Monday, July 17, 2006

Life of a Bachelor

We're staying with our good friend Jeremy, who is living the bachelor life in the Winnipeg fast-lane. I must say, I was very impressed with the cleaniless of his apartment! He made a point of telling me that he'd even cleaned the bathroom because I'd be there. I was particularly touched to see a vase of carnations on the coffee table! He had even gone grocery shopping before our arrival, so he had fresh milk, eggs, veggies, bagels and fruit. Now how many bachelors do you know that still go all out for their houseguests? Thanks, Jer!

I cooked dinner for us tonight, as Jeremy and Dave were getting ready for their rehearsal. I can't wait to get home to my own kitchen. It's always weird cooking in someone else's house, but especially when this person is a bachelor. Jeremy has most things, but it was still mainly a guessing game. I've never been good at improvising; I'm more of a recipe kind of gal. Jeremy had some individual chicken breasts in his freezer, so we thawed three of them and I rifled through his cupboards to see what I could do. I came up with a makeshift chicken parmesan, except instead of breadcrumbs, I used organic bulghur. He had no tomato sauce or tomatoes, but he did have Lipton Sidekicks fettucine alfredo, so that was the sauce. It was actually pretty good. The bulghur made the crust a little crunchier than normal, but it was fine. I do prefer the tomato sauce made from scratch. Yummy.

I checked out a mall today, and it suddenly hit me that I'm in Canada again! I love the extra Canadian stores like Smart Set and Jacob. We Canadians also have the same stores as American malls, except Victoria's Secret (we have La Senza) and Bath and Body Works (no substition, but we do have Body Shop). We also have Laura Secord's chocolates....oh my, I have four words that make me salivate: french mint chocolate bar. Melt-in-your-mouth Canadian goodness.

I also felt oddly at home in the mall today--for some reason I don't always feel comfortable in American malls. Here, everyone's polite and, well, Canadian. The prices are good too, until you remember that the Canadian dollar is actually doing quite well right now. And the tax in Manitoba is huge. 6% GST (government sales tax) AND 7% PST (provincial sales tax). Eek!

Well, my air mattress is calling. We're watching the Seinfeld box set, having a couple beers and some Taco Bell. Ah, a bachelor's life. :)

3 comments:

Karmen said...

Love reading about your adventures Jilly! Hi to Jeremy for me! :)

Jillian Camwell said...

Jer says hi back! He says you look hot! ;)

Karmen said...

Aww, that's sweet! To be fair, I wasn't exactly at my peak of hotness last time we saw each other in Toronto :) I'd like to think that it's a bit of an improvement!

Best of luck on the recital Jer!