“Man, that sun is just evil”.

Which was one of many thoughts I had just now having come in from out of doors.

It’s not a complaint.  Just an observation.

After our somewhat lack-lustre month of June,  a little heat is not a big deal.  Although, I am definitely thankful for air conditioning.  It did feel a little dry in the house this morning, but it was all good.

T.C. and I were out in the garden this morning at 7:30.  Could have been even earlier,  ‘cept I don’t have that big a desire to beat the heat.  Or haul my lazy arse out of bed.

The bugs that are chewing away at sister-in-law’s grape vines are considerably more dopey first thing in the morning.  All the better to knock them off into a bucket of soapy water.   I’d wager I’ve drowned several hundred over the last few days.  Bastards.

They’re some sort of “Japanese Beetle”.  And they seem to be quite prolific.  However,  they tend to do some sort of “free fall” before taking flight,  and that can be their weakness.  I make sure they free fall into the bucket.  They swim a little while,  but that’s about it.  Something to do with a few drops of Dawn dish soap that you add to the water.  Takes care of them,  and totally non-toxic.

It’s been a busy few days.  Went out on the water last night.  It was an awesome night.  The thing is,  about a kilometer off shore,  the temperature drops by a good 10 degrees.  We didn’t have enough crew to safely go racing,  so we just went for a sail of a few hours.  Worked for me.

The sunsets from offshore are most always pretty darned nice.

My Nephew and their crew have been away at a cottage for the past week,  so there hasn’t been any updates on the kitchen installation. 

Just as well,  since the knobs who supplied the broken cabinets will need to get their act together.  Not sure what the latest is on that situation.  Got a text this morning from the lady of the house asking about flooring.  There will be some head scratching shortly I’d imagine.  We’ll see to it.

Had a great day on Monday out on the golf course,  although it was a wee bit of a scorcher.  Had a bottle of water in my bag, and then we stopped at the club house before going out for the back nine to suck back some liquids. 

Managed to hand the camera off to one of the golfing buddies to snap a pic of yours truly.  I didn’t completely suck,  although I really need to work on my short game.   Mind you,  I only seem to golf about once a year.

When I teed off from the first tee,  that was the very first ball I’ve hit so far this year.  (and it stayed on the fairway!)

Hopefully not my last.  It was suggested to me that,  rather than spend my time on the water,  I should have been spending my time on the links.  Not sure I’d ever do much better than breaking a 100 though.

I think that’s about it.  There were a couple visits with nieces, but I’ll not bore you.  It’s totally worth the effort to try and connect/reconnect with the relations.   Facebook has helped considerably on that front.  Otherwise I’m not sure how I’d track anyone down?   I mean, once upon a time the library at McMaster University had phone books from just about everywhere,  so I guess that was the “Old School” way.  But that too was before mobile phones.    I still have letters from folks with whom I used to correspond.  

Yes,  actual letters.  Probably should turf them out,  but can’t bear to do it.  Remember writing letters?

 

I’m starting to ramble.

 

I’m out.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Some shopping fun.

And I don’t mean groceries.  That ain’t fun.  Not clothes shopping either, although T.C. seems to take a run at “Walking on a Cloud” from time to time.  Those pesky shoes keep wearing out.  Apparently.

No,  I decided a while ago that I had had enough of the noisy little compressor that I’ve used as a portable back-up for over a decade (or more, maybe).  It was so bad,  you couldn’t bear to be in the same room when it fired up.  Maybe some of you could.  I don’t know.  But it didn’t work for me.

You know the kind,  they’re go on sale for about sixty bucks.  Regular ninety-nine. 

Kind of, meh, cheap.

Effective.  Worked great.  But crazy loud.

 

 

 

So I sold it.  Back in February.  I think.  It was a while ago.  I do remember it was on Kijiji for a while.  Stuck to my guns,  got my price.  Took about six weeks.  I didn’t care.

Of course,  the thing with Kijiji is,  (kind of like Craigslist) the longer the listing stays on there,  the farther back it gets from the “front page”.  So I did relist it at one point.

They’ll kindly offer to keep it on the front page for anywhere from $5.99 to $16.99.  That’s not happening.

Anyway,  here we are some six months later,  and I finally pulled the trigger on a new one.

It’s super duper quiet too.  Just what I was looking for.

 

 

It’s a bit of a step up, especially since there are two hook-ups, not that I’d be using more than one line at a time.  Has aluminum tanks. 

Kinda spiffy.

I’ll try it out tomorrow.

And here’s the reason.

 

This is more or less the state of affairs these days at my nephew’s place.  I’ve been going over there every day for a few hours for a few days now. 

Note the window up to the left, above.

 

 

And I suppose I should mention that there has been some painting along the way.  But like I said,  I only worked a few hours.  My Nephew kept on until ten at night last Thursday putting a second coat of primer on everything.

The compressor has nothing to do with the kitchen cabinets of course,  but in order to better insulate one of the outside walls,  more insulation was required,  along with having to build out the wall.  So I’ve been asked to mill some filler strips for around the windows. You saw the window, right?

I have lots of bits if lumber hanging around,  so that’s not a challenge.

 

Unfortunately,  I’m not sure how far along we’ll get with the kitchen installation, since at least three of these cabinets arrived damaged to some extent.

I’ve been able to sort out one of the least damaged ones,  but it looks as though the other two were dropped.

 

This one could be fixed,  thus:

 

Not so sure about these two though.

 

I mean,  they’re kind of weak-assed to start with,  but they’d be fine if they weren’t abused along the way.  They also had an awful lot of what I would call “warehouse dust” on them as well.  So I’m not sure about that whole “four to six weeks” for delivery crapola.  Sounds like a load of fresh air to me.

The lady of the house was left with the task of making the calls.  She will sort them out.  Remains to be seen if Rona will be getting some nasty words “on the line” from all parties concerned.

These days we just take pictures of everything.

Too bad too,  since Rona is Canadian.  You know, like Canadian Tire.  Unfortunately,  I’ve given up on going there,  since they never seem to have what they advertise in their flyers.  You’ll never get me with any version of “bait and switch”, so I just won’t bother going. The flyer immediately goes in the recycling.

 

And that’s what’s been happening for the last few days.  Stay tuned.  Or not.

 

Sticks.  Ice. 

You know.

And here it is, Monday again.

It’s been a bit of a busy week,  I guess I could say.  T.C. is at the moment off to Grand Bend for a “Lady’s away”.  Can’t call it a “weekend”,  as none of the participants are working.  Why go on a weekend?  Every day is Saturday.

Anyhoo,  it’s just me here.  My sister is gone for the day for a bike ride.  Well,  sitting on the back of a Harley.  She won’t be back until late.

The first newsworthy thing is,  Eldest Brother came through his surgery just fine on Wednesday.  We went up to see him which of course, he didn’t remember.  If you’re not quite prepared for all the ways and means that a patient is hooked up,  it could be a bit disconcerting.  They did a quadruple by-pass.  In three hours!   They had said “four to six”,  which seemed reasonable.  St. Mary’s in Kitchener is known as a heart and stroke hospital.  I’m thinking they have it down pat.

 

We took a little ride up to Kitchener again yesterday to see him.  Huge difference.  In a room,  no longer in ICU, or CCU (chronic care unit?). He was sitting up when we saw him.  They give every heart patient a pillow to hold across ones chest in the event that you might have to cough.  There was coughing.  He’s hoping to be out tomorrow.   We’ll see.

Problem is of course,  he’ll need some help at home,  since his wife is not capable of dealing with any issues he might encounter.  It’s been his deal to look after her for the last twenty years or so. 

She has Scleroderma, which is basically a death sentence,  but she’s hanging in.   That’s a whole other story.

 

I did get out on the water on Sunday and Monday.

 

I only committed to two days of this week long sailing event put on by GHYRA.   The best we did was third,  and that was on the Tuesday I see.  I wasn’t on the boat.  All the better for them.

Anyway,  I put up that photo above,  since the first race on Sunday was “around the cans” in Hamilton Harbour,  and there was no way of knowing what the course was until it was posted on the transom of the committee boat.

 

 

Even then the wind was as dead as a fart, so they had to change it.  Which meant everyone had to file past the transom of the committee boat again.

The “SI’s” or Sailing Instructions for the week,  was like a small novel. 

 

There was also something to do with the judging of mermaids. 

 

I got nothing.

 

So, nothing much else too exciting.  I found the logistics of the race week a bit of a chore,  so that was the reason for only a couple days.  Plus,  no matter how much sunscreen I slather on,  after a couple days on the water I start looking too much like Lobster Boy. 

 

Evening sailing works better for me.  We’re back to our regular Tues and Thursday nights from here on in.  I’ll only be doing Tuesdays methinks,  as we’re hoping to free ourselves up for a couple visits here and there.  I only committed to Tuesdays,  but had been going out both nights to get schooled on the new boat.

 

That’s it.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Try to keep cool.  (it’s a tad warm here today)

Happy Canada Day.

For those of you who give a rat’s tiny behind. 

Well,  I suppose we’re all fairly observant of each others special days.

There’s usually some sort of sentiment of patriotism involved.  I’m thinking we could probably do with a slightly bigger flag, but I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that one.  I might just have to pull the trigger on something a little more substantial.

 

There was no way there was going to be any holes made in the cedar siding, so I was able to simply wedge each end of the string in each of the two windows.  Part of the cache of having actual operable windows.  For the first time in something like 40 or 50 years, but let’s not go there.

 

Of course,  there are others who have put in slightly more effort.

 

Ironically,  we have a flag of Austria that’s bigger,  but that was for one of our Viennese themed dinners once upon a time.  Travelling Companion prepared boiled meat.  And I realise that doesn’t sound overly appetizing but it’s good,  trust me.   There’s a pretty good description here.

 

We had a bit of a nasty blow over the weekend,  which only really meant that I made sure to cut the grass ahead of time,  and then had to go out and round up all the tiny tree branches that had been blown to the ground.

I guess there might have been a few downed branches in other parts of town,  but in spite of possibly grumbling about what the city doesn’t do,  and we won’t get started on that here,  they do indeed seem to keep after the trees. 

There are very few power failures as a result of downed trees,  and a limb or an entire tree coming down happens very rarely.  Unlike say Toronto, or worse Vancouver,  where trees are somehow sacred and should only come down when blown down by Mother Nature.  Quite typically on someone’s car or worse,  their house.

Even better,  now that we have a roof that doesn’t leak (yay!) I rather enjoy a good rainstorm.   Well,  except of course that one thunder clap at some point early on Saturday morning (I think it was at least) that had me come clean off the bed.  That had to have been right over the house.  And as a matter of fact,  there was a house in Welland that got struck,  which then started a fire in the attic. 

That’s never good. 

I’m kinda hoping that metal roof program would mitigate that possibility.  I hope we’ll never find out.

 

We’re just getting ready to head out to an annual “Can-Am” gathering that was supposed to take place on Saturday.  See aforementioned weather issues.   Today looks more promising.

Keep those sticks on the ice.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

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