We were initially going to head to White Rock right away, but my Father was having a rather large retirement party where he was inviting his co-workers so we thought that we could stay in town for the day to help out. Mostly it was a day of running errands.
We had to drop off a shipment of homemade beer from C-Dubs to Chris Sensei and get a gift certificate to drop off downtown for my sister and see if we could get the car fixed and etc. The first two parts went off without a hitch, but getting Jerusalem’s bumper fixed was a bit harder. We tried to go to Sam... he is a guy who fixes cars for cheap. It is not as good as a dealer fix, but it costs much less than a dealer fix. Well, with the construction the road to his house was... uh... missing. It took quite a while to find it and when we did he did not seem to be home. There were some guys in his garage who said they would call me back to see if they could do the work... but they never did. I will call on them when I return.
We headed downtown to drop of the gift certificate and were awed by Calgary’s growth. Bow Trail has been ripped apart and the new C-Train line is rushing up it. There is construction all over as the tracks and stations are being put in seeming everywhere... Calgary’s downtown core is now an immense stack of buildings with the “Bow” now stretching higher than any others. It is an incredible engineering feat, and it is beautiful.
We dropped off the certificate, grabbed some stuff from Safeway on the way home and were ready to help.
The helping took the rest of the day. There was cleaning. There was vacuuming. And then... there was cooking. Dad was hosing the party, but it was a party for him so I was happy to help (and so was my better half). I threw on an apron once we got going and took over the cooking. He did much of the prep, but he got to mingle while I took over cooking the meat, the casserole (ok ok ok heating the casserole), and many of the hor d’ouvres. I was getting drinks for people, sautéing shrimp, and heating up other prepared appys while my better half was delivering them to the guests. It all worked out great... Dad and his good friend Dana did the prep and we took over a good chunk of the execution.
The food was great and I think that everyone enjoyed themselves. As people finished eating we retrieved dishes and started to clean up. It was a wonderful meal of tons of appetizers, then roast beef and beans and casserole and salad and broccoli salad and buns, and then a plethora of desserts. It was incredible.
Dad’s boss gave a speech, then Dad did, and then Dad was presented with a fantastic bottle of wine and a beautiful piece of art for Bella Vista. Overall it was a great night and I think that our helping out made it all the better.
No comments:
Post a Comment