cold hands, warm heart

I'm sorry to say that living in a supposedly "damp" and mild part of the world this winter doesn't seem to have had any positive effect on my usual dry skin and cold hand/feet problem! Some things never change I guess.

Yesterday was full and happy. We got out to the hideous Metrotown Mall just before it opened, so the traffic was great and we were actually able to find a parking space just near the escalators leading to the Chapters bookstore. (Metrotown is home to the only Chapters store in Burnaby - sigh). We had time for a quick treat at Starbucks before Chapters opened, found the item we wanted and got in line very quickly before the rest of the crowd that entered the store at opening time. Next we had to drive to our local mall and shop around for one last item for Jeff, and it really wasn't all that busy at all. We found what we needed and hopped on the skytrain to go and meet our friend at the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver - a wonderful example of old train station architecture still in use. (Though it is surprisingly small compared to Union Station in Toronto.)

We met Jeff for lunch at EA's main office and admired their Christmas tree display. They have a truly humungous tree in the center of the lobby... I have no idea how they got it in there, and how they managed to decorate most of it. It's at least 2 stories high. It's surrounded by smaller trees each decorated to represent a country or city where EA has an office. It's rather amusing to see the objects they chose to represent each region... for instance, the "China" tree has chopsticks and chinese takeout boxes on it. The "Europe" tree has baguettes (probably very stale by now) tucked between the branches. The "UK" tree has dart boards and beer coasters. The "Japan" tree has origami kimonos. You get the idea. They're all very nicely done... must've cost a fortune to set this display up.

I spent some time catching up on dishes and making sugar cookie dough while chatting with our visitor - it is so wonderful to have someone to talk to other than a very cute but often inane preschooler, and a very intelligent but often mopey nine-year-old. Today we're going to roll out the dough and make "stained glass cookies".

We ordered takeout from the marvellous Indian restaurant across the street and then took a trip out to the La Casa Gelato store in East Vancouver. I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned this wonderful Vancouver attraction before... we now try to take all of our out-of-town visitors there at least once. It's a humongous Italian ice cream store in an unassuming industrial area. They have 208 flavours available at any time and the variety is truly amazing. Some of the flavours are pretty wacky. They are always happy to give you a generous spoonful of any flavour you want to try. I try to order a new flavour, and sample at least half a dozen every time I go there. Last night I tried purple yam, black sesame, durian, and lemon ginger (Calum ended up getting a scoop of that and loving every bite, but it was WAY too tart & spicy for my taste). Megan got "hedgehog" (a chocolate/hazelnut flavour) and Krisi (our friend) got black sesame, which despite its ugly grey-with-black-bits colour was truly delicious. I got a scoop of something called "La Dua" on the recommendation of the friendly guy behind the counter who was urging us to sample all kinds of interesting flavours. It's green, and is made from some kind of nutty-flavoured fruit that he said "grows under water in Thailand". Hmm. Well, whatever it is, it sure makes good ice cream.

This morning we're headed to Windsor House (Megan's school) for a meeting with a facilitator we have hired to come out and set up an Open Space meeting for our parents in January. Once we've come home, had lunch and made our cookies it'll be time to get Krisi to the train station and do some last minute tidying up around here in preparation for Grandma's impending visit.