Happy birthday, Dick!

The main reason for our trip to Victoria last week was to celebrate a friend, Dick, as he turned 80.  On a Wednesday afternoon, his actual birthday, family and friends gathered together in Goldstream Provincial Park north of Victoria to fete him.

Dick and his wife, Annalee, owned Don Diego's restaurant in Terrace as well as Cow Bay Cafe in Prince Rupert.  I started work waiting tables at Don Diego's in the summer of 1990, and after I finished by undergrad in 1992, I began work at the restaurant full time, learning to cook.  I did any job, really, though mostly I was in the kitchen.  I also spent much of one summer going down to Prince Rupert to work with Dick at the newer restaurant there.  Their eldest son, Aaron,

and I met in grade 8 and graduated high school together.  Their middle son, Andy, was a year behind us.  Neil, the youngest, I've known since he was in grade school.  I've known the eldest grand-daughter, Nerissa, pretty much since her birth.  No, I am not related, but Dick and Annalee are family.

Don Diego's was a family as well.  No, I don't keep in touch with everyone I used to work with, but oh, how awesome to see folks again.  Laura,

Chiron,

Renetta

- it was a mini-reunion for the restaurant.  And there were longtime customers/friends, like Glen (and hooray for meeting his husband Casey after hearing so many lovely - and true! - things about him over the years). 

And there was even my fifth grade teacher! 

That was a trip, meeting up after over forty years.

Conrad and I spent a handful of hours at the event, then headed back to the city before it got dark.  He was a little peckish, so we headed to Marilena, across from the hotel and sat at their remarkable bar. 

We had some raw bar items - oysters

and tuna tartare

- and cocktails (two each, both delicious). 

And then went to bed.

It was great to be in Victoria, however briefly, after all these years, and I'm sorry it took a major event to get us there.  But ah, how terrific to celebrate!  Happy birthday, Dick.  I hope there are many more to come!

forty

Oh yes, I AM milking this birthday. Unabashedly so.

I will have fun posts on the food, the shopping, the people in my life, certainly. I just want to take a bit of time this morning while I linger over breakfast and lattes to take stock.

I am 40 today.

I have a man I love, one whom I will marry next year. Conrad grounds me, Conrad completes me.

I have family. I have a lot of family - steps and halves and such. At the core, though, is my sister Marie. We've been in this together all my life and most of hers.

I have three of four parents. I do not have a father alive any longer, and I wish he were here to celebrate. I am not sad, do not think that, just simply wishing he could enjoy this celebration and the ones still ahead.



I have no grandparents left. How odd to realize that.

I have a good job that I will still not comment about on this blog. I am employed, I have tenure, and I have great colleagues.

I have my health. I set a goal of being in the best shape of my life when I hit 40. I think I've come pretty close, though I've indulged well in food and wine this last week or so. No matter. Do I need to lose more weight? Well, maybe re-distribute it a little more and firm/tone up more. But I like how I fit my clothes, and I am pretty comfortable in my skin at this moment.

I have friends whom I love dearly. I have former friends I wish were no longer "former". I miss some people who have moved on in my life. I am thankful for my best friend (Todd), my Best Woman (Allison), Kendall, CG, Jeph, Martin (and Mark), BTH, the SF, Darth and Heidi
and the great group from library school, our Yoshi's friends, the good friends who have stuck by Conrad since before I knew them and him,

Louise and Sandra and Wayne and others in Terrace, the Don Diego's family, the Smelts and other swimming friends like Chris and Brian and Daniel and Frank.
The list goes on, and I struggle to name every one.

I have a good life. I have said that several times to Conrad lately, and also to TK when we chat. Oh sure, I want to win that Lottery ($50 million? I MUST buy a ticket today!) and have a life of ease. But I've earned every grey hair starting to poke through, every wrinkle, every memory, ever difficulty and every reward.

So, yep: totally milking 40. Why not?

And thanks all of you who read this blog for being a part of it, too.

my Terrace life (more or less) in 12 photos

Backing up once again - I'm way behind on blogging thanks to hectic days and nights and more travel since the reunion weekend. Right now? I'm on Maui. Conrad is presenting at a conference here this morning, so I've joined him for a few days. Badly needed ones, in fact. Don't laugh.

Anyway, while he's off doing engineer activities (and let me add that I am immensely proud that he has been invited to speak at this conference) for the morning, I'm going to catch up on blogging, shop a bit, then meet him at lunchtime for an afternoon of laziness on the beach our hotel overlooks.

So, backing up, as I said. The recent reunion weekend was the first time I'd been back in my hometown in 5 years. Much has changed, but I was still able to re-show Conrad a number of the significant Terrace landmarks in my twentyish years there.

We moved to Terrace from Calgary in January, 1976. Yes, I am that old. I was midway through kindergarten, and we lived in this house we rented on Loen. I think it was later that year we moved to a newly-built house on Scott and lived there for most of the rest of my years in the town. Dad, meanwhile, eventually bought and settled into a home on Thomas after he and Mum split up.

From kindergarten to grade 3, it was a walk (or bike ride) a few blocks east to E.T. Kenney Primary School. I can recall my teachers' names, the lay out of the school at the time, the really cool playground that was built partway through my time there.

From grades 4 to 7 it was Clarence Michiel Elementary School for us, located on the same big parcel of land as E.T. Kenney. More teacher names, few playground apparatuses (hey, spell check accepts that!), the weird folding three-speed bike I used to ride to school.

No photos of Skeena Junior Secondary, where we spent grades 8 to 10. Since I left Terrace the school district has torn down the old Skeena and rebuilt a shiny new one. The new building has no meaning to me, and while we did stop to take shots of The Bench from the clear space of Skeena's palying fields, I didn't want shots of the school. We did, however, take photos of the R.E.M. Lee Theatre, home to the Skeena theatre arts productions. Conrad and I share a bit of high school drama geek background, it seems.

Next to the R.E.M. Lee (and everyone used to call it the Rem-Lee Theatre - Jeph, you'll appreciate that if you read this) was the Senior Secondary: Caledonia. Home of the Kermodes. Not an attractive building, I admit, especially not from this shot of one end of it.

In grade 11, I started an after school job of shelving books at the Terrace Public Library.
And look what THAT has bloomed into. Funny to think of now - I think I would vehemently proclaim back then that I would never become a librarian.

In adult life I worked several years at Don Diego's. In fact, the renovated building was not my experience for most of my years there. But when Conrad and I first dropped round to say hello to Annalee and Dick, the kitchen was sooooo familiar. We had lunch with Annalee the next day, sitting up at Table A. Yes, I can still remember the table numbering. Maybe I should have stayed a few extra days just to pitch in a shift or two in the kitchen or out front.

I also worked part time as an assistant swim coach (on top of spending my own time paddling back and forth in the pool), and built a nice circle of friends and activities based on the Aquatic Centre. That, too, has been renovated in the time since I left. A 3-foot shallow end? Did we really swim in that? Wow.

It's not a big town, it's not a glamorous one. I see headlines mentioning Terrace in the Vancouver or Toronto papers only when a particularly heinous crime, horrible accident, or immense weather system warrant it. All in all, though, it was as good a place to come from as any, and I hope you never catch me disparaging my roots in the town undeservedly.