P, Don't think I can renew this again. Sleepy ball game ends 8 game slide with a come from behind walk off homer in bottom of 9th... Pretty special. Back later today sometime. W
Vancouver Public Library Notification, Mariners and More! Hi Sleepy Hollow Man!
Glad that you are not petulant after the home team hammered a homer a walk home! However, I fear that you will be rather impecunious, (Will you and Amira have to walk home?), after all the cross-border shopping and celebratory carousing! Never mind, it will allow you to better understand The Sisterhood's perennial financial state.
We are off to sip wine and munch caviar at the Norman Rothstein Theatre this evening at 7:30 pm. VWF reception first, 6:00pm to 7:00 pm, where we'll mingle, mix, hobnob, network and schmooz before listening to Steven Galloway talk about his latest, The Confabulist, (suspense-filled story of Harry Houdini), and Miriam Toews, her All My Puny Sorrows. (Wonder if Harry can provide a few tips on how to break free of Sisterhood's shackles. Probably not as even the world's greatest escape artist can't deal with those chains!) Looking forward to it.
PS: Is NRBC fine money available for VPL fine payment?
Hi Maggie!
Cora Lee is The Gluten-Free Person although a number of other friends here have the same intolerance. As well, she feels her siblings, particularly Pamela, her youngest sister, should also observe this restriction. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Hi Richter Scale Woman!
We certainly were staggering around the house but both of us thought it was because we were still drunk from night before! Actually, never felt a thing! Not looking forward to the projected eventuality, (earthquake not hangover, that is!), however, as you can well imagine! Cheers, Pouring Myself Another Scotch Patrizzio!
Wayne Sutherland Made
it to Mexico. Got the four bags and the dress through customs. Resort
is great. Walked into Playa Del Carmen this morning 1 hour 45 minutes
along the beach. can't wait for the rest of the wedding party to arrive.
Chloe Alexis Dunn weather?
Wayne Sutherland 30 degrees here today and sunshine. The locals say that it is sunny here 350 days a year.
Nicole Marie Let's hope one of the 10 days doesn't fall on our wedding....
Patrick James Dunn Hootch?
Trust everyone is well! As Amanda mentioned in her latest message her boyfriend will act as concierge to The Annexe which is right next door to our place. This Saturday, Coriandre and I will "walk" her through the place so that she, in turn, can familiarize her amore with locks, Murphy bed, etc.
Trust all this makes sense but if you still have any questions, fire away. All the best for now. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Michele Darrow-SutherlandMayan excursion update !! Apparently guests are running into problems trying to pay for it Individually
their banks want a verbal confirmation of the payment to the company. I
will call and pay for the entire group to avoid the problem. If you are
going just pack an extra $118 usd for the event
- Chloe Alexis Dunn what a great mother of the bride!!! how's the weather there??
Michele Darrow-Sutherland Just trying to contact the company rep but it should be good for me to cover and then reimburse when u get here . Some people have been able to do it so I will just confirm numbers- Patrick James Dunn Any possibility of "going on the halves"?
We are back on May 7th, late that evening. However, in terms of getting together that might have to wait for a bit as we have friends from Brisbane visiting over next two weeks or so. They actually arrive on the 6th and we have arranged for them to stay at The Annexe, next door. They will be here until May 10th and then leave for ten days or so, on a cruise to Alaska. Of course, we'll be in touch once were are back from Mexico. Buona Fortuna with Seattle returnee. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Dad, please pass along my anticipation for a masterpiece from Tia!! Glad she is using them and glad they were not all dried out! xx chloe
Guess I'm entitled to a choice Single Malt as middleman/broker! Cheers, Il Conduttore!
Hello Choë – she is totally thrilled with all of the art supplies, thank you! A masterpiece will follow – when is your birthday? Kerry
HI Kerry, Mine is August 18th!!! Dad/Patrick, no one asked you when yours was!!! Hi to the artist!! Pleasde tell he I have quite a lot of wall space!! ;)
Excellent, thanks Cholë. Tia always likes to work with things that people like so here go a few questions: 1. Favourite colour 2. Favourite animal 3. Favourite TV show 4. Favourite flower 5. Favourite actors That will give her a headstart!! Thanks, Kerry
Always good to volunteer information! Blue, honey badger, House of Cards, carnations, Sophia Loren and Humphrey Bogart. I'm a Saggitarian! Just the facts, M'am, just the facts! Cheers, Il Conduttore!
LOL – you are hilarious. Will pass along to Tia and see what she comes up with! And you Choe!? Kerry
Hi Kerry and Tia, 1. Favourite colour - blues 2. Favourite animal - lions or any member of the cat family 3. Favourite TV show - any mystery - Matlock/Murder she Wrote/Elementry/The Blacklist 4. Favourite flower - Tulips 5. Favourite actors - hmm tough one lets take from the above favorite show list and say Andy Griffith FYI not a Virgo but a Leo, :) either I missed the cut off or Tia did, but am truly a Leo (bossy to boot) but my sister is a Virgo. Excited for the potential art for my walls!! Chloe
well no pressure, i don't want the artist to feel she must preform!! chloe
Not at all, she will be pleased that I’ve gather some material for her!! ok well then good stuff!
Hi Rum Drinkers!
Which do you prefer, Carioca Dark or Palmera Dark? Great life you lead, flouncing from the Lesser Antilles to the Panama Canal and back and then whingeing about internet costs! You almost sound like The Millionaires! My travel is not quite so exotic.
Hi Big Al! Thanks so much for the website to Alux. Looks fascinating so I'm sure gang will want to go. Thanks, as well, for tips on cenotes. There is an organized zip-line tour which includes this activity so I think that is how Chloë and I will experience them. Also the stag is a day fishing charter so we'll be busy and broke! Buona Fortuna with landscaping. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Dad, who is this? Hi Chloë! He was a student assistant at the Curric Lab and met you when you were toddler! Cheers, Dad!
Hi Vinnie! I passed along your genteel hug, (virtually), to Nicolina and will do so again, in person, this coming Saturday when we take them to YVR. Cheers, Patrizzio! Oh thank you. Tell him we said thanks J
Hi J, whoever you might be! (Wedding planner? Banker?) Cheers, Patrizzio!
Wonderful news and so much advance warning, not just a call from the airport!
Funnily enough, we are just back on May 7th, late that evening, from Mexico! We are off to Playa del Carmen on April 30th. I took Flamin' and Sarge to airport on Tuesday night. They are advance guard, (along with Lurch and Grogg), for wedding, a week this coming Saturday.
With respect to rides, why not both days! In another twist of Fate we have friends from Brisbane visiting over first few weeks or so of May. They actually arrive on the 6th and we have arranged for them to stay at The Annexe, next door. They will be here until May 10th and then leave for about ten days, on a cruise to Alaska. If you want to ride on Friday, May 9th, plan to stay for dinner as you'd be welcome, if that suits your schedule. Monday, May 13th is actually Tuesday, May 13th, (I wonder why you keep missing flights!), so clarify your intentions, Madame! Same invitation for a meal applies, of course, whichever day this happens to be on the Cape Breton Moon Calendar! Are you sure you aren't Turkish rather than Ukrainian!
Hi You are right, monday is the 12th. I may do both days, I have to talk to Al and see what his schedule is like. You have a great life, I want to hear about India! We are thinking about going too, but we are not sure what is the best time. I will let you know soon! Thanks for the reply, I love your life, enjoy Mexico! Ski!
Hi Patrick, Wow, what a an active Easter weekend you had. It sounds like lots of fun. I'm particularly interested in trying the aqvavit from Long Table Distillery if I'm ever favored with the opportunity.
Lynnie and I are just back to Kathleen and Gordon's apartment after our first Paris outing. Coolish but nice walking weather. We walked over 6 hours today, starting from their apartment in the 13th arondissement (just outside the boundary of the fifth, so really quite central), first to Notre Dame, then through the grounds of the Louvre, then north of the Louvre for a cafe creme stop, then through the Jardin Tuileries, up the Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, and then back down to the Eiffel Tower, and a long slog home along most of the length of Boulevard du Montparnasssse. We had a lunch stop at a typical corner brasserie, where Lynnie had a Salade Parisienne and I had a Salade Bretonne, accompanied by wine and beer respectively.
We had an interesting start to our journey yesterday. At the Vancouver airport, Lynnie said, "wonder who you'll meet this time in the Air Canada lounge, Petey?", since I almost always bump into some colleague. I made a quick pass through the lounge and came up empty - thought I must be on the skids. Then just as we were boarding the plane, my friend and sometime client Rick Thomas came up with a big smile, boarding the same Toronto flight. Rick was on his way to Thessaloniki via Toronto and Frankfurt. Funnily, he had called my cell phone and wakened me up in the middle of the night in China last week, asking if I would be free to go to Greece with him on this trip.
Then when we got onto the plane, another old colleague Dave Woeller, a guy who started up and owns a very successful, specialist geotechnical investigation firm, also showed up in the business class section. In Toronto we sat with Rick in the lounge and he updated us on the bad time he is going through with bladder cancer, which was diagnosed at the beginning of the year. Not a lot of fun.
We made our way to K & G's place, warm greetings all round. Lynne was sorting out her stuff and said, "Petey, I must have put my wallet down when we were paying for the train tickets from the airport, and left it there. I can't see it anywhere" Then she said, "I can't find my Kobo either, I must have left it on the plane". It dawned on us then that probably what really happened was that some pickpocket must have taken them out of the open shoulder bag she was carrying them in, likely at the airport which was very busy.
We're here another five days, then off to Madrid where we meet up with Fred and Barb. Our best to you and Corinne, looking forward to our next get-together. Peter
Hello Gay Parisiennes!
Very sorry to learn of your delayed luggage and Lynne's pickpocketing. What a complete drag, on both counts, but seems could have been worse. Hope you have changed your underwear by now! Glad you bumped into colleagues although sorry to hear about Rick's struggle with bladder cancer, of course.
Excerpt from my blog: 13, Rue Quincampoix Blues: Wednesday, October 16th
Great sleep after the long, full, exciting day and we didn't get up until about 8:00 am. Tasty breakfast of yougurt, fruit and a boiled egg or two. Sat out around until about 10:00 am, then to wander the banks of the Seine, going towards the Eiffel Tower.
Feel as if we are walking in your shoes, eating from your plates, sipping from your glasses! Will be intouch once were are back from Mexico and you from North Africa regarding a bbq at our place on June 19th. David and Pat Coffaro, (winery is on East Dry Creek Road, just north of Healdsburg), will be in town. They are staying with us for two nights. John Clerides and David Lancelot from Marquis will be coming as well so should be fun. You can have your luxury blow-up bed in Cora Lee's Study as we'd love you to join us, busy schedules allowing. Fondestos from Mme Coriandre. Bon Voyage and Buona Fortuna with pickpockets! Cheers, Patrizzio!
Hi Patrick and all and sundry, Received your card and thanks for the thought. We thought of you guys last Saturday, I waited at the airport but alas no one turned up, nonetheless we had a fairly good night with about 35 or so helping me celebrate my 60th there were many bottle of wine drank and a seemingly endless supply of beer consumed. The food was good and the company great. We all got into the 50’s theme complete with vinyl records and videos of the era, cocktails and generally a good time.
Hi Raymond! You seem to have been as busy as a beaver, rather than a rabbit, over Easter weekend! Glad Jenny is safely back in London. Nice life indeed, with coming holidays as outlined! Unfortunately, my immediate travel wasn't quite as far flung. Cheers, Patrizzio!
PS: Came across the following Margaret Cannon list, in case you've not seen it. Particularly interested in the Mina and the Neuhaus. have not read any of the latter.
Missing You by Harlan Coben, Dutton, 400 pages, $32.95 Warning:
under no circumstances do you skip to the ending of this superbly
crafted novel. Yes, there is a twist – are several of them, in fact. And
you have to work your way through all of them to relish the stinger on
the final page.
Kat Donovan is a New York cop, daughter of a cop, raised
in the stiff Irish Catholic world of cops. Once, she almost escaped, to
Columbia Law School and marriage to a highly eligible man. Everything
collapsed when her father died, murdered on the job in a contract
killing. The murderer confessed and went to prison for life, but the
crime boss who commissioned the killing is still free and easy. Catching
him is Kat’s obsession. Then one day, she goes on a dating website and,
after 20 years, there’s the man who stole her heart and ran away with
it. All that is just in the first few pages of this terrific book. The
story sweeps in time and place and keeps moving. There’s a contemporary
plotline too, the hunt for a missing woman that dovetails neatly into
Kat’s obsessive search for the clue that will release her from her
father’s death. One of Coben’s best ever.
Blood Always Tells by Hilary Davidson, Forge, 320 pages, $29.99
Toronto native Hilary Davidson also knows how to spin a tale. Blood Always Tells introduces the very dysfunctional Edgars family, brother Desmond and sister Dominique Monaghan. In a fit of revenge at a two-timing married lover, Dominique attempted a touch of blackmail that turned into kidnapping, and worse. When she calls on Desmond for help, the plot, already complex, goes in a very different direction. Davidson knows how to keep things in motion and she never lets the story get out of control. This is her best mystery yet.
The Red Road by Denise Mina, HarperCollins, 304 pages, $22.99
Few authors know meaner streets than Denise Mina. Her fictional Glasgow is a vicious and soul-destroying place and no victim is as chilling as fourteen-year-old Rose Wilson, prostitute and pimp murderer. Twenty-five years later, Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is faced with a new case, one that will reopen the Rose Wilson conviction and force D.I. Morrow to confront the ultimate dilemma of the ethical copper: when are justice and the law in conflict? One of Mina’s most complex works.
Destroyer Angel by Nevada Barr, Minotaur, 352 pages, $31
I love this series, set in America’s great national parks and featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. At No. 18, the series is stretched, but Barr manages to keep things going by changing the tone and keeping the settings fresh. This time out, Anna is on a much-needed holiday with friends. They’re camping in the great Iron Range park in Minnesota. There are three women and two teenaged girls, one of whom is a paraplegic. They are in the back of the beyond when a gang of thugs attacks. How will Anna get them all out? This is a story of skill and survival told by a mistress of the plot line. Not her greatest (that was Firestorm) but definitely in the top 10.
Bad Wolf by Nele Neuhaus, translated by Steven T. Murray, Minotaur, 416 pages, $29.95 This is the second Nele Neuhaus crime procedural translated into English and it bodes well for the rest of the Pia Kirchhoff/Oliver von Bodenstein series of German bestsellers.
The setting is Frankfurt and the victim is
a brutally murdered girl of about 16. The surprise for the police is
that no one comes forward to claim the body. She matches no description
of a missing person. Weeks go by with not a shred of information to
identify her. Then comes another, far more public event: A well-known
television journalist is beaten, raped and locked in the trunk of her
car. She survives and Kirchhoff and von Bodenstein are on the case. She
can give only a few tangential clues, but those lead back to another
even more sinister matter and into the very heart of corruption. If you
missed Snow White Must Die, you’ll want that one too.
Whirlwind by Rick Mofina, Harlequin, 400 pages, $8.99
How do you piece together clues to a kidnapping in the midst of utter devastation from a tornado? That’s the puzzle Rick Mofina puts to readers in this slick thriller about a desperate mother and her missing child. It helps that the mother is also a dogged reporter who can follow the trail even when it’s blown sky-high. Former journalist Mofina knows what reporters really do and that, plus the fear of a frantic mother, gives this novel its punch. In the new world of crime fiction, there are worse crimes than murder.
Pat, Thanks for the book reviews. I think they're all new to me and so I'm sure I'll find some worth putting a hold on. Not sure when you're leaving but the weather looks good for a ride on Tuesday if you are still in Vancouver - 16 degrees and little chance of rain. What's George up to? Involved with his Gulf Islands project perhaps? Ray
Stats for today's ride: to Dino's, 51.06 km over 2:38'17 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr, post Dino: 7.02 km over 00:21'28 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr; total: 58.08 km over 2:59'45 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr
Toronto native Hilary Davidson also knows how to spin a tale. Blood Always Tells introduces the very dysfunctional Edgars family, brother Desmond and sister Dominique Monaghan. In a fit of revenge at a two-timing married lover, Dominique attempted a touch of blackmail that turned into kidnapping, and worse. When she calls on Desmond for help, the plot, already complex, goes in a very different direction. Davidson knows how to keep things in motion and she never lets the story get out of control. This is her best mystery yet.
The Red Road by Denise Mina, HarperCollins, 304 pages, $22.99
Few authors know meaner streets than Denise Mina. Her fictional Glasgow is a vicious and soul-destroying place and no victim is as chilling as fourteen-year-old Rose Wilson, prostitute and pimp murderer. Twenty-five years later, Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is faced with a new case, one that will reopen the Rose Wilson conviction and force D.I. Morrow to confront the ultimate dilemma of the ethical copper: when are justice and the law in conflict? One of Mina’s most complex works.
I love this series, set in America’s great national parks and featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. At No. 18, the series is stretched, but Barr manages to keep things going by changing the tone and keeping the settings fresh. This time out, Anna is on a much-needed holiday with friends. They’re camping in the great Iron Range park in Minnesota. There are three women and two teenaged girls, one of whom is a paraplegic. They are in the back of the beyond when a gang of thugs attacks. How will Anna get them all out? This is a story of skill and survival told by a mistress of the plot line. Not her greatest (that was Firestorm) but definitely in the top 10.
Bad Wolf by Nele Neuhaus, translated by Steven T. Murray, Minotaur, 416 pages, $29.95 This is the second Nele Neuhaus crime procedural translated into English and it bodes well for the rest of the Pia Kirchhoff/Oliver von Bodenstein series of German bestsellers.
Whirlwind by Rick Mofina, Harlequin, 400 pages, $8.99
How do you piece together clues to a kidnapping in the midst of utter devastation from a tornado? That’s the puzzle Rick Mofina puts to readers in this slick thriller about a desperate mother and her missing child. It helps that the mother is also a dogged reporter who can follow the trail even when it’s blown sky-high. Former journalist Mofina knows what reporters really do and that, plus the fear of a frantic mother, gives this novel its punch. In the new world of crime fiction, there are worse crimes than murder.
Stats for today's ride: to Dino's, 51.06 km over 2:38'17 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr, post Dino: 7.02 km over 00:21'28 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr; total: 58.08 km over 2:59'45 for an AVG of 19.3 km/hr
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