Bittersweet 13th on the 22nd

Late last night, we found out that a friend of ours, Joel, died suddenly and unexpectedly last Wednesday.  Our morning started on the phone having a long conversation with his remarkably strong and pragmatic wife Carmen (who used to work with Dennis many years ago).  Not an easy call to make, and life is yet again put into perspective by something sad.  I think as a result of events, Dennis and I have both been feeling a little “reflective” and “off” today.

We had been invited to two “come for a drink and a visit open houses” today, and though our friend’s wife is of the “life has to go on right away” mentality, we just felt the need to opt out of the festivities and spend the day close to home getting on with our holiday errands and chores, listening to music (I love Songza!! ), being entertained by Neva and having a more quiet day than we’d originally planned.  And it was a good day!

We also marked a very important “Roz and Dennis” milestone.  Today marks the 13th anniversary of our first date.  (I was 11….HA!!)  Time is funny, our first date seems like yesterday, but our wedding 7 years ago seems like a lifetime ago.   13 years….wow…hard to believe!

December 22nd is also a bittersweet day for another reason in our home…you’ll see why in a sec.

When we eventually got around to food/drink this morning, we had almond milk lattes and two pieces of little big bread with light cream cheese and some blackberries.

As I said earlier, we were as any other day, entertained by Neva.  I was a BAD BAD pet owner at one point, and tried to take a “comedy shot” with her looking through one of my pairs of reading glasses.   As you’ll see in this montage, I was NOT successful with my comedy photo, and my poor red glasses were violated as a result. Neva 1, Roz 0.  (yup…BAD pet owner!!  OMG, if you think THIS is bad, wait for a day or two and see what I’ll offer…I apologize in advance to Neva.  Not really…)

And I took this photo of her against our dining room ceiling which as you can see reflects the light feature quite well.

I also went for a walk to grab a couple of ingredients for the last edible gift I’m making this year.  As you can see, our snow is almost all gone….

…this Santa snowman is fading fast, and now looks more like a white Christmas snow sock puppet….

…the macro function on my camera working well with this Christmas light and a drop of water…

…and our neighborhood sand sculpture’s creation this week has a very “non seasonal” angry person in a dunce hat on display.  (I walked by thinking he’d have a Santa, or an elf, or snowman….maybe this IS an elf.)  Dunno..but have to admit, we’re pretty fortunate to have an eccentric artist living a couple of blocks away – walks are always a surprise.

When I got home, I made us scrambled eggs with light cheese, and two more pieces of Little Big Bread.  I also had a piece of fruitcake that one of my colleagues made.

Later in the afternoon, we had “Recipe to Riches Montreal Deli Dip” with wheat crackers.  Dennis was born and raised in Montreal, but I liked this dip WAY more than he did.

We also had a little bittersweet celebration for our kitty Raleigh, who we lost 3 years ago today.  We still think about the stripey little scamp often, and we were happy to toast him with a little prosecco.  I had him for 15 years (longer than I’ve had Dennis! ) and his loss was very emotional for us.  However, the tears have long been replaced with laughs and memories of his fun little antics.  Can’t say he was a “quirky” as our Neva – who is the princess of kitty quirk, but we loved him very much and miss him.

We decided to nix our “fancy smancy” date night dinner and sent out for our favorite Swiss Chalet dinner.  We had the festive special, which is roast chicken with stuffing, cranberry, a bun, gravy and I had mine with a baked potato.

We had a more romantic dinner together 13 years ago, but tonight, this was perfect.   Hope your pre-Christmas weekend is full of fun, festivities and hugs.