Alexa, my new best friend!

Richard, you will be proud of me. I got Alexa working all by myself.

It's really quite fun but I realize it could save us up to $265 a year (it cost $100). I'm on a 30 day trial of Amazon Prime which will cost $80 a year. It looks like it will have anything we want to listen to in music so can give up Apple Music at $180 a year. We may give up Netflix at $132 a year. We haven't watched anything on Netflix for months and Amazon Prime Video seems to have a lot of stuff. I am also paying $33.50 a year for extra cloud storage. Amazon Prime gives you unlimited photo storage.

It will also read all my Kindle books and I have a lot of classics on my Kindle as well as new books. You can ask her to tell you a joke:
"Why did Zero start dating? He was looking for the One."

There may be a glitch or two as my Macbook Air doesn't have the system requirement to do Silverlight which is needed for the video service but Jim's iPad probably will be capable.

Well, obviously, we could have done Amazon Prime without Alexa but it got me interested in it. I guess I was very turned off by the Canadian Amazon Prime which only offered good delivery options initially not all the other stuff.

Hello Janice Sexton, Congratulations! You've just joined Amazon Prime, the best membership program for shipping, shopping, entertainment, and more. With your 30-day free trial, here are just a few of the many great benefits included with your membership. Shopping Prime members get access to Lightning Deals on Amazon.ca 30 minutes before other customers can access these deals. Delivery Items are delivered fast with Prime Delivery options like FREE Two-Day Shipping and FREE Same-Day or One-Day Delivery in select areas. Entertainment Watch and enjoy popular movies and TV shows with Prime Video. Stream over one million songs, ad-free with Prime Music. Enjoy free game content every month with Twitch Prime.

Memory on FB six years ago

 I can't believe we just arrived a week today in Vancouver and we've managed to go already to several of our favourite haunts. Fish and Chips and Red Truck Ale at the Sylvia, Bento box at Denman Sushi, Mussel Mania at Granville Island preceded by roasted chestnuts, sake and plum wine tasting and followed by buying goodies like salmon jerky for our dinner party Saturday.

Then Olympia Pizza...me for the calamari lunch, Jim for the lamb. We love the
Olympia but were sad to see Maria's Taverna has gone out of business. We enjoyed that too. Then down to Commercial Drive today....super day on the Drive beginning with lunch at Nick's....me, the veal and salad, Jim, the steak and spaghetti washed down with lots of wine. Met an interesting guy as we were finishing so bought him a drink and listened to tales of his travels in the Orient. I had a sambuco...perfect ending. Then went to see if old Morgan the cat was still around. He's over 25 and sleeps in this store but he only does half days now so had gone for the day. Glad he's still going strong!

Photos self explanatory, I think...

Comment today:  I can't believe we did all this in a week but then we were younger six years ago:)

Aren't these tulips just exquisite?

I think these are the best tulips I have ever bought!  I love you IGA!  And they go perfectly with the south of France painting...umbrella pines with sailboats in the Mediterranean off Carquiranne.

A frosty foggy morning although blue sky is now appearing and I think the fog will clear soon.

Looking forward to revisiting many things in Palm Springs...

Peninsula Pastries being one of them!

We talked to Nicki and Stan tonight and it was teaming rain in PS!  And the weather hasn't been great since their arrival the beginning of January.  PS does need the rain but still...Well, we do know Palm Springs can have rather iffy weather in Dec/Jan.  One reason we stopped going to the PS Film Festival is that it often was raining in the first two weeks of January and also we usually caught colds from people coming from all over the country. When you pay a lot of money to be there you go even if you have a cold.

I think it will be very toasty when we arrive Jan. 25!

Looking forward to the next Louise Penny already

She is setting it in London so that should be quite fun.

Almost finished the 3rd draft of the next Gamache book. What I'll often do is write essentially the same scene, or exchange, or exposition, in different places in the manuscript....then decide in subsequent drafts where it best belongs. So there's lots of culling and re-organizing. Once writing done, I love just walking through London, discovering charming side streets everywhere. Off now for Sunday roast with friends Rocky and Steve. Bishop doing very well, though it's bitterly cold at home. Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

I love shopping at IGA!

I am in love with shopping at this IGA on 4th Avenue....wow! I anticipate going shopping there like I anticipate going shopping at Trader Joe's in Palm Springs. Now, that is really saying something. It really only takes about 2 minutes longer to drive than going to Save-On and I get to see My mountains, My ocean, and My freighters.  And really it is less time since parking is easier and there hasn't been a wait for a cashier so far. They have an amazing selection of products and prices seem better than Save-On. And perhaps best of all the Angus Beef striploin is as good or better than Sterling beef at Safeway.

Thank you, thank you, Maureen, for encouraging me to give this store a try.

Some new wall decorations

We got a frame at Michael's yesterday so hung the newspaper page up. Looks rather cool beside Jim's "Inspiring Lives" award for excellence in teaching from Camosun College on the left.

Elaine gave us this tea towel quite a while ago and I've never been able to bring myself to use it so rather than have it in a drawer I put it on a wall as well. I love having it on view...don't know why I didn't do this before!

In April 2020, we'll be back in this area again and seeing all our beloved haunts.

A super lunch chez Dick and Susan...

We had many laughs and shared memories of yesteryear...not sure we got all the details right but at our age that is understandable. It was a long time ago!

Dick made a great canneloni dish. I used to do this too...must get back to it.

Thanks, guys, for a super afternoon.

Meanwhile in Palm Springs...I'm missing these mountains!

Photos from Benjamin posted on FB.

Wine Wednesday at Las Margaritas

We had our usual meals and each had a glass of their $5 wine special. Considering that's CDN it's a great deal. We're lucky to get a glass of wine on a Happy Hour for $5 US in Palm Springs.

My chile relleno and tortilla soup...still the best I've tasted anywhere.

Jim's shredded beef enchilada and rice and beans.

Lovely afternoon chez Carol and John

We had such fun talking and as usual Carol cooked a wonderful meal. John has got into newspapers.com which has recently digitized all of the Vancouver Sun and Province.  Our uncles, John and Roy Cavallin, were well known local lacrosse players and John found a great story and photos of Roy getting stitched up from a fight (he was a real scrapper!). In this particular game he punched out the referee and got ejected.

I gave John this medal for enduring life with Carol while she wrote her Master's final paper:)

Yes, it drove him to drink...

Le chef extraordinaire...

John also printed up and gave us a 16 x 24 copy of the front page where Jim is featured with his "Oscar" for winning best actor in a school play in Vancouver. He was in grade 10 at the time. I remember seeing the play, of course. We'll have to get this framed!

Byline reads: "BEST ACTOR in High School Drama Festival. Jim Sexton gets buss on cheek from actress Carol Forbes at Award banquet Wednesday. They played in Killarney School Charlie's Aunt.
(Story p.3)"

He kind of looks like Kevin Spacey.

John sent me these photos of newspaper pages.

He printed up the page when I was a Sun Swim Instructor and was asked to participate in the Sun Salmon Derby. That's me with the fish, middle right.

Rest of the story and another photo of Jim in his Charlie's Aunt costume...left top.

That's my Uncle Roy getting stitched up (middle left)

A gorgeous sunny day yesterday

And I took advantage of it to do baking, make chili, do laundry etc. It was wonderful to be bathed in sunshine while doing it all. And a spectacular sunset.

Peanut butter cookies...what also?

My new bookclub in Vancouver

It was such fun yesterday and great that Liz was willing to drive us all out to White Rock. Karin was hosting and served up an amazing lunch with two desserts and insisted we all take some home.

We were discussing "Women Talking" and it was particularly interesting because Betty and Karin both have Mennonite backgrounds. Karin has a letter of ex-communication from the Mennonite Church.

Good wine, good food, good company...what else is there?

Memory from Facebook 6 years ago.

I'm a little surprised I referred to it as the one minute Christmas tree...it took at least three minutes I think:)

The one minute Christmas tree heads to the basement in preparation for next year.

Wonderful dinner with Richard and Grace at Tamam

We started at their place with lots of goodies including an amazing "peanut brittle" that was spicy...wow!  They have just a great place on the water pretty much where the old Cannery Restaurant was.  Just wonderful!

And then this wonderful restaurant "Taman". It's Palestinian food...everything was fantastic!

On the right there is some very cool electronic stuff Richard is renting. He is composing. Sounds like a great way to start the New Year!

Lunch at The Sylvia yesterday with Maureen

Even a little bit of blue sky appeared!  I had the soup and sandwich special....squash soup and smoked salmon croissant. Both very yummy and loads of smoked salmon. I took half the sandwich home. Maureen convinced me to give the IGA grocery store on 4th a try and glad I did. Underground parking is easy, not very busy, and the selection  is quite amazing for a small store. I was impressed and it was a very pleasant shopping experience.

I took a few photos around Sunset Beach. We don't really see Canda Geese at UBC. They had just stopped traffic and crossed the road.

Burrard Bridge in the background.

It was very cosy in The Sylvia and we snagged our favourite table.