A Beautiful Day in the 'Hood

The forecast called for rain and cloud this past weekend, but it turned out that Marty's parents were right when they said of the meteorologists : "they be always lying". Guilty as charged.


This weekend has been a bit windy in Victoria, but the sun has been blazing and we've managed to get a lot accomplished. We hung out at a local coffee shop and then moved our relaxin' asses over to the oceanfront to take in some beautiful scenery:



Here, we were voted by some random guy as the "two people with the best T-shirts on the beach". (Marty was wearing the classic Take A Hike shirt from Threadless. Not to be outdone by a subtle bird design, I was sporting a more garish weeping Virgin Mary on my chest. We're not sure if this is a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual award... nonetheless, we were honoured to have been given the day's nod.)


I finished knitting a(nother) sock for Marty. This time around, the wool is from a local yarn shop, so if I happen to run out near the end of the second sock like I did last time, I don't have to boot it to Eastern Europe, though a little vacation would be nice... I swear, the 'ex' in Ex-Nomad gets fainter and fainter every day!


I was hoping to try out the famous Jaywalker sock pattern this time around, but Marty loves his Thujas. If I ever get around to knitting myself some socks, you can bet they'll be Jaywalkers. But beware: it may just be a snowy day in hell before I ever knit myself something. What can I say? Marty is probably the most excited and appreciative recipient of knitted items on the planet-- I must be addicted to his gleeful exclamations and proud flaunting of the socks once they're done.

Anyway, back to my Grade 4 diary style recounting of our weekend... Both Marty and I had a hankering for pancakes. So we did the unthinkable... we went to Smitty's!! I think I must've been to Smitty's at least once before in my lifetime (though memories of my mom and dad cooking up homemade pancakes and waffles almost every Sunday after church make me hesitant to say this is true). In any case, if I ever did happen to eat at Smitty's before, I would have been about six years old, and hence I would have neglected to remember crucial details like the fact that the pancakes there are gross!!! Seriously, Marty and I are used to eating our pancakes from the illustrious Diner Deluxe in Calgary, so Smitty's was a serious (and expensive!) let-down. Dry like cardboard (no butter!), and the fruit on top was one of those nasty artificially-enhanced things. Sick. That was the worst $30 I've ever spent on breakfast. Ever.



As you can see, my expression is one of those 'well, we're already $30 in the hole on nasty pancakes... might as well pretend to enjoy them' ones. The forced smile does a bad job of masking my pain and disappointment. Never again.