OK, so instead of owning the podium, we just rented the top floor.

I have to give a CP reporter the credit for that quote.

Wasn’t that fun? The Olympic withdrawal is going to be tough. It’s been the framing device around all events for the past two weeks. Furthermore, that’s been true of almost everyone else. What else does that anymore? Not the Oscars, not the series finale of Lost, not the Superbowl, not even the Stanley Cup.

Big eating weekend

I described last weekend (Feb. 19–21) as my “big eating weekend.” For the Friday, well ahead, we had arranged to meet up with friends at Verses. They were particularly pleased to have meat there. “We’re coming off a month of veganism,” they explained. “If you think vegetarianism is hard? Try veganism.”

Then on the following Saturday, our neighborhood association held a wine tasting dinner at Solé. Solé generally does an excellent job with these, and the featured wine was from Rosewood Estates, which we really like. So we had to sign up for that as well. We ended up sitting with the owner of the winery, who proved to be a very interesting guy, with rather strong opinions about wines of different price points, and the marketing strategies of various regions.

And it was a great meal. It started with their Sémillon, which I judged reminiscent of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, so was pleased when informed that’s what they were going for. It was delicious, as was the smoked trout served with it—amazing stuff, the food highlight of the meal. The main course was chicken with wild mushrooms, and it was served with a Meritage wine. (I was hoping to get their Pinot Noir again, but the 2007 is apparently all sold out.) Dessert featured honey wine, served with an apple caramel tart.

Olympic-wise, that was a pretty quiet weekend. That’s when there was all that grousing about Canada’s performance being somewhat disappointing, which I mostly found irritating. But since we don’t really know our neighbours (and besides the wine people, that’s who was there), it was very handy to have that to talk about.

Shall we dance?

Despite some moments of mild panic—me on the “hockey stick” step (seriously, that’s what it’s called) of the cha-cha, Jean on the intricate shaping of the slow fox—we’re fumbling our way reasonably well through our ballroom dance classes for people who had taken a seven-year break. This week’s class coincided with the Russia-Canada hockey quarter-final, but late arrivals reported on the already lopsided score involved there, and we stopped worrying about that too much.

But our dance instructor wanted to talk about another sport: ice dancing.

Continue reading “Catching up” →