The Royal Treatment

It's so kooky around here!

One day it seems the sky is falling with talk of "variants" overwhelming our hospital network and the next, the sun is shining and throng of people are out enjoying the beautiful weather. The past few days have been particularly crazy - I think it's been consistently above 10 degrees Celsius since last Friday, and on the weekend it hit 17! Tomorrow (Thursday) is forecast for 19!

I don't think I've ever seen it this warm in Ottawa in March. If you can believe it, patio season used to be May to Thanksgiving in October. I'll be laughing about that one with my grandkids because now, with all the warm weather, patios are opening up all along Wellington street already. 

Technically, you can eat inside right now but a lot of people aren't comfortable with that given that Ottawa is in a "red" zone in Ontario's pandemic safety scale. I'm relatively open minded when it comes to dining indoors or out, but as soon as I saw that sun, I knew I had to take advantage. 

Here is Glosette Girl and I enjoying our first patio brewskis of the year at The Royal Oak in nearby Wellington West. I'll be honest, The Royal Oak is a so-so bar at best. Everything about the is unmemorable. However, it looks like they've decided to up their game as they finally have added some (maybe one) craft brew to their beer menu. So there's hope for them yet!

Happy Glosette Girl

 Better yet, we had super friendly service and the patio had everything I could ask for (i.e. a place in the sun with a cold beer).

Happy Simon

So hats off to The Royal Oak for starting 2021 off on the right note. May Ottawa's patio season be long and plentiful!

In the moment

Oh to be a child again! When everything is 100% about being in the moment. When life's most pressing problems are about whether your class beats the other class in an in-school competition. 

Maybe I'm remembering my youth through rose tinted glasses, but when I see Margot's enthusiasm for the latest activity her school has thought up to boost spirit I can't help but smile. This week its RED vs. BLUE: half of the school has been arbitrarily assigned to the red team and the other half of the school is on the blue team. Why? Why not?!

Everyday of the week there is an event to get points. On Tuesday, kids received one point for every article of blue they wore. Margot did OK. She got 14 points...

Not bad...

However, with her team, Blue, falling behind on the scoreboard, she stepped up her game today and scored 41 points for every piece of green clothing she wore in honour of St. Patrick's Day!!! 

Much better!

 She even painted her fingernails and toenails green to try and get bonus points. Attagirl!

First time toenail painting!

Hogwarts in Hintonburg!

It's interesting to see how Margot's tastes in books develop as she gets older. When she was very young, the key was picture books; English or french, as long as there were lots of pictures, she devoured them!

More recently, she's into comic books (a.k.a bande dessinées). Her current favourite is Archie but she's also enjoyed the smurfs, studio danse, and one from the 1980s: les 4 as.

I used to read a lot to her when she was younger but there's been a pause for the last two years as her reading ability has improved and she's become more independent. However, recently Margot started to ask a lot of questions about Harry Potter books: "What are the different houses in Harry Potter?", "Is Voldemort scary", "Does Harry like Hermione", "Who is Hermione's first boyfriend?", "When does Harry meet Ginny?" (there are a lot of girlfriend/boyfriend-themed questions).

She's a bit behind her classmates when it comes to that series, as many of them have been reading Harry Potter for a couple of years now. But for whatever reason she showed no desire to jump on the bandwagon...until now.

This past weekend, something triggered in her mind and Margot and I started reading the first Harry Potter  book together. It's a bit of a slog as I have to help her with quite a few words as we go along, but I don't mind. It's a great way for her to improve her English ability, and like how it's an opportunity for us to do some reading together again after our hiatus. 

Chapter one, book one,  done. Only nine hundred chapters to go!

The other bonus is that it gives me a chance to jump back into the world of owl messengers, goblin bankers, Quidditch, the Dursleys and all the magical stuff in that world. It feels like forever ago since Harry Potter was a big deal and it's a fun bit of escapism to start reading it again.

March Vegetarian Challenge

For years Glosette Girl has been trying to get me to be more vegetarian. And for years, in response, I say "Leave me alone while I eat my burgers and sausages!"

Actually, for the most part, we already eat a lot of vegetarian meals. A lot of my breakfasts and lunches are veggie-only and usually one or two dinners too. 

But this time we've decided to take it up to the next level: for the entire month of March we are going all in and only eating no meat! Woohoo!

OK, there are a couple of exceptions:

• First, we're allowed to finish off any meat left in our fridge so it doesn't go bad. I hate wasting food and there is an open pack of bacon waiting to be eaten. I will do the honourable thing and eat it all up this weekend. 
• Second, Margot is allowed a tiny bit of leeway because...well....she's a kid. That said, she recently went to Suzy Q Donuts, and of all things she ordered a Maple Bacon donut of all things. I didn't even know they made donuts with BACON on them?! Sigh. Anyways, I'll excuse the lapse of judgement...this time.

At first we debated whether to have an exception for take-out, but no we've decided to go all in. So today we ordered a Green Pepper pizza from Carlo's Pizzeria in Wellington West. That joint is a real hole-in-the-wall believe-you-me! But man, do they make a good Green Pepper pizza! 

Carlos' throws in free pop too!

And they throw in 10% off if you phone in an order rather than order it online?! Nice.

Anyways, besides a few bacon hiccups, we're doing a pretty good job so far on our veggie-inspired journey. The big challenge will be coming up with new recipes to make things interesting. Luckily, our whole gang likes tofu.

That said...it's only March 3rd...only 28 more days to go....

 AHHHH!