Lucy & Ethel,Canada - Day 7 octopus at Lake Louise

Someone asked me a question about the DEATH OF A PRINCESS book where I wrote ‘what a waste’.  She asked if I thought the book was a waste, or whether I was sad that that Diana’s death was a waste of the rest of her life.  Definitely the latter….the book was EXCELLENT….I was just very sad that we never got to see the woman she was growing into, and what else she might have done with her life.

I was up and out early on Friday (8/10) for breakfast with the ladies, getting home around 10:30.  The babies were BOTH in the top round of the bedroom cat tree…looking adorable as usual:  

After I snuggled them a bit, I headed to the kitchen and spent over an hour processing tomatoes.  Loree, her sister, and Reg are heading to the mountains in a couple of days and she asked if I wanted the tomatoes left on their plants.  Who am I to turn down the gold standard of food….fresh, garden tomatoes!!!  Michael and I have been eating them, but there were so many that I cut up a bunch to drain for our ONE POT PASTA (https://www.marthastewart.com/978784/one-pan-pasta) for dinner (although instead of basil, I used some arugula pesto that Sue & Charlie brought when they were here): 

set aside a few for ‘mater sammiches over the weekend, and the rest were cored and seeded and put into the crockpot to cook down to sauce out on the lanair:

I hit my studio just after NOON, and spent a bit of time writing a thank you note to our quilting speaker yesterday as well as getting some notes written and pictures printed out to mail to my friend who had a stoke several weeks before we left on vacation.  I need to follow up to see if she is finally allowing visitors, and then find some time to visit!  After that I got to do some crafting.  Since I knew I was supposed to meet later in the day with a new quilt customer, I spent quite a bit of time getting the Hunter’s Star off of the frame and all cleaned up.  After that it was back to my newest rainbow quilt:  

We had an early dinner and the ONE POT PASTA was, as always, yummy, (with a really sharp cheddar type cheese sprinkled on top) then Michael took off for rehearsal while I headed back to my studio to sew.  I got a bit further on the new rainbow, and even re-arranged them when I realized that my layout didn’t match the pattern:

but it was too difficult for me to figure out how to spin them the way the pattern does that late at night, and Michael came home and said they looked great just as they were, so I left them!

Canada

Day 7 – We had a group photo taken at Jasper before traveling to Lake Louise.  The only story I’m going to tell you about today is from dinner.  We had dinner with Judy & Fred again…you remember them from the laughing on the train….right?  Well, we opted to have dinner together in a very chi-chi restaurant.  

We had wonderful seats looking out at the lake:

Judy decided to order octopus for an appetizer.  Now, when I heard her order it, I decided I just wouldn’t look in her direction while she was eating it, because I knew it would come with the suckers on and I knew that wouldn’t enhance my appetite.  Apparently she didn’t know that and when it came, this is what she got (don't forget to notice the beautiful presentation on the plate):

And THIS is what her face looked like when she saw it:

Oh, my goodness….that was certainly a conversation starter!  I'm surprised that didn't send us off into gales of laughter yet again!  Judy ate quite a bit of it and Fred gamely tried a bite of it:

We had a wonderful meal with them, with dishes that looked like they belonged on a FOOD NETWORK competition show:   

Michael and I both got the scallop appetizer

just look at that plate!

this was my pecan pie....that big ring was YUMMY!

and Michael's creme brulee

It was another terrific meal.