Hi, everyone!
Over the weekend we were in Ottawa, I was busy! I got to know my new black squirrel friend better. Then I helped Grandma test a new risotto recipe for her next travel dinner. It had pears and brie in it, and it was yummy! Bill and Karin liked it, too!
It got colder over the weekend! The thermometer said that the outside temperature was -6 degrees! Grandpa explained that in Canada, the temperature is measured in Celsius degrees, not Fahrenheit, so -6 would be the same as 21 degrees at home. Bill and Karin went to Japanese school on Saturday, then they had a badminton class. The badminton class was right across the street from a local artisan bakery, so we bought a big loaf of sourdough country bread and an almond croissant. They were very nice, but I think I like Midnight Bear bread better!
It was sunny and a little warmer on Sunday. Uncle David’s house is very open, so the sun makes rainbows reflecting off the chandelier in the staircase and the edges of the glass staircase walls. Karin’s friend came over to play. They made pink lemonade and had a sitdown snowball fight in the back yard!
On Monday, while Bill and Karin were at school, I had a big adventure! Grandma and Grandpa took me to IKEA! The children’s play area looked like fun, but I was too short to go in!
Grandma and Grandpa were shopping for a new kitchen table for the bay and a countertop to make a new table for the family room in Fairport. I made lots of friends following the path through the IKEA showroom to find those items!
After we did our shopping and loaded the boxes into the car, we decided to have a traditional IKEA lunch in the cafeteria: Swedish meatballs with lingonberries!
On our way back to Uncle David’s house, we stopped at the grocery to get ingredients for another pizza dinner. In Ottawa, milk is sold in plastic bags, not cartons! Everybody has a pitcher just the size of one of the smaller bags inside. You snip the corner off the bag, instead of opening a carton into a spout! I helped Grandma make the pizza for dinner. There was some left for Uncle David and Aunt Emi to eat when they got home!
After Bill and Karin left for school on Tuesday, Grandma and Grandpa and I drove home. We stopped by the bay to drop off the new table. There was still some ice on the bay. Grandpa decided not to take the time to turn the water back on before we drove the rest of the way back to Fairport. Uncle Steven helped Grandpa get the countertop out of the car and put it on top of the current family room table. The instructions for assembling come in pictures and lots of different languages! After a week of having my hoodie on and off, I was feeling floppy. Grandma suggested I do my yoga pose to get over the floppies!
Thursday was a pretty day for getting outside and looking for my flower friends! The snowdrops were in bloom, and so was the earliest crocus! There were daffodil shoots coming up, too!
On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa took me back to the bay. The ice on the bay was gone! I helped Grandpa refill the plumbing by letting him know when water was flowing from the upstairs tub faucet. When the water finally came out, we knew the water heater tank was full!
On Saturday morning, Grandpa assembled the new kitchen table. There were a lot of pieces and a LOT of fasteners! While Grandpa was finishing, Grandma and I decided to start assembling a jigsaw puzzle in the living room!
When we were in Hawaii, we started hearing more and more stories about a virus that was making people very sick in Asia. Then we started hearing about people getting sick from the virus on the American west coast, then in the New York City area. By the time Uncle David and Aunt Emi came back from San Francisco, they didn’t want any of the family to touch them until they had showered and changed their clothes. Right after we came back from Ottawa, people in Rochester started getting sick! By last Sunday, schools and churches were closing to keep the virus from spreading faster than hospitals could take care of patients. Then the governor said almost everything had to close and everybody had to stay home!
Grandma and Grandpa and I are helping by staying in! On Sunday night, our stay-in project was to defrost the freezer. I helped unload the freezer and make sure it was cold enough in the garage for all the food to stay frozen. Then I watched to see when all the ice had melted! Grandpa put a hair dryer under a bowl in the freezer. It didn’t take long for the temperature to go up enough to melt ice quickly! Once Grandma dried all the shelves and the freezer got back down to working temperature, we put everything away again. Grandma says defrosting the freezer is a good way to remind her what’s in there that needs to be used up!
There were some sunny periods with temperatures in the 40s early in the week. Grandma took advantage of the nice weather to prune the apple trees. She was able to do all the pruning with the pole pruner, so I could help too! Grandma and Grandpa have postponed the travel dinner until everybody can get back together in groups, but she’s still testing recipes to serve. I helped her make cinnamon ice cream. It was yummy, especially on macadamia nut pie!
Grandpa’s stay-home project was turning the IKEA countertop into a table. He ordered table legs from Amazon and I helped him put them on.
Grandma’s next stay-home project was making a jigsaw puzzle on the new table. It didn’t take her very long to finish!
Because Tuesday was St. Patrick’s Day, Grandma invited Uncle Steven’s family over for a traditional dinner. She made corned beef and mashed potatoes. James and Thomas’ school is closed to prevent infection spreading. Nobody knows when it will open again! Their new “at home” rule is “nobody gets hurt, nothing gets broken”. They made an obstacle course in the living room and dining room with chairs and sofa cushions and followed their rule. Then Grandma said her new rule was “put everything back where you found it”. They followed that rule, too!
Today started like spring. It was 70 degrees F. when I got up! Now the temperature is dropping and it’s supposed to be 20 degrees F. overnight. That’s as cold as it was in Ottawa two weeks ago! Everybody is supposed to stay away from other people because of the virus. The only businesses open are grocery stores and takeout restaurants and health-care facilities. The Canadian border is closed, too! Nobody knows how long we’re going to have to stay in because of the virus! Some people are saying it might take until summer before it’s safe to travel or be with other people again. I’m a lucky little lion that we’ve already had travel adventures this year!
Love,
Lion-san
We liked the stuff you got in Canada! Cinnamon ice cream should be good at the travel dinner. We went for a walk today, it certainly feels like Spring.
Wow! That was a really long blog, Lion-san! I wonder if the black squirrel that visited you when you were in Ottawa is related to the black squirrels in Elk Rapids!?! And you were very brave to let that big snake wrap himself all around you – most of us would be afraid to do that! And I am sorry you were too short to go into the play area at Ikea – I understand the frustrations that come with being short only too well! I’m glad that Uncle David and Aunt Emi were careful to make sure no one risked being exposed to the virus when they came home from San Francisco – they were very smart to protect their loved ones that way! Thanks for all the updates – we miss our Mt. Rise community, including you, very much. Love, Grandma Sue