What New Drama Is Taking Place In Our Housing Courtyard???

 Every evening since the last snow melted a couple of weeks ago the back lawns have been filled with children every day after school and into the evenings, whole gangs of them playing and arguing, laughing and fighting and generally just being kids as they navigate each other's cultural norms and language barriers. It is quite a fascinating thing to watch.  Last night however something must have happened that I have no clue about.  I noticed the kids coming home from the school buses in the late afternoon, straggling along as usual after a week of classes.  All of them apparently went home and have still not re-emerged.  Last evening there wasn't even one child playing outside of the approximately 30 regulars, no "strangers" to our back lawn, no newcomers, nada, nil, no one, nobody at all. I know all the families were at home because all their vehicles were in their assigned parking spots and as the sun went down lights came on in all of their suites, but there was no sign of a child, only the occasional adult crossing the parking lot or lawns...it was downright eerie!  To cool off as the sun was sinking I sat out on our back porch for about an hour, which is why I was so aware of the absence of the kids and it was intensely weird to be surrounded by so much silence from the human beings. I could actually hear the few birds in the place chirping and the siding on the buildings cracking and banging as it cooled down toward the end of the daylight hours.  This morning it is the same thing outside. It is on the way to 11am and nary a child has emerged from their abodes to play in the cooler, less breezy air than we had the past 2 days.  The scheduled thunderstorms have not yet arrived, the ground is dry, the conditions for playing outside are perfect and yet....again no children are outside.  Wow....what do they know that I don't??? Should I be nervous about what is going on around here????    hahaha

Yup, I Overdid the Housework Just A Tad This Week, I Admit It.....

 

 

PS friends and family: 

 

 

HOT HOT HOT!!!!

This  font is named "Lobster" and it is appropriate for today.  It is +36C this afternoon and my sweaty face is as red as a lobster from just the "exertion" of going up and down the stairs at home a couple of times this afternoon.  With no AC it gets pretty warm in this place at this temperature.  Our area is under an Orange Level heat warning  for the next two days, indicating that the overnight temperature will not get any chillier than about +20C before heading back up to at least +35C again tomorrow.  I do hope the forecast for the weekend is correct: highs of (only)  +27C with overnight rain.  We really need that rain....although this afternoon I watched a Nova tv programme talking about rain bombs, something I had never heard of before and something I hope we never get here!!!  Having to park our vehicle outside leaves me in a state of constant concern when hail could be on the horizon. ("Rain Bombs": look-them-up-on-Mother-Google!)

I am grateful that I purchased a very soft, baggy, light cotton knit summer dress a few weeks ago that was also inexpensive and perfect for hot days like this.  It is definitely going to be crammed into my little packing case to go to NYC in August.  It can be worn for a few days and easily washed out by hand. LOVE IT!!   I don't think I have ever been so comfortably dressed for this kind of heat wave.  I have three or four very light dresses for hot weather that will easily roll into that packing case for the trip.  

Even though my daughter in law is still in Montreal we have already made a tentative plan to take the 90 minute train ride out of NYC to see the artworks at the Dea Beacon during our visit. They currently have an Agnes Martin exhibition on until 2028 and, as she is an iconic Saskatchewan artist whose paintings we all love, it will be a wonderful opportunity to see more of her work.  How exciting!!!  My daughter in law is a planner.....it is what she does much of the time in her position with the theatre as a producer, so we are enjoying her excitement at showing us some more sights in NY.  Our son as yet has no idea we are starting to make all these plans, but I think he will be very happy with our choices, hahahahaha.  

My coffee buddy was here this morning.  We had such a good visit.  With both of us moving here "from away" we have many mutual newcomer experiences to share.  I have been here about 8 years longer than she has, but her experiences mirror my own from my arrival here.  It is so interesting how each place I have lived has its own social customs and cultural expectations...from town to town, from province to province. Fascinating stuff. 

I have to go and make dinner now....blecch!  I barely have the energy to eat dinner let alone have to make it first, hahaha.  However, I better get to it before dinner time creeps up on me and my blood sugar drops low enough to make me as crabby as a bear in autumn!! (And spring....and summer.....ooh I am TERRIFIED of bears all year round!!) 

 

Big Drama In Our Small Court Tonight!

 It finally happened.  This evening Moh, our court's biggest trouble maker, pushed the envelope too far and beat up a smaller boy rather badly after stealing his toy right out of the poor kid's hand.  My husband heard sobbing outside, a rarely heard sound in all the years we have lived here, so he went out on the deck and saw a very small boy who he didn't recognize being helped to his feet by one of the older girls in the court.  My husband came back inside and we assumed things would get sorted out.  Well, there was certainly an attempt: the small boy's dad and Moh's dad met together right outside our back deck and a very loud argument ensued.  Our next door neighvour, who speaks the same language as both the other dads came out of his suite and tried to make peace, but to no avail. About fifteen minutes later the police arrived, and there was a meeting of those 3 men, Moh and I don't know who all else because we closed our doors and blinds at that point because from there it was none of our business.  It was nearly an hour before the police left and the three men involved in the initial set to continued to meet together for some time after that before we heard our neighbour return home.  Our hope and prayer is that peace between the dads was reached and that peace will prevail in our court, that Moh got the hint that he can't keep beating up other kids for no reason, but I admit I have little trust in that actually happening.  I can only join my husband in the prayers that Moh will get whatever help he is going to need to stop being an aggressive and violent bully.  As summer holidays come on and there are even more hours spent at home here by the younger kids with little else to do and parents who don't seem to be able to find things for them to do other than hang out as a big, bored gang on the back lawn with few amusements.  At this point all the African kids' bikes have been stolen by other kids who live around our court, never to be seen again I am guessing.  The poor parents have their own issues to deal with and all are struggling immigrants, here against their own wills but forced to leave their home countries due to war.  There is little I can do for Moh and his family BUT I can pray and wait on the Lord and hope that Moh can experience some kind of transformation before he gets any older and the violence escalates into something even more serious.  He is a brilliant, brilliant 8 year old and could have an amazing future if he can be redirected soon into a more positive direction in life.

Apart from that occurrence this evening, it has been a good day.  Despite the heat I was able to knuckle down and continue on with my deep cleaning of this suite.  Now I only have the bathroom fixtures to wash down again tomorrow afternoon and then once my husband is able to move the giant tomato plant pots out of the dining room and outside onto the deck....far too windy today....I will vacuum that small room and be done for a week!  YAY!!

We were supposed to go to a club this evening to hear a friend's band playing and we had every intention but by late afternoon we were so tired, we just wanted peace and serenity. So my husband decided to reward me for all my work around here this week and took me out to a very quiet restaurant....even the dark blue painted walls are serene in there....and we ate so early there were few others in the place.  We had a quiet conversation and then came home to relax and read books and visit some more.

 Tomorrow and the next day are to be unbearably hot so we have an extra curtain rod up bearing blankets to cover the curtains on the east facing windows to keep the hot sun out in the early morning, and have implemented our annual system of blind and curtain closing at various times of the night and day so we can survive in here.  It is all good and if we can survive about five more days of heat, next week will bring us much more reasonable weather apparently. Yay! 

Me Do It Myself!!

Do you remember saying that as a kid when your mom went to zip up your winter parka or tie your shoes and you wanted to do it on your own at last?  Or maybe you went through this scenario with your own toddlers as they were growing up.  

Well, this morning after my husband left for a day of meetings I got online and went back to attempting to solve our banking and credit card issues from yesterday. After a lot of frustration and fiddling about I FINALLY figured out what to do to solve the problem!!  I can now access my card information and my balances, payments and statements just like everyone else who does such things online!!  There were no interruptions of the kind that happen when my husband and I try to figure out website access protocols together. We continually interrupt each other with not helpful questions and distract each other constantly. So this morning I decided to get some self-confidence going for the first time in a few years and solve the issues if I could.  Thanking God that I actually did!  He may just be restoring me to a higher level of confidence that has been missing for a long time.

Over the past couple of decades I have lost so much confidence in my own abilities that I am afraid to even try to solve anything like computer access issues on my own.  I have become so terrified of making a mistake that I don't even try to do things like that by myself any more. Ridiculous? Yes!  Has my husband been the one to make me feel the overwhelming lack of confidence?  Not remotely. He has done nothing but encourage me to figure things out on my own, to have some faith that my brain hasn't completely atrophied at this point, to try to get back to who I "used to be" twenty years or more ago when I was living on my own and raising a child on my own so much of the time because my husband was working out of town or even out of the country.  A few things happened in the meantime to strip me of my confidence, but I am finding lately that there is a need for me to try to restore it.  I need to stop being afraid of making a mistake, particularly with the computer, and get moving forward. 

I have learned much about the necessity of being more confident in my own ability to figure things out from my friend Nan. Since her husband Cee passed away on the way to two years ago she has been forced to figure out all manner of things on her own that she never thought possible she could do without help. She has had to solve one frustrating and/or frightening issue after another in recent months and she is developing problem solving skills, finding solutions to issues like she never thought would be possible by herself.  Nan has become my "heroine" of problem solving for the sometimes seemingly hopeless issues that have come along in her life.   So, I would like to thank Nan for all she has been teaching me, without even knowing she has, about relying less on my husband for problem solving and getting off my duff to figure out a few things on my own.  It feels good!

AND after a few more house chores before lunch I am going over to see a good friend for the afternoon...coffee and visiting....in an air conditioned house on this VERY HOT day.  YAY! 

More Bank Issues, Ha Ha Ha, 'Cause Ya' Gotta Laugh, Right????

 Today we received our first bill for our new American credit card.  It contained the information for how to set up our online account to check balances, payments etc.  According to the bill, the company had not received the payment of the card fee that we arranged for our bank gal to pay when we were there in person last week activating the cards.  When we went online after receiving the bill, to set up our online account with the company, the process was extremely easy, as our gal at the bank told us it would be....except....it wouldn't accept the answers to the questions it asked us in the process of creating our online presence.  Aiii yiiiii....we checked and double checked the information they asked for and there were no discrepancies. So....  Then I noticed that the account number on our bill does not match the account number into which our bank gal had supposedly paid our annual fee at our appointment the other day.WTHeck?  Sooooo, off went an email to the bank and hopefully we will receive a response tomorrow so we can straighten this mess out once and for all.  We have already decided that if our trip to NYC even happens now, as soon as we return we will cancel the card and shut down the American checking account. Then if we go to NYC again sometime we will start the process all over at some other banking institution.  So, we are indeed laughing all the way to the bank but not for the usual reasons, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.........

 

Pleasant Family News!

My husband had a nice long phone chat with our son today. He has many happy bits of news to report that encouraged all of us.  I spent nearly an hour in the prayer room at church praying for him this morning over some concerns he is facing right now, so it was nice to get some good news about his life.

Last week a gallery where he had a show last fall sold two more of those paintings and to a huge international financial investment house to add to their art collection.  So happy for him.  He also got a surprise raise in pay at his job, so that was a wonderful surprise.  He had some medical tests that came back with better than expected results so we are all rejoicing in those.  He and his wife have some very belated honeymoon plans they are putting together for after our visit there.  The play his wife produced opened last week and a critic from the New York Times who both she and my son greatly respect was in attendance. Whether or not it gets a printed review, unlikely as it is a new play by a lesser known playwright, at least a major critic came to see it; good advertising in itself as word gets out.  

My husband spent a long time researching "alternative to flying from here to NYC" travel possibilities for our upcoming trip just in case the Strait of Hormuz remains closed indefinitely and more international flights end up being cancelled at the last minute.  They now include us getting a ride to Saskatoon and taking the train across Canada to Toronto and then transferring to the Amtrak for the rest of the trip across the border, driving to Minot to catch a flight the rest of the way across the States, driving the entire way and back, (the least possible option due to our concern that we don't have the oomph to do that even one way, let alone two), taking a few extra days at the beginning to fly to Vancouver for those days and then taking the five hour overnight red eye flight from there to NYC....oh there are many alternates, we just need to settle soon on one of them and start making those arrangements.  Who knows how all this will work out...but we are having fun dreaming and planning in the meantime.  Actually my husband is doing all the research and making the suggestions as planning trips is right down there near the bottom of my list of fun things to do, along with slapping myself across the face with a board!! Thank goodness for my husband or we would never go anywhere at all!!!

The thunderstorm warning for overnight has been replaced with a 60% chance of showers, so that is a good thing, although we do desperately need those showers here in the city.  While I spend the upcoming hot days giving this suite a good cleaning, my husband will be getting the trellis and heavy plastic wrapping ready for the two tomato plants to go outside at last, as well as getting the rest of his herbs purchased and planted out on the deck.  Ruddy plants...l love the produce they give us, but oh my it has been so nice not having spiders and wasps all over the deck and back door area yet this year.  I have seen exactly one spider outside spinning webs anywhere near the deck so far and that has been a huge treat. Oh well....

We are realizing how noisy it is going to be this summer, right into the wee hours of the morning, once the kids in our court get out of school.  Most of the new immigrant kids come from hot, hot countries where daytime is for sleep and nighttime is for coming outside where the kids can play and the adults can sit and visit on back decks and stairs.  My husband and I are not going to play "noise police" this summer. The rest of the complex has been defaulting to us and letting us be the only ones, as of the end of last summer at least, who come outside at 2am to ask the neighbours' kids to please go inside and stop hollering and kicking soccer balls against the side of the building so everyone else can get some sleep.  Nope, this year we will put the white noise in our room at a higher level and be prepared to wear our earplugs all summer. It is someone else's turn to explain to the new families about the local noise bylaws and being considerate of the other tenants.  The kids are always so very good and respond well to getting direction. We don't have to be angry, mean or rude to them and since none of their parents speak English at this point it is the kids with their own versions of newly learned English that we have to chat with about noise. There are times when we so wish we could speak Arabic and Swahili so we could communicate with the new people here more effectively.  If the other adults in here continue to complain about kid noise in the wee hours of the morning they can be the ones that figure out a way to deal with it.  Overnight noise control used to be a group effort taken on by most all of the other long term tenants in our court until last summer when we suddenly became the only ones who wanted to help the kids understand the rules here.  The sense of community really began falling apart last summer and that is kind of a shame.

Here's to a week of extreme warmth and if we are tempted to complain even a teensy bit about the heat, we will remember the snow that continued from the end of last October until the middle of May!!! That should shut us up!