LA-bee

When Laura was here...

first of all, the first two days of her visit I had to work. But Labee came and met me on those two days for lunch! I have to say this was quite lovely and helped to shorten my workdays quite. We went to Breakers deli (which is where I always go) and Laura mistakenly remembered a 'pork&fig' sandwich she got as being called the 'pig&fig'. We repeated pig n' fig a few times...doesn't sound quite right for a sandwich, does it?

Me and Laura went for evening walks on those first two days. We stopped in at Tofino glass art studio, which is situated at someone's home in a little wooden shed just up the street from me. The artist, an energetic white-haired man, was quite chatty and very friendly and open. We didn't stay long. Laura confessed she wasn't that impressed with most of the stuff. He did have some cool glass 'mask' faces, we both agreed though.

It was a blue-y purple evening with a dramatic sky, that first night. We walked down to the water and around town, remarking on and appreciating different houses. Laura pointed out that a lot of the houses on wharf st. are the same as they would have been when this was more of a fisherman's community. Little shingled colourful fisherman houses! There was a driveway, a long, graveled, bending-out-of-sight driveway that is just up the street from me. We kept passing it of course on our journeys into town, and almost every time laura would just silently turn and start walking down it. I would protest timidly, but finally on her last day we journeyed down it...it went on for quite a ways, through rainforest, only to end in a little cleared space for parking and then a little foot trail that kept going out of sight amongst the trees. We gave it up there.

While Laura was here, we ate good food. My first day off began with a veritable breakfast feast. Poppin' fresh biscuits, flavourful breakfast sausages, and an omelette. Me and Laura were a team in the kitchen. We made little biscuitwiches with the poppin fresh. (as an aside, does anyone ELSE have a beef with the auto-spell check, which automatically changes your spelling if it detects it as 'wrong', even if you don't ASK it? There are many words I use which are meant to have their own spelling...such as 'fub)

after breakfast (Shawn was working), we spent a leisurely time, Laura editing or uploading photos and whatnot, and then we did lesson 2 together of the Per Bristow 'sing with freedom' course. It was quite fun. Per is delightfully cheesy and the exercises he gets you to do are amusing..AND they feel good to do.

Then I called my work, and asked if there might be a trip that me and Laura could go on. I wasn't sure if Laura would get to go for free or not....but as it turned out, she could! And we were able to get on a bear-watching trip at 4pm.

It was a beautiful sunny, breezy day, and we filled in the time before the trip with walking into town. I bought some things for hanging pictures on the wall, and we checked out Castaways, the thrift store in town. I was looking for a woollen knit sweater that was not as bulky as the Cowichan Lake ones. They did indeed have some there as Laura had said, but they were all super bulky, and 70+ bucks. No thanks. Mean time the owner of the place cornered in on me and Laura and initiated some quirky conversation. People always come up and talk when I'm with Laura. Must be she has a very approachable energy.

Laura braided my hair into a fishtail for the trip. No doubt you've all seen the pics up on facebook that I took...me and Laura purposely (and a little sheepishly, since we weren't paying) squeezed into the front bench before anyone else had a chance. haha. As it turned out however, the way back we were going against the wind and MUCH freezingness was had, specially since we were right up in front. It was so beautiful though!! And we saw two bears. My camera could only capture a little black blob. But I could see it's mouth chewing away. The places we went to on the zodiac were magical and sun-drenched. The trees were glorious. I tried to ignore occasional patches of clear-cut, conveniently hidden from public eye. It hurt my heart to see.

That night we went out and ate sushi. We sat in an empty corner (actually, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves) overlooking Clay-o-quat sound and the sunset. Sushi was delightsome. It's a teensy bit pricey there, but the servings are nice n' big and it IS quality. I think. It's not like I'm an expert, but I do know what I like.

Next morning we had buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup. I didn't have regular white vinegar with which to 'sour' the milk, so I had to use apple cider vinegar...the tang it added was delicious, just as I thought. Shawn took me to get my bike all pumped and tuned afterwards, so that me and Laura could go to the beach! Then Laura had to go rent a bike from the greyhound station - both of these things were quite time-consuming, so that it wasn't until around 2:30 (after we'd gone to the co-op and bought snacks...and then returned to buy water) that we set off for the beach. It was another gorgeous sunny day, and riding along the bike path was euphoric. We road down lynn rd to see all the beautiful houses. Cox Bay was our destination. It was unbelievable there. The wind blowing high, high up in the trees, the white-capped bright blue, the wide expanse of pale sand...it is not possible to get enough of. We had a picnic on sunset point and then frolicked around taking pictures. Had some good talks. Eventually we had to leave in order to make dinner, for which we had plans to make risotto. Neither of us had tried it before.
We also bought some pork loinage. I made some peanut sauce for the pork, and Laura basically did the 'meat' of the work for making the risotto. We listened to some good tunes while cooking.
I think the risotto turned out soooo good! It wasn't perfect - as the recipe put it, 'ridiculously creamy and oozing', it was more on the (as Laura put it) 'stodgy' side, but we both agreed that for a first time it was pretty fabulous. And what Laura never got to find out was that the next day it was even better.

The next morning Laura left way too early, and I was left trying to ignore the empty feeling once again. For me, the entire time was magical. Laura helps me to appreciate EVERYTHING, and when she visits me our combined adventurous spirits are brought out.