Now it’s almost February and we haven’t been anywhere since September!!

But Phil’s birthday is this weekend, so we are going to Calgary.

And that just goes to show how vacation deprived we are, because we are both ridiculously excited about it.

It helps that we will be dining at CHARCUT - voted one of the top 10 restaurants in Canada.  And that Connie DeSousa, one of the chefs and owners of the restaurant came in 3rd on Top Chef Canada.

We have been once before, for lunch, when Shana was up for a visit last summer and we have been dreaming about sitting at the kitchen bar for dinner ever since.

And this is the restaurant that started the whole alley burger craze.*

So you can imagine how excited we are!

I have no idea what else we will be doing this weekend**, but we have a list of restaurants to hit as long as my leg, so I know we will be rolling wherever we go.

And I can. not. wait!

I just have to remember to check my bag for stowaways before we leave…

*And now they have an Alley Burger food truck that we will also be paying a visit to

**Phil suggested “sitting in the hotel room, drinking”

I am finding a sort of zen when I’m alone in the kitchen before Phil gets home from work.  The final product still leave something to be desired, but Phil makes all the work worth while.  He is great to cook for and compliments me on every meal, despite my obvious shortcomings.

Another bonus to cooking actual meals for dinner, is that I have actual meals for lunch the next day.

No more buying a bagel from the food court because I’m too cheap to spend money on a sandwich!

Yesterday, I had leftovers for lunch – honey and soy sauce glazed chicken over jasmine rice.  It was so good and many of my co workers were popping their head into my cubicle to find out what the yummy smell was.

When I was getting my lunch ready for work this morning, I pulled out my 2 tupperware containers from yesterday – one that held my cereal and was already washed, and the one that held my honey-soy chicken and was just wiped with a paper towel.

I filled one up with this morning’s cereal, tossed in the other in the dishwasher, packed my lunch bag and headed to work.

When I got to work, I opened my container of cereal and noticed a faint smell, but I didn’t think much of it and continued to add the milk.  But when I dipped my spoon in and held the bowl up to my face,  there was definitely an…odour.

An odour of day-old, honey-soy chicken and jasmine rice.

In my Cheerios.

*Gag*

Those of you who don’t know me that well, might not be surprised that I am very particular about my food.  I am borderline OCD in my eating habits, and the thought of eating cereal and milk in a day-old, dirty dish that held saucy chicken the day before made me just about barf.

But the thought of tossing out that full bowl of, technically, perfectly fine cereal and milk bothered my frugal sensibilities even more.

So I ate it.

I just had to use the same technique as when I eat escargot or tripe or pig face…just don’t think about it.

This is silly – just eat it.  Just put some of that nasty, contaminated cereal on the spoon and lift it to your mouth, and eat it.  Gag.  It’s perfectly disgusting fine.  It smells so bad just as cereal should…maybe just hold your breath when the cereal/spoon/bowl is near your face…that’s still gross better.  Everything Nothing’s wrong with this breakfast at all.

And, somehow - with pure grit and determination, and thought of the poor, starving children in Africa – I finished that cereal.

I know…you’re impressed. 

You’re probably asking yourself, right now, “how did she find the strength to continue in the face of such adversity?”

And I’ll tell you how…

It’s because I am a true hero*.

*Please hold your applause

Phil and I go through phases where we drink a lot of tea and then forget about it for months at a time (I think that pattern could probably be traced to “winter” and “summer”), and now I am in a “must have tea” phase.

Whenever we have dinner at Phil’s Dad’s house, there is always tea after dinner, and I love that.  So I decided that we were going to incorporate that to our evening ritual as well.

The only problem was, all we had was dusty, bagged tea from our last attempt at regal living.

So Phil put the question out to the Twitterverse – Where do you get your tea?

And the overwhelming response sent us to DAVIDsTEA.  

We walked into the bright, open store, our eyes wide in wonder.  As we stood with our mouths hanging open, staring in bewilderment at the giant wall of tea, a very friendly sales clerk came up and offered help.

Once we told her what we liked, she moved with lightening speed, pulling tin after tin off the wall and passing it under our noses for our approval.  As I inhaled the sweet, fruity scents I was immediately filled with a happy warmth and I wanted to try them all.

But Phil made me stop at 3 – all Rooibos red – and we have enjoyed them every night.

You just take some of this:

Add a couple teaspoons of that:

Let it steep in here:*

And enjoy:**

*the longest 4 – 7 minutes of my night

**fancy-lady china mug not necessary…

Phil: So, uh, I was just in a house working on this lady’s furnace and after 45 minutes, and just as I was leaving, she told me she has a bed bug infestation.

Me: *Mind scrambling in terror but unable to get any words out…*

Phil: Yeah…as I was leaving she started complaining about what else could go wrong…first the bed bug infestion, then the furnace breaking down.

Me: *Still unable to fully comprehend what he was saying.*  I’m sorry…what, exactly, are you saying?!?

Phil:  I already took off my outer layers – my jacket and my coveralls – and threw them in the back of the van.  But I need a change of clothes and don’t want to come in the house.  Can you meet me in the garage?

Me:  In the garage?  Uh…yeah sure…Ok…

I said yes, but what I was actually thinking was:

No fucking way are you coming within 50 feet of this house!  You can just march your bug-infested butt to Wal Mart and pick up some new clothes, then go to the gym to shower and change, then stop at a garbage bin downtown and light your old clothes on fire!

But, like a good wife, I hung up the phone, shuddered, and gathered up a change of clothes to bring out to my naked husband waiting in the garage.  The only thought running through my head was “Dear God, please don’t let us get bed bugs.  PLEASE don’t let us get bed bugs!” 

I also brought a big garbage bag out with me and, as he stripped off each article of clothing, I held the bag out as far away from my body with the very tips of my fingers as he, inconsiderately, tossed his clothes near into it.*

The whole time I was praying that nothing jumped off to feed on me.

Before he put his boots back on, I screamed in a panicky voice calmly asked him to shake them out before pulling them on his feet.  And then I led him to the house where he could now remove his clean clothes and hop into the shower.  Despite every fibre of my being screaming at me to light the bag of contaminated clothes on fire, I dumped them directly into the washing machine and soaked them in scalding hot water.

And when the load was done, I soaked them again.

And then I left them in there for over a week.

If the hot water didn’t kill them, the growing mold should…

*not caring at all that I had to actually touch the tainted clothing and push them into the bag.  you know, with my hand!

It’s just a head cold – I feel like I am swallowing razor blades and my sinuses are so plugged my face feels like its going to explode, and it has knocked me on my ass.  And even though I could write a (mostly) sensical post a few hours after surgery while hopped up on morphine, I am having a heck of a time stringing a coherent sentence together through the fog of a head cold.

So, I’ll just tell you what I ate this weekend!

Luckily, Phil is still in caretaker mode from nursing me back to health after my surgery, so he let me curl up on the couch while he spent almost the entire weekend in the kitchen.

He was up at 7:30am on Saturday making bread and pizza rolls from scratch.  When I rolled out of bed after 10, he put the purple potato pancakes that he made on the stove for our breakfast*.

We had all kinds of plans for the weekend, but they were tossed out the window thanks to my germ-filled body so, in addition to picking up some Nyquil, Bentasil and Kleenex, we made a quick stop to our local butcher – Acme Meat Market – to pick up something for supper.

We were back home before the couch had time to miss me.

While I worked on creating the perfect imprint in the sofa cushions, Phil tackled a dish that he has always wanted to have, but was too intimidated to attempt himself - braised short ribs* (it is definitely worth your while to check out his blog post on it).

They were crazy good!  And with his fear conquered, Phil is already planning all the different ways he can cook short ribs in the future.

And then Sunday morning, we had to cancel breakfast out with my Aunt and Uncle because I was still feeling like crap, so Phil made me fluffy, lemon pancakes* with maple syrup to ease my pain.

Despite being sick, I can’t help but feel like I’m a very lucky woman.

*and he washed all the dishes too!