New Years eve 2009 with me!

I am going to take a bit of a trip down memory lane here. WWWaaayyyy back when, about the time that I first started learning how to SCUBA dive in Canada, and started going through MY mid life crisis...(it was not a short one either!) about maybe 17 years ago, I started going up to Tobermory to help teach diving on the weekends. I met a girl called Karen, that was very friendly and also had a sarcastic sense of humor just like me. I believe at the time that both of us were at the stage of getting out of marriages, so we gravitated toward each other and became firm friends, doing everything together, probably with a drink in hand too many times!

My younger sister Sydney is 9 years younger then me, so we had really not hung out a heck of a lot while we were adults, and we lived on opposite ends of the country. Surprise, Surprise, my sister was also going through a marriage breaking up (she followed along my path quite nicely...) and when she was in the stage of "Do I go or do I stay" she decided to come down to visit me for a week and see if it helped her decision. Yes, she came down to see the two girls who had now ditched their husbands and were still hanging out together creating chaos between Canada and Cozumel.

As usual, I was late picking my sister up at the airport that morning. Why? Well, because Karen and I MIGHT have been up drinking or perhaps crocheting the night before. My sister shows up, all little, blond and cute, looking for words of wisdom from her older more mature sister and instead she had us lot who mercifully teased her as she was regaling us quite proudly of making "homemade cinnamon buns" for "dougie" before she left. This left us in peels of laugher... (yes, I know, I made cinnamon buns quite often on the yacht!) We have never let her forget that. Now there were 3 of us.....although, I may have to admit that my sister has always been slightly usually more responsible then I (I am sure you have all seen my black wool and the scarlet S on my forehead!) and Karen did not have children...but anyways. My sister moved down, and we continued on our merry way. Of course we eventually all found a man, of some type or other (and interestingly NONE of the 3 of us are with the ones we found then. At least I did not marry that one, I think I was getting fairly embarassed about the amount of marriages under my belt) however, both Syd and Karen did.

Time moved on, I moved down south, Karen followed, my sister moved to the states with the new husband and we all got together over the years in various combinations. We probably mostly all went through periods of not talking to each other in different combinations, but in our hearts (well, I will just speak for mine...) I always felt a great deal of affection for both, through everything. Everyone moved again...

And I flew down to San Francisco a couple days ago to meet them both. Karen had came down from Ontario. My sister brought her up to the hotel room... and of course I took pics as soon as the door opened.

We posed for our first picture with the three of us in a long time, and I think we look BETTER then our pictures of 15 years ago! What do you think?? Of course you agree....since Karen is making signs behind my head, apparently she has not gotten any older lately!

I was trying to hide on the floor so I could keep my stomach out of the picture, but they were having none of that and made me sit between them. Only to tell me that if we all lifted our head and stuck our chin out we would lose the double chin in the picture. Why is it then that I was the only one who did and consequently, the only one who looked like an idiot with probably more double chins!

We had vodka and visited. To me it looked like we were meeting in the visiting area of a jail....

Although we managed to find pizza as well. The girls had been in town all day at Fishermens wharf, and we are a lot older, so bed time was not as late as it would have been decades ago...

The next day they managed to get their petite little behinds out of bed bright and mid day and my sister told me that we were going for a drive and then going out for burritos for lunch. Therefore, I did not let my husband eat...

My younger niece, Melissa, smartly decided to stay home...

And we were off on a road trip! One of many we have done, just not for a very long time....

Karen and I both made tactical errors that we realized within a couple hours, as we had no beverages for the road trip. A mistake that quickly became apparent. (By the way, that is one thing I have found strange up here and I have not quite got used to thinking about yet is the fact that you cannot drink in a vehicle., or drink or drive, unlike the BVI...not saying that I would get smashed driving in either country, just saying it is weird!)
Of course we went to the Golden Gate Bridge...and of course I am going to bore you with about a dozen pictures of it. You are lucky that I do not have Karens memory card otherwise I would have even more!



Karen was having a hard time finding the bridge and was pretty excited when she thought she found it before us. I had already been up a dozen pictures!

I like the bridge through the trees...AND it was a warm day! Hallelujah!

Karen believed that it was noon and we could have a drink, and I reminded her jokingly that it was 5 that she was allowed to have a drink at. I don't believed she liked that idea, but I thought for sure my sister was going to make sure that we were fed and watered, but oh no, by 4 we were still in traffic with no food and liquor in sight! Karen wanted to get a fridge magnet and a tshirt in China town, but was giving up that idea in favor of the food and drink as well. I promised to buy her 2 and mail them if we could give up on that. She agreed all too quickly and we asked James the chauffeur to head to BevMo. We had a cocktail party to go to at 6 PM., so we needed to get back out to Danville before that.
We were like ravenous dogs when coming out of the store with cheese, crackers, chips, sausage and enough liquor to sink a ship considering we were just about to go out... Threw some substinence in our mouth and off we went!

We seem to have had a fair number of guests on the boat from the Danville area, and "Blondie" recommended her niece and friends come on the boat after they did their charter. Blondie reminded me that I was apparently being very stingy with the tshirts when we played the shots game on the boat when they were on and she managed to leap across the table, grab the large shot of bourbon that was left, wrestle it out of another guests hands and pound it down for the grand prize...I am sure i have a picture of that on the blog somewhere!

I took the opportunity to let my "girls" serve me, and Sherry passed around pizza as well as the tons of other appies they had. It was so much fun to see them, if only for the very short while that it was. They were just on the boat last May actually....

Kari and Sue wanted me to promise that I would not use this as a blog picture. Yeah. right. do they know me at all??? Of course I did, all natural on this blog we are!

We spent a couple hours there and then back to my sisters (this is my eldest niece Cassie) to watch the pics, have a last chat and say our goodbyes..

By this evening I almost felt sorry for my sister as it took 24 hours, but Karen and I tag teamed teasing her about cinnamon buns and who knows what else. Well, I do know, it was getting no food and drink until 5 pm!!!! We won't let her be in charge of that again! It felt just like we had never been apart. It was wonderful. The girls are taking my niece Cassie to Nashville tomorrow for her 21st birthday. Look out Nashville! I am headed to Vancouver with my parents instead, as I have an uncle who is having a big operation there.

Unlike coming down to San Fran, we are allowed to take carry on bags on the plane on the way home and a damn good thing it is too! As I seem to be carting around a whole bunch of "stuff" that my dad had shipped to my sisters in the states. Like 3 hubcabs. Yee haa!

We are on the plane now as I type, (no mention yet of having to keep our hands out of our pockets for the last hour of the flight and we are probably in that now, so double bonus I believe!). Back to Victoria, and my parents have made dinner reservations at 5 PM at some Italian Restaurant downtown Victoria as it is my brothers birthday today! He gets ripped off having it on New Years eve I believe...

I have promised Bazza that after that we can stay home for one day tomorrow before heading to Vancouver. I am not sure if I am looking more forward to it or he is, but probably him, as he has had to visit with my family for weeks here!