Ikea, You're Messing With Me

I've had the same dishes for about 15 years.  They were cheap dishes that I picked up with the intension to replace them with something "nice" before long.  15 years ago.  While they do the job, they're oversized, and the colour/pattern hasn't ever gone with my decor.

A little over a year ago, I found some potential replacements at Ikea.  They maybe aren't the "good" dishes that I had in mind, but I like them.  They're a much better (smaller) size than the old ones, they don't have pattern that I'll get sick of, and the colours are perfect.  When I saw them, they were available in sets of 4.  There was blue, brown and cream... I wanted a set of each.  I've been mulling over them ever since.  Except, the last couple of times I went to Ikea, the blue dishes haven't been available in sets, only individually.   I was worried that they'd be discontinued and I'd lose my chance.

So, I decided to get them.  Then I promptly realized that the bowls in the brown set aren't quite the same shape as the bowls in the cream set or the individual blue ones.  I put the brown set back and bought individual brown dishes.  I then checked and double checked the bowls and the diameters of the plates to make sure they matched.  This was no small feat - Ikea has about 8 different but very similar shapes of solid coloured dishes, many in very close but not quite the same shades and tones.    There were three shades of brown, for the record.

To complicate matters, I realized that the cream set contained 6 of each dish (I only wanted 4).  The cream dishes were of course not available individually, and it was way cheaper to buy the set.  So, I came home with 4 blue, 4 brown and 6 cream plates and bowls, 4 each of pasta bowls, and 2 each of mugs.  (I don't generally drink hot drinks.)

Here's the problem: I obsess over details.  I'm pretty darned sure I have OCD.

So, two things:

I have 4 each of two colours of the plates and bowls, and 6 in another colour.  That bothers me, but I think I can get past it by hiding two each of the cream ones.

What I don't know if I can get past is this:

SONOFABITCH.

The bowls and the lunch plates match, but the dinner plates from the cream set are a different shape.

So, now I need to decide if I want to return them, let it drive me nuts or inquire about the appropriate medication to help me deal with things like this.  (I'm joking about the drugs... kind of.) 

The Doorbell...

...won't stop ringing.  Every single day, somebody is at the door, asking me to sponsor them in a walkathon, donate bottles or purchase some sort of worthless crap.  It used to be bad, but it's gotten out of control.  So, I finally broke down and bought a "No Soliciting" sign.  I didn't want to do it - I don't want to deface my house with all sorts of signs - but it was becoming a problem.

If somebody wanted to mow my lawn, shovel my walk, pick up dog poop or do something useful in exchange for my money, I'd probably give them a chance.  But,

I've chosen and donated to my preferred charity.

I don't buy junk off of random salespeople

And, I'm sorry, but I don't feel any need to financially support your child's school, trip abroad or sports activities.  I know that children can be expensive, but I chose not to have children.  A large chunk of my property taxes go towards the local schools, so that's my contribution to the youth of society, as far as I'm concerned.  And it's a lot.

So, long story short, I broke down and got a No Soliciting sign.  I put it on the wall beside the front door, directly above the doorbell.
YOU CAN'T MISS IT.

So, why is my doorbell still ringing every day???  I don't want to be rude, but lately I've been succumbing to opening the door, interrupting the sob stories and sales pitches by pointing to the sign and closing the door.

I know, I could not open the door at all, but the dogs get 30 seconds to go berserk when the doorbell rings.   It's not long, but it's enough to make it clear we're home... if they didn't already know because I work in a desk that's looking directly into the front window beside the door all day.  I would feel weird to sit there - know they know I'm there - and not respond.

I've decided that I need to get a front door intercom.  I don't need video, but I want to talk to people - tell them to go away - without opening the door.   I'm not sure where I'll get it (they don't seem to be very popular around here) I really need to get on that.

Venice B&B

Our first stop on the trip was Venice.  I don't think either of us knew what to expect, but it was pretty grand.  We arrived after 27 hours of travel for me (21 for Ginny).  After leaving the airport, we caught a water taxi to the San Marco square, and followed the directions to the bed and breakfast we'd chosen.

Keeping in mind that there aren't "roads" in this area, most of the streets are fairly narrow.  So, we walked down a narrow street until we came to the mosaic on the ground, and turned left down an even narrower alley with garbage piled beside some of the doors.  About half way down, we came to an iron gate and rang the bell.  We were buzzed in, climbed a flight of steps.  We weren't sure what to expect after this - I had fairly low expectations - but it was nice.  The place was newly renovated, much more modern than I'd expect and really quite comfortable.

If you ever find yourself in Venice, I'd recommend staying at the 3C B&B.

The street you start on to get there... took this picture on the last day.  

The 'table' on right is actually a raised walkway put together by workmen overnight, because of the flooding caused by high tide on the last day.

The narrow, a little bit eery (until you get used to it) alley you turn down

The iron gate where you get buzzed in.

I forgot to take a picture of the stairs.  

Awkward pics of the room.  There were so many details, I didn't know where to focus.

The little foyer at the entrance - washroom (which was fancier than any biffy I've ever had) was to the left.

Cool ceiling beams, exposed brick walls and concrete floor

Window - no screens in Italy, but there were shutters we could close to block out noise.  

We were only one story up, so we could lean over to see the activity below.

Coincidence?

Ginny and I, who haven't seen each other for a few years, met in Toronto and flew together to Venice.  There, at the end of the first day, we changed into pjs and got ready to go to sleep.

That's when we discovered this:

We both have excellent taste in nail polish.

Getting Back into the Groove

I seem to have lost my blogging Mojo.  I'm having trouble thinking of what to say, and the ideas I do come up with don't seem worthy.  So, I've decided to post whatever comes to mind, in an effort to post more often and hopefully get back into the groove.

I didn't see many dogs in Italy.  From what I've heard, it's not all that common for people there to have them as pets; although it is becoming more popular.  Luckily, I didn't see many strays there either.  So, I was surprised to come upon two loose(ish) dogs in Florence.  I zeroed in right away on two labs who had been leashed together, as soon as we walked into the piazza.

They looked well fed, but there were no tags, and no apparent owner nearby.  I stopped and looked for quite a while, but I seemed to be the only one who showed any interest in them.  That upset me.  I'm the type of person to stops for loose dogs, looks for tags and tries to get them home; but there wasn't much I could do in Italy.  Even if I did know who to call, I didn't speak the language.    But, who would tie two dogs together and then abandon them???

I hesitantly left the dogs behind, and went with Ginny to get our gelato.  As we sat there having our treat, I looked across the piazza and saw the most wonderful thing... a group of apparent travellers and their dogs.  The labs very clearly belonged with them.   One lady in particular seemed to be their owner.  I don't know where she'd been, but she was back, and she clearly loved them.

At first I just watched, but when I saw the yellow lab jump up on the bench and slurp her from chin to forehead, then curl up in a ball beside her, I got out my telephoto lens and took some shots as I found spaces between the crowds.  None of these resonate with the pure devotion that I saw that day, but they do give a hint.

And this guy has his own suitcase, which he jumped into as soon as it was opened.

Funny - I didn't notice the graffiti at the time.  If I did, I didn't remember it.  I must have been too busy looking up and around at the amazing architecture.

And one final picture, which Ginny took...

It may not be apparently in this photo, but we were impressed with the serving sizes over there.    You pretty much got two scoops, whether you wanted them or not... we eventually stopped fighting it.  But, those bowls, which were fairly ubiquitous, were about 1/2 a cup in size, and were never packed full.  The scoops were each about half the size of what we'd expect if we bought an ice cream around here, but they were more than enough.  That might be yet another reason why we rarely, if ever, came upon an overweight Italian.

Somehow, Italy seems like more fun.

I've been home for about a week and a half now and things are getting back to normal.  I still have no sense of time, which is evidenced in my having missed putting out the garbage on garbage day twice now.  I've also been going to bed insanely early, and waking up about 4:00am, so for the last couple of days I've been relying on the caffeine in diet coke to keep me up past 9:00.

Alberta has been hit with a doozy of a snow storm. I've spent the week absolutely freezing, which I thought was psychosomatic because of the cold outside.  Last night, I remembered that I'd changed the batteries in the programable thermostat at 5:00am on Monday (when it's usually pretty cool in here).  I remembered being surprised that the temperature immediately showed as being 21C but I wasn't alert enough to think more of it.  So, after being freezing for a week, I finally caught on and reset the thermostat.  Right away, it showed that it was 17.5C  in here, not 21C as it'd said earlier and started warming up. It's good to know that I'm not losing my mind.

Back to the snow storm, I was supposed to go to Edmonton today but can't because of the snow.  Edmonton got 31cm in a day, and they're still digging out.  Around here, I think we got that much, but it was spread out over three days so that I had to shovel eight times... which is maybe a good thing because I can't jog in this weather and need to get my exercise somehow.   I'm also going to Zumba this afternoon - this time with shoes - and am not yet convinced that it won't kill me.  I'm pretty sure that my jeans feel tighter now than they did while I was on vacation.  Whodda thunk that I'd manage to spend three weeks in the land of pizza and pasta - lose weight while there - and then come home and pack on the pounds?

In other news, which isn't very good, I just came back from a vet appointment with Cotton.  He's been coughing a lot and losing weight.  He's had a heart murmur for a while now, but it looks like it's progressed to the beginnings of heart failure.  The vet hopes that, having caught it early, we can turn things around with the right medication.  I really hope she's right.

I promised Ginny that I'd keep a daily diary of our trip to Italy.  She did one too, and wants to combine them together.  I did well for a while, and then stopped writing sometime around Sorrento.  I really need to finish that up, and finish going through and cleaning up all the pictures I took.  Don't be surprised if I post after the fact entires about some of the places we visited.

Home

I've been home for a couple of days.  What an amazing vacation.   The trip back was long, though - we got up at 3:00am in Istanbul, and 28 hours (three flights) later I arrived in Calgary.   I can't sleep in airplanes, so I got a hotel for the night in Calgary.  Even then, it was 2:00am before I got in and managed to catch about 4 hours sleep before my dad came to pick me up.

I'm not sure if I picked up a flu bug or if it was a mistake to brush my teeth using tap water in Turkey, but whatever it is hit me during a layover in Paris.   I haven't managed to kick it yet.  Nosebleeds started yesterday, I assume from the dry air after being spoiled with the humidity over there.

I went to bed at 2:30pm on the day I got home, and slept until 4:00am.  Yesterday, I slept through Halloween (poo!) when I went to bed at 5:30 and slept 12 hours.  I'm trying to stay up until 9 tonight, in an effort to get back to a normal schedule.