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. 

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! 

 

 

Sometimes A Little Complaining Goes A Long Way....Sad That Complaining Is Occasionally Necessary Isn't It?

 My husband just received a phone call from the bank where we have had SO much grief over the past few years.  It was to set up an appointment for him next week.  Seems that since I sent in a poor review to a questionnaire that bank sent out a few weeks ago asking how we find their service to be for us, some things have changed!  YAY!  My review was not scathing, but it was negative enough to warrant an in person chat with me a couple of days after it was received.  I explained in more detail what the issues have been and oh my goodness.....all of a sudden we have a new financial advisor there, after not hearing from the one we thought we had for nearly three years, we are getting calls about things we should have been contacted about many times over the past 3 years and heard absolutely zero about. Suddenly the new FA wants to review what we have left in that bank that has not been moved to another institution, wants to give us information we have been needing for more than four years that due to us not having it messed me up badly with the CRA last year that it took hours of phone calls and repayments of sales tax rebates I had received that year to fix the mess.

This is all good news....we hope. We shall see how things go at that appointment and in the future. 

In other news it has been another lovely warm day today.  There was a return of the rain and thunder last night overnight after a couple of gloriously dry days, but by morning the puddles were nearly dry already.  Unfortunately the thunder woke me up at 3am, but since the rain was tap, tap, tapping on the eaves and I love that sound, I got up and threw the bedroom window wide open so I could enjoy it. What's a bit of water on the windowsill after all, right?  I fell asleep again at about 5:30am and slept deeply for another two hours.  Then it was up for breakfast and a visit with my coffee buddy.

My coffee buddy and I have decided we are tired of paying big bucks for small cups of tea and coffee at the coffee bar nearest her place, so today we took a short drive around her new neighbourhood. Only two blocks away we discovered a fairly large park with not only playground equipment but several iron benches and a couple of wooden picnic tables to sit at. We sat outside at one of the tables in the glorious sunshine, chattering away like two old magpies and it was so much fun being out of the crowded coffee bar, away from all building construction noise and enjoying a couple of daycare groups who came to utilize the playground equipment.  Fortunately for us, despite the hot sunshine after more rain, we encountered only a couple of mosquitoes and one tiny brown spider that went racing across the brim of my friend's sunhat. We came away feeling energized, less broke, haha, and very pleased to have a new place to enjoy our weekly visits during the summer and autumn months. What a blessing to have only a couple of blocks to go for our time together. Next time I will try to find a visitor parking spot open at her apartment and we can walk to the park.  

This afternoon we ran errands, my husband and I.  He is rotating back onto a diet mostly of cooked vegetables, protein and unleavened bread to keep his CFS food sensitivities in check.  We now have a crisper filled with cabbages and purple turnips, radishes for his beloved potato salad, carrots and cauliflowers and a freezer full of frozen peas and Brussels Sprouts. I was able to purchase quite a few packages of free range ground turkey and chicken and some extra lean ground beef that is actually extra lean over at SaveOn Foods....the difference in the fat and transfat contents in those poultry packs and the ones with meat from farm fed/ big production farm birds is phenomenal. SO MUCH lower in the free range poultry.  

The horrific swollen glands (from the CFS) in the back of my husband's head are much better today and far less painful after being completely debilitating yesterday so he decided to take advantage of feeling considerably better to pick up his food items.  Tomorrow he has no out of the house commitments so he can rest again AND have a good long talk with our son and his wife when they call to confirm the plans for the spiritual portion of their wedding reception programme.  All I have to do tomorrow is return to the doctor for my osteoporosis meds injection and then I am done with all things medical for this week, yay!  I spent so much time in the waiting room earlier on that I think I could draw a diagram of very paint chip and black mark on the walls in there! hahaha  

We caved in and watched the chuckwagon races from the Calgary Stampede grounds all this week and even picked up some of the bull riding, kids' teams working to get one of their members on the backs of wild ponies, the womens' barrel races and free roping.....it has been a fun way to spend our evenings at home when my husband has been feeling lousy.  I am adjusting to having only 3 wagons per chuckwagon race but oh my....we very much miss the commentary from Tommy Glass who passed away, somewhat unexpectedly I believe, the week prior to the Stampede.  I can't imagine his son having to perform in those races the very next week, but he is doing his dad proud with his times and skills.  I know darned well I will also cave and watch the entire rodeo the afternoon of the last day to see the winners pick up their cheques and their gorgeous bronze castings of bucking broncs, bulls, cowboys and other ranching related scenes.  I am not really a big rural ranch scene fan, (although I have a great admiration for the hard work cowboys and ranchers have to do...very, very hard, dirty, physically taxing and often discouraging work), because I grew up in the city and, only knowing personally one rancher in my life,  have not had the opportunity to develop a lot of appreciation for that lifestyle and geographical scenery, but those bronzes take such artistry and skill to create. (How's that for a run on sentence, right???) They are lovely. So, I am learning that once a Calgarian who grew up loving the Stampede as a kid, always a Calgarian who still loves watching the Stampede events as an adult and is not ashamed to admit it.

We are about to embark on our own heatwave here on the prairies over the next three days at least. By Sunday we are forecast to reach +37C and overnight lows of a big +16C...not cool enough to help prior to the following day's heat. Church is going to be very difficult to sit through, but it will be a good break from our not air conditioned suite!! If it is only for three days before we get below +30C again we will survive. My husband will disappear for three days into the cool of the basement and I will have an opportunity upstairs to train for our trip to NYC during some of its hottest summer weather!!  There is good in almost everything, right?

Hmmmm...summer heat wave or winter ice....SUMMER HEAT WAVE all the way!!! hahahahaha 

Another Story Of My Husband's!

Something we saw this afternoon on tv reminded my husband of another story from his younger years.  He was about to begin his second year of college, around 1970 I believe, but came home to the farm late in the summer to hang out with his friends for a couple of weeks.  

For some reason....the drugs they MAY have been smoking PERHAPS....he and three of his friends decided to go duck hunting one day.  They collected their shot guns, hopped in one of the guy's '58 Pontiac and set out to find the birds they had noticed settling in various farmers' fields.  They drove through several fields of summer fallow, hoping the farmers who owned them would not notice the tire marks but they had to drive rather quickly to keep the car from sinking into the soft, damp ground.  Field after field yielded no ducks at all, so after a couple of hours they decided to forget the whole idea and return home.  Just as they hit the highway back to town one of the fellows spotted a huge population of ducks in a previously unexplored field. The problem was that the ducks were congregated at the far end of the field and obviously would spot the car sliding through the field, its skidding tires tossing great mounds of dirt as it came toward them. Hmmmm, what to do?  One of the guys had the "brilliant" idea that the driver should hit the gas pedal as hard as he could and rush the ducks so they wouldn't have time to react and fly away....hahaha, yeah right, as I said:  the drugs????.... All four of them decided this was a fabulous plan, the driver hit the gas pedal and away they started across the field.  Suddenly it dawned on someone in that car that it would be nearly impossible to hit a duck by shooting out an open car window. So, one of them maneuvered his way out of the open window of the front passenger side and miraculously managed to crawl out onto the hood of the car, clutching his rifle tightly under his arm while the car continued flying forward toward the gathering of ducks.  Of course the ducks saw them coming and scattered just as the friend on the hood managed to wobble to his feet, grab the radio aerial on top of the roof of the car for balance and tried to fire the shotgun one handed.  Can you get a picture in your mind of this craziness??  The shot of course went way wild as the ducks flew off into the distance. The bullet came near absolutely none of the birds.  Of course the guy on the hood of the car had to continue to hang on for dear life until the driver of the car managed to spin around 180 degrees, still at top speed, and get them back out of the field and onto the highway.  Somehow they all lived, the ducks lived and whoever had their fields churned up by the car tires likely could figure out within minutes at least a couple of the fellows who would have been involved in creating the damage. Everyone in the area knew my husband and his friends...thankfully everyone also had great senses of humour and forgave easily. Sigh.....can you imagine anyone getting away with a stunt like that nowadays?  At the time the attitude of the farmers whose fields were  involved was "Well, boys will be boys...."  No one was killed, including the ducks, so no real harm done. The fields could be smoothed out again easily enough with the tractor.  Aiii yiii!!  The Dukes of Hazzard....unsanitized for the real life version.  

 

Those Poor Old "Chucks", They Ain't What They Used To Be.....(This Has Turned Into An Uber "Posty" Day!)

I am sitting by my office window gazing at the post thunderstorm clouds as we recover our blue sky between now and sundown.  Of course after a lovely day we received the, as my friend so aptly named it, "obligatory daily thunderstorm", but it didn't last more than a couple of hours at most and no damage was done around our place.  The groupings of clouds in our sky currently look like several bowls of popped popcorn kernels: small clusters of puffy white clouds....yup, bowls of popcorn are dotting the sky overhead!

I tried watching the Calgary Stampede chuckwagon races on tv tonight to see if there would be a tribute to Tommy Glass and there was, so that was nice.  After the first three races I decided to record the other 6 heats and watch them tomorrow so I can fast forward through all the blithering and blabbing of the announcers. I am old and losing patience with inane time filling these poor guys have to do while they wait for each "next race" to begin. Some of them are pretty good at keeping their comments interesting, but there is only so much they can say that keeps peoples' attention during these unscripted time filling segments.  

Thanks to several animal rights groups' demands there have been many changes to how the races are run and, while I understand why the animal rights lobbyists have been so vocal and pushy about having safer circumstances for both horses and drivers and outriders, I also admit the races now are like watching "kiddy races" in comparison to the excitement these races used to engender in me.  Sigh....

Tonight I watched 3 wagons per race with 2 outriders per wagon instead of the former 4 wagons per race with 4 outriders per wagon.  Gone are the days of thundering hooves flashing around the huge oval track, dirt flying, drivers hollering and battling for track position along the rail which resulted in some very close calls and yes, the occasional serious accident like a wagon overturning, horses and/or people being injured and in some cases being killed. So, yes, of course I understand why the change had to be made in our more enlightened and safety conscious age.  I cannot argue that the changes were unnecessary...but wow, it has really taken the starch out of the races and I wonder how much longer the Stampede will be able to hold out against the protesters wanting the chucks completely shut down and continue to hang onto the races at all. What a loss that would be for so many racers and for those amazing horses bred to race, who live for those times of flying around the track at breakneck speed. 

Personally I believe that if we take away every possible danger from every possible situation life may be much safer for everyone on the earth, but life will be far less exciting and there will be no motivation to explore the world as everyone will be scared of every little "booboo".  Instead of kids learning how to protect themselves, they will be so coddled and protected that if, God forbid, there is an actual injury producing accident some day, they won't have a clue what to do to find help for themselves or how to cope with the inevitable shock and emotions that accompany such problems.  Sigh...

There I have strayed far from my original ideas about the churckwagon races, but it is important to me that children learn about danger and how to face it and how to deal with disasters as best they can instead of being constantly insulated from reality.  Seeing the changes in the races tonight got me thinking again about  how we teach people in all situations how to handle injuries and accidents and I worry about the growth of our ever more sterile environments, particularly here in North America.

There, enough personal philosophy.  It is late, I am tired and am giving myself a headache trying to think through these issues once again, hahaha. Time for sleep....zzzzz...

Once A Calgarian Always A Calgarian I Guess......

 After promising myself I would NOT subject myself to the stress of watching the Stampede Parade this morning and upsetting myself over the lousy tv coverage...admittedly live parade coverage is one of the most difficult tasks for any tv announcer, but please CTV did we really have to spend so much time on ridiculous interviews with parade watchers and stupid meanless questions from the obviously untrained interviewers?  Seriously??? Was that necessary?....of course I could not resist turning on my tv to see the parade. Duh?  Why do I do it?  Every year despite my own over the top criticisms of the coverage?  I do it because I was born and raised in Calgary.  I will do it until I am no longer able to watch television.  My husband, (himself a former broadcaster), always joins me,  against HIS better judgement and we watch it together, sharing not only criticisms but also the hundreds of happy memories we have of our times spent living in Calgary and watching the parade live every year...me the native Calgarian and my husband a Calgary transplant.  The parade brings back to us memories of the Calgary of my youth and his college age years, an old version of a Calgary that no longer exists of course, but one to which we still have the fondest of memories...of our families and our friends that we had there over several decades before we moved out of Alberta completely. Now all our family members that we enjoyed there have all died, apart from a cousin and her husband and one of her kids and family.  There is one family friend who was there when my father brought me home from the hospital as a newborn, but those are the last remnants of our lives there.  I think the happy nostalgia is why we put ourselves through the parade coverage every July.  I doubt I will watch the chuckwagon races this year.  They have been cleaned up for safety, smart, smart I know, but the thrilling danger of the races has been taken away and I don't find them all that fascinating now.  Hopefully there will be a tribute at tonight's first races to the recently deceased Tommy Glass, chuckwagon driver and race horse breeder extraordinaire!  

This week one of our own city's wonderful brew pubs reopened after being closed for two weeks due to a major flood that ruined the lower half of their establishment after an aging connecting pipe from the newly installed front street water/sewer system into their establishment failed and cracked.  The front street was part of a renewal of that area of the city and part of the process was relocating the water main shut off valve to the pub.  When the old pipe broke and water began flooding in the staff immediately contacted the city to have the water valve shut off....AND it took three HOURS for that to happen. Why?  Because, apparently when that valve was moved, no one in the city waterworks department seemed to have a clue as to where it has been relocated!  It took them nearly 3 hours to find the thing.  Good grief!!!  That poor pub. They have lost SO much business in the past two weeks.  I do hope they can recover as many losses as possible, both in the physical building and financially! 

I am chuckling today over the first of this coming year's new Harmonized Sales Tax Rebate that arrived in my bank this morning.  (I think it has been renamed the Canada Grocery Rebate or something similar.)  We all received a one time "Extra Payment" a few weeks ago and I received a whopping $42.  Today I found out what my quarterly payments will be between now and next July:  an even more thrilling $38!  I am not sure I can handle that giant rebate, hahahaha.  Actually I am not complaining!  It means our overall income has risen considerably since the years when we were receiving nearly three $300 per quarter. We are grateful to God for this change in rebate because it indicates we have invested wisely the past few years. Our need for the larger rebates has finally been reduced substantially. The years of saving we did after my husband left his business and became an employee again while we continued to scrimp and save has paid off.  Thank you Lord.  Amen! 

A bright, warm day awaits us, finally, as we prepare to run a few errands once again. Being retired means we don't have to race madly about for hours all in one day each week, we can space out the errands around more fun things to do! 

 

 

Happiness......

The Canada Day fireworks were a GO tonight! This year's display was the most spectacular we have seen here in some time.  LOVE those gorgeous colours and sparklies and flashes and the earth shaking BOOM every time a new batch of fireworks is set off.  YAY!! The early morning rain cleared up shortly after breakfast and while it continued to be chilly and overcast throughout the day, with some threatening rain clouds, it stayed dry and most Canada Day events were able to go on as planned.  Other tenants and their families, as well as visitors from other parts of the city, are still scattered across our front lawns a half hour after the display ended and will likely be there talking and laughing, kids screaming and racing about until at least 1am.  Most of the traffic jam of cars trying to leave the park tonight has cleared, but the people sitting on the lawns will be there and there and still there long after the rest of the residents here have been in bed trying to sleep for some time, haha.  Fortunately all I have to do in the morning is get up in time to welcome my coffee buddy for our weekly visit and that is not until mid morning, so I will have time to get some sleep tonight.

A most satisfying Canada Day seems to have been had in our neighbourhood again this year. 

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. 

Beautiful Summer Colors Abound In Our Complex!

No, the colours of summer around here are not from the few pots of blooming flowers on our and some of the neighbours' back decks, but from the colourful clothing some of the immigrant women are wearing.  The African and Caribbean women are dressed in brilliant yellows and greens and reds, while the Muslim woman are wearing less brilliantly coloured hijabs, but still in beautiful shades of light maroon and deep blues.  

One of our African neighbours is on her back porch, washing her kids' clothes in a Tweety Bird yellow plastic pail that exactly matches the yellow in her head wrapping and of the flower pattern on her black skirt.  So lovely....her deck railings and covered in tiny baby blue, neon green and pale yellow items belonging to her youngest son, 4 year old Jonson.  We suspect that either the dryer in their unit doesn't work well or she has decided she cannot afford the electricity it costs to run. She is a resourceful woman: took some job training and got some kind of job, has sublet the basement to another younger couple who also assist her in baby sitting the five kids when they are off work and no longer has to receive food from the immigrant food service providers here in the city.  She is an amazing woman accomplishing all of this in the 18 months they have lived in our complex.  I admire her stamina and her resourcefulness.  We are praying with her kids that their dad will be able to get to Canada very soon. It has been nearly 2 years since he had to return to his home country to sort out some extended family issues and was refused re-entry to Canada.  

Well, it is now time to iron my own colourful summer clothing that I washed a couple of days ago.  Ironing is most relaxing and I quite enjoy it.  It is the kind of task that gives instant reward: wrinkles to no wrinkles in a matter of a few minutes and, unlike dusting and vacuuming whose results last anywhere from a matter of only hours, to a couple of days at most,  the results of ironing last for days or even weeks before the clothing is worn and becomes wrinkled again.

Good to have the blue sky and sunshine today.  There are some possible thunderheads forming now, mid afternoon and there is a possibility of more rain and thunder tonight, but who knows?  All I know is that our basement didn't flood in yesterday's deluge! (And my husband is feeling so much better today after I prayed for him last evening.  He isn't 100% back on his feet after what we think was an extreme food sensitivity reaction that seems to be forming now when he eats his favourite bread, but what a difference between him being nearly immobilized from headache last night and only a slight tummy gurgling today.)  

Thank you Lord! It is a good day!

The Usual Working Around the House Saturday!

 Gosh, but I find Saturdays difficult!  It seems to be a really great day for my husband to work on sermons and articles he is writing, but I nearly lose my mind every Saturday.  Yes, I could get out and shop or look about at some little art galleries, but Saturday is the day working folk and school children are off and so of course it gets rather crowded at most venues and restaurants.  With it being Father's Day weekend, some places are even more crowded than usual today from what I can gather.

So today I did the laundry. hahaha Happy Saturday!!  Good to get it done and I can iron tomorrow or Monday afternoon.  Great to get the exercise going up and down the two flights of stairs as well, although that second hip is giving me grief over it.  Dang it, but I really am going to have to get a prescription for Naproxin to get me through our US trip this summer. Oh well...I was on it for hip number 1 the last time we visited our kids there.

Our kids wrote to us today about the possibility of spending 3 nights in upstate New York with them the first week of our holiday. They know how much we are NOT going to pay for three nights of cabin accommodation there when we have already paid for our apartment in the city, BUT they want to cover that cost.  It is a beautiful cabin with a lovely outdoor barbeque area, which greatly appeals to our BBQ King son and our daughter in law has been talking about this sort of possibility ever since we told them back the end of April that we were coming for a whole month.  The cost of the cabin they want to rent for 3 days made us gasp, so we told them if they truly want to pay for that, okay, their choice, BUT we are paying for the food, train transportation and event entry fees.  Just waiting to hear back from them as to whether or not this is going to happen.  I know they both want to get out of the beastly hot city for a few days and I can't blame them as I too would love that!  Guess we shall see what their decision is. They are nothing if not full of interesting ideas!!

It has been a lovely warm day with only a bit of a breeze wafting through the tree tops.  Not great to be stuck in the house all day, but I have been enjoying the unusual quietness outside on the lawns.  Over the past week all the African kids have found other friends in a different area of the complex to play with, so they are gone over there right after school during the week and took off across the parking lot once again early this morning, not returning for more than a few minutes at lunch time.  Moh and his brother have barely been outside playing in the past week and it seems their family has had a serious falling out with our next door neighbours, so Moh and his brother are not playing with the two boys next door now.  The indigenous kids in our part of the complex have been packing up trucks and vans with camping gear, either heading out before school ends this coming Tuesday or getting ready to go as soon as they are free at that time.  They are too busy packing to play outside.  The other slightly older kids are heavily involved in baseball and soccer now and so by 8am every weekend day they and their parents are gone to practises and tournaments. Wow, it is so quiet around here lately it is downright eerie!! We miss the kids playing outside, yelling and kicking balls and riding bikes and fighting. haha

Our one truly beautiful day this week, today, is apparently a one off, unfortunately.  According to the forecast we have very heavy rain on the way tomorrow, followed by another two days of showers.  The poor tomatoes are so far behind I am not sure how much of a harvest we will get before we leave for our vacation this summer.  We assumed we could pick and freeze a fair crop and that we would have already picked a fair number of our wee cherry tomatoes, but nope.  There are only three tomatoes that formed nearly two weeks ago but are still dark green with not a hint of ripening. I noticed two more blossoms this morning....TWO!!  That will make a total of five tomatoes in the first three weeks of this month...that is assuming they fill out and ripen sufficiently to be eaten.  Sigh.... We need sunshine and heat for our plants now! The bonus of the rain in our province is that the forest fires are not starting and getting out of control because the rain in that area of the north has not had the accompanying lightning strikes....yet anyway.

We made a big decision yesterday to drop out of the one Bible study group we have been attending twice a month regularly for the past three years. There seem to be other things coming up for us this fall that will leave us unable to keep that commitment regularly.  That is disappointing on the one hand, but on the other hand it will be nice to have some new things to do. It will also leave us more time to invest in our small care group that began meeting some months ago and that has proven to be not only a good spiritual learning time, but also a time of deep and personal fellowship with a few folk who are significantly younger than we are and who help us restore our flagging energy levels. We don't meet nearly as often as the Bible study group does, but we enjoy everything from Bible studies to movie nights to group dinners....it is so much fun!  

My husband is doing the scripture readings at church tomorrow, so it is nice for him to have a service task that is super easy, much easier than teaching and preaching.  Next weekend we will be out of town to attend the ordination of two of the deaconal candidates he has been mentoring, so that will be really fun. AND it is on Saturday!  A GOOD Saturday for me for a change! hahaha

Well, if we survive the heavy rain that is supposed to fall tomorrow, it will be a nice relaxing Father's Day.  My husband is a great father!  Another of his many gifts!! 

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!   

Fascinating Cloud Formations

 The sky was fascinating this afternoon.  There were long, twisted swaths of thin cloud that reminded me of long neck scarves and scattered among them were darker grey clouds, flat on top and bottom and round with smoothly serrated type edges and corners. They were shaped like smash burgers or like old fashioned home made peanut butter cookies; the kind we used to press the tines of a fork into in order to make a pattern on the top. haha  Such fascinating arrangements of several different types of clouds.  Unfortunately the hoped for continuation of rain didn't occur today, but there is hope for tomorrow and even more hope of rain on Sunday. We shall see....

My husband texted me this evening to say that he and his buddy arrived safely at their destination.  He was over half way there before he realized he left his air mattress at his buddy's home where he slept on it last night, so they pulled into a city along their route to purchase another one.  How, HOW, how can three adult people in one small house miss seeing my husband's giant air mattress sitting in the middle of the living room floor???  'Tis a puzzlement!  Oh well, I did find out that there are actual beds made up for the guys at the home of the friends where they are staying on this trip, so either way he is covered for comfy sleeping.

This morning I realized how dopey and stupid my meds are making me.  I have taken this drug before and it is affecting me the way it always does. So, I cancelled my out of town trip for Sunday morning and am staying right here.  It isn't at all safe for me to be driving on the highway in this condition...plus if there is rain as predicted it will be kind of a miserable trip and I don't want to risk getting another chill before this current infection has a chance to heal.  

My day was brightened by a surprise visit from Nan. She was in town to run some errands and very kindly dropped in for a short visit this afternoon.  GREAT to see another human being and have a chat.  It worked out well because my next door neighbour brought over a couple of more food items she was given that her family cannot use, so I was able to send a fairly large watermelon home with Nan as I don't care for them.  What a blessing to so many my next door neighbour is turning out to be.  No food is going to waste, that's for sure.  She also brought me  beautiful fresh "foot long" hot dog buns and some small cupcakes that I can't eat, but that I can donate to the church for coffee hour or for our community Saturday lunch programme. Food blessings abound in our court, that's for sure.

We had quite a long talk with Moh yesterday afternoon.  He was pulled from school yesterday for the day by his parents who do not support a certain programme there that flies in the face of their personal beliefs, so the poor kid was kicking his soccer ball all by himself for the afternoon.  We pulled him for a chat because we caught him throwing rocks at the geese and their young ones.  Part of Moh's problem is that he is extremely intelligent but his level of maturity has not caught up with his brain and he is very frustrated, looking for an outlet to vent.  My husband explained to him that cruelty to animals will result in anger from most of the other people who live in here and that if he kept it up, asking for what the weakest parts of a goose are so that he can attack them, the police would be coming again and he would be in far more trouble than he was when he beat up another child.  We are praying for Moh's deliverance from whatever is causing him to be cruel to people and animals alike.  I find it quite frightening the way he was coldly calculating the weakest parts of a goose so he would know where to aim the rocks.  My husband was very, very honest and explicit about why this is not a good idea and what the consequences would likely be for him. Please pray that something got through. The kid has deeper issues than we can deal with by having a few talks.  Since the police were here he has stopped beating up the other kids, so perhaps they are going to have to drop by again in relationship to the geese and be more direct even than they were the first time they were here.  If there is any more abuse by Moh of either children or animals that we personally witness it will be us calling the police.  We are extremely worried about where all this violence is going to take such a bright young fellow. Please, if you are so inclined, pray for Moh. Thank you.  It has been a long time since we have been around this sort of thing.  Once our own son grew up and we moved out of the town where he was raised we have had little contact with "neighbourhood bully" types.  We dealt with two of them during our son's growing up years.  What a tragedy for one of the two boys when he got into his late teens....prison and disaster. So sad.

Apart from Nan's visit I spent the afternoon alternately reading and dozing off for an hour at a time.  I missed lunch completely until early afternoon so ate dinner tonight at 7pm.  Good grief.  I read a whole novel in between naps....it wasn't that long and it was pretty silly. If I hadn't been feeling so exhausted and unmotivated  I likely would have tossed it into the "remove from house" pile and found something more worthy of reading.

I am still hoping to attend a late morning funeral tomorrow and then come home for a rest and a bit of ironing, but I am going to have to see how fuzzy headed I am and how sore my ear still is as the morning progresses.  No plans for the afternoon so another long time of rest.

Sunday I will TRY to go to church here, but again will see how I feel. Friends are wanting to take me out for lunch afterwards so hopefully that can all come about.  By Sunday I will be bored out of my mind unless I am EXTREMELY ill again, so better to get out for a few hours if possible. Then in the late afternoon my Thursday coffee buddy is coming over for a short visit, which I am also looking very much forward to since I had to cancel our Thursday meeting.  Monday morning my walking partner is coming over and if it isn't raining perhaps we can get a walk in at least part way around the lake. Here's hoping anyway.   One of the friends from out of town that I was supposed to see on Sunday morning may be coming by with lunch Monday at noon and then I will have a good long rest before my important surgeon's appointment on Tuesday afternoon.  Oh how I am praying for good things to happen as a result of that visit.

When my husband returns we are going to get going on actually booking some kind of transportation to NYC for August.  Praying a lot about that in hopes that we end up doing the right thing.  No matter what we do the cost is going to be out of this world, so at this point cost isn't even a major factor in the decision.  It will be what it is.

Time for bedtime meds and hopefully a good sleep again tonight! 

Blow Gabriel Blow!

 No, it isn’t Gabriel and he isn’t even a Cole Porter fan, (look it up, ok) but our son and his wife received the shofar we ordered for them and are most pleased. Happy that our son, who used to play the trumpet, still has his embouchure!

 

Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine!!!!

Oh how grand to see the sun coming out and shining brilliantly after another damp and dreary start to the day.  A family of geese came over to our complex this morning....FIFTEEN goslings, still in the "cute" stage, partook of the water in the parking lot puddles and and the new green shoots of grass in the front yard.  Thus far we have barely any piles of poop between our back deck and the car, but I suppose that will soon change.  By late afternoon our gaggle of three to four regulars had grown to about a dozen lollygagging about in the puddles and on the grass behind our place.  Now that the wee ones have been born, the childless couples have been driven out of their usual feeding areas at the park and our complex is the next closest thing to park like with plenty of grass and deep puddles every time it rains.  Well, any reduction at all from the vast numbers we had here over the past two summers is much appreciated.

My husband had a good appointment with his GP this afternoon. The fellow actually listened to him and has proposed a series of tests to check if one of his medications is causing his daily headaches of the past year and if these tests show that a new recommended protocol with this med is also not going to keep the headaches at bay, the doctor has another series of meds lined up to try instead. I am so grateful.  The headaches were becoming debilitating until my husband's nurse friend suggested he try not taking the meds for at least 10 days to see what would happen. By day 3 the headaches had stopped completely. When he went back on them the headaches returned on the second and third days of ingestion, so he stopped them again and made his doctor's appointment.  On day 3 after quitting again the headaches stopped again. Thanking God this doctor has a listening ear and an understanding mind. He rarely if ever makes assumptions and that is very much appreciated. 

Today after the appointment we ran a bunch of errands, stopping for an early dinner at a place that is new to us: The Paddy Wagon. It began a number of years ago as a food truck and now has a couple of brick and mortar locations in the city.  Usually at meal times it is packed out and we haven't felt like bucking the crowds just to get a burger. Today though we were early enough to miss the dinner crowd and had the place almost to ourselves.  Our smash burgers were delicious, hamburgers that actually tasted like real beef, excellent veggies and sauces on the burgers, reasonably sized locally made buns that have a lower carb count than most of the burger buns/breads at other restaurants here, so I was able to eat the bun. The fries were to salty for my husband's tastes but we can ask for no extra salt next time. My husband enjoyed his Greek burger that had a ton of feta cheese and lettuce and tomato slices on it. I particularly enjoyed the crunchy onions on mine...and there was no problem at all requesting that none of the bbq style sauces be added to my burger.  It isn't particularly inexpensive, but it is still less money than the burgers at most other restaurants here, so we were very happy with what we got for our money.  We found out when their slowest times usually are in the course of a week and next time we have the chance to go there we will bear those times in mind.  From what I can figure out, the meal cost us about ten dollars more than combos from, say, A&W and the quality of meat and what is put on the burgers is higher.  That is our opinion anyway. The only "almost a complaint" is that the metal chairs are not comfortable and if your behind size is larger than a woman's size 10-12 or a mans' Medium there could be trouble fitting into them at all.  Takeout may be preferable in that case.  It was fun to try somewhere different.  We almost always go out for a meal after my husband's medical appointments, usually rejoicing in him receiving fairly good news.  As he gets over the other physical issues associated with this latest round of CFS, the mental stresses also are decreasing, fortunately.  

And now, it is time to watch the last couple of days of the present Sumo Tournament!!  It has been quite a tournament for injuries, with all but two of the top tier fighters out of the tournament...the number of injury withdrawals has been terrifying.  Both Yokozuna are out and there is only one Ozeki left, along with two Sekiwake, one of which is hoping for a promotion back to Ozeki at the end of this tournament.  It will be really something if a rank and filer Maegashira fighter takes the Emperor's cup this time, although I suspect the Sekiwake bucking for promotion who won the last cup will likely take it again for back to back wins.  Fun to see what happens.

Hope your day has been happy too. 

 

You Know Spring Is REALLY Late Arriving When.....

 ......the furnace comes on several times on MAY FIFTEENTH!!!  Yup, May 15 and our furnace has been running for most of the past 24 hours.  Wow, what a miserable spring!  The worst part is that when the heat finally comes it will probably zoom up to nearly unbearable highs, BUT that still be better than this chilly, grey, drizzly time of year.  Fortunately the rain is badly needed so although the cold temperature puts seeding behind for the farmers here, at least the moisture will help a bit once the crop is finally in the ground.  I am very glad we were not living in the small town of Radville SK on Thursday when the wind storm hit: sustained winds of 115km!!  Not good at all. Friends of ours lived there for many years and I bet they are happy right now that they moved away.

I just received word that yesterday's Ascension Day on the church calendar was particularly special for some young friends of ours who had a safe and happy home birth of their new daughter that evening.  Both of their children have been born in their bathtub, delivered by their ever calm and well instructed daddy and loved fiercely and immediately by their mommy.  Even big brother is pretty stoked about the new addition to the family and the grandparents are, of course, over the moon. What a joyous event to lighten the hearts of us all during this bad weather spring.  The wee girl was born right on her due date too!

Tomorrow for entertainment we will begin downloading the spring Sumo Tournament that began a week ago.  We almost forgot about it as we had so many other things on our minds.  Tomorrow we will watch several days worth of highlights and immerse ourselves in another culture's central professional sport....always fun for us. 

Doing Thursday’s And Friday’s Chores Tomorrow…Bad Storm Forecast….

 Looks like my morning coffee time on Thursday with my friend is going to end up being cancelled again if the weather forecast tonight holds true. Good grief....we both just laughed and laughed when we read tonight's weather warning.  The fact that it was issued more than 24 hours in advance of this particular storm system coming in from the west tells me there is a very good chance the storm is actually going to happen and is, as reported, going to be a pretty bad one with gale force winds starting tomorrow evening at about 50km to 70km and cresting throughout Thursday with gusty periods of 110km.  Along with wind serious enough that we have been warned it could cause everything from prolonged power outages to roof, tree and vehicle damage, (so high sided vehicles like semis and RV/trailer units are already being warned to consider staying off the highways all together for a couple of days),  we may receive between  20mm and 40mm of rain in a less than 24 hour period.  Sigh....well, climate change or whatever is fuelling these unusual weather patterns in North America, is showing itself finally in our own area of the world this spring and summer.  Tonight my husband went outside after dinner and shovelled a fair amount of black dirt from the pile in the parking lot. He filled in the space all along one side of our suite where the dry soil has pulled away from the building as there tends to be leaks there when the wind tosses large amounts of rain in that crack.  He also checked to make sure the two huge slabs of lumber we have in our basement are still there so that we can pull them over the deep window wells on the other side of the building.  If they begin to fill with water, that water finds all manner of little cracks in the foundation to flood our basement with.  I am glad I thought to purchase a new mop for our kitchen floor when we were at Princess Auto yesterday, so the old one could go to the basement, along with the old pail, in case we have to do some serious mopping up in the next few days.  Although my husband has done a masterful job sealing the foundation cracks, when driving rain in vast amounts hits us, there are always undiscovered cracks just waiting to welcome the excess water pouring down the sides of the building and through the small gaps in the basement window sills.  Oh Lord, deliver us all from damage. Thank you, bless you Father and Amen.

I was able to do six loads of laundry today while my husband spent his afternoon with his hiking buddy planning their trip to the mountains of Alberta in June. They got their routes planned, but will have to check for bear incident related closures right before they leave as there have been so many closures after multiple bear attacks already this spring.  They have their food and accommodation and equipment needs looked after, so it is an exciting time for them. Unfortunately his friend's wife who had planned to spend time with me has been called out of town to work during that exact time, so I will have to be certain I actually make plans for myself, to see some friends, or it will be a very long and boring time for me. Thanking God I have our vehicle to use while he is gone. 

 My husband had some inside work he wanted to do in our basement this evening, after shovelling dirt and, with the help of another new neighbour fellow, sweeping up the mess in the parking lot some of the kids made tossing dirt and gravel around from the piles sitting out there,  but when the African children from the next building, whose bicycles he repaired last summer, realized he was out there they descended on him en masse!  He had three of them out there explaining this year's issues with their poor old bicycles.  Fortunately the new parts we put on them last year held up, but padlocks were lost on some of the bikes, the combination lock combinations to open those types of locks long forgotten over the winter.  So, he spent the evening pumping up tires, sawing old combination locks off and then locating the brand new locking system he bought for himself some years ago and never used.  It is the kind they can wrap around all of the bikes at once and then secure them to their back deck.  He put the key on a long red ribbon that the oldest girl put around her neck, showed her how to make it all work and she thanked him profusely. It is the most lovely thing to be told, "God bless you." by a 13 year old immigrant girl who has never had the material items we are so used to. Her gratitude is deeply felt and very sincere.    

After the initial repairs, when my husband went back inside to locate the new locking system, dear little bully Mohammad decided to attack one of the smaller African boys, not realizing I was standing right there watching.  I used my best school teacher voice to tell him to cut it out, which shocked him into at least temporary submission. hahaha  Then the oldest boy from next door to us decided he was going to ride one of the African kid's bikes and snatched it away from her. She said that no, he wasn't allowed to ride it any more because he and his  younger brother have been stealing the African kids' bikes right off their deck and their mom has already had to go and speak to the other mom to get the bikes back.  Apparently no consequences of any consideration were handed out by the little thieves' mom. Our neighbour boy grabbed it back from her and said he was going to ride it and as far as he was concerned it was his bike now. So, the old school teacher said she thought not, actually.  Apparently my stern tone got through so he released the bike.  I helped the kids get their bikes back to their place just as my husband reappeared with the wonderful locking system.   Hopefully the drama will end soon or it is going to be a loud, brutal, thieving, bloody nosed summer around here for the first time since we moved in over 11 years ago.  The kids causing the problems are all from the same country, have all fled to and from refugee camps at about the same time, have all experienced horrors beyond my imagination and have had to fight with other refugee kids over every possible little broken toy or rusty bike that made its way into their camp.  It is going to take some time for them to settle down, if they ever do.  I feel for them.  They have had rotten lives already and they are already only aged 8-13.  All of their dads suffer from varying degrees of PTSD and other mental health issues. The African kids haven't seen their dad in 3 years.  A problem in his family caused him to return to Africa to help solve the issue and when he tried to return he had visa issues, so he is still trying to return to Canada.  His daughter is afraid he will have forgotten all of his English and she has not spoken Swahili much since she started school here three years ago, so that is a stress for her.  Oh these kids...what they have been through in their short lives. My husband and I have decided that our "ministry" to these kids, if we want to call it that, is to simply be a presence this summer. My husband purchased a nice lawn chair so he can sit out on the back deck and read late in the afternoon when the kids get home from school and will really enjoy spending some mornings out there in the summer before it gets too hot.  The kids seem to love it when we are out there talking to them and praising their soccer and bike riding prowess, at least temporarily submitting to our admonishments to treat each other more kindly....there are some talented little fellows in this complex when it comes to playing soccer, bully Mohammad being the star. Wow, that kid is talented...so smart and articulate too. I really hope he can eventually get a handle on his behaviour.

Haircut tomorrow!  I can hardly wait!  Then a run to the water refill store to get all our water jugs refilled instead of waiting until Friday....not certain where I am going to put the last gallon's worth as I don't have quite enough containers free to take it, but I will work something out.  We have a library book due on Friday and have renewed it twice already so it has to go back even though we aren't quite finished reading it, but it is an older book that doesn't have a waiting list, so likely we can take it out again next week.  Not waiting until Friday, just in case the storm actually arrives.  

It has been lovely sitting here beside the wide open windows while the suite cools down for the night. It is nearly 11pm and I haven't had to close them yet.  I spent the day doing laundry so the heat built up a bit upstairs.  It has been so many months since we could open the windows that I am unwilling to shut them so I can go to bed and sleep.  Guess it is that time though. Sleep well tonight all.   

 

 

The Son's Art Works At Esther lll At Estonia House In NYC May 12-16

The works were curated today in the European styled space at Estonia House on East 34th street.  Esther lll is a small art fair but growing in importance each year.  So happy our son is able to be an exhibitor this year. He sent some photos from the installation today, so not professional exhibition photos, but it gave us an idea of what he prepared for this fair.  

 

His first attempt at doing a work on an an 8' aluminum tube, above the door.

Cold On The Outside, Warm On the Inside! YAY!

 It has been a very happy Sunday thus far.  My husband had not even a hint of any stomach issues before he ate breakfast and we headed off to church this morning. He did well teaching his class and he enjoyed the church service.  For the first time in a number of weeks, he was happy to hang around afterwards and chat with quite a number of people. Mrs. Social Butterfly here just loved that!!  I managed to stumble through the Scripture readings in the church service....quite hilarious and I will share another time what a bozo I was today....and then after a promising start weather wise to the day, (sunny and not very breezy), we left the church building to discover a very cold wind blowing and another grey sky awaiting. I didn't even wear a coat to church this morning, just a longer sleeved top, BUT no matter, we still walked to the library outlet a block from the church to pick up a book my husband had on hold. I was so pleased that my new, better way of walking resulted not only in less limp, but also didn't make the big thigh muscles on the front of my operated leg ache like they did the other day walking to the area community library box. YAY!

We walked back to the car and drove down the street to DarBar for lunch.  It had been nearly six hours for us both since breakfast, but my husband's beginnings of a tummy attack began only about one minute before the food arrived, so he ate well and the attack had no chance to get a hold.  YAY AGAIN!

He was exhausted when we got home,  but he usually is after teaching a lesson....he has done SO well today with his health. I am so very grateful and pleased for him 

He had a wee nap in the car while I went next to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription....that I called in last Wednesday and that no one could find. hahaha  The pharmacist finally got fed up with the amount of time it was taking....nearly 20 minutes and still no sign of it even though it showed up on the computer as "filled", so he refilled it and apologized that someone had misfiled it, but he wasn't prepared to go through all of the over 500 filled prescriptions to find it. hahaha  It is SUCH a busy pharmacy. I am very grateful to him for doing that...it made life easier for us all. hahaha

We finally got my tired husband home for his nap, but as we were coming up our back stairs, one of the neighbourhood kids....Bully Boy no less...appeared from somewhere and said, "Are you rich?"  Huh???  We assured him that we most certainly are not and got no further conversation from him.  My husband pursued it and asked him why he wanted to know that, so he confessed he is trying to sell coupon books put together by local businesses as a fundraiser for his school....he is, as we discovered, in Grade 3. He had just been told by another neighbour that they couldn't buy one of his books because they are not rich. hahaha Hence his question to us. Being suckers for helping kids with school fundraisers over the years in every town we have lived in, we asked if he had one of the books for us to look at. He took off at the speed of light back to his own unit to get the book for us to see.  As it turned out there are quite a few coupons we will be able to use between now and the fall, so we filled out the sales form and handed over the $30, knowing that we will enjoy using the coupons, that we are helping out a neighbour kid who is going to have a very difficult time selling coupon books for that price in our complex filled with immigrants who are barely able to pay rent each month, PLUS we want to get to know Bully Boy to see if we can create a good relationship with him in case we have to intervene in future when he is beating up other kids just below our back porch! hahaha Perhaps we can meet his parents eventually.  We now know that his name is Mohammad, so we don't have to call him Bully Boy any more.  He is more of a fellow human now that we know his name and less of a caricature of the typical bully.  Great transaction all around.  Now...have we opened the flood gates to every school represented in our complex that is having a spring fundraiser??? Word will get out that we purchased this book, just you wait and see, hahaha.  No worries...as long as we don't get multiple kids all from one family wanting to make sales, I think we will be able to cope with the costs of helping at least some of the kids out with their fundraising. hahaha  We shall see how many more kids approach us over the next month.

We arrived home to a message from our son, hoping to chat after not having a chance to contact us over the past couple of weeks, but by the time we found the message he was off having studio visits to show off some of his works to whoever.  At least he is wanting to chat and he will call us back at some point in the next week hopefully. He is just completing and preparing to transport a couple of works to the Esther 3 Art Fair....a much smaller fair than he is used to, but it was far less pressure getting a couple of works ready than it would have been to prepare 5-7 works for the larger fair going on at the same time in NYC. He has shown in that one before and done well, but he has been too busy with work and with making decisions on changing his artistic style, that he was grateful to opt for the smaller fair this year.  It is all good.

I think I am going to go now, while my husband is having a decent nap, and play an old computer game, Fishdom 3.  If I ever get lonely I can always play this game where the cartoon fish "talk" to me in between rounds.  It is a very cute game for old codgers like me who don't want to be too intellectually or strategically challenged. hahaha  

A blessed Sunday to you all.