SLOOOOOOOWWWWLY Goes the Refrigerator Replacement, Hohoho!!

 In honour of the Cherry Cream Soda font I MUST use pink for this post!!

The saga of getting another fridge continues.  By 1pm today we realized we likely were not going to hear from the refrigeration technician, so my husband hiked across the parking lot to the office to ask what was going on.  As we suspected, the employee from the management company struggled with his English comprehension and didn't understand why we still had food in the refrigerator portion of the unit if it wasn't working, didn't realize that my husband was NOT telling him that unit was still working and didn't understand why there was over twenty dollars worth of ice slabs in plastic bins in there keeping the food sufficiently cold as to keep it all from being wasted.  He apparently told the tech that our fridge was still working so there was no rush on the order.  Sigh....why are we not surprised. Even the staff for whom English IS their first language don't seem to comprehend what we are telling them a good deal of the time. hahaha

So the office staff worker called the warehouse to see if there are any fridges in stock that are in working order. She finally got a response around 4:30pm and the response is there is a fridge and the tech will try to get it to us sometime tomorrow.  In the meantime we had to purchase another ten dollars worth of ice ($31 and counting...) after dinner tonight to get our food through safely until tomorrow until hopefully at least noon. The office staff worker begins her shift at 10:30am and will call to let us know, if she can find out that is, when the tech and the fridge will be arriving.

Unfortunately my husband has an eye appointment at 11am and will be leaving at 10:30am to be there on time. So, he will have to leave me to deal with this call, or with the tech should he arrive before or without said call. Tomorrow will mark my third day in a row of having to stay home all day waiting for assistance with the fridge.  Sigh.....I was really looking forward to going to his appointment with my husband so I could look longingly at all the expensive eye glass frames while he is in with the doctor and start thinking about what kind of frame I want to purchase after my own annual eye examination later this fall.  After accidentally sitting on my present very delicate frames that I've had only one year, they were so bent and took so much work for the frame techs to straighten out, it is unlikely I will be able to put new lenses into them safely ever again.  At present one of the original lenses is remaining in place "just kinda barely", so....guess it will be an expensive experience since I only get coverage for frames once every two years and then only if my prescription changes, which I suspect it may this time. Whatever....eyes are so important, so they are worth spending money on.

Tonight we had a wonderful time.  We met a now retired former colleague of my husband's and she treated us to a meal at DarBar.  Yum, yum! I decided to have a simpler meal tonight so ordered off the appetizer list: a chana curry with fried bread....basically a fluffy puffed up pillow of thin bread dough that was able to be dipped into their home made tamarind sauce...to die for....and then one of the best green salads I have ever had there, plus a helping of raita.  Gosh, it was a full meal even without eating both rounds of fried bread.  It was unexpectedly delicious...not a great fan of chana as a rule...and I was not expecting that amount of food from the Appetizer list. WOW!  I will order that again.

The conversation was wonderful and contrary to the last time we saw our friend, her face is smoothed of all the "worry wrinkles" from her last position in her career, she has lost weight; she looked so happy after her first year of retirement. She was cheerful and talkative.  Gosh, it was a wonderful time together.  We all look forward to getting together once again.  ( have been trying to think about what else it was that was different about her this time and it just struck me that this is the first time I have seen her without her clergy collar. She was completely clad in "civilian dress" and I can't believe how different she looks.  Incredible.)

Although it is well before 11pm I am more tired than usual tonight so am going to get to bed right away.  I think the stress over the mix up with the fridge has gotten to me, plus being stuck inside for 3 days in a row has precluded going for any long walks, so I am craving exercise.  Maybe tomorrow after the ruddy fridge arrives?  Stay tuned to the never ending saga of refrigeration!  

A Quick Prayer For My Dear Friend?

For you prayer partners out there, my friend Nan could use a prayer or two today.  She is preparing to list her house for sale and the realtors are coming this afternoon.  She has some concerns which may or may not be valid in regard to what else needs to be done to the house before she can best list it. She has found the place to purchase that she has wanted for many years and the sellers are willing, but it does need some renos and they want to sell it sooner than she was counting on.  So, as seems to be par for all moves, there is quite a bit of stress with this one. Also, since Cee's passing a couple of years ago she is on her own dealing with these matters.

I guess what we need to be praying for mostly is that God will give her a deep peace about what he wants her to do, the strength to do it and the courage to face this entire situation on her own....she remembers the story of the little girl being stressed and being told to put her trust in our invisible God, but the little girl wanted someone with "skin on".   I am very proud of her for tackling this project and I am praying her other family and friends who actually live in her city can be a huge source of support for her.

Thanks everybody. 

Home, Freezing, Soaked, BRRRRR....First Time Our Furnace Has Been Turned On In Mid September!!!!

What a day, what a day, what a day this has been!!  A good day, but we are completely zonked. It is currently about 7:30pm and my husband has been in bed for the night since 6:10pm, that is how zonked he is!

We were both asleep last night just before 10pm. I woke up at 3:30am, half an hour before the alarm went off and my husband just beat the alarm by seconds....it would have been 1:30am Regina time.  So, I have now been up for 18 hours, but I am still too wired to sleep, so might as well end this trip blog for the present until the photos get moved off my husband's and son's phones for publication here in the hopefully very near future.

We did take time for a decent breakfast even at that early hour to use up some of the leftovers.  Fortunately we had very little food that had to be thrown away.  At 4:50am we were down at the desk checking out and waiting for our taxi to arrive by 5am, the one the front desk staff had booked for us the previous evening. They HAD booked it!  We were there and heard the conversation between the desk clerk and the establishment's regular driver. When the driver was not there by 5:10am and no sign of any cars on the street at all, the front desk clerk told us he would call a Yellow Cab, which was there in about 6 minutes. The clerk was most upset and said it is very weird that this driver was not only not there early, but apparently wasn't going to show up at all.  The Yellow Cab driver, as we drove at breakneck speed toward La Guardia Airport, told us what had likely delayed to the other driver. There was a huge accident on the main freeway coming into our place that had traffic backed up for miles.  As our driver swung down another side street to avoid the pile up, we could see hundreds of cars stranded at a complete standstill and many, many flashing red and blue lights attached to police cars and ambulances.  It is quite possible that if our original driver was also trapped in the slowdown and had he shown up to take us to the airport WE could have been trapped in that horrible traffic mess and possibly been so delayed we might have missed our flight to Toronto.  Bonus #1.

Bonus #2 is that when we got our boarding passes printed up and headed into the LONG lineup to get through security, my dear husband, who pays all kinds of attention to details in airports and such places, noticed as we coiled around and around the pathway set up for the lineup of passengers, a sign that said the passengers were to take TWO different paths to security.  No one else seemed to be seeing the sign and there were only a handful of people waiting to go into that area of security.  My husband told me we were going to take that secondary path.  We ended up behind only ten people waiting to go through security there, rather than a couple of hundred others who remained in the original line up.  Bonus, we got into security quickly and another bonus is that we just happened to have wandered into the section of security that uses the wonderful newer machines that can see and interpret everything in the luggage, only the liquids in their separate bag needed to be removed from our carry ons. We were able to leave our shoes on. While we were waiting our turn to go into this area we glanced over the the folk going into the other security area and noticed they were opening luggage to dump computers and prescriptions along with the liquids into the trays going through x-ray AND they had to take their shoes off, which we didn't have to do.  Definitely a bonus for us, me in particular as I absolutely have to sit down to get my shoes on and there wasn't exactly a plethora of benches once we got our bags back.  Oh, and also part of this airport area bonus is that when we arrived at the airport we had no idea where to go to get our passes printed up.  We just headed for a sign that said Air Canada and had several people sitting at a long counter there, just like any area of an airline that weighs luggage and receives luggage and prints up passes.  There were surprisingly few people there and that was because, as the woman we walked up to told us in no uncertain terms, this was the place where people who are part of a particular Air Canada special elite programme go to check in. It was not for us mere peons. She was not kind. My husband told her that he was very sorry, but that as a visitor to the airport he had no idea whatsoever where else to go for a pass, that there were no visible signs directing us anywhere else, but that he would be happy to go wherever she directed us. She harumphed quite a lot, asked for our passports, printed up our passes and waved us on our way to the departure gates. teehee

Bonus #3 is the most amazing one to me:  We got through getting our boarding passes and security so quickly that we had far more time to wait for our flight than we thought we would. As we sat waiting and wondering how best to fill the time, I got looking at our connecting flight in Toronto.  My husband and I started thinking about how long it might take in Customs in Toronto with the crowds headed that way....so many passengers on several flights early in the morning.  He started remembering how very, very far we would have to walk to even get to Canadian Customs after we landed and then how we had to walk almost as far back the way we had come to get to the national flight departure gates.  It hit us suddenly that, particularly if our flight from New York left even a few minutes late, we were most likely going to miss our connecting flight by quite some time.  We looked at each other in horror, realizing then our booking mistake when we first made plans to travel.  At that exact moment, I looked up and saw another departure gate across the room and the screen behind the desk appeared to be showing yet another flight to Toronto that was leaving 90 minutes ahead of the one we had booked.  I told me weary husband to get over there and find out how full it was and if there was ANY chance at all we could get on that flight instead; to get moving to ask because they were going to start boarding in about fifteen minutes.  Off he went with missionary zeal to talk to the woman at the desk. He returned a few minutes later to tell me that she had agreed to put us on standby and page us if such a thing turned out to be possible.  Not thirty seconds later she paged us, we grabbed our luggage and passports, raced over to her and within seconds she had taken our old boarding passes and printed us new ones for the earlier flight. WOW!!!!  She was even able to seat us together near the back of the plane and there was lots of room in the overhead bins back there for our luggage.

Bonus #4 is that due to our arriving in Toronto so much sooner, we could have lunch at 9:30am at the airport!!  I have to admit that after we got off the plane from La Guardia and realized how heavy our carry ons actually were as we trudged slowly along the incredibly long route to Canadian Customs, we kind of folded energy wise. haha.  We were SO slow that by the time we got there no one from our flight was anywhere in sight! They had all cleared already.  However, that meant we had no line up at all.  Since we had filled out our Declarations online the night before all we had to do was walk right up to a Customs officer's window in the otherwise now completely deserted room, declare two bags of green tea leaves and a bottle of  Yuzu juice, both of which are allowed and very quickly we were trudging back again to find our departure gate for the Regina flight.  We had LOTS of time to stop and eat lunch just after 7:30am Regina time and we found a kind of nice little place with a very tasty breakfast!  Bacon and scrambled eggs and toast and tater tots....my husband was too tired to eat so he wanted a small plate of parmesan fries. Unfortunately they are not on the breakfast menu, but the server took great pity on him when he was so very disappointed and brought him a bowl of tater tots covered in parmesan instead, hahahaha. He really enjoyed it along with 2 Corona Cera! I can't imagine drinking even his no alcohol beer at that time or the morning, but he had helped me carry my very heavy luggage along with his own for the seemingly miles we had walked after our flight, so he deserved a relaxing time and a treat to drink.  He was SO HAPPY to be able to sit down in a comfy booth and have a ton of time to enjoy his food and drink.  It was a lovely surprise.  AND for my blood sugar a big relief. If we had kept on our originally scheduled flight from La Guardia I wouldn't have had time to eat anything between our breakfast at 2am Regina time and our arrival home at 1:30pm other than a small cookie provided on the plane from Toronto.  I would have been in a coma by then because I didn't realize at the time I still had a nut bar in my purse! hahaha That and the cookie would have carried me most of the way, but it would have been pushing it.

Bonus #5: our flight to Regina was absolutely packed full.  We knew from looking at the sheer number of people and their full sized carry ons that there wasn't going to be room for all that luggage in the small sized bins of the Airbus 319. We have flown in those before and it is a nightmare of tiny bins. SO when the inevitable call came offering people free under the plane storage for their carry ons and no one stepped up, my husband and I decided we would do that.  We were flying directly home so the chances of our two bags going missing were pretty slim.  The bonus was that for those of us, all four people whoopee, who stepped up and let our baggage be moved under the plane, we were allowed to board immediately after the business class passengers. We had lots of time to get comfy and watch the rest of the passengers struggling to find space somewhere, anywhere for their bags in those wee overhead bins. In the end the plane was delayed leaving by ten or more minutes because there simply was no way to get everyone's luggage overhead. So, the last ten people to board had nowhere for their bags so one of the flight attendants got a cart and loaded those ten bags on it for transport to the under carriage of the plane.  When we got to Regina to debark it was kind of cool not to have to wrestle heaving carry ons down from the luggage bins.  

Bonus #6: Two friends surprised us by meeting us at the airport to drive us home. We felt loved and not bereft this time when we got to the baggage carousel. They not only drove us home, they stopped at the grocery store for us along the way so we could grab some basics until we get ourselves together over the next couple of days and organize a proper list. How kind and caring is THAT?  And even more so when they themselves are trying to get ready for a big trip to the Maritimes, flying out tomorrow morning at the same ungodly hour we flew out when we started our own trip.  We felt very welcomed home, that's for sure. It took a bit of the edge off missing our kids already and realizing we will not be waking up in Manhattan in the morning.

The one non-bonus in all of this is the crappy weather.  In Manhattan it was between 78F and 86F every day we were there, even when it was raining. When we landed in Regina today it was 59F, pouring, teeming rain and just starting to blow like crazy.  It is September 15 and we actually had to put our furnace on when we got home...THE FURNACE....in mid SEPTEMBER!!! What kind of a crazy place is this, anyway??

My husband was very upset right after we arrived home and he discovered that in his attempt to disconnect some electronics before we left on our trip he had managed to disconnect the television, so not one programme we had set to record actually did.  He was so very upset, but I told him that his bad news had nothing to do with a flood or mice in the basement, so it was no big deal. It is only tv, right?  If you want to know how a programme turns out you go online and look it up. AI has to be good for something, right??  hahaha

It is almost good to be home in some respects, but have to admit it helped a lot that both kids texted us  this evening..... 

It Isn't Always Easy To Say Goodbye For A Long Trip

After racing about madly this morning picking up different items needed for our last minute packing up and having a grand visit in the park with my coffee buddy, I wolfed down my deliciously hot Indian food leftovers from last night and collected my husband so we could go for a visit with some dear very elderly friends who wanted to see us before we go.  It was lovely to see them, but we have come away wondering if she is still going to be with us by the time we return.

Our beloved friend has gone downhill noticeably since my last visit with her three weeks ago. Sigh....  She could barely make it to the table to enjoy the snacks her husband had prepared in honour of our visit, was slurring her words noticeably and fell asleep for awhile in the middle.  My heart is hurting for her and her husband.  She is not doing well.  Yes, she is in her middle 80's, but has been such a vibrant presence in our lives. She and her husband were among the first to not only welcome us at our current church, but adopted us as if we had been friends for decades, right from the first visit.  Her husband is declining as well, slowly but surely and it is so depressing for us to see the inevitable start happening.  However we did have a good time together and I promised her I will send her an email after we have been away for a few days, just to say "hi" and assure her we are having fun with family. 

This evening my husband is attending the installation service of a new priest here in the city.  I planned to go but realized there are a couple of things on my tomorrow's To Do list for the trip that could actually be done this evening and take some of the stress off for tomorrow. I need to polish my walking shoes for one thing and I need to call a friend in Alberta who recently lost her husband, to check in and see how she is doing before we go.  There are three tv programmes beginning shortly after we leave that we want to see so I will set that up and hope for the best: that the system won't go down while we are away, or at least that it won't go down for long enough to cut off our hoped for programmes to see when we get home. It won't be the end of the world if we don't have them, it would just be nice to have something relaxing to see as we get over the exhaustion after a long trip.

Tomorrow evening will be full on packing up. I still haven't decided what two outfits to leave out so that my carry on is not stuffed to capacity and too awkward and heavy for me to carry by myself. We are trying to decide how best to handle having to leave for the airport at 3:30am...sleep or no sleep prior to leaving?  hahaha  When it comes to needing sleep before travelling, old age is definitely a hindrance when it comes to getting up at 3am!

Maman's Update

My friend has returned home after leaving her dear Maman in the capable hands of another sibling. Her reports are very positive and she is happy to share them with such faithful prayer warriors.

Maman continues to become stronger each day.  She is positive in outlook and is preparing for the TAVI team to get together to prepare for her aortic valve replacement sometime in the next few months. Fortunately that is not an emergency surgery that must be done immediately, so there will be time to get the proper TAVI team in place ahead of time.  For a woman who died twice in the ER when she initially arrived at the hospital she has come along way. As I told my friend, "An amazing woman has received an amazing piece of medical technology."  Thanks again for your prayers. When it is time for the aortic valve replacement I will be soliciting your prayers once again. Bless you all.

Today's Events Began Happening Before I Even Had A Chance To Ask.....Hahahahaha.....

I didn't sleep too badly last night. Lights out at 12:20am, awake for an hour of reading at 4:30am then a great sleep from 5:30am until 8:45am. I yawned and stretched for a minute and then the phone rang. It was a dear friend from another province, so I happily delayed getting breakfast and getting ready for my day so we could chat.  Then just as we were wrapping up our call a text message came in from out of town friends to let me know they were coming to our house and would be arriving in about 2 minutes.  I had to excuse myself from my phone call friend to run upstairs and throw on some clothes, barely making it down to the back door as they began knocking.  My husband was staggering about all through my phone call, trying to get ready for a morning meeting in his still sleepy state after he also slept in unexpectedly, but fortunately it was a breakfast meeting so he didn't have to try to make breakfast before he left.  Just as I got downstairs with day wear on, our friends arrived, exchanged greetings with my husband as he was leaving and then were very patient with me as I prepared my own breakfast along with their pot of tea.  What a crazy, delightful start to the day.

When my husband finally arrived home close to 1pm I had to hop into the car and race to the bank where we have had SO MANY issues and glitches and set up some financial "stuff" for our upcoming trip. This time there was only one glitch and THIS time I was actually prepared for it!  The teller was very experienced, has been at that branch for some time and was most helpful in straightening out the issue. Bless her!  Since I got home she has emailed me with some more information and has offered more help with something that may come up with our account while we are out of the country and is going to solve that possible problem for us.  The more unavoidable contact we have with this bank the more we are realizing it is only rarely the employees at the local branch who are making a mess of things, it is mostly the third party investment and credit card companies etc. that are screwing us over time after time.  Well,  we will be shut of that bank altogether once we get home.  We are done with it.  Hallelujah!!

We ran a few errands before I ate lunch at 3pm.   

Oh yay!!  We just received a dinner invitation to the home of friends this evening.  Curried chicken veggie pot pie!!  Our absolute favourite and these two women can COOK, yeah you betcha'!!  How wonderful. How blessed are we, right?  They get home late enough from work that I won't be eating that much too soon after my late lunch.  Ooh, I am so excited.

Wonder what I can cram into the next two and a half hours before we go out for dinner?  Who is going to call or show up next?  I LOVE days like this because I LOVE happy surprises like long distance phone calls and long distance company!  It is a good day today.  I COULD do the ironing, but it might be wiser to bury my nose in a book instead for an hour and leave the ironing as my tomorrow afternoon's chore. 

Maman Is One Tough Cookie!

 Today, 93 year old Maman is going home! She will be able to have the valve replacement in a few months, so that is great news. Maman is a journalist and along with being able to walk and eat properly again, she has also begun writing up the details of her brush with death.  My friend is amazed by how well she is doing and is grateful for such positively answered prayers.  I am very happy for all of them. ⛪️

We had our first lower atmosphere forest fire smoke overnight, so this morning my eyelids are swollen and my lungs feel irritated. What a blessing that we made it through June and July with only a few overnight hours of higher altitude smoke that didn’t even rate a Smoke Warning from the weather forecasters. The sun this morning is a giant, flaming orange red ball, similar to the sunrise suns we used to see in Tokyo on a typical smoggy morning. I was so exhausted overnight that only once was I vaguely aware of smelling smoke and I was so groggy I couldn’t wake up sufficiently to get up and close the windows. What a trade off: breathing in poisonous particulate matter with the windows open or sweltering, sweating, headaching heat. Happy summer night to you too! 😉

I haven’t been able to force myself to get up and check the leaking spot in the kitchen ceiling. My husband is preaching at our own church this morning so he hasn’t the luxury to staying home to babysit that dripping crack and I have no intention of missing his sermon, so hopefully the large catch basin we have on top of the cupboards will hold however many more drips drip! 💧 

Maman's Continuing Health Journey Update

 I have another update in regard to Maman's recovery.  She is still in hospital after all because it has been discovered that she requires a new aortic valve.  While there is no huge rush for the surgery itself, she will need to have an angiogram to ensure the valve will be able to be installed through a vein in the groin.  If the angiogram shows otherwise she could be in need of open heart surgery.  Her angiogram should happen next Tuesday.  Hopefully it will be possible to insert the new valve using the usual method and once that is established she will likely be sent home to await the surgery.  So, more to pray about, but overall things are so much more positive than they appeared they would be, particularly after her actually dying for a bit before the temporary pace maker was put in. Whew....Thanks for praying for her and for her family.  It is very much appreciated.

It is another very warm day here, the forecast is for +32C; not the hottest we have had, but today there isn't a hint of a breeze anywhere near our area of the city, so even though it is currently only +25C it feels too hot to be comfortable outside.  I had to drive to the nearest grocery store instead of taking my intended walk due to a late start to my now overly warm day. I DID manage to fall asleep again after the 5:30am "Fight Club" on the front lawn and I slept for over 90 minutes.  It was worth getting a late start on the day just to feel better for the rest of the day.

My husband is meeting a friend for coffee this afternoon so I think I will tackle the needed executor's package updates.  I never want to go away without all that information being immediately available to one of our executors.  I learned from my parents' well organized banking and other financial records how important it is to have all the required information ready for the executor, as well as a list of where to start and in what order to do things like getting death certificates, adding up the monies in accounts and investments to take to the lawyer for access to the wills and to find out if probate will be necessary.  There are so many steps and each time something is attempted out of order it slows everything else down sometimes by several weeks.  Mom and Dad made things very smooth going for me in terms of available information that I needed. The financial institutions were the main hold up as probation was completed sooner than expected and caught them unawares.  I learned so much so we want to make everything as easy as possible for any executors when it is our turn to go. 

I Wish I Could Share A Photo Of This!

 My husband is currently sitting on his plastic lawn chair on the back porch.  At his feet are a clutch of tiny Arabic speaking refugee boys and they are talking a blue streak in Arabic, English attempts and lisps while helping my husband pull weeds from our herb and tomato pots, touching and smelling leaves and flowers and enjoying life in the shade on the porch. They are each eating one of our almost ripened cherry tomatoes in the midst of all their blather.  My husband, who always wanted more children but was stoic when that didn't turn out to be possible and who has no grandchildren, is loving every minute of this. hahaha  He is so very patient and quiet spoken with the boys, admonishing them in no uncertain terms when they kick their soccer balls against the side of our suite and put holes and cracks in the siding, but also making sure they know he cares about them and is not angry and freaked out by their All Boy behaviour. hahaha  Watching these antics and overhearing his conversations with them gives me great joy.  I can't post a photo because I don't have permission to put pictures of the boys online of course, but just imagine, those of you who know us, what a kick my husband is getting from these interactions with the wee fellows.

Positive Update On Maman!

 This morning I received the report that Maman was able to have a permanent pacemaker maker installed yesterday and she has done incredibly well in her initial recovery. In fact she may be released in the next day or two. My friend is thrilled by these results and thanks you all profusely for praying. God must have intervened because the situation was dire, with these positive results not really expected. My friend and her husband will be staying with Maman at her home while she completes her recovery there. My friend is a wonderful daughter!

Thanks everyone and thank you God!

Why We Can Still Cope With Living Here

 As I gaze out the windows, front and back, at the sea of goose poo covering lawns and sidewalks from the three groups of between 20 and 30 geese each who hang around here all day, it is so easy to become disgusted by the mess, sickened by watching the kids running through the poo to play soccer and sometimes physically upset by fighting a rising tide of vomit in my throat that my life has come to this.

HOWEVER:  just being able to listen to the various woes of the kids who have begun hanging out on our deck and steps, helping out our neighbours wherever possible and therefore seeing at least some reason from God as to why we might still be living in this tenement is giving us some ability to hang on a bit longer.

Yesterday my husband finally had a reason to answer the request of the Syrian woman next door for him and I to bring her any sewing we needed doing.  He took over a pair of beautiful new black dress pants he wants to wear at our son's wedding reception. The legs needed hemming and he didn't want to do it on his sewing machine because he isn't sure how to use the hemming attachment.  Since sewing at home in Syria was our neighbour's regular source of income, he decided to let her try them.  WOW! She pinned up the hems for him and took the pants to her place.  About 30 minutes later she returned them, beautifully hand stitched and just the right length...absolutely perfect.  Thank you dear new friend. 

She refused to take any money for her work because she and her family want to do something tangible to thank us for all the things we have tried to help them with, plus she was most apologetic that she doesn't have an iron yet and we would have to iron the newly hemmed legs ourselves.  Since we had to go to Canadian Tire later in the day for some items, I picked her up a decent so-called "professional" iron...yeah, aren't they all now for good advertising....but I know it is a good brand.  There was a sale on ironing boards as well, so I added in one of those.  It wasn't a huge cost to help her out as she tries to take in more sewing in the coming weeks.  Once I convinced her that we didn't buy her the iron and board because my husband thought she was asking him to buy one for her when she apologized for not having such things yet and that they were outright gifts, she relaxed and thanked us profusely.  I also have a couple of items I would like fixed up a bit before our trip so will take them to her this weekend.  How marvellous to have a seamstress right on the other side of the adjoining wall!  It will be worth whatever subsequent repair costs turn out to be!

She told me something really sweet: when she told her youngest son, 8 years old, that she is expecting another baby she was expecting a negative reaction from him, BUT he threw his arms around her, hugged her and exulted that he would no longer be the youngest and littlest kid in the family. hahahaha  Love that story. 

Already An Update On Maman!

 Just in the past few minutes since I posted the request for prayer for Maman, I have received an update that her permanent pace maker surgery is likely going to be pushed up to tomorrow instead of Friday. The situation for her is very serious indeed.  Thank you for praying.

A Lovely Evening!

 After a lovely outdoor coffee time with my friend this morning....despite heavy rain very early in the morning, the mosquitoes barely bothered us at the park table we were sitting at because there was enough of a breeze to keep them at bay....I came home to the news that my husband had invited two of our closest friends to meet us for dinner tonight at a newly discovered and loved Indian restaurant.  The visit was fantastic and the food was as good as always, but the best part was that my husband had not only the idea, but the oomph to take the initiative to formulate and execute the plan!  He has been feeling so much more cheery over the past few days and has been making things happen most every day for the past nearly a week!  Amazing!  I am as grateful as he is that the funk he has been in for so long seems to be lifting.  Thank you Lord for this answer to prayer.

I am wondering if he will continue his journey to feeling even happier about life as we grow closer to our departure date.  He had the paper map of New York City out on the dining room table this morning, tracing out routes from our apartment to various museums and art galleries and restaurants and parks that we want to visit while we are there.  He nearly completed the blessings and prayers format for the wedding reception and will send those off tomorrow for editing and approval from our "kids".  Each morning he has been up and moving in good time to accomplish a lot during the day. All this is in spite of ongoing tummy issues as he now cannot eat Bell Peppers or peanuts/peanut butter.  The last go round we had with new deletions from his diet was about 3 years ago now when both beets and pears became no-no's.  It is most disturbing when things he has eaten all his life and truly enjoyed start joining the "DO NOT EAT ANYMORE EVER!" list, but that has been the way of things since 1985 when the whole CFS/dietary upsets thing started.  Every few years new items must be eliminated from his diet and a few items he has not eaten in a decade or more can then be added back in with no apparent bad effects.  Sigh....it is a constant merry-go-round trying to feed this man properly.  After over 40 years of this I am well used to it, but it never fails to hurt me as well as him each time we begin the process of discovery to find whatever new foods can no longer be tolerated. God bless him. He is stoic about it and never complains or feels particularly sorry for himself.  What an example HE is to wimpy whiny ME!!

Please Could You Send Up Prayers For My Friend's Maman?? Thank You, Thank You!

I have just received a request for prayer from my friend. Her mother was taken to hospital unexpectedly today with a heart issue, died temporarily while awaiting her temporary pace maker.  Now that she has that, please pray that she may be able to live until her permanent pace maker is put in on Friday....nearly two days from now.

Maman is a strong person having lived a beautiful technicolor life as a journalist of many years and is now in her early 90's.  She is a woman of vibrant spirit and her family needs and loves her very much.

My friend and her husband are leaving right away to drive many miles to the hospital where Maman will have her pacemaker surgery. Having lost my own mother a few years ago I know the fear of spending an hours long drive wondering what is going to greet you in the hospital room once you arrive.  Please pray for my friend's peace of mind.  Thank you SO much from my friend Jay.  

A Day Away Keeps Depression At Bay!!

 Yesterday was a wonderful day out of town. Our friend whose father passed away earlier this year, (my husband performed the funeral and graveside interment), wanted to take a trip down memory lane, so he and his wife picked us up at noon, (after my wonderful weekly coffee visit with my Thursday buddy), and we headed south west to the farmlands near Avonlea.  My husband is somewhat familiar with the area because his father was born near there and his aunt farmed in that area for many decades, until she was nearly 98!

It was a wonderful day for a drive: warm but not sweltering hot, just enough breeze to scare off at least a few of the hordes of mosquitoes currently in charge of all things outdoors and good roads, both paved highways and gravelled side roads.  We saw some gorgeous fields of still blooming canola, their neon yellow blooms so bright as to be nearly headache inducing, but several weeks of unrelenting heavy rain has destroyed large swaths of crop in too many fields.

We started at our friend's family farm, now run by a nephew, who talked to us about the family history of the farmstead and how the land and crops have changed over the past fifty years or more.  We were able to check out his cattle barn and have a good look at this year's calves gamboling in the fields. Fortunately both our host family and ourselves took large containers of heavy duty mosquito repellent or we would have been forced back into the vehicle within seconds of getting out of it. WOW....heavy rains leaving standing water followed by several days of warmth and bright sunshine....perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes, but there are not enough dragon flies around at the moment to eat enough of them.  The back of our pant legs and long sleeved shirts turned black with bugs within seconds of stepping outside. It seemed the repellent was particularly effective because I received only one bite on a knuckle and it only itched for a couple of minutes.  Most of the four of us received a minimal number of bites so we are all grateful for that.

From there we headed into the town of Avonlea where we toured their extensive museum site.  At about the time we began moving between the buildings to see the various pioneer exhibits and community displays for the various sports teams and tributes to their downed world war soldiers, a fellow arrived to mow down all the grass around the buildings, unleashing a fresh army of mosquitoes, so we made our way quickly VERY quickly from building to building. We spent a long time there enjoying the displays and all the work that had been put into the planning of each room full of items.  Of course we particularly enjoyed a little old Anglican church that had been moved there from one of the many now non-existent hamlets in the area.   

About the time we were completing our tour of the museum, our host started contacting the two restaurants in the town in regard to us having our dinner there, only to discover both local restaurants closed before 5pm.  Drat!  We did find out that the nice little grocery store had pre-made sandwiches and wraps and they were open until 6pm, if we wanted to purchase those and eat them in the car.  For some reason this was not appealing to any of us, so our host contacted the next nearest town of Rouleau and discovered the old King George Hotel grill and bar would be open.  Whew!

On the way to Rouleau, (where the Canadian comedy tv series, Corner Gas, was filmed years ago), we took a tour of Dunnet Lake Regional Park. Our host learned to swim in the river there when he was a kid, so he wanted to see what improvements had been made there over the years. What a beautiful little area!  There are lots of camping spaces and picnic tables, the lake and the dam, a beautifully appointed outdoor swimming pool and a large concession booth with not only drinks and shakes and iced cream but big meaty burgers and sides.  There were too many mosquitoes of course to make the idea of eating there at the picnic tables very exciting for us, so after our tour we headed the rest of the way to Rouleau.

The hotel didn't look particularly up and coming, but it was open so that was a huge plus!  We were pleasantly surprised by the yummy char grilled burgers and home prepared fries, plus the decor had some newly installed upholstery and the place was very clean....I would not recommend using the washrooms under any but the most dire of circumstances and perhaps not even then, but the kitchen was clean, the staff very helpful and the meal quite delicious.

From there we drove at somewhat breakneck speed back to Avonlea's museum parking lot to hook up with the guide for our tour of the small Badlands area only a few kilometres from the townsite.  

 

Our guide is an archaeology graduate and her enthusiasm for her job and for the badlands area made the little tour very interesting and exciting indeed.  We were amazed at the amount of plant diversity as we hiked along on the 3km round trip after parking our cars along the highway by the entrance. The field we walked through is virgin pasture land but we didn't see the cows, only a coyote that eyed us warily from a safe distance and lost interest in us quite quickly as it loped away.  The amount of cactus plants was fascinating to me.

 

The guide asked us if we would like to hike down to the bottom of the badlands to see some of the plants that only grow in that dry bottom area and nowhere else. I told everyone else to go ahead because I knew I could likely make it down to the bottom, but would never get back to the top in this lifetime, but by this time the sun was on the verge of setting and all of us were a bit tired, plus we found out that we couldn't take the little tour through the entrance to a couple of caves down there due to the heavy rains making the clay layer on the top of the hoodoos too unstable. No one wanted to risk being trapped in one of those caves if the hoodoo tops collapsed of course.  Anyway, cave or no cave, the view from the edge of the cactus lined top field was gorgeous and it was enough to make us all happy.  We walked back through the field to our car and headed for home after a wonderful day away.

"Tip toe through the cacti".......everybody sing along.....

We both slept very well last night once we "un-hyped" from our busy day out of town.

We both slept in a bit this morning, thankfully, and we both woke up feeling really good, really happy, really peaceful.  That seemed a tad unusual because we knew we had an appointment at the "Bank of Seemingly Never Ending Offences" just before noon.  

But...ya' know what?  It went spectacularly well!  My online survey answers from a month or more ago for that bank apparently caused something to click. Not only do we have a new advisor who apparently knows how to do the work she is paid to do, she was helpful, explained everything really well, answered our questions, apologized for the mess the previous FA had made of everything, helped us fix every issue AND sent a toe curling email to the third party institution that messed up our US credit card limit so badly back when we first applied for it.  She said she does a lot of this sort of thing and that she is sure when the people there see another email from her that they don't even want to open it. She very bluntly wrote to tell them the mistake was theirs and she expects them to fix it immediately and restore our the original credit limit they gave us before all the mess happened.  Will her email bring results...well, perhaps not, but for once we felt like someone with at least some authority has gone to bat for us!  Someone actually heard us and understands why we need this limit restored before we go away! So, all we can do now is pray and trust God for whatever the result turns out to be!  If we don't get that original credit limit back then we have to assume there is a good reason for it that we may or may not understand.  At least someone has really tried to help us.

My husband was so buoyed up by the appointment that he headed to the nearest restaurant to buy us lunch...kind of a celebratory lunch for the successful appointment there...for once...and also because it hit him suddenly that he never has taken me out for the special meal he promised me when he had to be absent for my birthday back in June, hahaha.  Lunch today was not particularly special in that sense, but it was a nice surprise and I am not sorry he feels just a tad guilty for forgetting my request for a meal at a particular restaurant some evening in honour my now long past birthday. I suspect that once he gets his out of town church commitments over with on Sunday he will be able to relax and enjoy an evening out more....at least more than he would have today after accidentally erasing the last day's worth of work on his sermon from the upstairs computer he was using as he attempted to save it for transfer to the basement computer where he can work in the cooler air.  Aaaah, the poor guy. I do feel really sorry for him, but he at least remembers well what he had written so I suspect it won't take him long to rewrite that portion.

It is hotter today than yesterday and we are hitting the +30C mark for the weekend, but then the temperatures will supposedly be more reasonable again next week.  +30C seems just fine after several days of nearly +40C so we are not complaining about the heat today! 

 

 

Surviving The Heat Thanks To Friends With A/C In Their House!

Last night was the first time this summer that I have removed all the covers from my bed and slept on top of the bottom sheet, thanking God for light summer overnight wear.  I will be doing the same thing tonight.  Today we got up to almost +34C, with not much of a breeze so it was like a sauna outside by mid afternoon.  Tomorrow the temperature is aiming for a high of about +37C and then slowly we will get back to more seasonal mid to upper +20C's.  Can't wait!!

I caught quite a magnificent break this afternoon. Two good friends contacted me and invited me to come to their house for the hottest part of the afternoon. Their house has wonderful A/C, so it was quite a treat!  An icy cold cola and a  fruit flavoured "frozen on a stick like a Creamsicle"  snack lowered my core temperature nicely.  I survived the afternoon well thanks to friends!!  God bless them for their invitation.  My husband was also invited but opted for a long nap in our basement instead after spending a few hours working on our kids' wedding reception programme.  

I must be finally getting into holiday mode because after I visited my friends this afternoon I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of food items, noticed their rack containing travel sized shampoos and toothpastes and such was full of excellent product, so I picked up everything that I need to pack in my carry on for our upcoming trip. Tonight I hard copied all our flight and rental apartment information so I have it immediately at hand if required at US Customs and Immigration instead of having to fiddle about on mobile phones trying to find what we need amongst our email files.  I cleaned out my carry on bag yesterday and started making a few difficult decisions about what clothing items I am going to take with me.  It always takes me awhile to get my head around the details of preparing for a trip. Fortunately I have had a lot of lead time for this one. Final clothes shopping trip here will happen either at the end of next week if it cools down enough or the following week.  My second last haircut is scheduled for next week, I have the dates for refilling my necessary prescriptions all juggled around so I won't run out of them before we get home and I have decided not to take my vitamin supplements.  I can purchase a month's worth once we get there and use them up before we board the plane to come home.  I made a list of what else has to be done at the end of this month: setting up our American mobile phone plans, getting our health insurance figured out and paid for, arranging to have the post office hold our mail while we are gone, setting up arrangements with our local utility companies to pay our September bills in advance of the trip, and figuring out how much actual cash we need to carry with us.  I have been putting off even thinking about any of these things because I didn't have the mental or emotional energy available.  Now, my brain is starting to compute the details and I feel motivated to get with it and prepare. YAY! I think my sudden enthusiasm to do these things was triggered yesterday when I paid the bill for our flights and the hold deposit on the rental apartment.  Once that much money is actually invested it is far more motivating to carry through with the rest of the arrangements.

I have not seen many mosquitoes here since all the rain stopped and the heat began, but they have apparently seen me!!  At the moment I have four wrist bites, a back of the arm bite, a back of the leg bit and three bites on my shins that are currently sending me nuts with itching! Fortunately this kind of bad itching usually only lasts for about a day when I get these miserable bites. By tomorrow I will have angry red little welts, but the horrible itch that tempts me with the urge to scratch at them should be gone. 

Happy, Happy Weekend!

 It has been a fulfilling weekend despite the never ending rain and thunderstorms!  In the next seven days we have one day of forecast sunshine midway into the week, but more storms are forecast for that evening and then onward to another few days of rainfall.  At this rate, if this is the result of global warming, either our area will end up becoming a permanent icy wasteland or turn into a jungle habitat....rain, rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain!  What a miserable summer weatherwise.  Our weekly rainfall forecasts are very similar to those on the west coast, but our temperatures are a bit cooler and slightly less humid..so far anyway. I am already wondering what next summer will bring!

Yesterday was a wonderful day despite the weather:  we attended the diaconal ordination of two people my husband has been helping to mentor along their pathway to eventual fully ordained priesthood.  There was a good turnout of people at the service from the church that was sponsoring them, also quite a number of clergy from other parishes were robed up and in attendance, the Bishop gave an inspiring talk to both ordinands that the rest of us were fortunate enough to be able to hear. It was thrilling to receive the Eucharist Cup for the first time from one of the two new Reverends. The delicious snacks in the visiting room afterwards kept me from going into a coma after eating my breakfast far too late after sleeping in accidentally, then not having a proper lunch for, as it turned out, 8 hours!!  I so enjoy returning to this church to see old friends and get caught up.  We spent a long time visiting and snacking and enjoying the beaming faces of the two new deacons in our diocese.  What an edifying and encouraging time for us in our little diocese who have seen so many large drops in church congregational sizes, a dearth of acceptable clergy, financial restraints etc.  Now not only do we have these two very capable new ministers who will spend one year as deacons and then be fully priested, but there are several new hires coming into the diocese who are very capable and experienced priests already. AND they are younger with young families...YES!  As far as clergy hires go we are set up well for the future.

A small piece of cake and a couple of crackers and cheese doth not a late lunch make, so just after 4pm my husband and I found ourselves ensconced in a booth at a restaurant around the corner from the church munching ourselves silly on chicken wings, fries and mounds of cole slaw.  As soon as our massive meals arrived we took out our take out boxes we brought from home and put half of our meals into them for lunch today.  Getting two full meals out of the deal made the price even more reasonable than it already was.  The service was excellent yesterday and our waiter got into a philosophical discussion with my husband before we left to drive home, hahaha.  There is something about my husband's clergy collar that starts up theological and philosophical discussions with many of the restaurant servers we meet around here. hahaha What fun! There are some very bright minds out there "slinging hash" and attempting to create fulfilling futures for themselves.

My husband and I both slept badly last night due to our brains fixating on a few issues we are dealing with and those thoughts kept going around and around and around.  I managed a little more than 4 hours of sleep and my husband got closer to six hours....4 too few for him as a rule....so I was the only one that toughed it out and went to church this morning. I figured perhaps being out and about might perk me up, and it did temporarily as I was able to sit with my coffee buddy who was also sans husband this morning, but as soon as I finished my lunch at home after church I was asleep in my recliner chair, tv blaring away for no reason at all, while my husband had a nap in his office. hahaha What a pair!  The thunder woke me up after an hour of sleep, so I staggered into the kitchen to wash some dishes and do a few more small chores.  As soon as I finish this post I am going to do a bit of reading but I am not sure I am going to get more than a few pages read before I doze out once again.  

We have few plans thus far for the coming week.  Not that we don't have plenty to do right here at home, so hopefully the lack of social commitments will make room for lots more downsizing around here. We have another load of "goodies" to take to the thrift stores and to recycling so once we get those things loaded into the car there will be that much more space for my husband to work in the basement as he continues his sorting and tossing out project.  He had also hoped to build the hangers necessary to attach our canoe and our friend's canoe to the side of her house at some point this week, but so far it looks like the ongoing rain is going to scotch that idea.  Maybe the week after???? 

Kudos To Tamarind South!

 We certainly enjoyed our dinner tonight at Tamarind's newer southern location.  The decor, or lack thereof, in this smaller restaurant nearly hidden from view near the end of a small off the beaten path strip mall, was not encouraging when we walked in to sit down at a nice sized booth, but the upholstery is still looking new and everything was very clean.  The food was a real treat: my chicken mughulai was slightly spicy with just enough coconut flavour in the gravy for my taste and there was a goodly amount of chicken pieces in the bowl.  Our friend's malabar chicken curry was absolutely delicious, not at all spicy as she had ordered a mild version and the curry sauce was thinner and well blended with spices. My husband ordered the balti lamb and it came with slices of green pepper and onion to add another layer to the slightly more spicy flavour.  All of us had an enormous amount of meat in our dishes, which is wonderful. It seems so often these days that with the price of food now the amount of meat has slowly been halved and the amount of gravy doubled at many of our Indian restaurants, so this was a great treat.  The curries and sauces had good depth of flavour....it seemed to us that they were actually more tasty than any of the dishes we have eaten previously at the original Tamarind location, but perhaps we need to go back there now and see if that is still the case.  We rounded out our meals with a large bowl of very tasty jeera rice and two large naan cut into three pieces each.  We all have enough leftovers for another full meal each tomorrow. YAY!  The prices are just as reasonable as DarBar over all and the flavours run in a not too far behind second place. 

We had a most delightful dinner with our friend as we listened to her stories of the past year, her first year of retirement that has seen her visiting all over North America and the Caribbean.  We were surprised to learn that she is not prepared to abandon Canada completely after all and is just debating with herself over whether to purchase a smaller house here or in some other part of Canada. Talking with her has given us new hope for a possible "one last adventure" before we get too old to do much more than sit around waiting for the end to come, hahaha. 

I am hoping and praying I can have a decent sleep tonight despite knowing I have to set my alarm for the morning.  Hopefully I can just forget about that relax into a good rest. 

So Which Is It Then?????

Today I read two conflicting (?) reports by two different cities in two different provinces about how each of their individual current weather conditions create perfect breeding grounds for the nasty mosquitoes that make outdoor living in Canada in the summer....along with the hideous ticks of course.....itchy, annoying and potentially disease causing.

A report I read from Lethbridge Alberta told me that their rainy spring along with its WARM weather made for the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. In the same news feed was a similar article from our own city of Regina telling me that the rainy spring along with its COLD weather made for the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.  

So, which is it? AND does it really matter?  Apparently the air temperature has little effect on these little bloodsucking insects. As long as there is standing water anywhere at all in this country, we will continue to be plagued with the little monsters.  Yucko!!!  I am not encouraged that the number of mosquitoes this year, all across the west at least, has risen substantially over previous years. Oooooh, as someone who is well loved by mosquitoes I am not at all impressed. Swat! Slap! Squish!

I just keep telling myself that it is all worth it because so many of the northern Alberta and Saskatchewan forest fire hubs are also getting a lot of rain thus far this summer, helping keep the surge of large fires in check.

Today I finally tackled some small chores I have been putting off because I have found the thought of doing them more stressful than those chores warranted.  I checked finally to see if our last credit card payment went though after my first attempt to pay in person at the bank and if Amazon did indeed refund the card for non-delivery of an item we ordered for the kids.  Everything was tickety boo.  So, why was I stressed over something so simple?  Easy: I have experienced so many mistakes by the bank and credit card company in the past few months that I hold my breath just looking up my account online.  Aaargh!!  I printed off paper copies of our flight and accommodation reservation for our upcoming trip.  We have run into some minor issues in the past when trying to use my husband's phone to bring up email confirmations in our own airports and across the border, so this time I am fully prepared with the information we may need and can whip it out of my suitcase in its bright red plastic folder if required. hohoho!! Gotcha' downed internet issues, this time I gotcha'!!

The bathroom walls needed a washing down and I should have done it two weeks ago, but was feeling so punky with my sore sinuses and ear infection that it seemed like far too much work to be bothered with. So, I did that today!  There is still cigarette smoke residue trickling out of the overhead fan system from the last tenants before us who smoked, as well as the various smoking neighbours next door since the smoke rises up into the ceiling fans for distribution throughout the open shared attic space.  All the bathrooms in the suites here have the tobacco residues streaking the walls unless the walls get washed down regularly.  I have never washed bathroom walls as often as I have since we moved in here.  

Tonight we are meeting up with a newly retired colleague of my husband's. She is selling her house and returning to live in her native Caribbean country. We are happy for her and she is very excited to leave the drabness of the prairies and our unique prairie culture behind her.  I don't blame her.....hmmm....I wonder if she knows of any rental units in her home country that would be interested in having some elderly Canadians rent the space for a few years....hmmmmm.....hahahaha. Yes, yes, unlikely and not sure my husband would go for the idea, but I can dream right?  A former parishioner of ours who was widowed over ten years ago started travelling solo to the Caribbean a few years ago and is now remarried to a local fellow there. She is very, very happy and we are happy for her.  Let's see how I feel about such a move: Caribbean--Regina; Caribbean--Regina; Caribbean--Regina....hmmmm...people who know me will know exactly how I would feel about such a move, teehee. We are going for Indian food tonight.  It will be yummy and we are excited to be able to have one last visit with our friend before she leaves in a couple of weeks' time.

Tomorrow I am picking up my coffee buddy and we are going to a coffee bar for our visit.  It has been several weeks since we last did that so I am looking forward to it.  Tomorrow was originally forecast for warm and dry, but I see now that there is a 40% chance of rain again.  No surprise there, right? hahaha At the moment the thunder is booming here, but it has arrived two hours after our last bit of drizzly rain and at the moment there is nary a drop falling from the sky.  Interesting weather, that's for sure. 

Busy Times With The Neighbours, Etc.......

This week has flown past in a flurry of "busy". For someone who has spent the past two weeks fighting ear and sinus infections I seem to have had very little time, particularly this week, to just sit around and heal.  But it is okay because the antibiotics I am currently on, along with the nasal spray, seem to be doing the job sufficiently this time....so far at least.

Attending the annual Big Book Sale, a fundraiser for the seniors programme to promote life long learning at the U of R, has taken up a few hours of our time, both in donating a ton of my husband's books, (yay you, sweetie), and purchasing books, particularly for myself.  My husband picked up a handful of books that he has been wanting to read...but not keep....that haven't been available through his online library account and I found some novels to get me through the rest of the summer.  So we purchased 26 books and three record albums for $44! Not bad, not bad at all.  As I am still working through quite number of books I picked up at various community library boxes around the end of April, first of May, I should be reading well into the coming weeks.  All the books we purchased will be read and then funnelled into various community library boxes.

My husband had three mens' meetings this week, particularly enjoyable as they involved men visiting from out of town who have only been involved in the weekly Zoom meetings with my husband and his friends, but happened to be in Regina this week, so it was a joyful first in person meeting for the out of town participants with the rest of the local group.  I enjoyed my weekly visit with my coffee buddy and one of my husband's meetings this week was a breakfast meeting with her husband. They have become such good friends over the past 3 years...they are older like us and we have lots of mutual ideas and shared life experiences.

The most time this week has been tied up with the next door neighbours.  It has been really fun, but having to use translators is rather exhausting.  This weekend my husband is meeting with the husband next door to peruse Facebook Marketplace together, trying to eventually find a used car that is clean enough and in sufficiently good mechanical condition and that fits our neighbours' budget....could take some time, but we will do what we can to assist them.  I was invited to sit on a blanket out on the goose poopy back lawn one evening with the wife from next door and her most hilarious friend that she met while jogging around our complex one morning.  We drank tea, talked as much as we could via translator, worked on their English words for awhile and they assisted me in learning a whole 3 words in Arabic....3 nouns so I won't get confused. hahaha  

Another day, right around dinner time, a frantic sounding hammering on our back door roused me from the dinner table.  There was our neighbour with her oldest son, nearly in tears because their ride to the son's Grade 8 graduation at his school had not shown up and was not coming after all.  Freaked out driver MOI to the rescue. Trying to drive to a school I had no idea existed while glancing over as quickly as possible at the tiny screen on my neighbour's cell phone that showed the route, (There is a good reason it is illegal to look at cell phones while driving!!!!), was terrifying and the worst fear was that I would get completely lost along the way and the kid would miss his special ceremony.  Although I did manage to miss seeing the school on our first pass by because my neighbour has not yet figured out the difference between Left and Right while waving her hand in the air rather vaguely, I was able to get around the block for a second pass by and found the school at last.  As they were getting out of the car, in plenty of time to get to the ceremony after all I might add,  it hit me that they would need a ride home afterwards and none of us had any idea how long the ceremony would last.  Rather than wasting time putting my phone number into her mobile...because I was stopped in a no parking zone on a very narrow street with an impatient car unable to get past me from behind....she decided she would call her daughter and the daughter would come to our house and knock on the door to let me know it was time to pick her mom and brother up.  So, about 90 minutes later I was on my way back to the difficult to locate school...found it first go this time, managed to stop in the no parking zone once again while my passengers loaded in and with no other car behind me this time freaking out because I had stopped illegally. YAY!

When we got back my husband and I were invited to their back porch for tea....the first time our husbands would be sharing this social time with us. My husband had only just then heated up his left over DarBar food and was about to eat, so he apologized profusely for bringing his dinner with him and the four of us shared a lovely, happy time with lots of laughing due to odd translations from SIRI or "whoever" and it was great fun.  We finally got the budget from him for the car he wants to buy and we can only thank God for Facebook Marketplace possibilities because there is no way he is ever going to get anything remotely decent anywhere else for the price he is able to pay.  

We found out they got to Canada on a federal government refugee programme, so now we understand why they are not allowed to work at this point in time.  They are being financially subsidized by the government for a certain period of time, when their ability to work and take care of themselves here vs whether or not it will be safe for them to return to the Middle East will be reassessed.  They left their home in Syria about sixteen years ago due to war and settled for about the next fifteen years in southern Lebanon, but then war caught up with them there. All three kids are traumatized by the sound of army aircraft buzzing closely overhead and dropping bombs in towns near where they lived.  It explains some of the behaviours we have seen from the kids, their reluctance to talk, to even make eye contact on occasion, even though their English is improving now enough to carry on a short conversation.  They are completely freaked out and afraid to believe they are now safer than they were. They are used to working hard after school back in Lebanon and we watched some phone videos of the three of them, even the youngest, planting and harvesting the huge vegetable garden they had back home and working at cleaning inside their huge house...now they live in a teensy, overpriced, poorly maintained two bedroom townhouse with nothing to do after school but kick a ball around and try get along as best as they can with all the other kids of varying ethnicities and languages.  We learned that the one couple who tend to show up at odd times, unannounced, at their place and take them to various grocery stores and the food bank, are teaching them street rules and driving laws, finding them doctors etc., are their government assigned sponsors who are monitoring their use of their subsidies and helping them get their kids looked after for school enrolments etc. Our neighbours were supposed to come over here for tea a couple of afternoons ago but just as they were leaving for our place their sponsors showed up, again unexpectedly, so that was the end of that.  We are going to try again tomorrow to have them over for tea.  

Just before we left their place they gave us news that really upset me, although for VERY selfish reasons:  by the time we return home from our trip south in September, they very likely will be moved into far less expensive government housing.  When they told me what their rent is on their little old town house unit here, I was shocked to the core.  Our suite is far larger than theirs but even when our own rent goes up in August, we will only be paying twenty-nine dollars a month more than they are right now!!!  Highway robbery!!  We have been fortunate I think because we have not made any demands for the new flooring or for cabinet and appliance updates we have a right to ask for. It does keep our rent lower and since the whole place has to be remodelled once we move out, we are not asking for anything right now from the management company....in the (possibly once again mistaken) belief that God will help us move out of here sometime in the next year.  My selfish fear is that once again after only about 6 months with these neighbours we have come to love, we will be in tenterhooks about who is going to be living on the other side of the wall.  Sigh.....  Assuming they leave either just before or during the time we are out of the country, what on earth are we going to come home to for new neighbours?  The last two times new people moved into that suite while we were away, we came home to one horrific nightmare and one so so upset that at least got taken care of within a week or two.  Oh Lord, what next?  Are our neighbours at present going to end up in some old scuzzy bucket apartment that has even more neighbours on the other side of their walls making noise, or a building that has been badly maintained even more so than the buildings here at this complex? Sigh again...what is going to happen to these people Lord?  Do their kids really have to change schools for the third time in less than a year???  

Well, I need to get to bed now and stop fretting about the neighbours.  They are so easy to love and so easy to want to help. If they move I hope they end up living close to even more people who are able to assist them as they try to deal with all the trauma they have experienced in the past year or more.  

Tomorrow is my last day of antibiotics, so hopefully there will be no more ear infections. I have not one commitment for the entire day, so I can sleep in and do laundry at my own pace. Looking forward to it. 

PS I have decided to add a new label called Stress because there has been so much of that in our lives lately with more to come!