I'm with the band...

Here is the photographic evidence of which I spoke. I kept is small because it is probably the worst picture in existence, but whatever man.


Does this make me a groupie?

Ontario Girl, or Hurtin' Albertan?

I had so many titles in mind for this post, but decided to stick with this one. So, you'll never guess who we went to see the other night...but, if by some stroke of genius you guessed Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans, you guessed right! (if that was indeed your guess you must know the vicar's wife very well.) After being in Windsor for a month now, I was beginning to feel a little homesick. Early one morning (after CityLine but before the View) I chanced to open my e-mail and find a schedule of tour dates for my favourite boys. Yes, I have in fact signed up for the online newsletter - get off my back, bintches. Lo and behold, there was a concert scheduled for Sunday, September 17 in London (a 2 hour drive away, but what kind of fan would I be if my favourite band drove all this way and I didn't even make the effort.) The nice thing is that we rarely have anything scheduled on Sunday afternoons/evenings, and Monday is Murray's day off so it proved to be perfect timing. As fate would have it, there were still tickets available - hey, it's not Alberta! I once again suckered my loving husband into taking in the show by reminding him that he is, in fact, a Corb Lund fan himself. Not in Corb his present Alt-Country form, but in his grungier, underground, Alt-Rock era when he was with the smalls. Anyway, we hopped in the car much like we had so many times this summer, and headed up the 401 to London. London is actually quite nice. Lots of trees and old houses - I guess one of the first settlements in upper Canada. You may think I'm smart for knowing that, but I'm actually racking my brain to remember what was on the "Historical Point of Interest" sign we passed by the river. They really milk the "English connection" what with the River Thames and "Covent Garden Market" and all that jazz. A nice college town nonetheless. We arrived at the Cowboys-esque bar an hour early, hoping to be able to get a table and have some dinner before the show. No such luck - all we found were 3 desperate city girls hoping to look trashy in their cowboy hats that came free with the Budweiser case. After deciding that Taquitos from the neighbouring 7-11 wouldn't be sufficient nourishment for the evening, we headed off down the strip to look for some supper. Murray made a crack that those 3 girls had probably bought the only other tickets for the show. After all, it's not Alberta! When we got back to the club there was a lineup - nothing major, but I'm glad we got there when we did because when we got inside, we actually managed to get a table with chairs up on the balcony. Sweet seats, if I do say so... The opening act was actually pretty good for a change! They're called Elliott Brood, and we bought their CD. Then was the moment of magic...I guess that's a little dramatic, but it was an awesome show. You will notice the yahoos near the front waving their Copenhagen snoose cans in one hand, and in the other, their disgusting chew-spit-cups (sorry, I don't know the slang for that one...beer cup spitoons?) Ick. Glad I wasn't standing beside them in case of chew-spit-cup-spillage.

We both quite enjoyed the show the chew guys put on, and the actual concert was the best one I've seen.
The cool part is, once the show was over and lots of people left, we looked over our balcony railing and there was Corby! Murray, being the super sport that he is, helped me elbow through the crowd of Budweiser-cowboy-hat-wearing, shirt-cut-waaaaaay-too-low-for-a-woman-of-your-age-sportin', beer-spilling, chew-cup-carrying crowd so I could meet my country music hero.

And I did.

And, of course, stupid blogger won't let me post the photograpic evidence of this momentous occasion! Bah!

Yet Another Reason Why I Love Martha Stewart

So I was watching Martha the other day (a re-run, but I'll survive...) and they were having a Wild West party. One of the party treats she made were these awesome "Spud Sundaes."

Essentially, the baked potato is made from ice cream dusted with cocoa, the butter is a little bit of yellow icing, the sour cream is whipped cream, and the chives are green candy sprinkles. Then there's the hot fudge sauce - I don't know what that would translate to in a real baked potato...gravy, maybe? Ah well... I thought it was cool, but I'm kind of a nerd.

Just to shake things up...

I just wasn't feeling comfortable with the blog...I needed to shake things up. And by 'shake things up' the Lutheran in me means 'go back to what I know' - the original template. Having a blog can be very time consuming, but I'm proud of the technological steps I have taken (such as adding links). I'm a super blogger!

We have been in Windsor for about 2 weeks now, and we're pretty comfortable with the city, the apartment, and the church. The sky is never really blue here - it's always a little hazy...maybe on account of the humidity, maybe on account of the smog. And some days, when the wind is blowing just right, you can smell the Hiram Walker distillery.

There are some really pretty homes and gardens here. There seems to be more war memorial-type stuff here than there is in Alberta, and there is a whole section of town with streets named "Vimy" and "Dieppe" and "Somme." We are only a few blocks from "Dieppe Park" which runs along the Detroit River and has some beautifully maintained flowers and topiary bushes.

On Monday, Murray had the day off so we decided to do some exploring. We first thought that we would check out Pelee Island (the southernmost point in Canada), but when we saw in our handy-dandy tourguide book that the ferry only sails twice a day on Mondays, we realized we had missed the boat. Ha ha. No, really.
Instead, we headed downtown for a slice of Pizza Pizza (highly declicious, for the information of all you Westerners...) and some tourist-style sightseeing. I think Windsor has more shops that sell Cuban cigars than anywhere I have ever seen. I guess it's because the Americans can't buy them on their side of the border. Anyway, cigar shops aside, there are plenty of restaurants here, including some that let you smoke a hookah pipe on their sidewalk patios. Interesting. We went to a really great restaurant for dinner called Chinoso's - all kinds of Asian food, from create-your-own stirfry to curries and sushi. delish.

We walked along the riverside path which takes you from Dieppe Park to the Ambassador Bridge, then we hopped in the car and drove down Riverside Drive to Tecumseh. Lots of big homes that back onto the river, and some gigantic ocean-liners and ships bound for the (other) Great Lakes pass by on a regular schedule.
We stopped by a beach on Lake St Clair (a not-so-great-lake...essentially just a really wide part of the river, which is really just a narrow part of Lake Erie). Anyway, the water looked pretty scuzzy (note the comment about gigantic ships above) and the beach was pretty gross too. We've heard that Ontario has some beautiful lakes and beaches, but I'm not sure that this is one of them.

The people here have been so awesome! We have been invited to dinner by a number of congregation members. We've been busy little social butterflies, but it gets to be a little draining. I'm certainly not complaining - we've had some amazing dinners and chances to get to know some wonderful people. And I haven't had to cook much in the tiny, tiny kitchen.

The other day when I was minding my own business watching Martha Stewart, a little mouse came scurrying out of the storage room. I tried to stay dignified and not freak out, but visions of Hanta-virus were running through my head. The little mouse turned around and darted back into the storage room, so I did what any self-respecting vicar's wife would do -I threw a 'pounce' treat into the storage room and left it to the cat. Then we called the secretary who informed us that the "mouse guy" would be there in 15 minutes to set some traps. We haven't seen any mice since then (either scurrying about or stuck in the traps, thank goodness!)

So that's about all the interesting stuff I can think of for now.