.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer for 3 hours uncovered
Put in sterilized glass jars and store in cool area.
Marinated cauliflower
3 cauliflower heads, medium size
4 red peppers, grossly chopped
2.5g dried oregano
5g red chili flakes
250g salt
250ml rapeseed oil
1L white vinegar
1L water
Cut cauliflower in small florets, peppers in medium segments. Mix all ingredients and let marinate for 24h. Put in sterilized jars and store in a cool area.
Ben and I spent two and a half weeks in Canada. This was a trip that had been planned to within an inch of its life, but of course real life interfered and none of the planned minutia survived, even though we did managed to do most of what we wanted to do, if not in the “right” order, or for the full amount of time.
Even before we left, a (stupid, pointless) discussion over a North Face duffel bag started, and didn’t really ease up for the whole two weeks we were there – hence the “stressed” picture from my watch. Flights there and back were in premium economy, which was very nice because of the extra leg room and the smaller cabins. Ben enjoyed the food, I didn’t want to risk it. I did enjoy the wine though.
We spent the first couple of days at Nat’s place, which was really nice. Her cat is a cuddlebug. Those first couple of days were taken up by shopping (of course) and trying to keep Ben from eating out at every possible meal, succeeding at various degree.
We’d gotten tickets for the new Cirque du Soleil show, which garnered mixed reviews. Gab, who was supposed to come with us, bailed at the last minute so one of Nat’s friends that had toured with her in the Allegria days met us at the old port. The new show has potential, but it was clearly the least polished show I’d ever seen. The giant marionette was cool. The juggler was good. The ladies who were connected by their hair and/or mouths were insane. The slackline number was annoying because the view was blocked most of the time by the rotating box. There was one number that just sucked. The acrobats in the final were not synchronized and all over the place. The 1st half was clearly stronger than the 2nd half, and the show needs more polishing. Still, it has potential, and I’d be curious to see it in an year.
We went to my parents’ place for the weekend/following week. We had a large family party for 3 of my cousins who were turning 50 this year and had organized a large family gathering. Turns out we were about 80 people. 30 adults and 50 kids/teens. It was really nice to be there. I saw family members I probably hadn’t seen in over 20+ years. I realized that this is something that Ben is never really going to appreciate. My mom is one of 9 kids, each of whom had at least 2 kids, and now those kids are having their own. Most of the people under 15 years old, I hadn’t seen in… I don’t remember when. But it’s still family and they’re still my peeps, if only very occasionally and from afar. It was really nice to reconnect, if only for a little while. Ben did really well to come and participate, I know it’s not something he’s comfortable doing.
The rest of our time at my parents’, he tried to go shopping and I tried to do things that didn’t involve spending stupid amounts of money on stuff he doesn’t need. We tried to go to the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa. I enjoyed it, if at an accelerated pace. We went to the Canadian Museum of History, which was really fun because it had a temporary exhibit of all the TV shows I grew up watching, but this was completely lost on the boy. In both cases though, the visits were cut short because Ben lost interest and/or got tired, then got really pushy to leave. I’m a bit annoyed that he spent most of the time that we were at my parents’ place in the basement, on his laptop, working on whatever the latest obsession was. Now, to be fair, I spent most of that time upstairs at the kitchen table because it was just too bloody hot out and there were too many buzzies around outside, but at least I could chat and play cards with my folks. Ben was constantly calling me downstairs for “private chats” (about current obsession) or to stay downstairs and spend time with him.
Nat drove us back to Montreal, and she’d taken some days off work to spend the last little time we were there with us. We went to tbe biodome, which was renovated but not in a good way, really, and to the planetarium, which was good, even if Ben fell asleep during the projections. I tried to get him to do things beyond shopping, like going to see a movie, going to see the light and music show at the Basilique, doing à river cruise. None of it really got him interested enough.
I wanted to meet up with some friends again, but that didn’t happen – and to be honest I didn’t expect it to be possible, given Ben’s moods. All in all, this holiday went pretty much as I’d planned, even if it still surprised me with all of Ben’s constant demands about bags, eSIMs, shoes, clothing, airpods, moving to new apartments, bringing one of my parents’ kittens back to Switzerland, getting one (or two) new Siberian cats and getting pissy when the breeders didn’t respond immediately to his emails, reorganizing his room to setup a cat corner (for a cat we don’t even have yet), sushi, etc etc etc. I think my parents really got to experience the real Ben, full on, for the 1st time. It was relentless, and constant, and intense, but such is our life.
I slept for shite the last 2 nights at Nat, because Ben and I were sharing a room and for some ungodly reason, he kept waking me up in the middle of the night, while dreaming, asking stupid questions then going back to sleep while I spend the next few hours trying to get back to sleep, and failing miserably. (dad!dad!dad! is it normal the room doesn’t smell like you? zzzzzzzz). I’d end up getting up at 6-7am, having coffee, feeding the cat, and doing Nat’s dishes…
Anyway, I really enjoyed spending time with Nat, cooking, drinking (!), eating and talking. I know she appreciated me cooking for her and doing her dishes, and putting up the frames that had been lying on the ground for the past several months :)
The trip back was fine, and now I just need to get over my jetlag, as well as Ben’s, before going back to work next week.
Getting there & back / Random moments
Cirque du Soleil
National Gallery
Museum of History
Family party
Biodome/Planetarium
I’m back in the land of cheese and chocolate. I was in Canada for the last 2 weeks – a “workation” – as I needed to work remotely while trying to relax and visit with family and friends. The work part got done. The visiting part was mostly done, but the relaxing part was… less successful. There’s a lot of anxiety around my dad’s health concern, and there was some family drama on both sides of the ocean, which meant that there was a lot of things to still juggle. I’m happy I went and saw my family – I needed that – and I managed to do/see some of the things I had planned, but not all of them and the return home was brutal.
It was a very early morning, a longish drive to and from, and only involved à modicum of drama and arguments. We still managed to have a good day, overall.
For future reference, if we go again, this is what we did:
| Switzerland | Swiss Bob Run Matterhorn Blitz |
| Austria | Alpenexpress Coastiality Tiroler Log Flume |
| Italy | Ghost Castle Volo Da Vinci |
| Scandinavia | Fjord-Rafting Vindjammer |
| Netherlands | Pirates of Batavia |
| England | London Bus Panorama Train Station Paddington |
We got wet, got slightly pissed, had a wholly inappropriate conversation and saw in the new year.
Sushi for lunch, noodles and baos for dinner. Not traditional, but damn good.
We took our first family vacation that didn’t involve going to see family in over 4 years, and our first Swiss vacation ever, and spent 4 days/3 nights in Zurich. At first, we weren’t sure if we were going to cancel at the last minute. Not because of covid-19, but because Ben came back from scout camp super tired and grumpy and we didn’t want to spend an inordinate amount of money going somewhere else to have the same arguments we could have for free, at home. In the end, we decided to go and at least Katy and I would try and have a good time – which we mostly did.
We drove up from Morges. Initially, we were going to take the train but it worked out pretty much the same price and take the same amount of time to drive/park or take the train – and we’d be able to listen to music and wouldn’t need to keep masks on for the whole time. We made decent time, and only got turned around a bit before getting to the hotel and their well-hidden parking. The hotel was super nice, and super conveniently located, but also super expensive. Well, ok for Switzerland, and we did have two adjoining rooms separated by a door so we could shut the child in his own room. This turned out to be a mixed blessing, because of course he binged on the always-on internet, didn’t go to sleep until stupidly late and was therefore tired and grumpy all the time, woohoo!
On Monday, we did a quick reconnoiter of the general area, walked around the chinese garden, picked up information for a lake cruise and went to dinner at the hotel’s teppanyaki restaurant.
On Tuesday, we went to the zoo, which is one place Katy has been wanting to see ever since we moved to Switzerland, and even more so since one of the tigers ate a keeper. The zoo was really nice, but the visit was kinda sorta marred by the small one, who kept whining about being tired and wanting to go back to the hotel, and then having a complete meltdown when we didn’t buy him all the stuff he wanted us to get him from the gift shop.
After the zoo, we went on an evening dinner cruise on the lake. That was brilliant. Good food, good wine, gorgeous weather, and Ben wasn’t a shithead.
On Wednesday, we went to the Bahnhofstrasse and the old city to have a proper exploration. Again, the child was uber tired, uber cranky and uber wanty, so … we don’t speak of that day anymore. It was also a bit annoying that the main train station is under serious renovation, so we couldn’t really see it.
Saving grace for that day however was meeting Mira in Zug for dinner at a really great little tapas restaurant. Zug is also very cute.
On the last day, we discovered a nice little shopping center where Ben desperately wanted to go to a game shop (that also has branches in Lausanne), but there was minimal drama and then we headed home.
So, in the end, Zurich is very nice, very expensive, I had a great time with Katy and I could have done without the child’s shitty moods. But we kind of expected that.
All pictures here: https://www.flubu.com/blog/pictures/zurich_aug_2020