General Discussion & Chat: Coffee and .... for Monday, September 4th, 1 by ViolaAnn

ViolaAnn wrote:
Hi Folks,

We were out early this morning to babysit Dgtwins while their parent went to a funeral and reception. We took them out for lunch and didn’t get home till nearly 3. Came home and started baking bread. Still catching up -

Saturday, September 2nd and Sunday, September 3rd

Belated Happy Birthday to Pati. Hope you keep celebrating.

Bonnie - glad DH’s ear is doing well. Glad to hear your fish fry went well in spite of the power failure.

Sarv - I’m impressed that you’ve been able to figure out how to program numbers into your cell phone. Mine might get used a bit more it I had something programmed into it.

Sheila - wonderful indeed to have my own bed. Japanese beds are VERY firm. I sank into the pillow top of my own (firm mattress) and thought I was in heaven.

Japan didn’t seen as expensive to me as when I visited 18 years ago. The relationship to the Canadian $ was roughly the same at both times, 1 Yen = 1 penny. I DID find that Sushi, which used to be an inexpensive meal was priced more like in many Canadian restaurants. Since we were going to the conference and not doing a lot of other travel, we didn’t have too many other expenses. The hotel, not cheap, but not outrageous either, included a large breakfast buffet both Western and Japanese style or we could choose from both. The conference included an opening party and a closing one at which large amounts of food were available (and left over. Hope it didn’t just go in the garbage.) The first and last evenings, we were taken out to dinner and on Wednesday, the whole conference went to the Sapporo Beer Hall for a “JingasKan” dinner. That is thin slices of lamb cooked with veggies on a propane burner. Rather smoky, oily atmosphere and they gave us T-shirts to wear at this occasion. 18 years ago we did the same thing, but it was outdoors under tents. They now have a large indoor facility. As far as shopping, there are now wonderful 100 Yen shops which have a wider variety of goods than most of our $ stores. We did quite a bit of shopping there. LOL Other items seemed reasonably priced except for clothing which all seemed quite expensive, not that any of it would have fit me anyway. Oh yes, we did see a 23L shop as we were riding the escalator in one store, but the clerk showed us a size chart which indicated those sizes started above North American 18. But most stuff was really small.

What kind of cars does your DH collect? Just ordinary ones? Want us to send you some flags?

Darius - so glad the batch of bread turned out. I have 4 loaves that just went into the oven. Hope they turn out as well as yours did. What kind of bread is yours? Glad you were able to get most of the blackberry mess cleaned up and hope the rest bleaches well.

Bonnie, they showed us the tea ceremony, but I don’t really know the history. There is a lot of tradition with it.

Balvenie (Robert?) Tell me the background on bottling all that wine. I think I missed something.

Bonnie - sounds like a good harvest from your garden. Hope you weren’t TOO busy with it today. I hope DH gets some relief for his back pain soon.



Now for today’s thread - McCool, labour Day is supposed to be a holiday. But I hope you got what you wanted to do accomplished.

Somer - may have to try “Kettle corn”. Sounds good.

Hi Joy - sorry you had to work, but glad it’s the last holiday to work this season.

Darius - sorry about the water spill in the bed. Hope you got it dried out. Did you every get your tooth fixed?

Maria - must try your soda bread. You sound as though you are feeling better.
My bread recipe is based on my MIL’s bread recipe except hers was white bread and over the years mine has evolved to be a multi-grain, high fibre bread. Canadian flour has a higher gluten count than most American flour and generally makes better bread if you use all-purpose flour. Even better is Robin Hood “Best for Bread” flour.

Lauri - I also suffer from CRS, but I open more than one window. Or even better yet, just WordPerfect and hop back and forth as I read the threads. Then make wise cracks.

Hi Lisa - do you normally lurk? I’m not sure I remember you but am glad you stopped by.

Bonnie - take care of yourself. Planes are a great place to pick up all sorts of viruses. I’m just waiting for mine to begin. There were several people at the conference in Sapporo who had colds they developed on the long flights. Our only saving grace may be that we used enough points to go business class which means that we were not in as close proximity to as many people as we would have been otherwise. I never sleep on planes, but having more space is very nice on the long flights.

Molly - what a lovely orchid.


Darius - at the rate you do things, a day off is probably a good idea. I could never keep up your pace.

Hi Mary - glad you are home and look forward to hearing about your weekend.

~~~~ to everyone else. I’m more or less caught up now. Have to edit the pics and look up some information and I’ll get a thread up about our trip.

Here is a pic of the bread which just came out of the oven.

Ann